“Are you sure you packed everything?” Micah said as they headed for the stairwell.
“Yes.”
“Shirts, pants, underwear, socks, boots, the kettle, your books, both jackets, our boat tickets—”
“Micah, we went through the list four times. I brought everything.”
He certainly looked like it. His backpack was stuffed to the brim. He had a sleeping bag tied on top and carried two duffels.
Lisa took one of them off his hands when they reached the divider and fell into step, hurrying down the stairs. They’d seen each other at breakfast when they’d gobbled up some fried eggs and watery orange juice and planned where to meet.
They technically had time, but the nervous energy of departure filled them. The open road—or open river—called to them.
At the bottom of the stairwell, they spotted someone and stopped anyway. A familiar figure in foul, tattered clothes with a patchwork mountain of a pack shambled in from the far end of the hallway, Towerward.
He was caked in a second skin of sweat, dirt, and dried blood, and his dark hair was plastered to his forehead. He looked malnourished.
Ryan made a face.
Kyle saw them, blinked like he was still asleep, and turned right around, bumping his pack against the corner on his way.
“Kyle!” Micah yelled.
He ignored him, taking another route back to his room no doubt.
“That’s what, almost three weeks in the Tower?” Lisa said. “And he returns with all of his limbs still intact. Impressive.”
“He’s finally back, right when we’re leaving,” he said in a disappointed tone before he realized, “Wait, do you think he timed that?”
“Did he know when you were leaving?”
Micah thought back to him and Ryan annoying each other about schedules, boat tickets, prices, activity planning, his parents and their letters, Cairn.
Dimly, he remembered a very annoyed Kyle giving them the side-eye in the corner of his eye, strangely without saying anything.
“… Yes?”
“There’s your answer.”
“He reeks.” Ryan turned away and pushed the door open. “I’m glad I won’t have to spend a moment in that room for the next few months. Good riddance.”
The chilly morning air rushed in. It had rained before sunrise and that had worried him—he remembered their last trip, the delay—but while the ground was still damp, the clouds were clearing up. Micah was hopeful.
“He could at least have said goodbye … Oh! Does he even have his keys? Ryan, gimme’ yours! Lisa hold this—” He shoved his own duffel in her direction.
It took Ryan a moment to find his room keys beneath all the clutter, then Micah pulled the door open and rushed up the stairwell.
It was easy to lose things in the Tower. His clothes had looked like they were being held together by the glue of his sweat and dried blood alone.
As soon as he made it up, Kyle croaked, “Fuck off, Stranya,” and pushed through the door. His pack wouldn’t fit. He had to drop it, turn it sideways, and drag it behind himself like some wild animal dragging prey into the dark.
Micah sighed in relief. “Goodbye! See you in a week!”
It was a short trip across the schoolyard to catch up—the others hadn’t waited—and a short trip through the school gate; a long trip to the docks, but the water below the fences and stone walls greeted them soon enough.
He wondered what it would be like to jump into that body of water. He suspected it was dangerous. Boats and currents. Maybe fish.
People could drown …
The thought and the tinge of fear came after, and Micah smiled because his body urged him to jump anyway.
The other side was far away. It looked like a nice, cold place to submerge himself in. He wondered if the ocean would look-feel the same.
The sound of stone and dirt beneath their shoes turned into a hollow echo of wood, and they stood amongst the traffic, luggage, cargo, and sailors turn, breathing in wet air he would have loved to breathe in without a filter.
“This is it then,” Ryan said with a shaky voice.
“Mhm.”
Micah looked up to find two awkward faces, and the excitement running in his veins tripped and fell flat on its face.
Oh.
This was it for Ryan and Lisa. Micah would see Lisa in a short week but they wouldn’t see each other for months … or not at all, if something went wrong. There came a more palpable fear.
“You’re coming back, right?” Micah asked.
“Yeah, I—” Lisa started.
Ryan hugged her, sudden and fierce. His hands were curled into fists. He mumbled into her hair, “You better come back, Lisa. I’m going to miss you.”
Awkwardly, she raised her arms to pat his shoulder. “I will. Some day or another.”
He chuckled and sounded a little hoarse. “Don’t even kid about that.”
When they parted, Ryan reached for his pack and Lisa glanced over at him, almost like an awkward invitation, so Micah stepped up and gave her a short hug like saying hello.
“Here.” Ryan held the bundled-up spellbook out. “Thank you for this, and pass my thanks on to your cousin for letting me borrow it in advance?”
