Mal stepped out of his house and into the early morning sunlight. It was unseasonably warm for Pasadena, which for southern California meant it was nearly eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Mal was in shorts and a tee-shirt, enjoying the balmy conditions of the early December day. Mal took a deep breath as he made his way down the streets, heading for Adrien’s home. Everything was so vibrant, so full of life since he had integrated with the Spell. He felt like he could sense magic everywhere - a quiet extranormal hum that permeated all things.

Just being able to sense its barest whisper filled Mal with joy, and for the first time in his short sixteen years he felt like whistling as he walked down the street. He tried, calling up the tune of his mother’s song, the one she sang to make his father feel better after a hard day at work. He utterly failed to capture it, quite sure he didn’t even hit a single note, but he was happy anyway.

Drawing upon the newfound magic within him, Mal wove a simple spell, conjuring a flickering flame on the tip of his finger, over and over. With his pitiful Power, he could only make it the size of a candle, but he was doing magic. Magic! He could refine the spell or create a new one if he needed to draw a bigger flame, but for now, the act of weaving a spell for real was enough.

After a short walk of about fifteen minutes, Mal came upon Adrien’s familiar house. Los Angeles, like many American cities, had an eclectic mix of architectural styles, and as what was essentially a northern suburb of LA, Pasadena was no exception. Adrien’s home was of the Spanish Revival variety, with white stucco walls and a rust red roof. It was two stories tall and had a short walkway leading to the front of the house, with a small balcony over the garage. Mal walked under an open arch to the front door of his friend’s home, knocking loudly.

Mal did not have to wait long for Adrien to answer, his visit was expected, after all. The door swung open, revealing Adrien, dressed this time, which was a nice change. He had a big grin on his face and he pulled Mal into a firm hug.

“Happy birthday, yesterday!” He said, releasing Mal and leading him inside. “Rudy couldn’t come, he has some sort of magic sports thing every morning, but I made breakfast to compensate.”

“I know, he told us in the group chat,” Mal said, following Adrien into the kitchen. He could smell burnt pancakes and overcooked bacon and the kitchen was a small disaster. Mixing bowls were piled haphazardly in the sink and pans were left abandoned on the stove top. Uncooked batter spotted the countertops and cooked batter had hardened and burnt to the stove. Mal’s stomach tightened at the sight of the messy kitchen, fighting his reflexive urge to clean up the mess.

“I know,” Adrien said, noticing the pained look on Mal’s face. “But this isn’t an Eten house. We can clean up after we eat. You can even help if you want.”

Mal nodded, “Thanks. I’d like that.”

“Hey,” Adrien narrowed his eyes at Mal, “That was a joke. You weren’t supposed to agree with me.”

“I don’t think you’ll do a very good job,” Mal said honestly. “Besides, you’re forgetting that I have magic now. You think I don’t know any spells to clean this all up? Do you know how many household maintenance spells an Eten child learns, even if he can’t weave them? I might not have much in the way of strength, but I can make this kitchen clean in no time.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Adrien walked to his kitchen counter and took two large plates from it. One was stacked high with surprisingly intact pancakes and the other was covered with undercooked eggs and overcooked bacon. He placed them on the kitchen table, between two plates. “Here, help yourself.”

Mal sat down, doing just that. “These pancakes are pretty good.” Mal said after eating a mouthful.

“You sound surprised. You’re not supposed to sound surprised.”

“The entire house smells like burnt pancakes,” Mal explained.

“Does it?” Adrien took a big sniff of the air, “I can’t smell them anymore. I must be used to it.”

“But the pancakes don’t taste burnt.”

“It’s just from the bits of batter that fell onto the elements.” Adrien said. He looked over at the burnt and hardened spot on the stove. “Those might actually need magic to get up.” He turned back to Mal, “So what’s it like?”

Mal crunched through a piece of bacon, chewing for a moment before swallowing. “What’s what like?”

Come one dude,” Adrien gave him a look, “Magic. What’s it like?”

“Why are you asking me, you know have been integrated a lot longer than I have.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never cast a spell. It’s still too hard. And Rudy hasn’t even tried. He just channels it all into amazing feats of athleticism and I’m pretty sure he does it unconsciously. He has no idea what magic is like.”

