Occupying a space that was not Cobpleton was the city of Amoz. In the grand scheme of things they were practically next to each other. But on the human scale they were a fortnight by coach away from each other. The old city sat on an island, homes and shops built in, around, and on top of gargantuan walls. Connecting it to the mainland was the new city, the remarkably more packed but inversely much less smelly part of the city built entirely on a bridge. Where the old city settled in nooks and crannies of an ancient ruin, the new city went for height.

Amoz’s original name was quite eponymous. When the ancestor’s of the Amozi first set eyes on its misty shores, monolithic slabs jutting two stories out of the ground in winding and bizarre patterns, they asked, “What is that? A maze?” and the name stuck.

Near the end of its first century of occupation, the local accent had changed its name to Amazin, which was not to last. There are some brands so powerful that can smell a lawsuit from universes away. On the night of the Great Dispute, a legally distinct drake descended from the heavens and breathed the fires of litigation upon the unsuspecting city. It spake just three words that echoed down history for generations to come. “Cease and Desist”.

So Amoz took on its current name. Under its crest was the motto in the tongue of the new gods “Te melius appellare provoco fututor matris”, which roughly translates to something like “we’re not taking any suggestions on the name”.

At the center of the old city, deep within the maze was a motte and bailey fort. Originally built by the city’s ancestors as a last line of defense. They had tried chipping away at the mysterious and primordial maze that surrounded them, but the eldritch rocks wouldn’t budge. So some lumber and a good moat would have to do. The fort was abandoned after the Amozi realized that any attacking army would try to solve the maze and inevitably give up. It was sold to the founder of Aethowix Academy, John T. Academy. He had to have a ‘t’ because everyone was named John or James back then, much like Cobpleton’s founders John Cobble and his wife John Cobble.

Aethowix wasn’t merely a motte and bailey anymore, centuries of magical experimentation and decorating advice from nature spirits revivified its timbers. The academy was a living forest, its rooms and floors sculpted into breathtaking lecture halls. Sunlight could stream through the canopy of leaves that were its ceilings. It had an overall rustic, log cabin feel. The trophy heads that lined the walls were chemically grown, possessed by nature spirits. And while they occasionally whispered dark, unspeakable truths from beyond space and time, they usually sang softly. Aside from the combined existential dread of magic and the regular-stential dread of school, it was cozy.

Mace was awake in her dorm room as her roommate slept. Soapbox cooed softly on top of her bunk nest. Mace had seceded the top bunk to the corvey, as they were usually more comfortable far from the ground. Soap wasn’t exactly Mace’s friend and she liked it that way. She had to keep people at arm’s length or her tricks would be discovered, and she was starting to run out.

True, she managed to fool the entrance exam, but she didn’t consider that cheating, or not technically cheating. Her grades were middling but passing. Enough to skate by unnoticed. Neither suspiciously great nor failingly bad. She’d just have to plan for the next…few decades of a career. This would be harder than she thought.

She glanced over her shoulder, Soap was sound asleep. She opened the grimoire with a creak. It wasn’t the worst noise a grimoire could make, nor the most eldritch, but still Mace sucked in a breath and looked back at Soap. Still asleep. Mace let out a breath, and got to work.

The Hickory-Perovay family wasn’t especially well off, but more well off than many. Still, her uncle had made it a point not to give her an allowance. If uncles had their own grimoire, the ‘work builds character’ speech would be their most beloved spell. Their least beloved speech would be the admission ‘wow, you really have it hard’, which was to be expected because it was obscured by the much more popular ‘back in my day’ speech.

So Mace had taken a job in the library, where every day spent there wasn’t a day spent in the multilayered, self-inflicted and self-hating lie that was her life. She quite liked the vases. The book she leafed through was titled ‘Spirits that Haunt the Deserts of Huu’, which was…let’s unconventionally liberated from the library’s restricted section. She wasn’t exactly disallowed from the restricted section, she did have to reshelf it on occasion, and who could say it was impossible for a goetic text to end up in her hands. Who really knows the mysteries of the universe?

She flipped through vellum pages, scouring runic symbols and concerningly fresh red stains for anything. Anything that would put Mace ahead of Tria. She saw right through Tria’s ‘poor orphan discovering they’re special’ sob story for what she really was. Pure, blind, obnoxious luck. Tria flew where Mace fledged, both figuratively and literally. A few months into their first semester, Tria figured out how to concentrate helium under an umbrella to bob in the air. It wasn’t that impressive, she could get a few yards off the ground. Okay maybe it was impressive but not even Mace’s thoughts would give her an inch.

Her eyes fell on a particular entry. ‘Triskaideka: The Thirteen Spirits of Flight’. Finally, something that would boost her standing, literally.

