"What?" Jacob said automatically, out of disbelief. Then what the priest had said really hit him. "What? What do you mean there's no vampire on campus?"

The priest shrugged. "There is no vampire on your campus."

"That's bullshit!" Jacob said. He put his hand to his head. His heart was pounding, his eyes wide. Had he just been fooled? Had he goofed? Had he made that deal for nothing? Christ, he was an idiot. That information was useless and now he'd never find the vampire and he'd lose his magic.

"He can't lie," Tanaka muttered.

Jacob rounded on him. The transfer student brushed his jagged black hair off his face, only for it to fall back down and cover one eye. His face shone with sweat from the exertion of holding the Necromancy spell, little beads of it on his upper lip.

"He's bound to the truth," Tanaka said.

Jacob turned back to the priest. "What do you mean?"

"I meant what I said," The priest said.

"But..." Jacob trailed off. "Is there anything else you can tell us?"

Tanaka grabbed his arm. "No more deals. That was everything he found out," Tanaka said. "That was the deal, remember? 'Tell me everything you found out about the vampire.' I'm straining as is. Let's end this."

"I agree with him, Jacob," Camilla said. "We need to go tell the faculty he's been killed."

Jacob ran his hands through his hair. "Okay. Cut it off."

"Good luck, heathens," The priest said.

Tanaka's magic vanished. The transfer student sagged back against the wall. The clouds on the floor disappeared, and the priest faded into nothingness.

"I'm fucked," Jacob said. The bind still hung in the air. The realization of what he'd just done smacked him like a wrecking ball. Why hadn't he listened to Camilla and Tanaka? Why hadn't he listened to the two actual mages in the room? He hadn't thought about the repercussions at all. He'd just done it for the information. Just like that. Almost greedily, like a toddler taking sweets from a store. What was wrong with him?

"Father Emil would not be wrong," This was the Enforcer, who had been silent for some time.

"But how does it help?" Jacob asked, exasperated.

The Enforcer was considering them with narrowed eyes. "You made a deal to find Father Emil's murderer, on penalty of losing your ability to manipulate the poison?"

Jacob nodded.

The Enforcer leaned back against the wall, muttering about heathens under his breath. "Then I will see to it that I help you capture this killer, even if it means working with heathens."

Jacob blinked, but it was Camilla who responded.

"Really?"

"I will avenge Father Emil."

"You'll help us."

"Aye."

"Then you have to keep quiet about this," Camilla said.

"About what?" The Enforcer asked.

"Everything. You never saw us. You never heard us. You don't know who we are." Camilla said.

"Camilla, what?" Jacob started.

Camilla raised her hand for silence and Jacob shut up.

"None of this happened," Camilla continued. "What's going to happen is you're going to report the priest's body to the faculty tonight. You won't mention any of what happened here today."

"Why should I do this?"

"Because your priest's killer is loose on campus, and right now we still don't know who, or what, it is. The three of us in this room are the only people on campus you know for a fact aren't the killer. If you tell the faculty what happened here, the killer might find out and come for us next. Then you'll have no one who knows the truth, and no one to help catch the killer."

The Enforcer's heavy brow furrowed, the gears turning in his head. He nodded curtly. "I understand."

"Good. If I release you, will you behave?"

"As you said: You are my only allies now," The Enforcer said.

Camilla, who had been casting this entire time, let her spell drop. The manacles around the Enforcer's wrists and ankles disappeared.

The Enforcer stood up, rubbing his wrists. He nodded to each of them in turn. "You should go now, swiftly."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

The three of them hurried out of the rooms.

Once they were out in the hallway Jacob breathed out. What-

Camilla slammed him up against the wall with augmented strength. She snarled.

"What are you doing?" Tanaka hissed.

"Shut up!" Camilla pointed a finger at the transfer student, who quickly silenced. She turned the finger on Jacob. "You! You got me into this. I have half a mind to go straight to the President and tell him exactly what happened."

"Cam-"

"Shut up! That brick-head Enforcer gets one idea about telling the faculty and we're dead. You hear me? Dead. Do you have any idea what will happen if it gets out that I helped you two morons perform Necromancy? Cover up a murdered priest?"

"We're in the same boat," Jacob said. "We're-"

"No we are not," Camilla said. "You two fucking losers only have yourselves to worry about. You have zero reputation and you've," she indicated Tanaka. "already damaged yours to the point where it wouldn't matter. Do you know will happen to my father if this gets out? To the reputation he's built? To the credibility he has and the weight his name carries?"

Jacob was silent. He hadn't thought about that. He hadn't thought about that at all.

"At the very least he'll lose his seat on the Council. I can't believe I let you drag me into this," She hissed.

Jacob was suddenly very ashamed and very scared. The idea of Antonio's wrath coming down on him. Worse, Camilla would never talk to him again.

"You followed me!" Jacob said, trying to slide the weight of that cursed responsibility off of him.