Mal thought for a moment. “It’s like touching a live wire full of life instead of electricity, but that wire connects to everything and goes everywhere.”

“Like this table?” Adrien rapt his knuckles against the wooden kitchen table, “Or the toaster, or the stove? They all have life electricity running through them? They aren’t alive, dude.”

Mal shrugged, “That’s just what it’s like.”

“How does that make sense? I bet you’re just feeling something like the energy in the objects. Here.” Adrien jumped to his feet moving to his refrigerator. He opened the freezer and took out a tray of ice cubes. He walked across the kitchen and filled up a glass of water. Returning to the table, he placed both the ice cubes and the glass of water in front of Mal.

“What’s this?”

“Which one feels like it has more magic?” Adrien said.

“The ice cubes have more in total, but less individually than the water,” Mal said. “If you took three or four of the ice cubes it would be about the same as the water.”

“What?” Adrien looked down at the frozen cubes measuring with his eyes. “That’s about the same! How does that work?”

“I don’t think magic cares about temperature, Adrien. You asked me what magic feels like and I told you. Don’t get upset because I answered the question.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. A toaster should not have life energy!”

“Magic isn’t life energy, it just feels like that to me. Once you get the hang of it it might feel like something else to you.”

“Is it mass based? How much magic do I have compared to the fridge?”

“You have way more, definitely. But I can’t feel you.” Mal raised a hand as Adrien opened his mouth to ask another question, “Stop. I don’t know how it works. Literally all my knowledge is baby stuff that is taught to all Eten kids. I know some more advanced theory around how weaves work because Mom thinks I’m pretty good at that. But that’s it. I don’t know what I feel or why.”

Adrien looked disappointed for a second before brightening again. “Can I see some magic?”

“Sure,” Mal looked over to the mess of the kitchen. “I can try cleaning that up.” Mal walked over to the messy countertop, evaluating it closely. “I’ve only really tried a few spells so far, even if I have a lot memorized, so I don’t know how these will work.”

“You’ve only tried a couple? What were you doing all day yesterday, then?”

“Applying to the Institute. Having my first ever true Eten conversation with my family.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Mal looked down at his hands which were producing tiny green sparks with excitement. “It’s a good thing. I was so worried I would never be able to do that, and then I just…did. It was amazing. But also so normal. I feel dumb for worrying about it so much now.”

“That’s great,” Adrien said, “Now you can worry about normal things, like cleaning my kitchen. Or girls.”

“I already worry about that.” Mal grumbled.

“Then what are you waiting for? Clean my kitchen!”

Mal shot his friend a dirty look, only to see Adrien smirking back at him. “Fine.” Mal concentrated, trying to get used to not using his hands to weave a spell. It felt almost unnatural, even though he had only ever used his hands for a single weave. He had spent so long practicing with his hands that they almost instinctively moved as he focused on the shape he wanted the spell to take. The weave took form, slowly spreading along the countertop. It took a long time, at least compared to when he had seen his mother and sister use the same spell, a consequence of his dismal Power.

“Uh, Mal? Are you going to do anything?”

“I just did,” Mal said. “Sorry it took so long. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“You cast a spell? You didn’t move your hands at all.” Adrien made a scrunched up face. “You didn’t really cast it did you?”

“I wove a spell,” Mal said, emphasizing the word, “Human mages cast spells. Etens weave them. And you don’t need to move your hands. That’s just to help the magic flow.”

“I thought you dropped the racism bit.”

“It’s not racism! It’s just the word we use! It’s like when someone dies of a disease you don’t say they were killed, you say they passed away. But if it's a car crash you say they were killed! It’s not hard to figure out!”

Adrien rolled his eyes, “Okay, whatever you say. So you really wove one out then?”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

“It’s just it didn’t look like much, you just stood there for a few seconds. What did you even do?”

“I made it so nothing will stick to the surface of your counter,” Mal said, grabbing a cloth and tossing it to Adrien, “See for yourself.”

“This is dry.”

“Can’t use a wet one. Nothing sticking to your counter includes water. It will end up all over the floor.”

Adrien walked over to the partially dried pancake batter that splattered the kitchen countertop. He carefully wiped at the spots, picking them up easily. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “This feels frictionless.”

“It might be,” Mal said, “Like I said, I don’t know how any of this really works, I just know how to make it happen.”

