For four years Drew had been an adventurer, seeking out new nests and predicting fissures for the adventure society. Three years ago, however, for personal reasons he still suspected Jim knew, he had left the direct employ of the adventure society. Now he led his own team with Jim’s support. It was why when Jim had suggested a replacement for one of his team members he had accepted reluctantly.

He had watched Jim and the new recruit bicker as they’d come up the stairs of the dilapidated building. They had seemed like family in their bickering, which was odd. Jim rarely ever treated anyone like family. He treated most adventurers and people like children who didn’t know better. But watching them, he’d looked like a distant older brother or that interesting uncle at family events who only visited very often.

Watching them grow silent as they came into audible reach had irked him. It meant they had something to hide. Either that or the boy had something to hide, especially with the shawl over his face. Watching his adventurer’s test had only buttressed his suspicions. That Taliser had deemed the boy fit to test him with skills he rarely ever displayed in front of weaker magi was questionable of his very person. Looking at him now so close he wondered if he would ever like the boy. He also wondered if his dislike was simply due to the fact that the boy was replacing an old teammate.

The boy took a few more steps, coming closer when he didn’t really have to, and something about him changed. Before he had been looking at each of them, watching, noting, now his eyes weren’t moving.

Was it a skill, he wondered, or was the boy playing at some form of bravado. Then again, he could be one of those adventurers who began with some exaggerated display of respect. Perhaps he was going to bow at the waist and make some wild announcement of reaching Barony and saving the world from the cracks.

That was what Rick had done, he thought sadly. For him to go and get himself killed—in a nest of Iron rank beasts for that matter—was ludicrous.

But he hadn’t really gone and done that, had he? No. They’d done something foolish. They’d sought out the nest themselves and William had made a stupid wager. Drew’s eyes shifted to William. His colleague still blamed himself for Rick’s death, and rightfully so.

But that was a different subject from today. Today, they were here to assess their new teammate. He had been against the addition. The loss and pain was still raw in his team but Jim had waved his disagreement aside.

“As painful and apathetic as it might sound,” he had said, “you all will get over Rick’s death. Mistakes happen in the field all the time.”

“But this wasn’t a mistake,” he’d refused. “One of us did something stupid and he paid for it. We should’ve stopped him but we didn’t. We let it happen and now we grieve and suffer our guilt. We need time to heal.”

“Then heal with him beside you all. He needs a family in this world and its you guys. Make it work.”

Watching the adventurer’s test, he doubted they could make it work. They were a team of silver magi; the power dynamics would not allow them. The boy was Iron. What was an Iron authority mage going to bring to a team of Silver magi?

Still, standing in front of them, something seemed off about him. He knew Jim had already told him they were Silver magi, each one of them, yet he was absent of the fear Iron magi carried in the presence of Silver. He had this disregard for their skill. He’d shown it even when facing Taliser. It was as if he acknowledged their authority was higher but that it didn’t make them stronger.

He saw this level of nonchalance for the more powerful amongst a specific bread of adventurers. Such Iron adventurers who disregarded the strength disparity between themselves and Silvers were usually royalties of some kind. People who’d spent their lives since absorbing their first fragment training amongst Gold. Training with people so strong led them to the hubris of believing they were somehow better than their fellow Iron, that they were on par with Silver for some reason.

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But there was no way Oden was royalty. Jim had a reputation for never sponsoring royalty. Two years ago royalties had come to him for sponsorship with or without their guardian’s blessings. The results had been the same, regardless. He had turned them away at his door.

His message was clear: he did not sponsor those with power.

Oden remained in front of them for a while, quiet, unmoving. However, there was something about him that implied he was active, attentive, even though his eyes remained on Beth.

When Tao Mei played her part in assessing the boy, bursting out of where she’d been waiting with her silver speed, Drew was proven right.

Oden stepped away from her as she reached him, reaching for his free hand. There had been no surprise in the action. He was merely a boy avoiding someone. It was almost as if he had seen her coming. He’d seen it during the test, but up close the boy’s awareness was high, and to have reacted to a Silver mage’s speed from around sixteen feet was impressive.

When Tao Mei fell into her ramblings, her bubbling personality carrying her act seamlessly, the boy didn’t seem bothered. She took it a bit too far, picking on his height but he did nothing to stop her. They needed to know how he responded to provocation. As adventurer’s not under the direct employ of the guild they were bound to run into others who were. Those that would provoke them, goad them into doing something they should not. The team did not need someone who would not be able to control himself. The team did not need another William on it.

Tao Mei’s ranting went on a while longer. At some point she accused Jaola of being gay and Drew struggled not to laugh. Her ability to improvise and drag others into her tirade was always funny. But there was something odd about Oden. He was looking at her but his mind seemed elsewhere. It was as though he allowed her rant.

Then he suddenly stepped around her, walked away from her as if he was tired of allowing her rant. Whatever he said as he passed her most have struck a nerve because there was a break in her words. A pause in her diatribe.

He stepped forward, unbothered.

His steps were odd. He didn’t walk normally. He was like a child who knew how to walk but had not completely owned it, as if he had just finished learning how to walk and was now learning how to run. Worse, for a mage who had displayed the level of speed he’d shown at the adventurer’s test, he moved too slowly. Each step was measured, as if suspicious of an ambush. If he hadn’t seen the test he would’ve believed the boy would slow them down.

He watched as the boy approached a scowling William. He stopped a few feet from him and Beth, and Drew finally caught a glimpse of his eyes while the rest of his face remained hidden behind the thick shawl around it. They were like William’s; a touch of liquid in their color. But where William’s were brown, his were silver.

Drew thought back, scanned his memory of all the magi he’d met in his life time and found he’d never seen a mage with silver eyes.

“Is it going to be you?” Oden asked William.

“You itching for a fight, runt?” William frowned. “Huh?!”

Whatever effect he’d been going for, Oden proved unaffected. Then he turned his head to Drew, disregarding William as if he’d never thought it would be him, as if he’d only asked to goad him, to provoke him.

“Or you?” he asked.

In that moment Drew knew he was going to be trouble, at least if anyone successfully provoked him. The boy in front of them had no respect for hierarchy. If it wasn’t obvious he deferred to Jim, he would’ve said the boy did not understand the word.

While Oden’s head remained turned to him, he watched the boy’s eyes slide over to Beth. “Or is it you?”

Drew almost smiled. The boy had read the room well enough.

The plan was to test the boy’s fighting prowess themselves. They’d seen his use of the sword during the test, and as a swordsman, Drew found it sloppy, haphazard. It was passable, but only so. Then again, he had been using shortswords. While his ability to dual wield was impressive, that was all he had going for him. As an adventurer specializing in close combat he wouldn’t survive out in the field. So they’d chosen one of their close combat teammates to test him. Initially they’d suggested he be the one to test him, but he’d moved the responsibility to Beth.

When Beth smiled that smile she had in the presence of entertaining events, he wondered if perhaps he should be the one to test Oden.

“I like you,” Tao Mei piped up with her high pitched voice from where he’d left her. She wasn’t a fan of being ignored, and while she beamed and smiled and waved in that manner most men found cute when Oden turned his head to her, there was no one in the massive hall except Oden who did not know she was pissed.

“I guess it’s going to be me,” she said, stealing the responsibility.

In the greatest display of disrespect, Oden sighed like a man being kept from his sleep by irrelevant events. “Let’s get this over with then,” he said with a calm voice, walking up to her.