The excitement of being able to text my friends was somewhat undercut by the fact that, apart from me telling them where in the world I was (a conversation briefly interrupted by them asking where Duniyasar was, and me having to go and find Max to learn that we were apparently in Pakistan), we didn’t actually have all that much to discuss. We’d seen each other less than twelve hours ago.

The sudden evacuation had caused remarkably little disturbance in the school. Some homework deadlines were adjusted, and it gave Magista an excuse to have a little party, but otherwise things trucked on as normal. The party took place right before the next full moon, and since I hadn’t been at the last one I felt kind of obligated to go this time. It was fairly typical Magista fare; snacks, fancy art, rich kids talking to other rich kids and trying to leave good impressions on each other so that when they eventually had power they’d have connections with other mages with power. The art was always weird; I found myself staring at a tall, thin abstract carving that I thought might be two dolphins fighting. Or maybe a woman on a couch?

“Does that look familiar to you?’ I asked Max.

“Mm? Oh. Power in layers of pearl? You’ve probably seen it at another one of these parties. Magista’s good friends with Ellen, the owner, and I think Ellen likes to remind people that she has it. It’s a very important piece, culturally speaking.”

“… It is?”

Max wrinkled his nose. “Well, these things attract stories. There’s a myth, or common folk tale I guess, saying that Power in Layers of Pearl contains the key to Torada’s treasure.”

“Ooh, are we talking about Torada stories?” Saina’s voice was right behind me, making me jump. “I love those!”

“Who?” I asked.

“Torada!” She lifted a hand dramatically. “Hero of a thousand spells!”

Max snorted. “He’s a pirate, not a hero, and you know as well as I do that the ‘thousand spells’ thing is an anachronism.”

“Killjoy.”

“Just saying, historically, just because everyone relates their folk stories to one specific character and he has a different spell in each doesn’t mean that having all of those spells is part of his character. That’s like saying that ‘Jack’ from every nursery rhyme ever has a very eventful life, when it is obviously intended as a placeholder name.”

“You’ll pry my many-spelled hero pirate from my cold, dead hands, Max Acanthos. You have no fantasy in your soul.”

“We’re trying to stop you from having cold, dead hands,” I pointed out, before the two fancy rich kids could get into another vacuous discussion about things I’d never heard of. “You prepared for tonight?”

“Absolutely. I’ve got some Next Generation lined up. After this full moon, you’ll finally know enough to have strong opinions on Kirk versus Picard.”

“Oh, joy.”

“The correct answer is Picard, by the way.”

“Clearly it’s Kirk,” Max cut in, crossing his arms.

“Has everyone except me secretly been a Star Trek fan this whole time or what?”

“I’m not a fan,” Max said, “but Kayden, you are absolutely the only person who’s never been incidentally exposed to Star Trek until now. Do excuse me, I have people to greet.” He flashed us the ghost of a smile, put on his Composed Party Face, and started to drift over to Magista. I looked back at the sculpture in front of me.

“It’s kind of ugly,” I said quietly to Saina.

She giggled. “Oh, I know. All the most important art is.”

“What’s this about being a key?”

“Oh. Old tale. It’s gotten tangled up in a folk tale about Torada – ”

“This mythical pirate with a thousand spells?”

“Yes, him – where he fought a great magician and used forbidden knowledge to steal all the treasure in the magician’s tower and hide it in his pirate treasure hoard, and hid the key inside this sculpture.”

“And has anyone – ?”

“Oh, yes. It’s been examined, X-rayed, scanned by dozens of prophets. There’s no key in there. But it’s a fun story.”

I frowned. “Why would a magician have a tower full of treasure?’

“Okay, Next Generation is on hold. This full moon, we’re binging the entire cartoon series of The Adventures Of Tarada. It was made on a shoestring budget, several of the tales were warped beyond recognition to make it, and it’s absolutely terrible.”

“Sounds amazing.”

“It is! Oh, have you spoken to Hammond yet? Peter’s not here, but Hammond says he wants to try an upcoming relay pit comp with a maze in it.”

“A relay race in a maze?”

“I know, it’s going to be a disaster. We should do it.”

“We absolutely should.” I told the wary little voice in the back of my mind to shut up. The maze wasn’t going to be anything like the Initiation or the labyrinth of dreams and there was no reason for me to freak out again.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

I glanced around the room. Max, talking to Magista, tucking a strand of loose hair back behind her ear. He was fine. Kylie, talking to a group of her friends whom I didn’t know very well, but they were friends, not random people who’d cornered her, so she was fine. I’d been kind of worried that people would pounce on her at a party like this and try to get information out of her over the familiar thing, and a year and a half ago, that would’ve been a concern, but somewhere along the line Kylie had changed. She was no longer the stranger-shy, introverted girl who’d shrink in on herself and huddle in a corner and hope people would take the hint and leave her alone; she’d become a stranger-shy, introverted girl who stood tall and exuded an aura of ‘don’t enter my personal bubble unless you’re sure you’re actually worth my time’. If anyone had told me the first day she’d arrived that she was carrying one of the most politically important spells in the world, I wouldn’t have believed them; now, it seemed perfectly natural. She didn’t need my help.

I let Saina drag me over to talk to Hammond, spoke to the handful of old friends I wanted to catch up with, ate far too many cocktail sausages, and eventually the party was over and I was off, once again, to spend three days with Saina and just kind of be there to make sure that nobody killed her.