“Can you cast the spell on the floor? Sorry, weave the spell?”

“You realize we were cleaning, right?” Mal said.

“That can wait. Spell up the floor.”

Mal tried and failed not to roll his eyes at ‘spell up the floor’ and did so, sitting down first. He wasn’t falling all over the kitchen if the spell did remove friction.

“Well? Feel anything different?” Mal said.

Adrien stepped around the floor, lifting his bare feet off the linoleum carefully. “I definitely still have friction. But it feels weird. My feet just come off the floor like it's on carpet. Normally I get a little bit of stickiness.”

“I just magicked the floor so it had no stickiness.” Mal said. “Of course you’re not getting stickiness.”

“I think it’s adhesion.” Adrien stared at his foot as he lifted and pressed it to the floor over and over. “I think you made it impossible for anything to adhere to the surface of the floor.”

“I knew I was special.”

Adrien grinned. “Not that special. I was expecting the mess to dissolve into the air or something.”

Mal stood back up, “Dissolve into the air? Do you have any idea how complicated that would be? I don’t even know where I would start with that.” Mal frowned, “Well, may I have an idea. But I probably wouldn’t be able to make it target only the food.”

Mal leaned against the counter, thinking it over. He could probably make something fall apart into little pieces, but it would take a lot of energy, so for Mal, that meant a long time. Maybe if he indeed a few movements from empty and-

“Stop thinking about your dissolving spell of destruction and help me clean. Weren’t you the one who wanted to do this in the first place?” Adrien said, giving Mal a mocking smirk. “I’m starting to think you don’t care about what a mess the kitchen is in.”

“Oh, you bastard.”

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

Cleaning the kitchen was a smooth endeavor after Adrien stopped asking Mal a thousand questions. The kitchen now gleamed. Perhaps not as much as his mother’s did, but for a human kitchen it was amazingly clean. The only difficulty with cleaning the kitchen came from removing the burnt batter from the kitchen stove. For some reason his anti-stick spell didn’t want to work with that. Everything else was easy, though. Mal had even added a fresh springtime scent to the air. He didn’t quite figure out how to get the scent as strong as his mother or sister did, but his slightly customized weave produced a close facsimile to theirs, although he was starting to hate his inability to produce much magic.

“Do you know what spell I had to use to get that off, Adrien? A spell for separating two fused objects. Fused. As in they are stuck together on a molecular level. How did you even burn something that bad?” Mal said, walking out of the sparkling kitchen and up the stairs with Adrien.

“Well excuse me for going all out for my best friend’s birthday,” Adrien said. “I didn’t realize Mr. Phone Call From the Institute a Minute After Applying was so easily inconvenienced.”

“I didn’t ask for that phone call,” Mal said as he followed Adrien into his room. “It just happened. Not that I think it’s a bad thing.”

Adrien snorted. “A phone call from the star mage of humanity himself. And you were worried that you would turn out like me.”

“I said I was sorry about that.”

“I know. I forgave you. But you have to admit you are pretty dumb.”

“I wasn’t worried that I would be like you.” Mal let himself fall onto Adrien’s unmade bed.

“Sure sounded like it.” Adrien dropped himself into his desk chair, picking up the puzzle sphere and playing with it in his hands.

Mal looked at his friend. Adrien wasn’t looking back at him. He was staring down at his hands as they moved aimlessly over the sphere, his shoulders slumped.

“I was worried I wouldn’t ever be part of my family.” Mal said in a quiet voice.

Adrien looked up and met his eyes. “That’s dumb. You’re already part of your family.”

“I meant-”

“I know what you meant,” Adrien interrupted, “It’s still dumb.” Adrien swallowed and looked away. “And now you’re going to run off and get assessed.”

“That’s not until January. And then I wouldn’t go straight into winter intake, I would go for summer.”

“Not fall?”

“No. Since I don’t want to go back to high school I need to make up half a year. That gets done over summer.”

“You’ll get in, no problem.” Adrien said. He placed the sphere back down on his desk. “Then it will just be Rudy and me. At least until he starts whatever crazy sports thing they have planned for him.”

“I think he wants to do combat sports,” Mal said, sitting up from the bed, “He’s been obsessed with them ever since he heard my mom call it ritualized violence to sate the suffering masses.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“That’s basically all aug athletics are at this point, anyway. Your mom really hates that food isn’t free, huh?”