She followed the recipe to the letter. She plucked three leaves from her ceiling and discreetly cut them into propeller blades. She perforated runes in the leaves with a quill, and used a pencil as a makeshift shaft. When it was finished, she had a small pinwheel on her desk.

“Now how do you work,” she whispered. Her breath gently spun the fan.

“Quite well,” came a voice.

Mace clapped a hand over her mouth to keep the yelp in.

“Do not worry, only you can hear us,” said the voice calmly. The spirit’s voice was like an entire children’s chorus speaking in unison. Mace ignored the red flag.

“May I ask who I’m speaking to?” she whispered.

“Triskaideka, for we are thirteen. Ours is the power of desert wind, blistering heat, and the disease of camels,” it said.

“Quite a…resume,” said Mace nervously.

“We can help you know. Help you rise above her,”

“How did-?”

“Because we know you, all of you. You all say that your desires are for a good reason. But desire does not know good and evil, we do not know good and evil. You put things in your own path, deny your own wants, and hate yourselves for it. We may not know good and evil, but we know love and hate. You hate her, hate yourself, but we love you.”

Mace ignored the red banner. “So, can you help me fly? Magically? Don’t I have to give you something in return?”

“We do not give and take because we do not think in these words. There is only ‘have and have not’. You have us, and we have you. You may do with us as you please.”

Mace ignored the red billboard and smiled to herself. Who needed phlogiston when you had friends?

Winter kissed the academy. Though with this amount of snow, tongued was a more accurate verb. It was the last day of class before the Winterkiss break, but student’s were free to scramble to assemble last minute gifts. Most wizards, especially student wizards, struggled to make ends meet. You had the power of reality in your hands and nothing in your pockets. Intelligence was far from smart, so many wizards were scammed by the mercantile class. Why read through that contract when management promised that they were like a family. Family wouldn’t scam you, and paid overtime would just break your boss-I mean, your mother’s heart!

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Piles of snow framed the courtyard as the students worked on their gifts to home. Mace sat alone at a bench, winter furs pulled tight around her face. Her gift to her mother was a summoning charm for a helper sprite. They were the least godly amongst the sea of gods, and were the only things a first year goetic were allowed to summon. She tested it.

The sprite was a palm-sized thing. And ‘thing’ was the best way to describe it. Its body was a white, soft, cube of flesh. Almost like a squared off marshmallow. Its fat little limbs struggled with its first steps on the bench. Two black eyes in the center of its ‘body’ stared up and Mace.

“Job?” it asked telepathically.

“No job yet, you’re a gift for my mother,” said Mace. She didn’t like the way she phrased that. “You’ll be doing odd jobs for my mother, paid of course. Regular hours, paid vacation, and um…” she searched for any hint of gender on the little thing. “Paid…parental leave?”

She took a gold piece from her sleeve and gave it to the sprite. The sprite just looked at her and narrowed its eyes.

“Not enough? You must have a good union,” she mused, fishing out another gold piece.

The sprite held out its tiny, sausagey hand in a gesture of stop. It turned its face up, where tiny gold nuggets began gushing out of it. It closed its fist and the gold vanished.

“Oh, right,” said Mace, thinking back to her lesson. In the same way humans could produce enough sugar to make even the most miserly ant faint, gods, even the small ones, could make gold.

“Then I will say, good job, and you’ll be perfect for my mother.” Sprites, like all overachievers, were always paid in complements and affirmations.

The sprite bowed its head and vanished.

Mace sighed to herself. Gods wouldn’t have the same valuables as mortals. What was a gold piece when you had the power to scrape entire planets clean of it in a few seconds. She wondered if they had their own labor laws.

Mace was shaken out of her thoughts when she saw…her walk out. The ‘her’ was Tria Durana, archrival, reason for living, and okay singer. She was followed by her cronies, because mace couldn’t see them as true friends. There was the squat dwarf with highlights in her hair, which was to say highlights everywhere. The tall, pale boy who was so skinny even Mace wanted to offer him anything to eat. And the cute girl with golden rings in her long box braids. She was attractive, Mace had to admit, but her friendship with Tria was a big red strike. Besides, she had once caught Mace giving her curious side glances, to which she turned and whispered something to Tria. That was a memory that could be strapped to rock and sent hurtling through space for eternity.

Tria was showing off her parasol, gently gliding a few inches off the ground as she walked. Her eyes met Mace’s, and the group stopped a yard away. This was Mace’s chance.

“Staying here over the break, Mace?” asked Tria, not even in a mean tone.

“You are a scoundrel and a knave!” shouted Mace.

“W-what?!” she responded, the whole group taken aback at her outburst.

“Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself. What I meant to say was: "Tria Durana, I challenge you!” she declared, hopping onto the bench.

The whole courtyard was staring at her now. Tria’s friends snickered, while she cringed.

