Julienne punched Archie with full force.

As the knuckles sunk into Archie’s arm, he heard a crack. Intense pain radiated from the point of impact, sending Archie stumbling away while clutching his bicep.

Julienne tried to shake away the pain in his hand.

Archie sucked air between his teeth as he tried to regroup. He walked back up to Julienne, squared up, and punched him in the arm. Archie’s knuckles sunk into leathery skin and slid off.

“Ah!” Julienne yelled in pain as he spun around.

“You give up yet?” Archie asked, panting.

Julienne answered by wheeling around with his fist, hitting the same spot on Archie’s arm. Another crack. Crystalline flakes fell to the ground. The pain compounded with the previous punch, sending Archie down to one knee. He took a deep breath and squared up to Julienne again.

Nori watched from the side.

“You’re both idiots,” she said.

Archie and Julienne both dropped their fighting stances, relaxing their bodies and shaking their heads at Nori.

“We’re training!” Archie said.

“Yeah, training like idiots,” Nori said.

“Well how would you do it?” Julienne asked. He put his hands on his hips and struggled to catch his breath.

“I don’t know. But it wouldn’t involve getting punched.”

“Sure, Nori,” Archie said. “Train your defenses without having to defend against anything.” He shook his head and squared back up to Julienne. “Ready?”

Julienne groaned. “You’re not done?”

“I got another one in me,” Archie said.

It had happened just as quickly as Tarragon predicted. One week, they could hardly control their essence across their entire body. The next, they could control and command it, getting rid of Tarragon’s flimsy restraints with ease. And a week after that, their essence took physical form.

Archie and Julienne had been drawn together through training. Others matched their skills or matched their resolve, but never both. Archie saw a possible future beneath the fighting pit. Julienne was just happy to get out of the kitchen.

Tarragon had coached them through it, helping Archie to conjure hardened sugar against his skin. Archie knew he would remember that first moment forever, his skin crystallizing and glistening in the sun. Julienne’s rindskin was tougher than Archie’s sugarskin, but Archie could punch harder and thus held the advantage.

“Through the hips,” Tarragon coached Archie. “Punch through your hips. That’s where you get the power.”

“Don’t help him,” Julienne protested.

“And you. When you do your rindskin, start with a wide patch. Once you identify where the blow will land, consolidate it to the point of impact.”

Julienne flexed his arm against his body, focusing his essence. He stuck his tongue out, a concentration tick he had failed to suppress. The hue of his skin shifted to uneven browns.

“Hold on,” Julienne said. The brown skin hardened, taking on the texture of a hard cheese rind. “Okay, if you punch me, you know I get to punch back. You can’t tap out when it’s not your turn.”

“I know,” Archie said as he rubbed his fist on his palm.

“Okay. Go.”

Archie raised his fist, rocking back on one leg.

“Not so hard,” Julienne pleaded. “Not so hard.”

“Stay grounded,” Tarragon reminded Archie. “And Julienne, quit sticking your tongue out. You’re gonna bite it off.”

Archie pulled his punch a little. But only a little. As his knuckles sunk into Julienne’s arm, the leathery rindskin effect of Julienne’s flesh faded away, leaving nothing but soft pink flesh and bone to stop the punch.

A jolt of pain shot up from Archie’s fist—but he knew Julienne had it worse.

Julienne clutched his arm and fell to the ground. “I lost it! I give up! I give up!”

Tarragon dismissed them with the wave of a hand and went to help the other students.

“Idiots,” Nori repeated. She stared at her own palm. A drop of lemon juice formed in her hand and rolled down her forearm.

“You okay?” Archie asked as he put a hand out for Julienne to grab.

“Yeah. Just leave me here.”

Archie sat on the ground next to him.

“You’re getting better,” Archie said.

“Yeah. And you’re getting better at punching.” Julienne pulled up his sleeve and examined the variety of yellow and purple bruises scattered across his arm. “Look at this one.”

Archie showed off his own bruises. “This one’s turned green.”

After a month in Tarragon’s class, their defenses were their most impressive feat of pure conjuration—made easier than other techniques due to the proximity to the skin. Their other attempts at conjuration had varying degrees of success, but always had one thing in common—they were done in competition.

First, they sought advice from Oliver. He had managed to turn his fluke bubble stream into a reliable technique that he could do on command.