“All Etens do, so I am told at least. Did you know they refuse to charge us for food when we go to an Eten restaurant?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, my dad always insists on paying and my mom has to tell them to take it and give it to charity or something.” Mal’s phone beeped in his pocket. “Shit. I’ve got to go meet Rudy. Are you sure you aren’t coming?”

Adrien shook his head. “You may have your life all planned out, but mine is still confusing. I need to actually study and get my facets up.”

“You don’t need to. You can go to a normal school instead of an extranormal one.”

Adrien gave Mal an incredulous look. “Really? That coming from you?”

“Sorry. I know. It felt stupid as soon as it came out of my mouth.”

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

Mal stepped off of the bus, and stretched his arms over his head. UCLA campus was only half an hour away by car, but the bus ride stretched that to nearly ninety minutes. Mid morning turned out to be a great time to use public transit, though. The bus was mostly empty, except for a few elderly people doing their grocery shopping.

He was supposed to meet Rudy at the aug athletics building. He was at a place called JD Morgan Center, which was apparently close.

[I’m at the bus stop, but I don't know where to go from here.]

[North.]

Mal looked up from his phone and walked north, seeing his bus pull into a loop one stop ahead of him. Oh. Maybe he should have got off there. Oh well. Mal continued walking, moving past the bus stop and off the road. The campus was busy, even though he was pretty sure classes had ended for end of semester exams. Ahead of him were a few park benches and a wall of trees and bushes with a few paths cutting through it.

[All I see are trees. Also the people here are weird.]

[Go to the right of the trees. Also, how are people here weird? You’re weird.]

[That’s what I mean. I’m weird but no one is giving me a second glance. It’s weird.]

[Sad.]

[Shut up. Also, I see you now.]

Mal watched the tall and familiar figure look up from his phone and search the area around. Spotting Mal, Rudy waved and jogged over to meet him. He arrived with a big grin on his face. He was in UCLA branded sweatpants with a matching tee-shirt and somehow looked even more muscular and handsome than when Mal had last seen him, a month previous.

“The birthday boy, here at last!” Rudy nearly shouted. “Long time, no see!”

Mal smiled, “Hey, Rudy. You look good.”

“I know, right?” Rudy grinned. “Better yet, I have a birthday present for you. Follow me.”

“You didn’t need to get me a gift,” Mal said, “You know we don’t really celebrate birthdays at my house. Even Adrien only made me breakfast.”

“I care not for your Eten traditions!” Rudy declared, pointing a fist in the air like he was some sort of hero from a movie, “And my present is going to kick the crap out of some crummy breakfast.”

“It was pretty good actually,” Mal said. “Plus, I got to clean the kitchen.”

“Dude, that’s not a good thing.”

“To you, maybe. I did it with magic.”

“Oh!” Rudy’s mouth popped open, splitting into a huge grin, “I completely forgot! You can do magic now! Show me some.”

“I don’t-”

“Showmesomeshowmesomeshowmesome.”

“Fine.” There was no point trying to out stubborn Rudy. Mal looked around and spotted a rock. He picked it up off the ground and wove his own fusion spell to it, placing it on top of a small cement wall. “This is the first spell I ever made for myself. Try and pick that rock up.”

“That rock?” Rudy said, pointing to the small rock, now sitting on the low wall. “You want me,” Rudy flexed, “to pick up that?”

Mal smirked. “If you can.”

Scoffing, Rudy swaggered up to the rock and gripped it between his fingers, frowning when it didn’t budge. He flexed his arm again, shaking it back and forth, but the rock still refused to move. Rudy narrowed his eyes at the rock. “You think you’re better than me?” He whispered.

“Uh-”

Mal cut himself off as he felt magic surge within Rudy. Rudy let out a shout of challenge to the rock and his arm flexed again. The rock snapped off the wall with a sharp crack, bringing a chunk of the cement with it.

“Awesome!” Rudy said, staring at the rock, now fused with a small bit of cement. “You can do this with anything?”

“I haven’t experimented much.” Mal said. He smiled at Rudy’s evident joy. It felt good to be the one he called awesome for once. Rudy normally reserved that compliment for himself.

“We can try other things later,” Rudy said. “Come on. You have to see my present.”