Lisa made a face. “I’m not telling my cousin you exist.”
He looked horrified. “Why not?”
“Because she gets envious and she breaks my things. The less I tell her about life here, the better, or she just might want to hide in my luggage.”
Ryan chuckled. “But you’ll tell your parents I said hi, right?”
Lisa hesitated. They stared. Finally, she said, “Yes. You can keep the spellbook for a little while longer, though. I can pick it up from your parents when I pass through.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mhm, and you’ll need something to read during babysitting duty, won’t you?”
This time, Ryan made a face. “I’m not going to read when I watch over Hannah. I can’t wait to spend time with my sister.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure,” Lisa said in a flat voice. “She is adorable, though, I have to admit.” She trailed off with a sad smile, then shot up. “Tell me about your trip! Not Cairn. After. Skydiving?”
Ryan took a deep breath and nodded. “Yep.”
“Afraid? Excited?” She seemed enthused.
“The later, I hope. I mean, it cost me an arm and a leg—and fewer weeks with my family—so I better be, right?”
She grinned. “I wish I could be there. If you don’t freak out, we’ll have to do it again sometime, you and me. Maybe Micah.”
“Thank you,” he said regardless of whether or not he would actually want to do that. He poked her.
But he had questions himself, so they huddled up to give the traffic space and talked about their plans for their summer apart.
Lisa was headed north, beyond the border to her family, Ryan would be with his until he left westward for the woods, and Micah was headed into the Tower, wherever that went. Up.
Sooner or later, boarding started and he didn’t want to leave. The buzz of departure pulled on him, and he pulled back.
Ryan pulled another magic item out, the raincoat. “You can borrow this if you want?”
“I don’t need—”
“Doesn’t have to be for yourself,” he urged her, “if you go climbing with someone else while we are gone, or if Garen wants to borrow it …?”
“Garen has a habit of breaking magic items that can’t keep up with him.”
“Myra? Sion? Anne?”
“That’d be reassuring,” Micah admitted. He also liked the mental image of Anne wearing the oversized raincoat. He liked to imagine her wearing his sweaters someday.
“No, really. It’s fine. I thought you were taking it with you on your trip?”
“That would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? I’m already making allowances for his kettle and some alchemicals.” He pointed a thumb at him. “But yeah, we thought we might take it with us for our my parents but uh, Micah is going to use it this summer either way.”
“And then you want to sell it.”
“Yeah.”
“Yep,” Micah echoed him.
He didn’t want to, but he agreed it was the right thing to do. If it worked out and they found someone who would donate it in their stead, they wouldn’t get any recognition, but he would have to worry less about money, and they wouldn’t have to feel guilty for keeping it for so long.
Strong items were meant for those who needed them.
Micah had grown up in Westhill, but even he knew that.
Besides, his sponsorship wasn’t a guarantee, and the school might not allow them to enter the Tower again next year.
“I don’t know your parents well but I doubt they’ll be happy to hear it. What if they say no?”
Ryan shrugged. “In some things, our parents don’t get a choice. Right?”
She smiled and hugged him, far gentler than he had. “I’ll miss you, too, until we see each other again in August. Now get on that boat? Farewells are better cut short.”
They sighed and looked back to the line that was already forming. Their boat was smaller this time, with fewer seats, but it was from the same company, and they had bought tickets early to get a good deal. Comfort was for old people anyway.
“Ah!” Ryan remembered something and turned back. “Can I say goodbye to Sam?”
Lisa gave him a look. “Ryan. You know ‘Sam’ is only a bundle of magic, right?”
“You said when he becomes real, he might have memories of his time before then.”
“It’s been getting smarter and smarter ever since you cut off your connection with it, too?”
“Please …?” Ryan’s expression looked surprisingly earnest, like he would be sad he couldn’t see Sam of all things for a few months.
“I did say that, and it has been learning pretty quickly …” She sighed. “Fine.”
She fished its crystal out and summoned the monster onto her folded arms, held against her torso. It scrambled to find a grip.
Ryan scratched its neck. “Hey. We won’t see each other for a while, so you better take care of Lisa, you hear me?”
Sam didn’t look like it was listening. It was trying to twist its head into his fingers as the temperature there shifted.
Ryan stepped back and lifted his bags with a heavy breath. “Right. Goodbye.”
“Bye,” Micah said.
