“W-we surrender!” Poshy’s second shouted.

Stepping back from my rival’s prone figure I finally took my hands off my back and waved for the healers to take care of him. Once I made sure Poshy was nice and comfy, I flourished my new wand and bow to my awed, speechless, slack-yawed crowd. It took them a while to register what just happened, but once they did the benches exploded in a standing ovation.

“Thank you! Thank you! You are a wonderful crowd!”

You know the drill; I bowed a couple times, threw a kiss here and there, but the cherry on top came when a recognized a massive widow’s peak gleaming under the son.

To tell the truth, I saw chin-face earlier among my other classmates; she had seen way too smug with professor grumpy-butt’s treatment of yours truly. A vicious chick that one. She must have followed us after that verry public duel’ declaration in hopes to see Poshy over there mop the floor with me. I hated to disappoint but, judging by her expression, our encounter did not end to her ladyship’s liking.

Oh well! You can’t make everyone happy… But you have to try!

To ‘apiece’ her, I threw an extra kiss and wink her way, which elicited a fascinating transformation; her general continence going from ‘furious red’ to ‘foaming purple’ in the span of seconds.

“That’s better,” I thought. Then I walked away from the arena, arm in arm with a still catatonic Jane.

“What was that!?” Jane almost assaulted me with questions the moment we were alone, “How did you managed all that?! Do you truly have a contracted spirit?! Is that how you could block and fire invisible force-darts?! No wonder you were so calm about the duel! But then, why are you in the introductory class if you have a spirit already?! No, wait! How did you get your own spirit without the academy’s help in the first place?! Oh! Don’t tell me! You went to the other academy at the capital…!”

“Wow! Slowdown girl! You still have to breathe, remember?”

“Oh! O-of course, how crass of me! Pardon my rudeness sir Blake! This surely must be a sensitive topic for you. I shouldn't have pried…”

“Jane! Calm down! I don’t have a contracted spirit yet!” I chuckled.

“What!? B-but then… How…?”

*Boom!*

After a series of quick hand motions the sound of an exploiting force-dart echoed in the aisle from somewhere next to us. Jane yelped in surprise at first, but then turned to ogle at my hands.

“No way… Was that… a somatic trick?!”

“It’s phantom-sound; uses air spirits to create noises.”

“B-but, I saw you stop like five force-darts mid-air!”

“Force-darts explode on contact” I shrugged, “I just put sky-glasses in their way and detonated them safely before they could reach me. The rest was just him aiming at his feet.”

“But… but…” she gasped at me, “B-but that’s impossible! Somatic tricks don’t work half of the time!”

“Impossible? What are you talking about…? I mean, I get it; it’s a hustle to get them working when you start practicing but, after a bit you just get’em right and you can pull them off like nothing.”

Jane threw me an incredulous look.

“H-how much is ‘a bit’ exactly?”

“You know; a couple weeks. A month tops.”

“Sir Blake, please don’t joke with me! I’ve been practicing the Georgann exercises since I can walk, and I’ve never…!”

But Jane’s words were cut short as someone else’s hands closed around my neck from behind.

“What… did… you… do… now…?”

My hairs stood on end at the shear amount of blood lost emanated by the man, nay, the rabid creature at my back!

“Ja-ja-jake! Good to see you buddy! What brings you to this fine corner of the academy? Did I mention how good you look on full mage uniform?”

“What… were… you… doing… at… the… arena….? How… much… money… have… you… lost… now…?”

My brother squeezed, turning my face purple.

This is as good a moment as any to comment on my dear brother’s mental stability… or lack thereof. To wit, he hadn’t calm down one bit on these past two days after that little encounter with those thugs at the alley. If nothing else he’d been losing his sleep over it, which of course only made him even more grumpy and paranoid. As a result, he was now demanding explanations while simultaneously chocking my longs out of air.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Caring lil brother that I am, I croaked in an attempt to soothe him, one of my hands tapped on his arm to politely communicate; ‘calm down!’… Alas he didn’t seem to get the message. But then, when all seem lost, heavens parted for a curvy angel to answer my prayers.

“P-please, s-stop h-hurting s-sir Blake!” Jane bravely demanded, a trembling hand togging at my aggressor’s shirt.

At Jane’s sweet voice my brother froze in place. His head turned mechanically to look at the girl behind him, then coiled back forward. In one sudden show of agility, he let go of me, levitating up and over as to position my body as a human shield between him and Jane.

“Sorry to scare you like that, Jane.” I managed in between gasps and coughs, “This here is Jake, my older brother, and that beautiful snail over there is Dermatrix. As you can see, my brother here is a full magus, and what you saw just now was us brothers playing it a lil rough. Nothing to worry about!”

I laughed nonchalantly to put her at ease, though I couldn’t stop a drop of cold sweat dripping down my back… No, no! What was I thinking? Jake would have never strangled me to death, right…? Right!?

“O-oh! It’s that so…” she let out a breath of relief, then curtsied, the verry picture of a prim and proper lady, “I am sorry to have interrupted so rudely magus Jacob. I am lady Janeva of Fiorla and I feel honored to make your acquaintance.”