“I’ve kinda figured it out,” he said. “I don’t know how to…say it. But there’s this feeling that I can remember and I sorta live in that. Then I shoot essence and it works.”

Despite his inability to explain his methods, his results were undeniable. At least once per class, the students had to clear out of the way as Oliver’s alcoholic bubbles rolled across the field.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Archie and Julienne practiced their fizzy conjuration on cups of water. Archie held the cup and thought of the feeling he had at Lifted Spirits. He imagined the floating. The colors. Dancing with Nori. How had that night ended? He couldn’t remember.

Fizz filled the top fifth of the cup. Archie reveled in his triumph—until he saw Julienne’s cup overflow with bubbles. Point. Julienne.

Next came acid. They went to the only other consistent conjurer, Yarrow. His acidic splash did more than turn the essence-detecting flour red—it burned away the paper canvas.

“What do you want?” Yarrow asked Archie impatiently. Then the scowl on his face vanished, replaced by a brown-noser’s delight. “Julienne! What do you want?” he asked eagerly.

Yarrow revealed that his breakthrough had come while focusing on his ambitions. He thought of the things he wanted most and felt the essence change inside his body.

Archie and Julienne thought of the same thing—bringing a new level of prestige to their name. Archie shot out pure essence without a hint of citrus. Julienne stepped forward to try, his tongue wriggling around his lower lip as he thrust his hand forward.

Visually, Julienne shared Archie’s failure, having only conjured an invisible force, but upon closer inspection, Julienne’s palm smelled like lemon. He claimed the point.

Meanwhile, Nori worked on her craft.

“Look, I did it!” Nori held out her glistening palm and ran to Archie and Julienne.

Archie ran his finger across her palm and tasted. “Lemony. And salty.”

Julienne grabbed Nori’s wrist and pulled her in, licking her palm.

“Gross!” she screamed while laughing.

While Archie laughed, he felt like Nori laughed a little too long.

Down two points, Archie picked the next category. Blueberries.

Julienne managed to learn Archie’s throwing trick, duplicating and hardening berries as he threw them.

Child’s play.

Archie flicked a blueberry that sped up enough to snap a tree branch. He showed off his firecracker trick. His bouncing trick. With some guidance from Tarragon, he even managed to create a serviceable smokescreen of blue mist.

At the end of the month, he could even conjure a blueberry from nothing—but it had no leftover essence to be manipulated and disappeared within seconds.

Despite being beaten ten ways, Julienne still only allowed Archie to claim one point.

Next, they went to Cress and Akando to observe their heat-making abilities.

Cress had the smoke—when she snapped her fingers, a small wisp of gray air danced its way up before being lost in the wind.

Akando had the sizzle—he could heat the air a few feet away from his body. It had been a mild winter, but it was still cold enough in the morning for Akando’s heat to be a comfort—until he directed it at Archie’s face, making him nauseous.

Nori jumped at Archie from behind and clapped her hands, splattering lemon juice on his face. “Getting better!”

She clapped again in Julienne’s face, spraying him.

As punishment, the boys forced her to be the judge. Archie warmed his hand with essence, resisting the temptation to rub his other hand for the heat of friction. He placed his hand on one of Nori’s forearms. Julienne placed his hand on the other.

“Mmm…Archie’s hotter.”

Bet you don’t get that too often, pretty boy.

Point. Archie.

They went to Benedict and Barley to try mint magic next.

Barley could blow cool, minty air on command. Tarragon has taken special notice, insisting that Barley was off to a great start.

Archie and Julienne took turns blowing in Barley’s face—anyone other than him would have made them stop. Per Barley’s advice, Archie tried to create two concentrations of essence—one in his lungs and one in his lips.

Archie couldn’t find his lungs, but he managed to cool off the air with the essence in his lips. Barley declared Archie the winner. Later, when they were alone, he also gave Archie an herb for his breath.

Benedict couldn’t manipulate the air like Barley, but he could manipulate flavor. He jiggled some pebbles in his hand and gave them to Archie and Julienne. They popped the pebbles in their mouth and tasted mint.

“Don’t chew,” Benedict warned. “It’s just flavor.”

Nori flicked lemon juice at them as they chased her with handfuls of pebbles. “Find someone else to taste them!” she yelled as she ran away.

“I’ll do it,” Mindy volunteered.