“Hey!” a worker snapped. “No unauthorized summons in the harbor! Read the damn signs!”
Lisa rolled her eyes and in a swirl of magic, Sam disappeared.
“Sorry,” Ryan mouthed.
They waited in line and waved from the railing of the ship as Lisa went up the stone steps, another figure in the crowd.
After thirty minutes, someone came to greet them and explained the rules of the boat before they left, and they enjoyed seeing Hadica in a different light then.
Stone walls surrounded them with stretches of tall buildings, private harbors, sewers, the smaller canals splitting off, and there were a few low plazas where people ate or went for walks. Balconies from apartments and restaurants overlooked the canal.
People on bridges looked down on them, others waved and they waved back, and he especially waved to people on other the boats for no reason other than to say, “Hey, we’re on a boat, too!’
They passed through the old wall to the outer city where everything was shorter and less cramped, saw the old and new vegetable fields in the distance, the farms and private properties where horses grazed.
After hours, they reached the rolling fields of the countryside.
The Tower warped, split, and fractured in a way that almost made his eyes hurt, then vanished from view.
Until we see each other again.
Micah hung over the railing and enjoyed the warm sun glittering on the cold river like gemstones, and the scented wind that carried sprays of it up past his skin.
The essences came together like a natural harmony that distilled something deeper. As Micah stared, a few transparent screens floated by, less like wind and more like water currents—invisible auroras in daylight, cutting the ground bit by bit.
They came and went, were hard to glimpse, harder to keep track of. He thought they might be ‘river essence’. Not just water, or water essence in a current, or vapor meeting the wind—the essence of the concept of a river, or this great river, radiated from it like a natural aura.
He wondered if a smaller river would be strong enough to radiate river essence in the air around it. He doubted it.
He breathed in just to feel it, but he had to filter it out again, separating clean air from all that weighed it down.
I’ll come back for you someday, he thought.
He grew bored after an hour or so.
With a cascade of mana, like a long floppy hand, Micah splashed around in the river, then turned and said, “Hey, Ryan!”
He looked up. “Hm?”
“Wanna play a travel game?”
“Not really.”
“Wanna play cards?”
“That’s a travel game.”
“Wanna do the hand slap challenge? Trains reflexes.”
“Yeah, right.” He sighed. “I was gonna’ read—” He gestured at a bundle of letters in his hand. ”Y’know?”
“Oh, still trying to memorize neighbors’ names?”
“Mm.”
Micah glanced at his dissipating mana and back up. “Sooo … if you’re doing that, can I—”
Ryan sighed and put his letters away. “The spellbook, right?”
He nodded eagerly.
Ryan led them further onto the deck where the sprays were less likely to reach. They sat on their packs like other passengers, and another couple took their previous spot.
After digging around a bit, Ryan offered him a bundle of cloth wrapped around a dust jacket wrapped around an amber tome.
The moment he let go, Micah breezed past [Firebolt], whose pages didn’t even light up for him, and [Dancing Lights]. He knew which spell he wanted to study: [Reinforcement].
Ryan had studied it from time to time. It’d helped him finish [Dancing Lights] a few weeks ago but Ryan had still skipped past it and the other spells to study the last one while he’d still had time, [Lightning Bugs].
Micah didn’t care much for the others spells—well, except [Conjure Thorns] to prick people with as a prank, and because it created fake biomatter.
He had eyes for [Reinforcement]. It used mana to make objects more durable, make them last. How wonderful was that?
The page lit up and a young voice yelled, “Is that a spellbook?!”
Micah looked up to see a trio of children, the oldest a few years younger than him, staring. They looked like brothers and their younger sister.
“Naeem,” a woman standing a little ways off to the side warned him.
Without listening, before Micah could respond, they ran through the crowded deck over to him. “It is!”
“Hey, dude, are you a mage?” the middle child asked. “Which spell are you studying? Can I have a look? Just for a moment? I mean, we’ll be on this boat for hours so—”
“Hey, hey, I’m Sara—” She pointed at herself while tugging on his shoulder.
Micah ignored them in kind. He closed the book, bundled it up, and leaned back on his pack to ask their mother, “Is it alright if they look over my shoulder while I study, ma’am?”
“Sure,” she said, “if you don’t mind.”
She looked exhausted. Micah wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be his fault if one of them became a mage tomorrow morning.
He wouldn’t mind, though. If they were anything like him, the book should occupy their attention even without the benefit of the enchantment focusing on them. Micah liked to look over Ryan’s shoulders while he read.
