A… chorus… whispered…

“Na’g selhm ot fhtagn r'luhhor… H' mgah'ehye c’lum eter’nox…”

Fragmented… memories… surfaced…

“…manages to sleep in here…?... stop right there…! don’t break the… a sacrifice…”

BE WORNED!

“AHHHH!”

“What is it?!”

*thump*

Jake scowled at me from the other side of the table, holding a bag of ice against a purple eye.

“I think dad was right about you. You are out to get us.” He muttered scathingly.

“I am sorry…”

“You made me share my lodgings with you, made me lose my allowance, made me levitate your unconscious ass all the way here, made me worry sick, and to top it off, when I come running because you scream bloody murder in the middle of the night, I get punched, by you.”

“I am sorry…”

“I don’t care if you are sorry, dumbass! Quit making my life difficult!”

Jake punctuated this statement by throwing an apple from a fruit basket at my head. The projectile missed hard, clanking away at a cooking pot.

“What was that!?” Mrs Chandler, our housekeeper, appear at the door, “What have you broken now!?”

She squinted at Jake accusingly.

“It was n-nothing ma’am!” jolted Jake, “W-we were just about… to cook up something with Blake here…”

“How many times do I need to tell you to keep your hands off my kitchen, master Jake! If you want something to eat, ask me first.” She sniffed in indignation and grumbled, “Some hours to be eating. Kids these days have no sense!”

“You really need not to worry, Mrs Chandler. We are not really hungry. We can wait for breakfast tomorrow …” I said placatingly.

“Nonsense sweety.” She told me maternally, “You are still convalescing. You’ll eat whenever your body needs to. Now scram off my kitchen. I’ll call you when the food is ready.”

And scram we did.

Jake squinted at me once we were out of earshot.

“Nonsense sweety? Really!? You are here for less than a day and she already likes you!? I been living here for two freaking years and she has always treated me as if I had crawled out of the sewerage!”

“You just lack the charm.” I shrugged, receiving an elbow to the ribs for my wisdom.

Mrs Chandler was a widow whose children left to form their own families. She rented rooms to commoner academy students. Jake had been living with her since coming to Aprabat’s Hold. The rent was on the cheap side, and she seem pleasant enough, but she always gave Jake the stink eye for some reason. I don’t have to tell you how much this amused me.

“Don’t worry Jaky! I’ll help you conquer Mrs Chandler’s heart!” I teased, and was elbowed again for my troubles.

That evening I learn from Jake that I had, in fact, passed my entry exam with flying colors. Dear brother did congratulate me for it, but only after giving me a long-winded tong lash for attempting a focus split while working frenzied spirits, and informing me that we owed a healer another twenty denarii for patching up my concussion.

I winced at the expense. Our finances were looking grimmer by the second. I was plainly broke after that brat robed me blind, and Jake’s savings wouldn’t last the month.

Not all was lost however; Aprabat’s had a market for Academy magus in need of an extra coin. Thing’s like performing cleansing rituals to restore family heirlooms, or go around turning on city lamps with the fire-starter trick.

The only problem with these odd jobs was that, even if they weren’t illegal, they were frond upon by the more aristocratic side of the campus.

Jake told me that, in some cases the noble pricks had gone so far as to pressure business owners to throw commoner students out of their jobs. But he also assured that, as long as I keep a low profile and didn’t go out of my way to piss them off, the nobles would leave me be. After all, he himself had been working levitating stone blocks as part of a construction crew a full year now, and never had any trouble.

Of course, you’ll understand if I didn’t choose that verry moment to tell him about how I pissed off the duke’s crazy grandchild… or the moment after… nor the next…

Oh, look at that! Mrs Chandler has called us to the kitchen! Food must be ready.

The woman outdid herself with the delectable pai. We ended up eating the whole thing. Mrs Chandler did complain about Jake’s eating habits, but to me she only smiled and serv another plate. Ha ha ha! How amusing…

What? Stalling? Who is Stalling? I am not stalling!

That night I slept like a babe, and the morning after I sprung from my bed, fresh as a lettuce.

Next period in the Academy wouldn’t start until next week. This happy coincidence left me with a couple free days that I planned to enjoy as much as possible.

“No.”

Novel on hand, Jake sat on his bed still wearing his pajamas. Dermatrix, a snail of live jade with a bronze carapace, followed the reed from atop my brother’s ear. I must confess I always had a soft spot for Jake’s lil spirit.