"Because I knew you were going to do something stupid!"

"So? I didn't ask you to!" Jacob said. Instantly he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

Camilla's face curdled. "I was worried about you, you asshole."

"Well, pretty soon you won't have to because I'll have no magic," Jacob said.

"I told you not to do it, you idiot!"

Jacob said nothing. His face was hot and he was angry and he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Evidently, Camilla felt the same way, because she stepped away from him, her face scrunched up. She pointed at both of them. "Either of you snitch, I'll kill you."

She stormed off.

"Camilla, wait," Jacob said.

She picked up her pace and disappeared down the hall.

Behind him, Tanaka sighed.

"You know, it's not a total lost cause," Tanaka said.

"What?" Jacob asked.

"Well, she might be a lost cause, but your magic. Someone killed that girl and the priest. They're on campus somewhere."

"You're right, but we have nothing to go off of," Jacob was suddenly exhausted. "All that vampire research I did was useless."

"Maybe," Tanaka said.

"Let's go," Jacob said. "I'm wiped and we need to get out of here."

"What do we do next?"

"I don't know," Sleep. "I'm not sure what we can do," Everything had gone to shit and he couldn't see how to fix any of it.

----------------------------------------

Jacob started back to Harrison Hall with Tanaka then lied that he was going to go study and went walking through the campus aimlessly by himself as the sun fell towards the horizon. It was good to be alone. A cool wind chased the sun, as if drawn down to the horizon with it. The day was almost finished. It felt like it had been years since the combat lecture that morning.

The bind with Father Emil was there at the edge of his perception. He thought he'd done a pretty good job of not panicking in front of Tanaka and Camilla and now that he was out here in the fresh air he felt a little calmer. What if he couldn't find the killer and the bind tore the magic out of him? He'd have to spend the rest of the term twiddling his thumbs and then he'd be sent home in shame. This whole world that had opened up to him would clam shut, then dwindle to nothing but a fantasy in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. He'd miss it. He'd miss being here on campus. He'd miss learning the secrets of magic and the potential of the magical world. But it wouldn't kill him. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he was sure he'd done the right thing. He could still go back home and be an ecologist.

That was still what he wanted, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

He sat down on one of the benches outside the trio of type magic buildings and listened to the birds in the trees and the wind high in the leaves. He'd never really thought about it until that moment. Being an ecologist had always been the plan. There simply wasn't another existence.

Until recently. Sure, being a magical ecologist wasn't crazy different, but he wouldn't go to UBC or even UBC Okanagan, he—somehow—wouldn't be able to tell his parents what he was doing. He didn't know what would happen with Thiago and Luke and his other friends. Maybe they'd drift away over time like in the movies. It wasn't like being a superhero, having this secret life and identity he donned when needed but still keeping up his 'normal' life. For all the Rangers and even the some of other students he interacted with, this was their life. The sports, the news, the stuff they read, their full time jobs, it was all magic related. Look at Camilla, desperately trying to keep up her persona at high school, but once she graduated that would be done. Over.

Did he want this? It was tough. Suddenly it felt like he had more than one option. He'd never had that before and it daunted him. What was the right answer? Which path should he choose? Here he was, straddling two worlds, and the longer he spent in each, the harder it would be to switch back. Maybe if he lost his magic it would be a good thing. Then he wouldn't have to make a choice. Then he wouldn't have to give up his dream and drift away from his childhood friends and become distant from his family and everything that he knew. Then he could go back to the way things were.

Jacob clenched his fists. As comfy as that sounded, it felt like cowardice. He was just upset over Camilla and the priest's information. If he went back he wouldn't see much of her or Blake or even Grace and Archie again. It felt weird to think it but he was closer with them—certainly with Blake and Camilla—than he had been with anyone else ever. Sure, he missed home sometimes but he genuinely enjoyed it here more. Was that wrong? Was it wrong to like a place you've only been for less than two months more than where you'd spend your entire life?

A couple of students left the Production Building, clutching books to their chest and chatting about some lecture.

What was he doing, sitting here wasting time, waffling on about this stuff? Maybe this was part of his problem. He couldn't take control of his own life if he couldn't decide what to do.

He didn't know what he wanted to do, not yet, but until the end of the term or his magic was ripped out of him he was here at Tisdale Academy, there was a killer on the loose, and there was a tournament to win. He was going to win the tournament and he didn't care if he had to beat both Camilla and Tanaka to do it. He was going to learn as much magic as he could and become as strong of a mage as he could because he wanted to. He was going to catch that killer because he wanted to keep his magic. Quite frankly, life paths aside, he loved the power magic gave him, the ability, the strength and the confidence. And maybe he sounded a little like a villain to himself, but that was the truth. He could worry about the future when the term was over.

He opened his phone and booked a slot in one of the training rooms. He went to text Camilla, but... No. She probably wouldn't want to see him right then and honestly he needed some time to cool off as well. He texted Blake instead, then made his way over to train.