EVAN. END OF FIRST PERIOD.

Ten minutes or so before the period ended, Merce, Filbert, Marco, and Drew all gathered around Evan and Ryan’s desk. Evan and Ryan, being who they were, had gotten to the point they didn’t really need to do anything else as their Copland OS Academic installs progressed several minutes before anyone else in the class. So Evan had already braced himself for the appearance of an audience this time.

“Hunt!” Merce said, their voice quiet but urgent. Evan could all but see ears prick up on the kids nearby.

“I barely remember it,” Evan said. “Took a whack to the head and needed a healing potion. You’ll have to ask Chris.”

The others’ eyes all widened. “Rough hunt, huh?” Filbert asked.

“Could have gone better,” Evan said. “But I didn’t have a warding mantle. Next time I’m going to have at least a light one.”

“You went hunting without a warding mantle?” Merce exclaimed.

Evan sighed. “Could you keep it down? I did. I don’t have one and Chris’s didn’t fit right. If we hadn’t run into a Menace-class I would have been fine.”

Merce’s jaw dropped.

“A Menace-class!?” Filbert and Marco both said in unison.

“We killed it. It’s cool,” Evan said with another sigh. “I don’t want to talk about the hunt anymore, I genuinely don’t remember much. Chris is extremely friendly and a pretty good tale teller, I’m sure you can get him to share if you catch him at the right time.”

Merce wrinkled up their face at Evan. “Fine. What are you guys going to do now? Like, with Megan?”

“Megan and I are cool,” Ryan said. “I don’t need to do anything except hang out with her.”

With only a touch of heat in his voice, which Evan was proud of, he said, “Megan’s on thin fucking ice. If she can be fucking cool and remember she’s in the middle of an ongoing process of apologizing to me and not do any of the selfish, annoying shit she used to do, I’ll keep hanging out with her.”

“O-kay…” Merce said, looking a touch confused. “And Chris? What about him? Are you going to keep hanging out with him?

Evan shrugged. “Chris considers us a party already, so I’ll keep hanging with him as long as he wants to. I want to keep going on hunts.”

“Of course I’m going to keep hanging out with a Light Bearer!” Ryan said. “Are you kidding? I’ll get invites to all the best shindigs!”

Marco and Filbert exchanged a dubious glance. Drew looked pretty dubious too.

Merce laughed. “Parties? Why on earth do you want to go to parties, Ryan?”

Ryan gave Merce a questioning look. “To… have fun? Like everyone wants to do at parties?”

“Yeah but…” Merce frowned. “You might find yourself making some of the popular crowd uncomfortable. You’re… you might not exactly fit in.”

“I mean, watching them squirm because of my presence will be plenty fun,” Ryan replied. “And they’d deserve it after banishing me from society for three years.”

Merce rolled their eyes. “Ah. Evan, what will you do if Megan blows it? If Chris considers you guys a party already—that’s wild, just by the way, you just met him—what will you do if you don’t want to hang out with Megan anymore?”

Evan considered that for a long moment.

Before he could finish, Ryan said with a chuckle, “Megan will get Chris in the breakup.”

Merce laughed. “That makes him sound like Megan’s dog. What, is he into her?”

Evan, Ryan, Marco, and Filbert all tilted their heads to the side and gave Merce flat looks.

Merce laughed again. “Right, sure, of course he’s into her, why did I ask? Is that going to be awkward? If it’s one-sided, that’s not very good for party dynamics.”

Ryan laughed now, as did Filbert. Filbert said, “You haven’t seen Chris, obviously.”

“What, so he’s good looking?” Merce replied.

“Total hunk of perfection,” Marco said, nodding.

“Hotter than an active volcano,” Filbert added.

Merce looked at Evan. “What say you?”

“What do you mean, what say me? Even I can tell that Chris is incredibly attractive,” Evan replied.

“You’re not into boys so I trust your opinion the most. You think Megan likes Chris back?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You didn’t hear it from us,” Ryan said. “Don’t, like, spread it around, but it’s pretty fucking obvious if you see them together.”

“They’ve known each other for less than a day,” Evan said. “Nothing is certain. They do seem dazzled by each other, though.”

“I don’t think she’ll blow it anyway,” Ryan said. “She seems determined to make things up to us, and there’s the magical bond between us.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Merce said. “You’re sure you have this bond?”

“I’m sure,” Ryan said. “We’re all born on the nineteenth of the month, two months apart from one of the others. I’m October, Evan’s December, Megan’s February, Angie’s April, and Chris is June. In between the magpies and the bell charms and the fact that even in this short a time our birth dates keep cropping up randomly—confirmation bias, sure, but too many to be a total coincidence—I’m certain it’s a real thing.”

“That’s wild,” Merce said. Then they grinned. “What about Katier, Evan?”

Evan looked at them and tried to display his confusion on his face. “What about Katier, Merce?”

“She was flirting with you!” they said. “Do you see anything happening there?”