“I’m Micah,” he introduced himself as he carefully opened the book, “and I’m studying [Reinforcement]. It infuses objects with magic to make them more durable.”
“Eh, that’s it?”
“It’s useful. You can use it on shields, structures, even loose equipment to make them more durable in a fight or during construction. Ropes, bottles, boots …”
Micah found the start of the chapter again and the ink lit up in a drab blue light. There was almost no writing at all, few words, fewer colors, and no numbers.
The left page held a brief summary, an almost study card-like phrase, and its various options.
Analyze, identify, frame, infuse, restructure, hold. Reinforce.
The spell could be cast slowly, like a ritual, or it could be cast in a snap judgment. It had a base, blanket form that could enchant anything, but the efficacy rose with the caster’s understanding of the material structure they were working on. There was a difference between making wood or stone more durable, or stone with reinforcing bars in it.
The book offered a few examples, mostly for spell constructs, a few kinds of wood, hardened plant matter like thorns, and chitin. Micah had hoped for stone, glass, or crystal but the book was more focused on evocation and living nature than all of nature, apparently. He made due.
The chapter had been covered in vibrant green and brown illustrations after Ryan read it, like a naturalist’s vibrant expedition journal.
Micah had stripped it down to fractal lines like pure patterns removed from the noise of their environment, hollow and waiting to be fueled. Nice and orderly.
“I don’t get it,” Naeem said, “it’s just math homework. Is this what learning magic is like?”
“What? No, it’s not,” Micah said, “there aren’t even any numbers.” And math was only useful for calculating alchemy tables and ingredient costs.
“Yeah, but geometry, duh.” He squinted. “If you can even call that geometry.”
“I don’t have it yet,” his sister said, “but whenever the seniors in classroom have to study it, they get bored or confused.”
“This isn’t boring—”
“Is too! Hey, what other spells do you have—” the middle child asked and reached for the book.
Micah caught his wrist before he got close.
He reached out with his other hand and tried to rise up and twist his first one free. “C’mon, you can have the book forever, we just want to have it for a minute—”
Micah caught his other wrist, bemused, but his sister tried to steal the book from his lap. When he pushed her with his shoulder, his brother reached out, and he grew a little worried—
“Hey!” Ryan snapped and the three kids jerked back.
Micah almost did himself.
“Hands off,” he snarled, “that’s not yours!”
They pulled their hands back, gave them a stink-eye, and ran off to their mother. She gave the children an unimpressed look as if to say, What did you expect?
Micah and Ryan weren’t exactly young enough that she could yell at them and tell them to play nice anymore.
The eldest son complained for a moment, gave up, and disappeared along the side of the ship with his siblings, off to annoy someone else or maybe climb the walls.
Ryan sighed.
“Sorry,” Micah said, “I should have seen that coming.”
“No, it’s … whatever.”
“The book is safe?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m going to be a terrible brother.”
He blinked. “Huh? No. What? That’s stupid, you’re going to be awesome!”
“I’m not going to be around.”
“So what? My siblings are never around and I still love them.”
“Micah, you love everyone. Last week, you told Brent you loved him because he gave you his leftover breakfast.”
Micah squinted, trying to remember the instance. Brent cooked a lot and like many people, he liked to snack on ingredients or taste test the result. As a result, he didn’t eat much in the cafeteria.
“Well yeah, but that was just for fun.”
“You didn’t mean it?”
“No, but—”
“See? You love Maya and Aaron, but can you honestly tell me they’re good siblings?”
Micah hesitated and realized, he didn’t want to think about his family issues, and he didn’t want to answer that question. He loved his siblings. That was enough.
“They’re adults with lives of their own. I wouldn’t want to chain them to Hadica just so I can see them more often. What do you expect siblings to do anyway?”
“I don’t know. I was an only child until half a year ago.” He sighed. “Your siblings are older, right? I wonder what they thought of you …”
Micah had an inkling: they’d thought he was annoying, but they also loved him. Aaron seemed interested in his life in the letters he wrote, and he said Maya felt the same, even if she was too busy with her work—whatever the hell that was.
Micah didn’t actually know that his sister did for a living. ‘Something something explorer’ was the best he could get out of his parents.
“You could write them a letter if you want?” he offered. “I’ve already mentioned you a couple of times so you probably wouldn’t have to introduce yourself.”
“I—” He hesitated. “I might take you up on that someday. What are they like?”
