It wasn’t exactly that simple, of course. Once the paperwork was done, he was installed in a barracks, sharing a plain room with six other magicians in the usurper’s army. He immediately hated them all on principle.

He cracked open the door and asked “Is this the place for unassigned magicians to sleep?”

Only one of his new roommates was inside, busily scrubbing his already-shiny boots. “So it is,” the man replied without looking up. “Only one bed left.” He jerked a thumb towards it; to James’s dismay it was the central one, far from both window and door. “You know how things work round here?”

“I’ve had the basic briefing,” James answered. “We’re expected to serve under whatever unit requests our services until we’ve found a permanent assignment.”

His roommate grunted in agreement. “Free time is your own, so long as you spend at least two hours a day training when not on assignment.”

Discipline for magicians was much laxer than for ordinary soldiers: there were far fewer of them, so imposing the same harsh regime would likely mean they’d struggle to find enough magical recruits.

“Got it.” James marched over to his new bed and dumped his pack. It was easy enough to carry even without magical aid, since it contained only the bare essentials. He’d have to transfer his belongings to his new army-issued pack soon enough.

For now, he removed a piece of chalk and set about constructing a ward around his space. When activated, it would filter out background noise and alert him whenever anyone crossed it. That should be sufficient for the purposes of basic privacy and security, though if he obtained anything he wanted to hide properly he’d have to upgrade the measures a little.

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Ja – cob. Jacob Winter.” Careless. It was fortunate he’d chosen a name with a similar sounding beginning to his real one. He was out of practice at deception. That had to be fixed, and quickly.

“You just volunteered?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t tell me – because of Theola.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to follow a Mage?” James asked with fake indignation, completing the chalk rectangle around his bed. The ward circle itself was more complex than the standard template he used for privacy wards, so he decided to finish this conversation before sketching it out.

“Nothing, if she really is a Mage,” his roommate replied.

“But – surely you heard about what happened at Clirith River?”

“I was there at Clirith River. Sure, what she did was impressive and flashy, but it could be faked. And I think that is much more likely than her being really five hundred years old and reappearing now of all times.”

It occurred to James that one of the easiest ways to fake Theola would be to have many magicians working on it at once, and that if he befriended enough magicians or drew the attention of the right commander it wouldn’t be too hard to discover something like that. If his roommate was part of a conspiracy to fake the return of a Mage, though, he was doing a good job of hiding it so far.

“I guess if you were there, you’d know how likely it was,” James replied. “I still think it’s worth it, just for the chance of it being real.”

Jacob, unlike James, had faith. Not just in the stars – James was as true a believer as anyone – but in the Mages. In the stars’ plans for the Kingdom, and his own tiny role in them. In being part of something bigger than himself. James had never really looked for that kind of meaning. He was content to be who and what he was, making his own choices.

“Sure, if you say so.”

“Why’d you volunteer, anyway?” James didn’t get the impression his roommate particularly believed in the righteousness of Felix’s cause.

The man shrugged, setting down his shining boot and sitting down on his bed. James looked at him properly for the first time: he was strong physically for a magician, a large man with short dark curly hair and small eyes. Probably quite intimidating, if you were the type to be easily intimidated; James wasn’t. “It was this or prison.”

That wasn’t enough to scare James, but it would have been enough to scare Jacob, so he took a step backwards. “What did you do to get that choice?”

His roommate shrugged. “Murdered two of my colleagues in their beds.”

The threat was unmistakeable. Maybe his current wards wouldn’t be that sufficient after all. He took another step back.

The man burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. I volunteered because the pay was good. You should have seen the look on your face!”

“Very funny,” said James dryly, annoyed with himself for falling for it.

“I’m Tom. Good to meet you, Jacob.” Tom walked over to his bed, smudging the chalk rectangle as he did, and offered his hand to shake.

James took it and shook firmly, though he’d already decided he didn’t like Tom. Apart from the stupid murder joke, he’d have to completely redraw his ward line now. It was disappointing to see a magician so careless. Maybe that was why he hadn’t found a permanent assignment yet.