“Come on, Jaky! We have two whole days! The city is ours! We can meet with some girls and…”

“I said no! We are don’t have money to go fooling around! We are almost broke! Besides, your time would be better spent either looking for a job or studying; If you find a job now there will be less of a chance for anyone at the Academy noticing, and even if you did pass the entry exam, you are still way behind schedule.”

“And let me guess, while I study you are going to be here all day, reading.” I dead panned.

“Yeap.”

“Seriously!? Come on Jake! I am new to the place! At least show me around! I promise we won’t spend a single denarius! You can point me in the right direction for a job while we are at it.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“We can do all of that tomorrow. The construction crew gave me three days of leave to take care of your wounds and right now I plan to catch up with the free day you cost me with the whole coal shipment debacle.”

This wasn’t fair!

“It’s not fair!” I threw myself face first on my bed, “I studied like a dog all my way here! I need to do something else! Let me explore the city! I wana explore the city! I wana! I wana!”

I spied my older brother from the corner of my eye. He was ignoring me, nonchalantly turning a page on his book.

Darn! He was wise to my tactics. I didn’t want to play this card, but he left me no choice:

“I suppose I’ll have to go all by myself then.” I sighed.

This time Jake did lift his eyes from his novel to squint at me.

“Oh, I sure hope I don’t get lost or found any trouble while I am at it.” I continued, “It would be terrible if I was to break some law I don’t know about and got us another fee.”

“You are a jerk; do you know that?”

I grinned at him.

“Only the best jerk around.”

A levitating pillow shot itself into my face.

“Fine, we’ll go!” Jake grinded through his teeth.

“Yes…!”

“But clean off your chickens’ coop first! It’s starting to stink.”

I looked at the wooden box fill of hay where Henriett was snoozing, wrinkling my nose in anticipation.

“Fine…” I sighed.

*

It was a cold blue morning of late summer and the sloped streets of Aprabat were already up, fill with commerce and industry. All around me colors, smells and clanking machinery mixed with the laughter children. For my part I dragged along behind Jake, struggling with my trembling legs.

“Holy crap! Walking around this city sucks!” I wiped sweat off my forehead, “Climbing up and down for every street is no joke! Now I get why everyone uses the lifts to get around.”

“Can’t be helped.” Said an amused Jake, “Aprabat’s Hold is this big because it was defensible enough to survive multiple barbarian raids. That would have never been possible if the city wasn’t built over these mountains… Think of it as a quirk of the land. In time you’ll get used to it and your overall stamina will be all the better for it.”

I scowled at him.

“If it is that good of an exercise then how come you don’t stop levitating and join me instead?”

“Ah! But you can’t expect an illustrious magus such as I to share the same floor as the common folk!”

“Jerk.”

“Only the second-best jerk around.”

The bonified jerk floated before me, pointing out the different businesses where I could ask for employment; It turned out that the fire-starter cantrip was highly sought after by the lamplighter associations and the crier’s guild was always on the search for academy students proficient in phantom-sound, so I did have some employment options despite my relatively small portfolio for magical abilities.

The only problem was that all these options required me to work into the middle of the night, walking up and down this cardio-trap of a city!

“You might actually have a point there.” Jake hummed to himself when I told him about my reservations, “You are hard pressed to catch up with your studies as it is. Doing so while sleep deprived and physically tired is a bit much.”

“Thank you for understanding…! Any other options in mind?”

“Hmm… let’s see… Can you pull off a cleansing ritual?”

“I think? I haven’t practiced much to be honest, but it is an easy one, I bet I can master it in a couple days if I put my back into it.”

“Then we should see if old Greta is still looking for help at the antiquity shop. Come on Blaky, this way.”

I eyed him suspiciously while we went up a flight of stairs.

“Do you have a thing for older women?”

“What?!”

“I mean, this is the second one you know by name and… ouch!”

A pebble shot straight in between my eyebrows.

“Go on. Finish that thought.” A dozen more pebbles orbited Jake ready to be launched.

I rose both hands in immediate surrender.

“Yeah, figured as much.” He gloated, though we would see who truly won this bout once I had made Drake aware of my suspicions… Oh the shear teasing potential!

We stopped our march near a tilted plaza.

“Now, wait here without doing anything stupid.” Jake gestured at a nearby shop, “I’ll get in and ask if she still hiring and we’ll go from there.”

“Right, I’ll give you two all the alone time you need... Crap!”

I had to duck under an apple’s core that flew my way from a nearby trash-pile, only for it to boomerang back to my nape.

“Ugh!” I touched some disgusting moist from where it stroked me, “I think it had worms or something! You jerk!”