Micah smiled and closed the book. “They’re awesome! Even Anne knew about Maya and her climbing career was super short. I think she’s somewhat infamous.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah, she got invited to all sorts of parties and apparently, she made a splash with her personality alone …”
It was rare to see Ryan smile nowadays, but he did, and he asked questions. Micah couldn’t answer them all because he didn’t know the answers himself, but that only made him want to know more.
Time flew in good company.
Then, Ryan looked like he couldn’t stop smiling as his family waved from the paved yard of Cairn’s harbor. The afternoon was bright in mid-summer, but the air had cooled off.
He waved back with his arm outstretched.
His mother craned her head down to look at Hannah, who wore dotted pajamas. She pointed at Ryan and waved her tiny arm for her.
Hannah was distracted by the boats and crowd. She stared at everything with wide eyes.
His dad looked like he hadn’t shaved in a while. Or he was trying to grow a beard?
Micah took Ryan’s bags and, as soon as they made it out of the crowd, Ryan rushed up to his parents to hug them.
“Careful,” his mom laughed as she leaned forward into a face-squish.
“Did you miss us?” his dad asked.
“No.”
“Liar,” Micah accused him. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Payne.”
“Nope, none of that. David.”
“I’m glad to see you, too, Rye, but I’m about to tip over, and your sister is feeling a bit left out.”
She was making small noises as if trying to form words without quite knowing how.
Micah had read parts of the letters himself, so he’d known what to expect, but he still awed at how she kicked her legs and babbled in a high-pitched tone.
Ryan bent down to eye level with her and said, “Hi,” in a tiny voice. “It’s good to see you again. Did you want to say something?”
All of a sudden, his sister went quiet and stared with large eyes that wandered all over his face. She twisted her head back to check with their mother.
“Do you … remember me?” Ryan sounded a little worried.
“It’s Ryan,” David whispered. “Your big brother.”
Hannah smacked his nose with all the force of a seven-month-old—a light tap—and Ryan said, “Ow,” as if it had been harmless, but his eyes looked hurt.
He must have had an idea though because his eyes lit up and he gave a perfect imitation of a bird’s twittering. Micah rarely saw him do that anymore.
Hannah laughed and reached out.
“See?” Noelle assured him. “Of course, she remembers you. She just hasn’t seen you in a while.”
“Neither have we.” David held him back by his shoulders as if to check to see that he was still intact. He rubbed his eyebrow and asked, “Your eyebrow? Is that intentional?”
“Huh? Oh, no.” Ryan mirrored his dad and his smile faded a little. He dismissed it, “Treant.”
“Have you grown? You look taller.”
“A little, maybe? Hannah looks like she’s grown,” he brought the conversation back.
“She has—”
“I brought presents!” Ryan blurted out and took the heavier of his two duffels off of his hands.
“For your sister?”
“Yeah. Uh, I bought these blocks with the alphabet and numbers on them—the clerk said they were good for learning babies? And I bought a toy xylophone? Some other stuff …”
He rummaged around but seemed to think better of it. They stood in the center of the harbor among the dockworkers and the dispersing crowd.
“Uh, I can show you later?”
“Of course.” His mom took the cue and led the way. “Did you hear that? Your big brother brought you presents and it isn’t even your birthday yet. How about that?”
Hannah babbled something unintelligible with a smile, and Micah thought she might have been copying her mother’s smile.
“You didn’t have to do that, Rye,” his dad said, “we have toy blocks ourselves.”
“Oh—”
“But this way,” Micah jumped in, “she can build towers, and walls, and stuff?”
Ryan pointed.
“Sure. Sounds like fun. Here, let me take that.” He took Ryan’s other duffel and walked by their side. “Now tell us about your trip. Are you tired? Because we can go home first if you would like, or we can show you around.”
“Or both,” Noelle added with a glimmer of excitement in her eyes, “but we can do it tomorrow, or whenever else, too. We have time.”
Ryan glanced at him, and Micah smiled. He was impartial.
“We could go for the scenic route?”
“Great!”
“And you have to tell us about your beard!” Micah pointed out.
“Huh? Oh, this sorry excuse.” David rubbed his chin and it made a scratchy sound. “I haven’t been out as much. I guess I’ve been getting comfortable at home.”
“But now that you two are here,” Noelle said, “and we have two free babysitters, that might change.”
Ryan frowned. “Have you had any babysitters yet?”
