Back up at the arena the second match had finished and the contestants for the third were being announced. Jacob hadn't missed much. The 49th seed had trounced the 80th seed—Keighleigh Smith—handily in the first minute or so.

The third match was between the 63rd and 66th seeds. The winner would face Camilla, so they all watched intently. It was two boys who quickly devolved into a strength-augmented grapple on the clay. The 66th, a boy named Latrell, pinned the 63rd to the ground, who subsequently yielded.

The fourth match was the same, and Jacob wondered how many were going to end up as physically augmented struggles.

"Yeah, I'm not going to Intro to Magical History this week," Archie said out of the blue.

"You're skipping class?" Jacob asked, incredulous.

"I'm gonna train for my match."

"You've missed a few already, Archie," Camilla said.

"Camilla, dear, do you think I'll learn more about magic in that stuffy classroom or training on my own?"

Neither Camilla nor Jacob responded.

"You face the winner of this next one, right?" Camilla turned to Jacob.

Jacob nodded and sat up.

"You check their Charts?" Archie asked.

"Yeah, nothing really stood out. They're both well below average in all three categories."

"Just have to see how they do."

"The fifth match is coming right up. Ranked 54th, from St Louis, Missouri, it's Maria Levesque!"

The girl with the long hair who had been with Victor that morning emerged from the tunnel. She looked small and timid in the arena.

"So that's her name," Grace said. "I hope she loses just to spite that Vincent rat."

"Bit of a power gap between the two of them," Archie said.

"Does that matter?" Grace asked.

Archie shrugged. "I find magical power attractive. Wouldn't want to marry someone without that."

"And at 75th, from Spokane, Washington, it's John Altman!"

A big, burly boy with a buzz cut strode out of the tunnel at the other end. He looked more like a lumberjack than a high school student. His uniform was clearly too tight around his chest and shoulders.

"He's a unit," Archie muttered. "She better not let him get close in."

"Contestants, get ready."

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"Start!"

Altman lumbered forward immediately, closing the gap between him and Maria. Production magic flared out from Maria. A translucent ward big enough to stop a car appeared in the air in front of her. Altman smashed into it and bounced off. Maria cringed at the impact.

Altman recovered and cast strength-resilience. He dropped his shoulder and barrelled through the ward, shattering it. His shoulder glanced into Maria and sent her crashing to the ground.

She cringed, and he pinned her down. She yielded.

"In a big upset, John Altman wins!"

Altman waved to the crowd and strode off the field.

"That looked pretty easy for him," Archie said.

"Should have expected a mousy little girl like that to be a poor fighter," Camilla folded her arms.

Jacob sat back and sighed. "Yeah, was hoping to see more than that."

"Still, you know Altman's got strength."

"True," Jacob ran back through the fight in his head. Altman had waited to cast his magic until he'd had to. The only reason Jacob could see for that was that he was conserving his magical energy, which meant he was probably using quite a bit to cast that strength spell. But, the big guy had moved well while augmented. The shoulder tuck and pin down, while not exactly from a Bruce Lee movie, had been quick and efficient. He looked natural with the augmentation. Maybe it was practice, or just experience from being a big guy.

The rest of the matches blurred by. The students ranked this low usually exhausted their magical arsenal after one spell, and most fights were over after one or two interactions.

Then the matches were over and they were all filing out of the stadium, headed back to the cafeteria or dorms, and all Jacob could think about was his impending match in a week's time.

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Pretty much everyone in the stadium congregated in the cafeteria after the matches were over, minus the faculty. It was filled to bursting, with people lined up along the walls and sitting on the tables with their trays of food in their laps, discussing various matches or spells or upsets. Most of the students who'd lost seemed to be in good spirits, enjoying the festivities with everyone else, apart from a few sore losers who didn't show. Blake had been let out of the triage and joined them with his bandaged arms.

Jacob overheard the boy who'd lost to Latrell—whom Camilla would fight next weekend—say that at least he didn't have to worry about any more matches and could focus on classes. Laszlo came over and congratulated Blake and briefly chatted with Archie. A handful of upper years came over and jostled and bantered with Blake as if he were their younger brother, and then introduced themselves as members of the Split team.

At some point the energy overflowed the cafeteria and people spilled out onto the quad surrounded by the Richter, Vanderbilt, and guest residence buildings. Several of the upper-year students cast spells that sent flashing orbs up into the air. They changed colours, shifting through each shade of the rainbow, reflecting off the dark campus windows, giving the whole thing a disco vibe. Alcohol emerged from amongst Blake's Split friends. 'Dead Week' was over, the year's tournament had popped its cherry, and tomorrow was Sunday. For all they cared the world could end tonight.

A light-show competition broke out between two of the upper-year boys. Their displays started as firework mimicries and gradually evolved to more abstract shapes, images, and structures that would flash in the air, briefly shift or animate, then disappear. Jacob's favourite was a constellation of white-hot stars that filled itself in in the shape of a bear which lifted its head up and let out a silent roar accompanied by a shower of icy streaks of lightning.

By the time the light show was over Blake had disappeared. Grace had also disappeared. For some reason Camilla didn't want to go back to her dorm, so Archie invited them along with Laszlo, Victor and Maria—who came as a pair—and a couple of Blake's Split friends back to his dorm. One of them produced a joint which eventually made its rounds over to Jacob. He remembered regretting passing up the one Jimmy had offered to him and didn't make the same mistake this time. When he breathed in the smoke scorched his lungs and he coughed and passed it along quickly, confused as to why people did this. His throat felt like it had been scraped with a rake. But then it kicked in and he understood, and spent the rest of the night in a dreamy, heavy-headed haze.

At some point after midnight, he passed out.