The ass didn’t even turn as he crossed the tilted plaza, but he waved me off with a rude gesture… what a git…

He had already entered the shop and I was using a handkerchief to better take care of the filth, when I was approached by some people.

“Hey lad, ain’t you the fella from the exam?”

“Uh? Do I know you gentleman? No offence, but I think I would have picked you up in a crowd, you two being so big an all.”

“Nah, this’s the first we meet boyo. But we heard you stood up to one of those stock up nobles, and in a hilarious way at that. That takes some balls.”

“Yeah lad. You’re kind of a celebrity around these parts.”

“Ah!” I chuckled sheepishly to my new admirers, “I am flattered, but I can’t take the credit.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Well, I mean, the jokes practically wrote themselves. I swear, it was like she had them all written over her forehead. God knows there was space for it, am I right? Aha ha ha…!”

The guys nodded at each other on my last comment, a dark look passing between their eyes. They advanced on me, necks and knuckles cracking. The sudden change in atmosphere wasn’t lost on me:

“So,” I swallowed, “I take it you are not here for an autograph.”

“Ain’t nothing personal boyo, but no one insults lady Richia and walks away with both legs working.”

I turned to run after my brother, only to bounce off the chest of a third goliath even bigger than the other two. The scarred muscle-bound behemoth grinned me a hole filled smile, and I had to step back.

“Now, gents, violence is an ugly thing. Can’t we talk this out like the civilized people we are?”

The thugs stoked me like predators, slowly pushing me back into an alley. I looked around considering my options; the moment I tried to run or cried for help they would jump me, but they were taking their time to push me into a place with less witnesses.

“No, lad. We are not here to talk. In fact, we are here to teach you how to shut up that trap of yours…Ugh!”

I kicked up the discarded apple’s core straight into the closest thug’s face. The man cursed as his hands grasped for the air where I once stood, but I had already turned tail and fled for the alley.

Grunts and pursuing footsteps echoed right behind me. As I ran, I split my focus to cast a sky-glass with each hand. I was hoping to lose the brutes in the following chase upstairs, only problem was; this particular alley had no stairs. It was a dead end!

‘Think fast! Can you jump over the wall?’ No, even with both sky-glass the cornice was too high up.

With no other choice I turn to my pursuers who were merely foots behind me. I twisted my hand and an invisible surface appeared over the knee of the frontmost man. On his next step the target stumbled, tripping the guy that charged right behind him. Both men fell to the ground on a heap and even the third one – the bigger one, lost his balance for a hot second.

I grinned at my luck an immediately counter charged my enemies, casting another somatic trick even as I did.

I jumped over the down men. Big and scarry tried to punch me off the air, but I climbed over his fist with another application of sky-glass. Then I stepped on his shoulder to jump behind him, the momentum pushing big-boy off his feet and into my growing heap of thugs – I think I was closed to break a record.

I broke my fall by kicking the wall to land with grace, then, without stopping, I turned towards my would-be muggers taking a line from my favorite street urchin:

“So long suckers…ugh!”

Only to run head first into the fist of a fourth man waiting behind the corner.

I fell on my back.

“Crap boys! Can’t you deal with one kid?! You are a disgrace.” The fourth man sighed and turned to loom over me, “Slippery lil rat you turn out to be. My guys here were about to rough you up a bit, but you had to went off and made fools out of them. We can’t have that. My people and I live from respect we inspire; you know?”

I attempted to blind my attacker with the light-bulb I prepared earlier, but it was for not; my focus had been disrupted by that punch and the spirits I was working had fled!

“I say that calls for extra retribution…But what to do?” he drawled, “Ah! I know! Let’s see if I can redecorate that pretty face of yours…”

He advanced on me, flourishing a knife on his hand.

“No! Not in the face!” I screamed in horror.

Frantically I tried to crawl backwards casting yet another trick, but the man kicked my guts, disrupting my concentration.

He plunged and I flinched, shielding my face with my arms… and… nothing?

Odd at the lack of action, I peeked around. Then I gingerly lowered my guard and took a good look:

Knife poised to strike, my assailant was frozen in place, a green aura subsuming his body. For a moment I noticed how the predatory sneer on his face contrasted grotesquely with the sheer terror of his eyes. Then he was slammed against the wall hard enough to cheapen stone.

The green aura dissolved and he collapsed to the floor like a ragdoll. At his back appeared Jake; eye’s blazing emerald and hair floating in arcane forces. His whole body levitated a foot from the ground.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW!?” he thundered.