My potion book contained a full page and a half of biohazard warnings about potions containing human blood. Wear protection when handling other peoples’ blood, beware the dangers of open wounds, et cetera. I’d had enough accidents to know how to handle blood. Alone in the little workshop I’d booked, I pricked my finger and carefully added three drops of blood to a vial of blue liquid. The drops spread out, turning the liquid transparent which, according to the potion book, was exactly what was meant to happen.

This was much easier than that at-will casting nonsense. No ‘try to feel how to do it’, not ‘every spell is different’. A list of clear instructions, you obey the instructions, and boom, magic. If it doesn’t work, you messed up the instructions. Or the rules changed. But I didn’t think anything in a beginner’s potion book was likely to change any time soon.

“May I come in?” somebody asked in the doorway.

The voice was familiar, but unexpected. I glanced up. “Instruktanto Fiore. What are you doing here?”

“I’m not an instruktanto this semester,” he pointed out. He was, indeed, dressed in master’s blue, instead of instruktanto violet. “I’m here to see my nephew, but I wanted to see how you were doing while I was around.”

It was probably impolitic to respond to that with ‘why?’, so I sought for something else to say. “I’m fine. And you?”

“In much better spirits without the stress of teaching. Did I thank you, for your help with that Sims difficulty?”

“With Clara?” I phrased it as a clarifying question, but from the tightening of his eyes I could see that he got the point. Clara had been disowned by her family, and it had been made clear that her sins were her own, not theirs, and I wasn’t going to be manoeuvred into blaming them. (Ugh, why was I doing this? I didn’t even know Clara’s family. What did any of this have to do with me? What did he want?) “Yes, you did. Think nothing of it. I was just exposing truth, whatever it was.” I didn’t do it for your politics, I’m not choosing sides in your games.

“An admirable goal. Nevertheless, we are indebted.” (He’d already told me this the last time we’d met. Why remind me that he owed me something? Wasn’t that weakening his, his political power, or whatever?) “I’m given to understand that you’re friends with my nephew?”

“We have the same social circle,” I said non-commitally. I glanced at the vial in my hand. I had about two minutes before the liquid would start to turn black, and at that point it was going to need my full attention again.

“He says that Alania is your surveyanto now.”

“I didn’t tell him that. One of the others must have.”

“So it’s true?”

It was, but why did he want to know? Was this important information? Couldn’t be. People could just look that kind of thing up, right? There was no point in lying. “Yes.”

“Things didn’t work out with Taine?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just making conversation.”

Sure he was. Would a subject change work? “It’s just a convenience thing. Where’s Socks today?”

“At home. There was no need to bring her when I wasn’t doing any magic.”

“Aww, pity. She’s very cute.”

“You are a cat person?”

“Adorable, unpredictable, and keep getting in places they’re not wanted? I’m practically a cat myself.”

The Fiore gave a little chuckle. I couldn’t tell if it was false or not. “Fortunately, that’s Alania’s problem now, so you should get into as many places you’re not invited as possible.”

Was he offended that I’d picked her? Was this some kind of political loyalty thing, like I’d committed some kind of faux pas taking her as a surveyanto after clearing his name of the murder attempt thing? No, that didn’t make sense; us catching Clara had helped her more than him. There was something else he was trying to imply here, and frankly I didn’t care what it was. I didn’t have any stake in their weird little pissing contest.

Or maybe he was just making a little joke to change the subject back to what he wanted to talk about, and there were no deep hidden meanings. That was also possible.

Well, screw him. If he wanted to cut into my potion time with conversation, I was controlling the conversation. “Maybe she should have a cat. Someone needs to have a cat I can pet around here.”

“You could get your own,” he shrugged. “If you make it your familiar, no one can stop you. Plenty of the older students have familiars.”

Success. Legacy mages couldn’t resist the opportunity to show off and explain things to people, even simple things. Could I stop him from looping back? “I’m told the familiarity rite is really complicated. Guess that’s motivation to study, though, right? Sooner I learn it, the sooner I can get a cat.” I didn’t mention that there was no real point in me making a familiar for a dormant spell. Neither did the Fiore. “Or something cooler. I suppose they wouldn’t allow me to have an eagle or anything, though.”