The Tarada cartoon was, indeed, quite terrible. The animation was terrible, the episodes disjointed, every villain-of-the-week had such shallow and inconsistent motivations, and the writers used the ‘thousand spells’ thing to just invent a new spell for Tarada whenever he needed to get out of a tight spot.

Well, okay, a lot of those problems were probably down to the fact that they were adapting a bunch of folk tales related only by the protagonist’s name, and not necessarily the fault of the writers. Presumably the viewer was supposed to know these stories, and foreshadowing the specific spell that Tarada had in any given story wasn’t necessary. But to an ignorant viewer like me, it was a mess.

“Hang on,” I broke in while Saina and I sat next to each other on the floor and watching Tarada bring down a building on top of an evil wizard on her little laptop screen, “isn’t that the granary? The whole conflict is that the bad guy’s magically sabotaging the village’s crops so he can sell them enough food to live at whatever price he wants, right? He wants to threaten them with starvation to take everything they have? And Tarada destroyed the granary to defeat him?”

“He hasn’t defeated him yet. It’s a tough battle!”

“Right, but whether Tarada wins or loses, the town has no stores now. Even if he wins, he’s made it worse than if he wasn’t there at all. How’s he the hero of this story? I’m just saying, if I was going to protect people from a problem, I’d try to find a way to do it without causing an even worse problem, or I’d butt out.”

“Good to know you aren’t planning to assassinate me even worse than the assassin,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Worry not, fair Princess.”

“I keep telling you, I’m not a princess.”

“Agree to disa – oh, come on, he’s not even going to kill the wizard? He’s just leaving?!”

Saina didn’t answer, just watching me with open amusement.

“What?”

“You’re taking this garbage cartoon very seriously.”

“You’re the one who wanted to show it to me. You know how indignant I get over things. This is your fault.”

“I know.” She laid her head on my shoulder, turning her eyes back to the screen. “It’s cute.”

I froze.

Saina wasn’t a touchy-feely person, at least not around me. So this was new. Some people got more tactile with their friends as they got to know them better; was that what she was doing? Or was she pushing for… something else?

It wasn’t as if I’d be opposed. Saina was pretty, and funny, and smart, and she… I mean, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t have dreams and maybe some idle thoughts and just looking at her made me feel… it, it wasn’t as if I’d be opposed, anyway. If she wanted that kind of relationship. I just wanted to know. If she was feeling things out, waiting for a reaction from me, great, but what if she wasn’t? What if she was just being friends, and I hit on her, and she didn’t want that, and we were stuck together for three days just feeling awkward? She might be lying on me just because she was tired. There was no way I could react, at least not unsubtlely, without being sure. My only previous romantic partner had signalled his interest by passionately kissing me on a magical balcony, which might be considered coming on a bit strong, but was at least pretty unambiguous, as far as signals went. I wasn’t sure what to do with ambiguous subtlety.

I’d been frozen for too long. Saina, apparently accepting this as rejection, sat back up and started finger-combing her hair to disguise the movement. I should say something. Unless I was reading too much into it, and she’d just felt a bit tired and then she’d actually sat up just to comb her hair, and I was just being a weirdo by assuming anything else. If that was how things were, then saying anything would just make me a creep she was stuck with. I shouldn’t way anything.

I needed some subtle, plausibly deniable expressions if interest to make in return. So if she was looking, she’d know I was interested, but if she wasn’t then she wouldn’t notice. I racked my brain for something to do or say, but came up blank. I couldn’t stop thinking about the memory of warm pressure of her head on my shoulder.

I stood abruptly. “I think I still have rich kid politics stuck to my skin from the party,” I told her. “I’m going to go wash it off.”

Then I made an escape to the shower.

And the award for Disaster Idiot goes to Kayden James, who can handle secret mazes of magical terrors but apparently falls apart if a pretty girl rests her head on his shoulder. What the fuck. The gesture wasn’t even that unusual – girls used me as a pillow all the time. Thing was, they were usually Chelsea or Melissa or occasionally Kylie, and my romantic potential with any of those had always been zero. I’d say they were like sisters, if I’d had any sisters and knew anything about what having sisters was like. Saina was… probably not interested, I mean probably, I mean it wasn’t like I was remotely in her league. But I hadn’t been in Magistus’ league, either. Maybe I was just really bad at knowing what people wanted in a boyfriend.

But it was probably nothing. Some girls were just tactile. We were friends, she was comfortable around me, and she deserved better than me assuming more just because she was pretty and fun. Unless she did want more. But…

Ugh, why did I have to make such a big deal out of such tiny things?

I stepped out of the shower, stared at my own reflection in the mirror and willed myself to Act Like A Normal Person. I could fake that. I’d had plenty of practice.

My eyes locked onto my chest in the mirror. Onto the tattoo indicating sound, drawn around that little witch mark. I found myself looking hard for the invisible scars that Malas said –

Nope. Not thinking about that right now. One emotionally confusing mess at a time. I tore my eyes away and found them landing on the more visible scar on my arm, the two semicircles under my thumb like a distorted impression of teeth.

Wait.

I looked closer. Prodded at the scar. Moved the skin around a bit to satisfy myself that what I was seeing was definitely not a figment of my own imagination. Chided myself for not paying more attention sooner.

I’d just figured out why the scar on Chelsea’s arm, made prominent by the lattice of tiny stretch marks around it, had bothered me so much. It wasn’t because I was being overprotective or felt guilty for giving her the potion, or any stupid juvenile nonsense like that. It had bothered me because it was familiar.

The exact same pattern surrounded the scar on my arm.