James resolved that he was going to find a permanent assignment of his own soon, one that got him closer to Theola and further away from Tom.

Once he’d set up the ward properly and activated it, he decided to get his daily training out of the way. He was rather curious about how Felix’s magicians trained and how strong they were. It wasn’t his mission, but now he’d gone to all the trouble of infiltrating the enemy he might as well spy on everything he could.

He’d been given a map of the City by the officer who’d first briefed him. It clearly showed the training areas, supply depots, bases of his superiors, and the places he was forbidden from going. That included the entire Central Ring, much to his dismay.

His eyes caught on a familiar street name and a particular building marked with a dagger and the number sixteen. He checked the key in a corner: Wilde Manor. Residence of the Commander of Magical Logistics. Do not enter without an appointment.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

So that was what his father was doing now. He wanted to walk straight in and announce his return to the City where he belonged. Since he wasn’t a complete suicidal idiot, he made his way instead to his designated training area. The building was only a few blocks away; it had been the home of a minor noble who’d risen under Felix’s rule and moved into the Inner Ring, and in the lord’s absence it had been repurposed for the army’s use.

James showed his new badge designating him a magician in the army’s service to the woman at the entrance, and gave her a flirtatious smile as well.

“Afternoon, sir,” she said. “Can I take your name?”

“Jacob Winter.” He wanted to tease and banter, but that would be out of character for Jacob. His new persona was really rather boring.

“I haven’t seen you around before, have I? I get the feeling I’d remember your face.”

“I’m not easy to forget,” James said, unable to resist just one line. “I just volunteered today.”

“Good for you,” she replied. “You’re very eager to start training.”

“I want to serve to the best of my ability.” It was a struggle to make such a trite remark sound serious, but she seemed to buy it.

“Well, I’m glad the cause will have such noble service.” She made a note on the scroll of parchment in her hand. “If you don’t have an arranged appointment with an instructor, just go straight down into the basement. There’s training dummies to cast at down there, and a few enchanted training aids as well. And if you want to spar, just find a partner, agree terms and get on with it. There’s only three rules: don’t cast anything outside the containment wards for your area, don’t interfere with other magicians’ practice, and don’t be stupid. Got it?”

“Got it. How would I go about arranging an appointment with an instructor?”

“You’re still unassigned, right?”

James nodded.

“Then you don’t. Once you have a permanent assignment, if you feel personal instruction would make you better able to fulfil your duties you can request it from your superiors and they’ll arrange it for you.”

That was a pity; he might have been able to learn something from some of those instructors. He was good, better than most, but that didn’t mean he had no room to improve. “Thank you for your help, then.”

“You’re most welcome. Do stop by again. My shifts are one ‘til five every weekday.”

“Then I look forward to seeing you again.” He passed her and set off for the basement, but turned a few steps later. “Wait a second,” he said. “You got my name, but I didn’t get yours.”

Her cheeks turned the faintest scarlet. “Ruby.”

“Ruby,” he said. “I’ll remember that name.”

Then he left for good, grinning to himself. It was rare for his attempts at flirting to meet with that success. Maybe she was a flirt as well. Or maybe Cat had a point, and his new face really was prettier than his old one.

James didn’t spar, not at first. He was tempted, but working out exactly how much he needed to hold back before he had an idea of his enemies’ skill level would be a challenge. Better to wait.

There were maybe twenty or thirty magicians in the basement, mostly men. Four pairs were sparring, with another half dozen watching the fights and cheering or hollering advice. The rest were working with various training dummies. Most were just static, vaguely human shapes there to be cast at, but there were a few that were more advanced. One held a shielding enchantment that a young dark-skinned woman was repeatedly breaking through and then resetting, another fired beams of light intended to mimic area-of-effect spells for dodging practice.

James was most intrigued by the set of square wooden tiles lying on the ground inside a square containment ward about three yards wide, just because it wasn’t immediately apparent what they did. No-one else seemed to be using them, so he stepped into the containment ward. Nothing happened; he cautiously approached the squares.