He led Mal around the corner of the sidewalk and up to a big brick and glass building. The entrance was almost entirely a single big window, broken up by a number of horizontal metal bars running in parallel across its width. ‘Athletics’ was written above the doors, through which a pair of young women walked out.

Oh no.

“Rudy!” Mal hissed, but it was too late.

“Hey girls!” Rudy shouted to the young women, waving them over. To Mal, he whispered, “Enjoy your present.”

“Girls aren’t presents!” Mal hissed.

The girls were the same pair of very pretty Eten women that Rudy had previously shown him. Adrien thought they were twins, but to Mal, they clearly were not even related. They shared similar features, light brown skin, gray hair, and blue eyes, but their faces showed little to no family resemblance.

“Hi Rudolf!” One of the girls called, matching his wave.

“Hello,” the other girl greeted them with a smile and turned to Mal. “I am Frudita Sasl. You can call me Ita, everyone does.”

“I am Malenthiar Thomas.” Mal said. He hoped he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt. “Call me Mal.”

“I am Kottianny Elutran. Everyone calls me Tian.” The girl who waved at Rudy gave him a glowing smile. Mal blushed furiously.

“I am Malenthiar Thomas. Please call me Mal.”

“Oh, he said please,” Rudy teased. “Someone’s special.”

“Shut up, Rudolf.” Ita said with a roll of her eyes. She turned back to Mal, “You have gorgeous skin.”

Tian nodded in agreement. “It has such high clarity. Not like my fuddy brown.”

“I think it’s pretty.” Mal said before he could stop himself, blushing even further. Tian’s smile widened a couple of molars.

Ita raised her eyebrows. “That’s a nice compliment, coming from a Tyr.”

Mal snapped his head to Rudy, who had the decency to look slightly ashamed. If only slightly. He hadn’t told the girls about his parents.

“Um, I, I’m not actually a Tyr.” Mal stuttered out. He couldn’t look directly at Tian. Well, either girl. But especially not Tian. He tried to focus on the ‘e’ in ‘Athletics’ instead. Es were safe. “Not even an offshoot. My father is human and my mother is an Eten with nice brown skin. My sister and I came out red. We don’t know why.”

“You’re half-Eten?” Tian gasped. Mal winced. Here it came. “That is so cool! I’ve never met one before. Have you, Ita?”

Ita shook her head. “Were your parents part of the first pairing program?”

Mal gave her a shaky nod. “Yes.”

“That would be so weird, having someone you don’t know chosen to be your partner.” Tian said. Ita nodded.

“They got a choice.” Mal said, “But they, uh, were encouraged to choose quickly.”

“Oh, that’s better.” Tian said, “Are they still together? Do you speak the Eten language?”

“Yes.”

“Yes to which? You shouldn’t ask two questions at once, Tian.” Ita said.

“Um, both. They are still together and I speak the Eten language.” Mal gulped. “Not right now. Obviously. I’m speaking English, but…yeah.” Mal laughed nervously, looking at the girls’ blank faces and then at the ground.

The girls gave each other a quick glance at his response. The silence began to get awkward, but Rudy spoke up. “Mal actually just got invited to Canada. To test at the Institute.” Rudy grinned, “He got a phone call from Daniel Pewter himself.”

Mal felt himself relax a small amount. Thank you Rudy.

“You can do magic?” Tian said with admiration in her voice. “So can my little brother! Ita and I are terrible at it though.”

“I’m only good at direct expression,” Ita said, “It’s why I’m here in the aug athlete program. Same with Tian, actually.”

“Your parents don’t mind?” Mal said, surprised. “My mom doesn’t have much of an opinion of aug athletes.”

Ita rolled her eyes, “Some Etens are like that. No offense. Luckily our parents are more progressive.”

“Uh, yeah. Good thing.” Mal said, looking back down at the ground. His mom was just biased. Go figure. Mal opened his mouth to say that, but stopped. He probably shouldn’t. No one wanted to hear about his parents. Did they?

Mal glanced at Rudy. He tried to signal he needed help again with his eyes, but Rudy wasn’t paying attention. He had been distracted by a paper bag blowing in the wind or a shiny object, probably. Stupid aug athlete. Luckily, Tian seemed to understand.