“Well, no. Once or twice for an hour or so. We’ve been getting to know people, you know?”
The frown didn’t leave, and Micah could read the objection in his face: You would leave Hannah alone with a stranger?
“So!” Micah jumped in. “You want to go on a date night?”
“I’m not sure ‘a’ date night will be enough,” David smiled, “and we’ll want to spend time with you guys, but don’t worry, we won’t take up all your time with boring adult stuff. There’s plenty of stuff for you to do here, too!”
They walked past the station building onto a large street, and Noelle pointed to a small marina full of private sailing boats.
A long line of vibrant buildings faced the water behind them, and a sparse stream of patrons went in and out. Taverns?
“Exhibit A … A’s? We have cafes and shops, there are all sorts of neighborhood events at the park where we grill and stuff, or play ball, and there’s this one tavern, or a club really, near the youth center where all the cool kids go, the Plum Tree.”
She tapped her nose.
Ryan pushed his eyebrows up. “Aha?”
Suddenly, Micah felt a little awkward and wasn’t sure why. His parents would never talk to him about bars or clubs … but was that a bad thing?
Also, he was fifteen. Those weren’t really for him yet.
David grinned. “I know what you’re thinking. The other parents told us about it, but we corroborated. There are actually lots of people your age in the neighborhood, Ryan, if you want to make friends? They’ll probably be at some of those grill parties we’ll drag you to.”
“Uh, okay?”
Micah’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food and he pointed at the line of colorful taverns near the water. “Maybe we can go eat at one of those places sometime?”
Ryan and he had a secret plan to treat his parents to dinner while they were here, as a belated birthday present and just because.
People sat or stood at tall tables outside, some with food that trailed warm, scented essences in the air. He could almost smell them by sight alone.
“Oh, those are more for tourists and travelers,” Noelle said and gently untangled her daughter’s hand from her hair.
“I am a tourist and a traveler.” Micah grinned. “This week.”
“I mean, we can, but the ambiance would be … We might have to find a babysitter after all?”
She glanced at her husband.
“Is it dangerous?” Ryan asked. “Drunk sailors?”
She laughed. “No, no. Not that—and even then, it’s not like we would avoid it, Ryan. It’s just rowdy. Lots of people, you know? And not necessarily the right crowd but … It could be fun?”
She glanced at Micah, and he nodded as if to say, I’m up for it.
“There are places you do want to watch out for, though,” David said, “with the wrong crowd. We’ve been briefed at work. The Riverbank Club near the docks, the Hungry Vagrant off the main road, some corners in general, but those are few and far between.”
“Criminals?” Micah asked with a smile. It was a running joke in the workshop they’d all end up as back alley hacks with their education.
“Not always. Just … a lot of people come through Cairn. They don’t always believe they have to take responsibility for their actions. The guards, Noelle”—he smiled—“they keep things in line, so they gather in other places where their behavior is less likely to cause a complaint. It’s kind of expected there, you know? To keep things private.”
Smart, Micah thought.
“Have you had to break up fights or something?” Ryan asked.
“No.” She bumped into her husband. “I joined some patrols to get to know the town and horses better. The tour, if you will. There was one incident, but I mostly help out around the stables. It’s been nice, really.”
“And now, you can give us a tour!” Micah said. “You can tell us all about it, about your work and stuff?”
The last time they’d come here, they’d been, all of them, tourists who stared around like Hannah was doing now.
Their first night had been rainy and gloomy, and they’d eaten around a lamp on the floor in an empty house.
As they neared the town proper, away from the traffic of the harbor, Ryan’s parents looked far more at ease, taking streets without checking where they led, walking like they were following familiar paths.
“You can tell us about the ‘incident’?” Ryan asked.
His parents mulled it over with a lot of silent hemming and hawing. Eventually, his mother relented. “Okay. But only for the scenic route! Once we get home, it’s our turn to ask you two questions.”
She said it but didn’t seem unhappy.
His stomach grumbled as they passed by another restaurant. Micah told it to shut up. His feet ached from hours on a cramped boat, his … everywhere felt exhausted from the last few weeks in the Tower, he was hungry and thirsty, still recovering from injuries all over, and he carried luggage with him, but he took his time and smiled as they strolled along the town roads.
David and Noelle pointed out the sights, told them small stories attached to some, and showed them the construction site where a train station was being built to connect the town to Cairn and Lighthouse in … a little over a year.
