Tenthé’s next class was History. Yeah, he’d like to learn about his family, but all the rest? Yawn.

As he was passing through a hallway, he could see that something going on. A slow walking student was blocking his path and others were coming up behind with a little more energy than normal. When the student in front of him stopped and turned, Tenthé was completely unsurprised to recognize Leo LePoiterice, sneer and all. Given that, the strong hands that grabbed him from each side most certainly belonged to his minions.

Tenthé had been holding his shields at skin level, but tweaked them so he would be difficult to lift or shove. It would take an alert foe to perceive these changes. The three around him had no clue.

“Ah, Master Tenthé! We have unfinished business!”

Tenthé didn’t reply. He was sure Leo would blather on for a while. It seemed to be basic to the nature of people like him.

“Nothing to say? Very good. There isn’t anything you could do to change your immediate future. I sense that you are having thoughts about turning down my generous offer. This would be inadvisable since I can make your life quite difficult, and once you leave the College, I’m sure my retainers would prove… inconvenient to you, without the oversight of the Guardians.

“Everyone knows that the current state of the City means we’re in for hard times, and my family, along with others, are prepared to deal with the difficulties. Take my offer or you’ll regret it!”

Tenthé glanced around. There was a pile of Guardians in attendance, watching. The wards were also active, spiraling in and out of the room, ready to counter anything serious.

Tenthé was impressed by the show of power the College was putting on. It might be enough to keep the boys safe, although he had no intention of going that far.

“So, as you can see, it is only a reasonable request for… what are you two doing?”

Phil and Johan had let go of Tenthé, stepped back, and were standing, staring at Leo. Or, rather, what was behind him.

“Ah, Master LePoiterice,” Elishua said. “Don’t you think it might be unwise to threatening those who do not have access to the influence you enjoy? Before you protest, I’m confident you understand everything said in the College is recorded? I think we will need to have a discussion with your mother. Concerning… what did you say? How you and the other families are “prepared for what is coming”? Are you sure this is the sort of thing she wants us to know?”

She paused for effect, then continued, “Hmm, I am sure that Magister Tomas has time to talk with you three, right now. Come along. No dawdling.”

With this, she herded Leo, Phil, and Johan in the direction of the Headmaster’s office. The hallway had emptied, leaving Tenthé by himself, except for the stealthed Guardians. One of them made shooing motions and Tenthé jogged off.

Up until now, he wasn’t sure how good the security of the College was, but it appeared that they really tried to keep things under control. Which was good, because so far, he hadn’t had to get serious about defending himself. He’d like to keep it that way.

A short while later, Tenthé was sitting in History, waiting for the Magister. A voice came from behind him.

“Tenthé? May I have a word with you?”

Turning, Tenthé recognized Anders, the boy he’d met with Isabell. They hadn’t talked recently, so if things were normal, he shouldn’t remember him.

“Sure.”

“You don’t know me, but I wanted to thank you for whatever you did for Isabell. She’s shot to the top of her Combat class and our families are very proud.”

Crap. Bear was right. Obviously, Isabell had let the cat out of the bag. Not one to worry about things he couldn’t change, Tenthé rolled with it.

“Sure. No big deal.”

“Oh, I beg to disagree! It really is a big deal. Everyone wants to meet you and show our appreciation.”

“Um, why?”

“What do you mean? What you did was extraordinary!”

“She had a little issue. I just helped her out.”

“Uh-uh. We didn’t realize there even was an issue. And we’ve done some investigation. No-one knows what you did!”

“All I did was clean up her channels.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“You see! That isn’t something we knew was a problem.”

“Oh.”

Anders looked up toward the Magister. “Um, the class is starting. Can we get together, after?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. Talk with you then,” and he left to take his seat.

Tenthé didn’t really want to meet with anyone. His experiences with powerful people meant they tried to use him. It often ended badly. Not for him, but he was trying to be good. Hopefully, the forgetting would take care this little problem.

“All right everyone, sit down and shut up.”

A drawing appeared on the wall behind the Magister. It resembled a tree with lots of glyphs written all over it.

A number of gasps came from the student.

Magister Baeuerin continued, “Yep, read and weep. This is the truth. What you see has been fully vetted. Everything may be new to you, but I assure you, your older family members have seen it before, even if they didn’t choose to share.

“I have placed each of you in the tree, but these glyphs only represent your likely positions. What is missing is exact data about each of you. We will remedy that shortfall after we’re done with the preliminaries.”