“Technically, they can’t stop you, if you can do the rite outside of Skolala Refujeyo’s juristiction,” the Fiore said. “Under the Laws of Hospitality, anywhere a mage is welcome, their familiar is welcome. If you brought an eagle familiar on campus, they’d have to allow it.” He paused, and I could practically see the cogs turning in his head, trying to find a way to bring the conversation back around to whatever he wanted to talk about, but just then, the clear liquid in my hand was starting to darken.

“Oh! Uh, sorry, this needs my full attention,” I said, swirling the liquid in what I was pretty sure the pattern the book had described. I didn’t see his reaction, because my eyes had to stay on the liquid.

“Of course. Nice to catch up, Kayden.”

“Have fun catching up with di Fiore,” I mumbled, focused on the vial. I don’t know if he said goodbye; by the time I could look up again, he was gone.

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Also my potion had gone fully black which, according to the book, meant I’d swirled it wrong. Maybe there were videos of the technique in the intranet I could watch? A better use of my time than figuring out what the fuck that talk with the Fiore had been about.

I did ask Max about the Fiore conversation later, and he asked me to repeat what he’d said word for word, which I couldn’t, because I’m not a robot. He just shrugged. “There’s not much I can do with ‘polite enquiries about who your surveyanto is’,” he said. “I can’t tell what he’s angling to discuss with you unless you let him angle in and discuss it.”

“The whole reason I want to know is so I know what to avoid talking about if he seeks me out again,” I said. “I am not doing this political bullshit again. At least last semester’s nonsense was relevant to us, I’m not getting involved in their stupid rivalry.”

“I’m sort of offended that he didn’t approach me if he wants a spy or something,” Max said. “I’d say no, but I would’ve thought he’d think I’d be more up for it than you.”

“No he wouldn’t. You might be a legacy kid but you’re also the world’s biggest Alania Miratova fanboy.”

“I’m not a fanboy,” Max said, cheeks colouring. “I happen to follow the work of certain respected researchers.”

“Uh huh. Do you think he wants a spy?”

“No. He was way too obvious for that. He might want us to think he wants a spy though, and tell Instruktanto Miratova about it. But she’d see through the ploy, too… so he may want her to think – ”

“So what you’re saying is that we can foil his dastardly scheme by just ignoring the whole thing? Because that’s my go-to plan.”

“Yes, that’s probably for the best.”

“Hey guys,” Kylie said, striding in, “what are you talking about?”

“Mage politics bullshit.”

“Ew.”

“What are you in a good mood for?” I asked. “Something cool happen?”

“I’m allowed to be in a good mood!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I found two more witches. Well, they’re mages now, I guess. A wizard student, and someone who’s on one of those out-of-school apprenticeships but is doing some studying here.”

“So there are five of us now. Awesome.”

“Five who I can find, who want to talk to us. I assume there are more.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “I mean, how common are curses, really? Without all the pop culture scares.”

“Of the five, three of us are from Oceana. Talbot’s English, and Hua’s Chinese. So if we’re everyone, then that means that curses are either weirdly common in Oceana right now for some reason, or people in the rest of the world just aren’t looking. Just in terms of population.”

“Hmm,” I said, “true. But Instruktanto Cooper said they usually only get about one cursed student every few years, so five should be about the right number.”

“What’s happening to the cursed kids in the rest of the world, then? This is an international school.”

“Maybe their parents just don’t send them here?” I shrugged. “This place is, um… legally clingy. My family weren’t happy about sending me here.”

“Yeah,” Kylie said. “Maybe.”

I was nearly late for my doctor’s appointment, so I left Kylie and Max to discuss population dynamic or whatever and rushed off to justify my existence to a stranger. The doctor was a short, 40-ish-looking man named Karim. (No last name given on the intranet; weird how often that was cropping up. Some Refujeyo culture thing I didn’t know about? Maybe.) The mage mark on his cheek declared him to be a prophet with an air element, like Kylie, and I hoped that the various complicated symbols surrounding the tattoo and covering half of his face were accolades for being a fantastic GP. I couldn’t read them. He fixed me with a gentle smile as I walked in and pulled on a pair of glasses with some runes etched into one arm. I recognised the familiarity rune – a fetish. Prophet, pulling on magic glasses as a patient walks in? Probably a spell that helped with diagnostics.