“I’m not going to date Katier, if that’s what you’re asking,” Evan said. “She’s one of Lauren’s best friends!”

“Okay, sure, but hear me out,” Merce said. “I don’t know if you know this, but I argued with Lauren about you guys a little while after we started talking. Katier was there too, and she actually supported me in my attempt to get Lauren to see that she was in the wrong.” They frowned. “I think I could have convinced her if Katie Kay and Brandon hadn’t also been there. Half of the encounter was arguing with them. But I got the impression that Katier had had that argument with Lauren before, and repeatedly. As far as I can tell, Katier’s the only person besides me who ever confronted Lauren about it being wrong to Exile you guys.”

Evan considered that for a moment. “That’s… okay, that’s something to her credit, but it hardly means that I should date her. She maybe sort of flirted with me briefly at an inappropriate time. That’s all the indication I have that she might be even vaguely interested.” He shook his head. “Regardless, I’ve spent the past three years socially isolated. Even if people start talking to us again, I don’t think I’m ready for dating.”

Merce shrugged. “Fair enough. Katier’s pretty rad, though. You two would be cute together.”

Evan sighed. “If you say so. Maybe if Megan forgives her enough to start hanging out with her again, I’ll get to know her. Unless and until that happens, I don’t much care about Katier.

Ryan grinned. “You know Megan’s going to forgive her sooner or later. She did get up in Lauren’s face for us, after all. That’ll count for something.”

“Whatever,” Evan said, and then was saved from further annoying conversation about a girl he didn’t know by the bell. “I have PE, so I’ve gotta run. See you guys.” They all bid him goodbye, he grabbed his stuff, and took off at a rapid pace.

RYAN. BEGINNING OF SECOND PERIOD.

“Sacred saturnine shit, guys,” Tammy said, meeting them outside their Common-tongue classroom again. “Oh my gods what the fuck barbeque?”

“Right?” Angie said.

“Read the primer, huh?” Ryan asked.

“Yeeeeeah,” Tammy said. “It was… a ride. Thanks for catching me up, I guess. I suppose depression at how trash people are is better than confusion. I guess.”

“We warned you,” Ryan said.

“You did,” Tammy said. “Sooo, let’s talk about San Francisco more!”

“What, you don’t want to hear the latest haps?” Ryan said, grinning. “No comments on us eating with a Light Bearer yesterday?”

“What!?” Tammy exclaimed. “I did not hear about this! I have first lunch. Are you guys in second?”

“We are,” Angie said.

“Who’d you eat with!? How’d that happen!?” Tammy said

“Do you even know the Light Bearers in this school?” Ryan asked.

“Not really,” Tammy said.

“Well then! There are four, believe it or not,” Ryan replied.

“Whoa. That’s a lot!”

“It’s a rich school,” Angie said dismissively.

“True. Lay it on me, Ryan, I sense a lesson coming.”

“You still know me so well, Tammy,” Ryan said. “There is one in each class. The seniors have Charlie Stormheart, though Charlie is his middle name. He doesn’t want to be called Midhir for whatever reason. He fights with a flail. The junior class Light Bearer is one Quinn Karga—if you see a girl around wearing a fucking battlegown, that’s her. She’s always wearing one of her collection, and she fights with a blade and an enchanted parasol.”

“She has battlegowns? Who could blame her?” Tammy said. “If I owned a battlegown I’d never take it off either.”

“You’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt, Tammy,” Angie said, her voice laced with amusement.

“Yeah, but if I owned a fancy dirt repelling gown that made me invincible, I’d probably wear that instead,” Tammy replied.

“Anyway,” Ryan said. “Derrek Bakili is the sophomore class Light Bearer, and brother to our nemesis Lauren. He favors a mace.”

“Come now,” Angie said. “Konigsmann is our nemesis. Lauren was her cat’s-paw.”

“Sure, that’s fair,” Ryan said. “Regardless, none of them are important! We had lunch with Chris Gramyre, the freshman class Light Bearer, who boringly just uses a hand-and-a-half sword.”

“Oh, him! Yeah I met him. He’s disturbingly handsome. How’d you meet him?” Tammy replied.

“Angie and he were on the receiving end of a couple of magpie auguries yesterday morning,” Ryan said.

“Excuse me!?” Tammy exclaimed.

Katier Ryuyama walked by them into their class, her head ducked in shame. Ryan reverse nodded at her, attracting her attention, and winked at her. He received a look of confusion, but then she perked up and nodded back at him.

Angie frowned at Ryan, but only said, “Yeah, I didn’t want to mention it yesterday because I didn’t know what it meant, but then he and Megan met each other and—remember our birthdays? The three of us and Megan?”

Tammy nodded dumbly, staring at Angie with wide eyes.

“Well, Chris was born June nineteenth, two months after me,” Angie said. “And for some reason when he met her it formed a mystic bond between the five of us. So we ate lunch together.”

“You have to tell me everything!” Tammy cried.

“We will, but first class,” Ryan said, and led the way into the classroom just before the bell rang.