“Anyway it was nice meeting you, Mal,” she said, “We just wanted to say hi since Rudy talked about you so much. We will let you visit now! Oh, and happy birthday!” She took an amused looking Ita by the arm and turned her away, walking back into the Athletics building.

“Bye!” Mal said, but they had already left.

Ita turned to say something to Tian as they walked. But Mal’s good, pointed ears could still hear them.

“That was awkward,” he heard Ita giggle.

“I thought it was cute,” Tian said, “And he was cute too.”

“You’re just saying that because he kept calling you pretty.”

“And he could do magic. And his skin is gorgeous. And because he is so cute.”

“I guess he was kind of cute. Young though.”

“Not for me!”

The conversation cut off as the girls entered the building.

Cute. Like a little kid. Mal formed a thin line with his lips. Mal whirled on Rudy. “What the hell, Rudy?”

“What?” Rudy spun around, “Did the girls leave? Sorry I was looking at a rock over there. It’s kind of shaped like a foot.”

“You set me up!”

Rudy blinked. “Most guys say thank you when their friend sets them up with two pretty girls.”

“Not that kind of set up!” Mal said. “You tricked me. And you didn’t tell them that my mom had brown skin or that I was half Eten!”

“Sorry about that.” Rudy grinned, clearly not sorry at all. “But they were really interested in you. And you need all the help you can get.”

“I didn’t ask for help,” Mal grumbled. He crossed his arms and walked over to a nearby bench, sitting down. “Besides, they’re in college, probably more than two years older than me.”

“Tian’s not.” Rudy said, sitting beside him, “She’s in the same early acceptance program as me.”

Mal just grumbled to himself. He did not want to think of Rudy as reasonable.

“And I don’t care what you say, You do need help. I’m not going to be around forever to wingman you, you know.”

Mal turned slowly to face Rudy. “What do you mean?”

Rudy had a small grin on his face. “Coach Hamm wants me to join the college team for real in the new year.”

“Already?” Mal gaped, “Rudy. That’s amazing. You’re not even a freshman.”

Rudy looked at his knees. The smile on his face was genuine instead of the usual cocky grin/ Was Rudy…bashful? That couldn’t be right. “I’m only going to be a second for someone, but I’ll be traveling with the team to all the events.”

“A second. That means the actual combat arena.” Mal didn’t know whether to be happy or scared for his friend. “You will have to fight against college students. There are some Canadian teams in the NCAA, right?”

“Yeah. It’s going to be sweet.”

“Rudy! That means there could be extranormals fighting against you. And not just Etens! You’re sixteen!”

“You’re an extranormal. I can take you.” Rudy gave him a puzzled look, “Plus I’ll be seventeen by then.”

“You know what I mean,” Mal said. Canada had given all the extranormals full equal rights upon the agreement, unlike the US. They hadn’t meant to, of course, but a vampire who happened to be a part of their government had slipped in a clause that grandfathered all other extranormals into the agreement between Canada and Etenia. “You might fight a vampire or wereanimal-thing, or someone with mind powers or something.”

Rudy grinned at Mal, “I know, isn’t it awesome? I finally will get to show everyone that I, a normalish human, am even more awesome than they are.” Rudy’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“You could get hurt.” You’re going to be busy all the time.

“There are healers at every match. Magical healers.” Rudy leaned back in his place. “Maybe I’ll get hurt and a young Eten babe will be healing me.” Rudy put on a high falsetto voice, “‘You’re so brave, Rudy.’ She’ll say. ‘And so strong and handsome.’”

“I’m pretty sure the winner gets the girls,” Mal said with a snort.

“Who said anything about losing?” Rudy said, “If I’m going to get hurt, I’m going to win doing it.”

“That’s right. You’re awesome.” I’m going to miss you. I already miss you.

“That’s right. I am.” Rudy stood up and grimaced. “I’ve got to get going. Coach wants me doing interval training all afternoon.” He held out his hand for Mal to shake. “Happy birthday, Mal.”

Mal took his hand and shook it. “We do handshakes now?”

Rudy grinned, pulling Mal to his feet and slapping him on the shoulder. “See you later, Mal.”

Mal watched Rudy walk off towards the college practice fields, the winter sun shining warm on his back. To Mal, it felt like the start of a long goodbye.