“Yeah, um, no thanks,” she smiled and began to walk away.

Mace hadn’t expected this. “But you don’t even know what the challenge is!”

Tria put a finger to chin. “Well in that case, still no!”

“Art thee craven?” called Mace. She knew that that two week theater course would pay off. It was a bit embarrassing, but she knew that she would be embarrassing Tria soon.

Tria whipped around. “I’m not craven anything! It’s almost Winterkiss, and I could really use the break.”

“Break from what? Hands too tired from being given everything?” mumbled Mace.

Tria stared her down. “Look, Mace. I don’t know why you have such a problem with me, and I don’t care. I’ve worked just as hard as you did, so just let me walk out the gate, and I’ll be out of your hair for two weeks. Alright?” She spun round without waiting for an answer.

Mace’s fists clenched. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. How she really thought she worked as hard as Mace? Not getting caught was practically her job, and that was on top of all the classes. Worked just as hard? Worked just as hard?! Mace fought back tears as a painful truth welled in her stomach. Maybe if she worked as hard as Tria, she would be able to use phlogiston. Maybe if she worked hard like her uncle, he wouldn’t look at her like a disappointment. But she had worked hard! No other student in her year was as good with summoning as her. But that didn’t count, said a little voice in her brain. You know your uncle and mother only wanted a student like them, one who could push phlogiston. One who could reach higher than themselves. But you were too lazy, too stupid to learn how to control a substance that literally anyone could. The truth broke her, so she resolved to pick up the sharp pieces and stick them into Tria.

Mace leapt up to the gasp of everyone in the courtyard. She landed within a burst of snow, right in front of Tria and her friends. Then stood her ground in front of them.

Tria walked up mere inches from her face, scowling. Mace returned it.

“Move,” she ordered Mace.

Mace stayed silent.

“Fine,” she smirked. “I can just move myself.” Tria’s parasol violently inflated, shooting her into the air. Twenty, thirty feet above. She looked down to gloat at Mace, but couldn’t find her.

“Not so high and mighty now!” called Mace from above her.

Tria’s head turned up. “How are you-”

“Magic,” Mace shrugged smugly.

Tria frowned up at her, and began to rise even higher. She had risen another twenty feet before Mace could react.

“Oh no you don’t,” growled Mace. She chased her up.

They were both now more than seventy feet in the air. They gloured at each other.

“What is your problem?!” screamed Tria.

“My problem,” shouted Mace through the wind, “is that you get everything!”

“Mace-”

“You get to have the powers, the academic honors, friends, my uncle’s love!”

“Mace you-”

“I can’t even get my uncle’s love! You come to my family’s school with your gods damned poor orphan routine while I have to do everything to get a fraction of what you have!”

“Mace you’re falling!” cried Tria.

Mace looked up at Tria’s quickly receding face.

Triskaideka I need your help! She thought frantically.

Their soothing, layered voice popped into her head. “You have me and I have you,” they repeated. “You desired to rise, we desired to help, now we desire to watch you fall,”

“Triska- Triskadeka please!” cried Mace out loud.

Trikaideka giggled to themselves. “You’re a wizard right? Think of how much data could be collected from your body. They’ll be teaching future students about you for generations!”

Of course there was a catch, or in this case, the lack of a catch. Spirits seldom got their pleasure from normal games, so they had to use mortals as their toys. So I’m bad at push and pull, thought the logical side of Mace’s brain, which was currently being shouted over by the lizard side. And speaking of lizards, a snake had appeared in Mace’s moving periphery.

“Grab the snake Mace!” screamed Tria.

Mace grabbed, instincts over powering everything else.

Tria’s other hand shot out to the bailey’s wall, her fingers leaving deep claw marks in the wood as she slowed their descent.

She has snakes and claws? That figures, thought Mace. Her own fingers slipped off the snake. Damn that reptile…moisture? Grease? Whatever it’s called.

Her last thoughts were about ghosts. They were just echoes of people record in mausolium, but she wondered if you could control one from beyond the grave. Not necessarily come back as a ghost, but sort of, puppet it around. She’d have to test this theory on Tria.

She landed in the snow on her ankle. Everyone ran to her.

“Are you okay?!” shouted one of Tria’s friends.

Shooting, aching, and sharp pain all took turns running up and down her leg.

“‘Course I am,” she squeaked.

Tria landed beside her. The arm that had been a snake was bruised while the other was bloody.

“You sure you’re alright,” she asked Mace.

Mace was humiliated, her ankle broken, and flat on her ass in snow, which was finding news ways up her pants. How she managed to have any pride left at all was the real magic.

“No, no pain at all,” she said through gritted teeth.

The crowd of students quickly parted as a giant shadow loomed over her.

“Maybe some pain,” she sighed.