With this, she began calling out student’s names and, using a long wooden pointer, explained where they and their family were shown on the tree. Tenthé figured out that the glyphs were names, and the further back in time you went, the higher she pointed.

As the explanations continued, a few people ended up yelling and others cried. The Magister remained unperturbed throughout.

“And, Tenthé! This represents you.”

The Magister was looking at him while she indicated a glyph at the bottom of the chart. Where most of the lines on the graph were solid, his was a line of dots leading to another glyph.

“We had a sample of your blood from when you came to the College, and Magister Tomas gave us permission to use it. As you can see, we don’t have much information, but there’s a small possibility of a relative of yours out there. Currently, Tomas has someone checking it out. We’ll probably know more by the time we have our next class.”

With this, she moved on to another student. Or victim. It was hard to tell the difference.

Tenthé was surprised. Maybe he had someone out there! Maybe not, but still, maybe! As he sat wondering, he noticed people coming down to take some kind of alchemical test. A few declined, but most took part. When the bong sounded to signal the end of class, the Magister was still calling down students. He got up and left.

“Tenthé!” he heard as he entered the hallway. He’d forgotten about Anders.

“Did you think about what I said?” Tenthé had, but not in the way Anders meant.

“Yeah, but…” he had an idea. “I better talk with Magister Tomas before I do anything. I’m just a kid. He sponsored me and I have to see what he thinks.”

Anders looked disappointed for a brief moment, then recovered. “Well, okay, but I hope you can let me know soon.”

“Sure.” Whew.

With classes over for the day, Tenthé wandered the halls. He had heard that they got Sixday off. Even more, there was an extra day stuck in a week every so often, called SevenDay. They got classes off for that too. Elishua said SevenDays were added to make the year work out. Tenthé was still trying to get used to having days off. In the Mission District, almost everyone worked every day.

This was more than a passing interest to Tenthé, because with the forgetting, a longer break might be a problem. He probably should talk to Tomas and see what they could do. More than once, his life had been thrown into a loop when absolutely no-one remembered him.

As he neared the dorm, he felt a presence. A monstrous hand swept him up and pulled him through a couple of the planes until he was somewhere alone with the Guard, surrounded by countless points of light. Tenthé just rolled with it.

“Hey.”

“Hey… Tenthé.”

“So, can you tell me; what are you? A god? Nope, doesn’t feel right. You’re with the Guardians, but they’re tiny, and you’re huge. I just don’t know.”

“I’m old… really old… from before… people and gods. All I am… is me.”

Tenthé sat in the Guard’s hand. It was kind of nice. He had a thought.

“Do you want to be friends?”

There was a long pause, then the Guard responded, “Sure… I suppose.”

“Okay.”

They just stayed like that for a time. It was nice.

“I’ve got… a gift… for you.” the Guard said, eventually.

With that, the Guard dropped his hand and Tenthé found himself standing in the hallway he’d left. A small object plunged through the ceiling and landed with a plop on the floor.

“I… think that’s… yours.”

It was Bear, relatively whole, but looking bad. He was filthy and smelled like the drunks who passed out in the alleys near the Mission.

“We would have… returned him… sooner, but… we were running bets… and I had to see… if he would survive… He did.”

The Guard faded out from Tenthé’s vision. When Tenthé went to pick up the toy, he found Bear was sticky. Nothing he wanted to touch. He grabbed a wooden rod from a Pocket, stuck it under the body and after a few tries, managed to get it to stay.

Upon reaching his room, he dumped Bear into the shower and turned on the water. It flowed brown for quite a while. All of a sudden, Bear jumped to his feet, yelled, “Twenty-seven pancakes and a beer!” then ran into the wall and collapsed.

Tenthé poured a bunch of soap on him, then thought for a moment and emptied the bottle. He used the rod to stir Bear around until the water ran clear. Or rather, clearer. Tenthé turned the shower off and stomped on the limp form to get most of the water out.

After poking Bear with his finger, he went to borrow more soap, then repeated the process. Quite a few times. Eventually, Bear wasn’t sticky anymore, so Tenthé stomped one last time and carried the body up to his lair, where he draped it over the window sill to dry.

He descended back to his other room, made a feeble attempt to clean up, and went out to the lounge.

The boys were planning what they would do on Sixday. Someone had found a mod for the shooting game that allowed it to work anywhere in the College, so they were considering challenging the other dorms to a day of hallway warfare.

Of course, everyone immediately agreed that this was an excellent plan, and began debating tactics, which mainly consisted of how much food they needed to steal from the dining room.

The consensus was that it was going to be epic!