Gideon.

A woman’s voice, the voice of the Moonstone, called out to him. He was running through the halls of Castle Kastorus, but he didn’t know why. There was an explosion, a flash of light, the feeling of being tossed in the air.

Gideon, wake up.

By the time he came to his senses, he had already forgotten the nightmare. He sat up in bed, breathing deeply as his heart raced, without knowing why.

All he felt was a vague sense of unease, accompanied by a tingling sensation in his left palm. He looked where the Moonstone had cut him and traced with his finger the line of flesh where Ondine had stitched him up.

The bandages were gone now, and the wound had healed. But the reminder of what had occurred was still there every time he checked his status screen.

Status Name: Gideon Moody Level: 10 Attributes Might: 9 Brilliance: 13 Fortitude: 10 Willpower: 12 Finesse: 8 Guidance: 12 Properties Moon-Touched Skills Geomancy: Gold, D Grade Meditation: Silver, D Grade Manasculpting: Silver, C Grade Spiritweft: Copper, B Grade Appraise: Stone, C Grade

He’d put his attribute point for reaching level ten into Brilliance, though he hadn’t had much opportunity to perform magic recently. It seemed like a safe bet, however, and he was excited for the extra strength it would give his spells.

Gideon climbed out of bed and walked to his window, spreading the curtains. The morning light on his face helped him relax.

After all, it was called the Moonstone, not the Sunstone, right?

He had unpacked his things from Prospera—clothing, knick-knacks, an album of childhood photos, and a framed picture of him and his oldest friend, Yvette Astorwyn, from when they were younger. It was sitting on his bookshelf, next to his pile of tomes.

Looking at them—smiling, sitting next to one of Prospera City’s canals, was a reminder of how much farther he had to go. He guessed Yvette must have been level twenty by now, a year from graduating as a fully-fledged wizard from Falconridge Academy.

He’d tried calling her with his new Etheric Communicator the other day but had never connected. So either she had blocked him, or she had a new frequency these days.

Or she just never answered her phone.

Sadly, he might never know for sure. He couldn’t help but regret that he hadn’t made more of an effort to keep in touch with her over the years.

Shaking his head, he walked down the hallway and took a bath, got dressed, then headed to the kitchen.

The castle had been quiet since their last batch of guests had departed almost a week ago. Gideon had spent most of the week recovering physically and mentally, consuming a steady diet of Ondine’s potions and Grimsby’s cooking.

Last night, Ondine finally told Uncle Kelvan they could resume their training. He was eager to get started right after breakfast.

As he approached the kitchen, Gideon heard the sound of scurrying from off to his right and made eye contact with a rat at the end of the hall. The rodent stared at him for a long moment, its nose twitching before it squeaked and scampered away.

Ever since Gideon had returned from fighting the Silkspinner broodmother under the mountain, he couldn’t help but feel the rats had taken a renewed interest in him. Though he hadn’t left his room much the past week, he kept running into the creatures.

Shaking his head, Gideon entered the kitchen, only to find Grimsby carefully arranging a stack of pancakes next to a pile of hashbrowns. As Gideon looked towards the kitchen table, he saw Ondine floating there.

“Good morning,” Gideon said, and both of them turned towards him.

“You’re up early, bub,” Grimsby said. “I was going to bring this to your room.”

Gideon stretched his hands above his head and yawned. “I was feeling eager to get started, I suppose,” he said. A strange feeling washed over him as he spoke, and his palm felt itchy again. He tried to put it out of his mind. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

“Of course,” Ondine said. “And have you given any thought to the matter of our finances?”

Grimsby added some bacon and slices of fresh fruit to the plate, then brought it to the kitchen table as Gideon sat down.

“I have,” Gideon said. His stomach grumbled as the scent of the pancakes, bathed in blueberry syrup, wafted towards him. “This looks amazing as always. Thanks, Grimsby.” He dug in, taking his first bite as Grimsby brought over a chipped cup and a teapot.

After Gideon had taken a few more bites and sipped the hot herbal tea, he continued. “I asked Lord Kelvan to bring me his ledger the other day, and I read through it while resting in bed. His record keeping is meticulous.” He smiled. “As far as my uncle knew, he was gouging our guests. He might as well have been robbing them.”