“Ka vu parolar Ido?” he asked, giving me a once-over that probably would’ve been considered discreet by someone not expecting suspicious looks their whole life.

“Sorry, I.. I don’t…”

“English?”

“Uh, yes. Please.”

“No problem. What can I do for you today, Kayden?”

This was the awkward part. “I’m trans,” I said, “and I’m looking to physically transition.”

“To male?”

“Uh, yes.”

Kuracisto Karim nodded. “Well, I can certainly help you with that. If you know what you want, I can do some quick bloodwork and get you on a hormone course right now, but I’d recommend talking through your options with a specialist first, if only so you can be sure what to expect. Would you like me to book you in with somebody, or go straight to the bloodwork?”

I stared. “That’s an option?”

“Talking with a specialist? Of course.”

“No, going straight ahead. What… what are my options, exactly?”

“Well, I strongly recommend against surgery on somebody still going through puberty. If you want it, I can have it arranged, but any kind of surgery is far better on a body that’s finished growing, so if it’s an option for you I’d recommend waiting. Hormonally, you have a lot of options, but they basically fall into three main categories – you can do nothing until you’ve finished growing, which means going through puberty twice and can make physical transition a lot more complicated down the track. We can put you on puberty blockers, which essentially halt puberty until you’re older and make transitioning at a later date easier. Or we can simply put you on androgens right away, so you can go through puberty once, correctly. As a physician, I recommend the third course of action, but I recommend you speak to the specialist before deciding, because there are physical consequences to all three routes. And it’s best to have psychological support from a professional through this sort of thing.”

I knew all of this. The treatments weren’t what was confusing me; their availability was. “But I can just say, ‘hey, I want androgens’, and you’ll give them to me?”

“Of course. It’s your body. I do recommend the specialist, though. He’s a professional counsellor and endocrinologist who specialises in gender issues, and it’s much, much harder to go through this sort of thing alone.”

“Right. Yes. I, I would like to talk to him, actually. I just…” I hadn’t expected it to be this easy. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. In Australia, I wouldn’t be allowed to be on androgens at all; they’d make me wait until I was eighteen. I’d have to go through puberty twice or, at the very least, spend a few months justifying myself to a psychologist in the hope that they’d be sympathetic enough to prescribe puberty blockers. And if I did put the whole thing off until adulthood, I’d still have to prove myself to a psychologist before they let me do anything. Adults could get whatever tattoos they liked, but couldn’t be trusted to know their own gender.

“I thought this would be more complicated,” I admitted.

“Hormone therapy? The details are, but that’s my job to figure out.”

“No, the… the whole… where I come from, transitioning is legally complicated.”

Kuracisto Karim gave me a sympathetic look. “You’re fairly new to Refujeyo?”

“Yeah. Commonfolk parents, just got through the last Initiation. I just… how do you know people are making the right decisions with their health?”

“If you can’t be trusted to make your own decisions, you shouldn’t have jumped through a magical vortex filled with spells. Do you know how easily bad decisions can get you killed in there?”

“I… suppose that’s true. But, but what about people’s parents? I mean, don’t you need their permission?”

“If your parents don’t agree with the decisions you make, that’s between you and them. It has nothing to do with us. Why would we seek their permission? If they didn’t trust us with your healthcare, they should not have given you away to us.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, mentally filing Karim’s choice of phrasing under ‘deeply troubling’.

“The specialist is free in one hour, to speak with you about this. Does that work for you?” Kuracisto Karim asked, tapping away at his tablet.

“One hour? That’s… quick.” I’d expected to wait at least a week.

“If you’re busy, I’ll check for later appointments.”

“No, an hour is fine. I just didn’t expect things to move this fast.”

He gave me another understanding smile. “Change is unnerving. But nothing is going to move faster than you want it to, Kayden. If you want to wait, wait.”

I didn’t want to wait. I was just taken by surprise. “One hour is fine.”

“Excellent. Until next time, then.”

I wandered out of the room in a sort of daze. Everything that was supposed to be easy was difficult and Refujeyo, and everything that was supposed to be difficult was easy.

This place was weird.