It didn’t seem like that long anymore. And then they could visit all the time, or maybe go on a weekend trip to Lighthouse? Hadn’t Lisa said she had family there?
Ryan smiled more than he had in months. Micah couldn’t stop staring at it, and it got to the point where Ryan asked, “What?”
Micah turned away and said, “Nothing.”
It was a mountain off his shoulders to see him with his family. He wouldn’t ruin that for the world.
Eventually, they made it to the actual house his parents lived in, which now looked far more homely.
He pushed up on his toes and spotted new furniture through one of the windows, a couch in the far back whose pillows sang to him.
They opened the door, turned on a lamp, and David presented it with his arms out, “Home sweet home!”
Ryan looked around, and the exhaustion seemed to finally catch up to him as his shoulders slumped and he crouched down to take off his boots with a tired sigh. “Yeah.”
“Soo, how’s your summer been?”
Noelle made a sauce for the salmon, and David put a dish with bacon-wrapped asparagus and cheese in a small oven. Another new addition.
He leaned down to check on the fire, and both of them leaned over to the counter to check in with the recipe book every now and then.
There was no salad to clean, cucumbers to cut, or potatoes to peel. By the time Ryan and he had settled in, the two had already minced the herbs and cut a lemon. Only two carrots had been left, and they’d chopped those lickety-split.
They couldn’t even play with Hannah. After the excitement of the harbor and Ryan coming home, David had put her down for a belated afternoon nap.
It was part of her routine during the week apparently, that she would wake up to find her mom home from work.
“Otherwise, she won’t sleep at night,” Noelle had told them. “It gives me a bit of time to settle in when I get home. Sometimes. Sometimes, she likes to rebel against the naps and then she sees me and thinks it’s awake-time.”
It sounded tricky. A different kind of pattern to be conscious of.
So they lazed around the kitchen with no task to call their own, Micah leaning on a tiny table, Ryan in the doorway, and he felt the odd urge to do push-ups or he might not be able to get any sleep tonight.
He’d washed up. His body was beginning to wake up after the boat ride, despite most of the house being dark. He jumped at a chance of distraction. “It’s been great!”
“Yeah? What have you been up to? Ryan mentioned some in his letters, but I doubt he gave us the whole picture.” She smiled.
“We’ve been going into the Tower with friends a lot, exploring the changes, searching for new ingredients, and stuff.”
“Made some new potions?” David asked.
“Yep. I made some stoneskin potions to wrestle monsters with, some lightning ammunition—”
“Mm!” Noelle said and finished snacking on a bit of bread before David stole them away to put next to the fire. “Did you bring any with you?”
“My … ammunition?”
“And your slingshots.”
“No?”
“Ah, too bad. We have a sports club here and an archery range, but no paintball like I used to play with my classmates. I mentioned it to some of my colleagues as something to do. Teambuilding exercise, you know?”
“You signed up with a sports club?” Ryan asked from the doorway.
“Huh? Oh, no. Noo,” her voice went down. “Those are way expensive. I was thinking more like something fun to do once or twice a year, for special occasions.”
“Oh.”
“So you made lightning ammunition?” David asked.
“That was also more of a one-time thing. I struggled to find recipes and the few ones I did find were outdated, because of the changes. They didn’t match the materials I had, so I had to adjust. The fluid also works by converting kinetic energy to electrical energy so I had to be careful not to shake them about too much or the effect would deplete over time—”
“Or shock yourself,” Ryan commented.
Micah blushed and looked away. It’d happened one time, and only because the shell had been damaged.
“Hm,” Noelle mused. “That sounds like it could be solved with proper containment but uh, how strong are we talking here?”
“Uhm, about the strength of your average [Shocking Grasp]? Ideally. Again, they can deplete and the effect only lasts for a brief impact instead of a sustained current …”
“Ah, so not that dangerous. Trip someone up, not put them down?”
“Yeah. If I can figure out some way to condense it, though,” Micah mumbled, lost in thought, “to pack more patterns into the same space, or if I could buffer the effect by layering different liquids or patterns—maybe with a gel? I might be able to make a liquid that clings to monsters and zaps them whenever they move!”
He thought of the lightning prison the guild workers had trapped the collector in, but with gel chunks suspended in a fluid to replace the pitons.
That actually sounded doable. On reflex, he searched for his notes and remembered where he was.
Oops.
“That sounds useful,” Noelle said.
“So alchemy has been going alright for you?” David asked. “You’re learning a lot in school?”