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

Mal arrived home late that evening. The buses on the way back from the UCLA campus had not been as agreeable as the one on the way there, taking nearly three hours to get him home. He walked in the front door to find a small surprise waiting for him. His father was home. Before his mother or even Ophi.

Oscar Thomas was sitting in his mother’s pristine kitchen, quietly munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He was still in the suit he wore to work, one of four he owned for the same purpose. This one was gray, old, and worn. It might have even been the same suit he wore when he brought Mal to visit the office over eight years ago.

“You’re home early.” Mal said, joining his father at the kitchen table.

“And you’re home late,” his father said through a mouthful of peanut butter.

“I missed all my buses. Had to wait.”

“Listen, Mal,” Oscar put his sandwich down and pushed the plate to his side. “We need to talk about a few things.”

Mal looked at his father’s posture. His shoulders were straight and his hands were in front of him, fingers interlocked. It was the same posture he had when he told them their grandparents had died.

“What’s wrong?” Mal felt a little spike of adrenaline shoot through his body, sending a shiver down his back.

“Nothing’s wrong,” A lie. Stupid fucking ability. “But first I want to say congratulations. I know I said it already, but the Institute is a really big deal.” HIs father gave him a warm smile, “I want you to know I am so, so proud of you.”

“Okay…”

“But,” his father sighed, “Do you know how we can afford to send you and your sister to Polytechnic?”

Mal nodded. “The pairing program, right? It pays for all expenses for any kids you and Mom have until we turn eighteen.”

“Yes. The pairing program pays for your expenses.” Oscar said, “But it’s not until you turn eighteen.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s until you finish high school.” His father sighed again. “Do you understand?”

“I’m finished high school.” Mal bit his lip, “As soon as I submit a form saying that I want to pursue magic, right?”

His father nodded. “I checked at work today because I wasn't sure. The Institute does not count as a high school in the program. We’ve saved money, but it’s expensive, Mal.”

“I- What are you saying?” Mal’s voice sounded hollow. “I can’t go?”

“No! No.” His father shook his head and gave Mal a warm smile, “I would never take this away from you, Mal. Not even if we didn’t have a dollar to our name. What I’m saying is your sister wants to go to the Institute as well. And you both still have the Institute’s college program to think about after as well.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“It means you need to get a scholarship. Or a job. Preferably both. We have a little more than half, we think, for you and your sister both. That includes money for anything you need like food, textbooks, or gadgets, once you’re in Canada.”

"Gadgets?"

"I don't know what mages need." HIs father shrugged.

“I don’t think food will be a problem.” Mal began to relax a little. Etens had rules about that. “I can get a job, that’s not so bad. And I can apply for scholarships once university comes around. How much is half?”

Oscar pursed his lips. “For six years, half is about three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Oh.” That was a lot. That was more than a lot. There was no way he could make three hundred thousand dollars working part time while going to school. Especially not for six years. He might be able to pay for half of that. “I thought it would be less.”

“I know it seems like a lot,” Oscar said, “But there are plenty of scholarships that offer to pay percentages of any tuition you might have, so a lot of it might get taken off if you get one of those. But you’ll need to keep your grades up while you’re there.” His father gave him a significant look.

That’s right. Mal’s grades had dropped precipitously since his friends had left school. And he had never paid much attention even before that.

“I can do that.” Mal said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “I can do that.”

“It’s not the end of the world if you don’t, Mal. But you don’t want to take on student debt if you can help it. We are in a very lucky position, having saved as much as we have. There’s something else you can do, too.”

“What’s that?”

“As an Eten who came over during the Merge, your mother is a Canadian citizen. You can apply to be one as well, as her son. It would drastically reduce the costs of your education if you weren’t a foreign student. By more than half. Much more.”

“Then why don’t we do that?” Mal said. He could be a Canadian. He liked maple syrup. He could say ‘eh’.

“It can take years.” His father said, “We are going to apply with Ophi as well, but the reality is you might have graduated before your paperwork goes through.”

“I-okay. What should I do now?” Mal said. The weight of the money was already looming over his head.

“Get a job, I guess,” his father said. “Just take it one step at a time. I’ll look for scholarships you can apply for, and I’ll get everything in order for your citizenship application and we’ll see where everything goes.”

“Alright. Thanks, Dad.” Mal got out of his chair in a daze and stumbled to his room.

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