There was a piece of parchment resting on the topmost square. The squares were enchanted to fly in a random pattern when they were activated by channelling magic into them; the aim of the exercise was to hit them with any light-spell, which would deactivate the enchantment and drop them to the ground.

There was a warning attached: this exercise was a difficult one, and magicians shouldn’t be demoralised by failure. James raised a sceptical eyebrow. It might be hard, but it wouldn’t be too hard for him.

He set the parchment down outside the ward and channelled magic into the five squares, one after the other. They soared into the air above him, though their motion was quite unlike that of birds. They were far more agile but moved in a discrete, jerky pattern. James watched them without casting for half a minute, trying to find a way to predict their movements. He had no luck, though. Their movements were, as far as he could tell, genuinely random.

Still, though the squares were fast, they weren’t as fast as he was. He cast a simple arrow of light towards the nearest one, just above his head. It flew straight and true – but the square swerved to one side at the last second and the arrow extinguished itself on the top of the containment wards.

That was a strange coincidence, if coincidence was what it was. His suspicions were confirmed when the same thing happened with three more arrows. The squares were enchanted to dodge light-spells.

This was a more interesting exercise than he’d hoped.

Five minutes later, he was re-evaluating that conclusion. He must have tried twenty different light-spells and set half a dozen different traps, but he hadn’t brought down a single square. He’d stopped holding back long ago. He was going to catch at least one of those squares if it killed him.

It was in theory possible to create any shape from light, though it would of course have no solidity; the spells were used mainly for lighting the darkness and for sending signals. In practice only a few variations were commonly used, though: arrows, spheres, the occasional sword for those who wanted to be flashy. Most magicians didn’t know any more variations than that.

James also didn’t. But he was a good enough magician to derive an unfamiliar spell variation in less than a minute without paper, if it wasn’t complex. And there was nothing inherently complex about what he was doing, it was just unusual. It was also cheating a little, since it would never work without the containment wards.

The exercise was unrealistic enough that an unrealistic solution was justified, though, or so he told himself. He double-checked his calculations, chose a suitable incantation and pressed his hands to the ground. In one smooth motion he rose and flipped his hands upside down. “Banish the darkness!” he cast.

It worked; of course it would work. A horizontal pane of light snapped into place just above his head, covering the three-by-three-yard square of the containment ward. The spellwork was sloppy; the pane had no inherent boundaries, and if it wasn’t for the containment ward it would have spread out forever – or until his power was exhausted. Still, it wasn’t that bad for something he’d put together on the fly.

And then all he had to do was focus and lift. The pane slid smoothly upwards until it reached the top of the containment wards. The squares were left with nowhere to dodge, and one by one the pane touched them and sent them tumbling to the ground.

There was a round of applause, and James realised that while he’d been failing to bring down the squares with more conventional methods a crowd had gathered: almost everyone in the training room was watching him.

He turned to face them and bowed as though he were a performer. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Did you really figure out that spell in less than a minute?” asked a man at the front of the crowd, one of those who’d been watching the spars earlier.

Oh. Right. He’d been trying to hold back and not be any more talented than Jacob Winter could realistically be. It was a bad habit of his: when faced with a sufficiently interesting challenge: he simply couldn’t back down. “Uh… yeah. Yes, I did.”

His best bet now was to play it off as if he didn’t realise quite how talented he really was. That was somewhat plausible; the way that belief affected magic meant that it wasn’t too uncommon for a magician isolated from the wider magical community to do extraordinary things because they didn’t realise how hard they were supposed to be.

“That’s impressive spellwork,” said the woman next to him. She was pretty – James knew that shouldn’t be the first thing he noticed about a woman, but sometimes he couldn’t help it – with gorgeous dark hair stretching just past her shoulders and sparkling eyes. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

James nodded. “Yes. I am. Jacob Winter. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Jacob Winter,” she repeated thoughtfully. Even her voice was pretty; it was a shame he couldn’t hear her say his real name in that tone. “Will you spar with me?”