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“As far as he knew?” Ondine said skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

“Unfortunately, my Uncle severely underestimated two hundred years worth of inflation,” Gideon said. “Which is, according to a tome on business I found in the library, one of the most powerful forces in the universe. In the end, our prices have been very reasonable, after all.”

“Bah. I hate economics,” Grimsby said, taking off his thread-worn apron and hanging it on a hook by the door. “I’m glad I’m not in charge.”

“So are we,” Ondine said dryly.

Grimsby’s jaw rattled, but he said nothing. Gideon had sensed something strange between them since the night Ondine had tried to stop Gideon from leaving the castle, and Grimsby had used her own alchemy against her, stunning her for long enough that they could escape. They didn’t seem outright hostile to each other, but there was a coldness there. A distance. He felt terrible for them, but he didn’t know what he could do about it.

Grimsby sat at the table and turned his large eye sockets towards Gideon expectantly. “So, inflation, blah-blah-blah, don’t care… When do we get paid, Mr. Manager?”

“This week,” Gideon said. “After looking at the records, I think I can pay each of you one and a half crowns weekly.”

“I have no idea if that’s good or not,” Grimsby said and turned to Ondine.

“Don’t look at me. I suspect we’re in a similar position as Lord Kelvan in that regard.” Ondine looked at Gideon. “Have you thought about the requests I made?”

Gideon nodded. “Yes, I think we can get some of the plants you asked for if we ask around in Emberly.”

“I don’t need a salary, then. You can put that money towards my requests.”

“If you insist.” Gideon turned to Grimsby. “How about you?”

“No, you give me my damned money,” Grimsby cackled. “Wait, how much does an apron cost?”

“Depends on the apron,” Gideon said.

“Well, how much are you going to pay yourself?”

“Two crowns a week.”

Grimsby shook his head sadly. “I see how it is. I thought we were equals. Friends.”

“I’m the manager,” Gideon said, trying not to sound defensive. “Also, you realize I haven’t bought new robes in years, right?”

“You think you know someone,” the skeleton said.

“I’m not giving you a raise, Grimsby,” Gideon said with a sigh. “Not until we have some more guests, at least.”

“Fair enough, bub,” Grimsby said, clapping his bony hands and turning to Ondine. “It was worth a try, right?”

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

After breakfast, Gideon went to the castle’s basement, met Uncle Kelvan, and trained against his copy in Kelvan’s mirror world. With Gideon’s recent progress, he trounced it, but the victory felt hollow. Kelvan didn’t seem particularly impressed, only commenting again that he needed to tune up the difficulty.

Afterward, Kelvan’s magic mirror floated back up to his lab, and Gideon followed. Kelvan waved his hand, pulling out a chair for Gideon with his telekinesis.

Gideon sat down, looking around the lab. The walls were covered in shelves stacked full of tomes and reagents. To his surprise, Gideon saw that one of the lab benches in the corner of the room was covered in stoppered vials and half-filled beakers. What had his uncle been working on? He was used to seeing the lab perfectly clean.

“So, how are you doing with your vitamancy?” Kelvan asked, his brow furrowed. “I can’t help but notice you don’t have any skill ranks yet.”

Which was true. It was hard for Gideon to discuss his progress because he had yet to make any. He returned his gaze to his uncle, who regarded him from within the floating mirror. Kelvan didn’t look disappointed, but he didn’t look pleased, either.

Though Gideon had started to read The Vital Art, the tome written by his Great-Aunt Harmony, he had repeatedly failed at the book’s first task—to channel life mana.

Gideon had taken for granted how natural it felt to convert his pure mana to earth mana. Creating and manipulating life mana was another thing entirely. Even though he knew it was only a matter of practice, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated. His recent progress at geomancy had spoiled him. Part of him had expected he would be able to learn his second school of magic just as quickly.

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Gideon said. “I’m having trouble.”

“Well, what’s holding you up, Nephew?” Kelvan asked.

Gideon was almost surprised by the question. He had expected his Great-Uncle to mock him or to make a witty comment. “I don’t know,” Gideon admitted. “I’ve read the first couple of chapters over and over this week. Since I was stuck in bed, there wasn’t much else to do. But I keep failing the first exercise. Aunt Harmony makes it sound easy to channel life mana in the book, but whenever I try, I can’t control it.”

“It is easy,” Kelvan said. “Or at least it used to be. I can’t do it anymore, sadly. No life, no life mana.” From within the mirror, his reflection laughed. “But it’s different than geomancy, isn’t it?”