“No, Jane. You got it wrong, his name isn’t…”

“Hay, I Jacob! Meet to nice you!” he screamed.

There followed an awkward silence where Jane tilted her head in confusion while I fought my damn hardest not to snicker. For his part, Jake went redder and redder as his own words register.

“I-erm… I need Jake… I mean, I need Blake here for a second… Nice knowing you! Bye!”

And just like that my brother and I, where propelled away by telekinetic forces.

“Real smooth, brother,” I teased him whence we were alone, “As always, you are such a lady’s man.”

“I couldn’t help myself, all right! I wasn’t prepared for such a cute girl to pop out right at my back! My heart almost leapt out of my chest! I think she was even prettier than the herbalist's daughter back home!”

“What do you mean ‘pop out right at your back’? Jane was right there from the beginning. If anything, the one that came out of nowhere was you sir Jacob.”

“Crap! Barging in and out like that… I came across as a total jerk, didn’t I?” he flinched.

“Pretty much. But don’t worry, I’ll apologize next I see her… Ah come on! Don’t be like that! Cheer up! It’s not the end of the world! Really, this was far from your worst interaction with the opposite sex. Nothing beats the time you tackled Helga Miller into a tub of pig-butter.”

“Would you ever let me live that down…!? No, enough of this. What were you doing at the arena? Please, don’t tell me you’ve been gambling on the duels!”

“You can do that!? Damn! There goes some easy coin…”

“Oh no! Don’t you dare even thinking about it…!”

“Relax! Me and Jane only came along because two guys from our class were dueling.” There! Technically not a lie.

“Aha…” he squinted at me.

“Come on! You know I don’t have a coin to my name! How I am supposed to bet on anything?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you ask that girl to lend you money.”

“Seriously! Who do you take me for!?”

“Fine… I’ll let it be for now. But only because you’re late for your new job.”

“My new what?”

“Really, Blaky? Really?” Jake massaged the bridge of his nose, “The Capitan of the city guard throws on your lap the one job that could verry well fix all of our problems, and you just forget about it?”

“Hey! You can’t blame me! I been having a shake day so far!”

“Oh? How so? Did you get into trouble?”

A chill run through my back. Jake question sounded innocent enough but, his eyes… his eyes weren’t smiling…

Nope. The less he knew, the better.

“Well, you know how it is! First day and everything! I was a bit nervous, I got lost the way to classroom, came late and got told off by the professor…”

“Ugh! That’s on me.” Jake winced, “I should have accompanied you on your first day, but I‘ve been so caught up with our financial troubles… Sorry about that.”

Now it was my turn to wince. For all his faults, my big brother was one of the nicest persons I knew. It felt bad hiding things for him… but at the same time there was nothing he could do about all what happened today, and telling him would only freak him out.

Besides, Jake was a book worm through and through. I was betting that every second of spare time he had, he spent locked up reading novels, so there was little chance of him finding out about today’s duel. I figured that, what he didn’t knew couldn’t hurt him or become fuel for his fury to hurt me by proxy. Win win!

We spoke of benign things as we left the shade of the academy’s tower for the tilted streets of Aprabat, where the sting of summer was already present. Curiously, the more I sweat my ass off climbing those damn roads behind the levitating form of my dear brother, the less I cared about hiding things from him. To make matters worse the guy took us through a complicated series of detours to “throw off any potential ambush.” By the time we reached the castle I was sweatier than an ox plowing through acres.

“Look at me! How I am supposed to pass a job interview like this!? Would it have killed you to let me rest once or twice on our way here?!”

“Hey! You were the one that chose to go gallivanting around with pretty girls! We barely made it in time as it is…!”

“Gentlemen, how may I help you?” the annoyed clerk at the end of the line cut short our bickering.

“Oh, yes! We have a letter from the Guard Captain…” Jake started.

“May I see it?”

“Sure” I took the envelope out of my satchel.

At first, the clerk opened the letter almost dismissively, but soon his brows climbed up and up as he reed it’s content. He read it once and trice, sneaking occasional glances at us in between each perusing.

“Who of you gentlemen is Blake Grahamson?” he said after a couple minutes.

“That would be me.”

“Follow this way, if you please.” The man stepped to the side of his desk a started to walk briskly in some direction. But then, when Jake made to follow, he added; “Excuse me sir, but I can’t let in unauthorized personnel. Your friend will have to stay.”

I exchanged glances with my worried brother. It was clear that he didn’t felt comfortable with this and I couldn’t fault him. This miracle job that came out of nowhere seem to good to be true, and this castle was the sit of power of the verry man whose psychotic granddaughter I had publicly insulted. And now I was supposed to walk alone in there? This was fishy, no matter how you smell it… But the truth was that I needed the job. Besides, what is life without a lil risk!

So, I told Jake; “I’ll be fine. Just wait here for a while.” patted him on the back and followed the clerk deeper into the castle.

Later, when I awoke strapped to a stone table with no recollection of whatever happened afterwards, I would reconsider these earlier assessments.