She had been working with Julienne all semester, but Archie was still surprised by their level of chemistry. Archie felt like he wasn’t meant to see the face she made when she sucked on Julienne’s rocks. Julienne managed to be both unnerved and encouraging with the way he laughed softly.

“You know, my parents were gonna name me Minty,” she explained as she took Archie’s pebbles. “But they didn’t want to put the whole ‘name-after-food’ pressure on me. So they hedged their bets. ‘Mindy.’”

She tasted the pebbles and spat them out crudely. “Both are minty, but Julienne’s definitely have more flavor.”

Julienne celebrated by punching Archie.

“I thought I might be a natural at mint,” Mindy continued. “Because of the name thing. Turns out I’m more sour than cool.”

“Like citrus?” Archie asked.

“No. Just…sour.”

“Show me,” Julienne said.

Mindy grabbed Julienne’s wrist and closed her eyes. The hair on his forearm stuck up in a wave.

“Whoa.” Julienne chewed on the air. “I can taste it.”

“Grab his other arm,” Mindy told Archie.

Archie did as she commanded. As his hand closed on Julienne’s arm, he felt static fill the space between. A tingling sensation shot from his hand into the rest of his body, making his mouth water.

Archie and Julienne spent an hour holding each other’s forearms, watching closely for the first raised hair. Julienne tried to claim a victory, but Archie denied him, citing the cold weather as the reason for his raised hair.

While they argued whether or not goosebumps was enough evidence, Nori managed to grow a lemon from an oak tree. The inside was nearly all rind, but she still celebrated the progress.

The boys bickered all the way up to Tarragon before asking him for advice.

“Sit down.” Tarragon said, putting a heavy hand on each boy’s shoulder and directing them to the rest of the class. “Be quiet. And watch.”

Nori paraded around with her inedible lemon. Oliver practiced making the biggest bubble he could. Mindy traded sour pebbles for Benedict’s minty pebbles. Barley blew rings of fog at Cress, who countered by clapping her hands and producing clouds of smoke. Akando melted a piece of candy in his hand. Yarrow squeezed acid from his own palm, killing the grass beneath him. Hyssop showed off a patch of prismatic fish scales to Juniper, who frowned at the ugly brown potato skin that she had managed to coat her forearm with. Blanche summoned a flower from the ground. The only student that hadn’t made tremendous progress was Sutton, who sat beneath a tree reading how to perform techniques rather than trying to do them himself.

Tarragon leaned down and spoke softly to Archie and Julienne. “Over the last couple of weeks, you two have been bouncing from student to student, trying this. Trying that. And you’ve both been successful at almost everything.

“But them? They’re still working on the one thing. You two have a natural talent for many things. You’re lucky in that regard. Right now, none of these students can stand up to your versatility.

“But when Nori throws an exploding lemon in your face, how are you going to stop your face from melting off? I understand your ambition, but you can’t be a master of everything until you’re a master of something. Your defensive skins. Those are good. Keep practicing that. But wasn’t it pasta that brought you two together?”

Archie and Julienne looked at each other and nodded.

The next day, they prepared a bowl of noodles, careful to be sure each one had an equal amount of essence. They each grabbed a noodle and slung it out while elongating it, seeing who could make it extend the farthest.

Archie started with the lead, edging out Julienne ten feet to five. But after a few more attempts, Archie’s fifteen feet was nearly matched by Julienne’s thirteen.

“What are you two doing?” Nori asked.

“Seeing whose noodle is biggest,” Archie said absentmindedly. He cast another noodle, this one overtaking Julienne’s and passing twenty feet.

Nori shook her head. “No comment.” She concentrated on the shriveled, squeezed lemon in her hand, willing it back into a plump state.

The boys spent the rest of the week on their pastamancy. They practiced using it like a lasso on each other, improving their abilities to restrain and break out of restraint. They tied it in knots around tree trunks and tried to yank the other person’s in order to break it.

And then in the last week of their competition, Archie rubbed his palms back and forth, back and forth. His mind ran through all the different ways he had experienced essence in pasta. Rubbing his hands. Back and forth. Back and forth. The magic of motion.

He felt something roll up between his palms. But he didn’t look. Not yet. He kept rubbing. Kept concentrating.

He opened his hands to see a conjured noodle.

Point. Match. Archie.