“Different?” Gideon asked.

“Surely you’ve felt it. Though you are connected to the earth, you are not the earth itself.” He stroked his beard, and his red eyes glowed as they stared at Gideon. “But unlike me, you are alive. If you are clumsy with your earth mana, your spell may fail, or your desired effect won’t be achieved. But if you are clumsy with your life mana, you could harm yourself severely, couldn’t you?”

Gideon looked at Kelvan for a long moment. “I suppose I did consider that. Aunt Harmony didn’t seem too worried about that in the book, though.”

Kelvan smiled. “She was a vitamancer since she was a child, Nephew. And she was already ill. What did she have to lose?”

“I haven’t had a spell misfire in years, anyway,” Gideon said. “Not since my first year of working at EnviroCharm.”

Kelvan chuckled, and his eyes burned brighter for a moment. Gideon sighed, realizing his Uncle had trapped him once again.

“And what happened?” Kelvan said. “The last time your spell failed?”

“I turned a shovel to dust,” Gideon said. The memory flashed through his mind, including an angry tirade from his former manager, Mr. Dreadmoor.

“And what would happen if you turned your blood to dust?”

“That would be bad,” Gideon said. “Obviously.”

“Very bad indeed,” Kelvan said. “And there’s another problem, I think—a lack of motivation. Does it really matter if you learn vitamancy today, or tomorrow, or a month from now?”

“Well, there is a necromancer out there with my blood, so, yes?”

“Of course, of course,” Kelvan replied. “But that’s not a firm deadline, is it? For all you know they got tired and forgot about you.” He seemed to think about this for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s all very abstract. Anyway, when you’re practicing with the skill book, you aren’t casting a spell on yourself yet. As I recall, to pass the first exercise, you must channel life mana into the book. Doesn’t sound too dangerous to me.”

“It isn’t,” Gideon said. “But whenever I try… I don’t know. I have a hard time focusing.”

“If you don’t pass this first step, you’ll never be able to fail later. You’ll never get to the point where your vitamancy practice could become dangerous. If you can’t even channel life mana, if you don’t earn a single skill rank in vitamancy, then you never have to worry about accidentally turning your blood to dust, or making yourself prematurely bald, or giving yourself cancer, or—”

“I get the idea, Uncle,” Gideon interrupted. “I hadn’t even thought of half of those until now, so thanks for that.”

“It’s always best to know the risks before undertaking any new spell,” Kelvan said, nodding. “I didn’t think you’d have trouble with this, to be honest. After you ran out of the castle last week to fight those spiders, I thought, ‘Ah, my dear nephew has no fear of death at all. A true Kastorus. What a madman.’”

He looked satisfied, even proud, of this.

“But I am starting to realize that isn’t quite true,” Kelvan added, grinning. “You do have fears, but also courage. And you are motivated by the suffering of others, not merely yourself. All very admirable qualities, of course.” His grin lengthened until it looked sinister. “Qualities which are easily exploitable.”

With a wave of his hand, a potted plant flew off one of the nearby shelves and landed on the lab table where Gideon was sitting. Gideon thought he recognized it from the conservatory, though he didn’t know its name.

It was a small plant, withered and brown, with drooping bulbs covered in irregular purple spots. As Gideon looked at it, one of its leaves fell off and landed in the soil.

Gideon sighed. He already had a bad feeling.

“Forget Lady Harmony’s book for now,” Kelvan said. “Your first exercise is to channel enough life mana through this plant to cure it of the blight I infected it with. A blight that dies when exposed to life mana, but feeds and grows stronger from all other types.”

“You what?” Gideon said. “How? You just keep that stuff around?” He looked at the remains of Kelvan’s experiment in the corner. So that’s what his uncle had been up to.

Kelvan shrugged. “You never know when such things might come in handy, Gideon. But let’s not get off topic. I estimate you have a week or so before it dies. A week before this poor plant suffers because of your ineptitude, and Ondine decides to murder you for the death of her dear aether lilium. And don’t even think of asking that bear girl for help. I told her if she lifted a paw, she’d never be welcome in the kitchen again.”

The plant floated gently into Gideon’s lap.

“Save the plant, Gideon,” Kelvan said, “or be doomed! How’s that for motivation?”