“Ah, yeah. My grades in my alchemy courses were great. One of them is more about medicine, which is useful. Next year, it will get even more uhm … intense. Useful in its own way.”
David’s chin rose up a fraction when Micah stressed the alchemy part—his grades in general hadn’t been perfect, as Ms. Denner had told him—but David thankfully didn’t pry and focused on the things Micah was more comfortable talking about.
“Intense?”
“Oh, uhm, emergency responses, you know? How to identify different injuries, how to make a splint, how to keep a face intact long enough for a doctor to reattach. Not like, actual medicine. Not what a doctor would learn. Just enough to make sure a teammate can make it to a doctor in time in case they really need one?”
He stopped fiddling around with the dishes and utensils. “Face?”
“Micah,” Ryan said gently, “dinner.”
“Huh? Oh, sh—oot. Sorry!”
“No, no, uh … Wow. And you’re … looking forward to that?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s good to know, right?” Micah glanced at Ryan and briefly, imagined having to glue his face back on if a monster flayed it off.
Ryan must have thought the same thing because he scowled. “Micah—”
“Sorry, sorry!” Micah rushed to think of something else. The smell of melting cheese and herbs warmed the kitchen, and he remembered, “Oh, we actually learned how to make butter out of oil recently! In my other course.”
That was more appropriate for dinner, right?
“Butter? Was it edible?” Noelle asked.
“Mine was.”
A few of his classmates had made tasteless clumps that were hard to spread without melting them first but none had failed per se.
“I only ask because alchemy can be bad for you,” she explained. “I had to watch out during the pregnancy.”
“I get that. No, this wasn’t— The butter wasn’t alchemical. We used alchemy in the process to smooth things along. Industrial alchemy, you know?”
It was one of the many fields alchemists could work in, or specialize in.
“To influence the chemical reactions and cut down on production time and costs. We didn’t make much, only a spoonful by the end, but we got to choose the flavor. I picked olive and salted it a little.”
“So if we didn’t have butter on hand,” David said and got a washcloth to wipe off the edge of the sink, “you could whip us something up?”
“Oh, no. I would need a safe workspace and equipment. I think. If things go wrong, it can blow up?”
He frowned. “The butter …?”
“The hydrogen.”
“Huh?”
Although, if Micah considered it, he knew a few ways he could make hydrogen out of water. If he had the right equipment, or learned the right spells, and was careful, there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to make his own butter in the future, right?
… Then again, would it be worth the effort? It hadn’t even tasted that good if he was being honest. Better to buy it from someone who knew what they were doing.
“Chemistry,” Noelle commented.
“I only learned the very basics in classroom,” David said, “and you know, it wasn’t my thing.”
“Mine neither! I know chemistry can help a ton in alchemy, but alchemy has its own rules that I get and love, you know? And chemistry has a whole other set of rules that I have to learn, and learn to mix and match, and some of it works even though we don’t know why, and uhm … It’s a lot.”
“You’ll have to learn more next year?”
He nodded.
“But you want to stick with Tower ingredients?” she added.
“I’m sticking with essences for now. It’s my Path.” Even if he hadn’t found a research project yet.
On that topic, before they could ask him something else or he continued babbling on about himself, Micah nodded at the cookbook and asked, “So you’ve been cooking?”
“A little.” David smiled. “Some cooking, some baking. Really, I just follow the recipes to the letter, but I have some free time when I’m home with Hannah so this is nice. I also tried gardening, though that was less exciting. I keep our lawns tidy because we have lawns now!”
He threw both arms out to point at the backdoor with a grin. Or rather, the garden and small patio that stretched halfway along the back of the house.
“Any garden projects planned?”
“I keep telling you,” Noelle said, “we have to plant some flower beds, or at least get some boxes for our windows soon. We’re Hadica citizens, born and raised!” She said it with a bit of fake pride, though Micah had heard the real deal often enough.
“And I keep telling you, I don’t get what the fuss is about. I’m not really a flower box type of guy, and that’s all there seems to be to gardening?”
“Not true,” Micah said, “you can plant herbs and vegetables and stuff. I have some flower boxes in my room back at school?”
“For decoration, or—”
“Experiments.”
“Right. Figures. Is your roommate taking care of those while you’re gone?”
“I set up a watering system for this week. It only needs to work for two more days for them to survive. And like, I can always bring them back from the brink.”
“Necromancer,” Noelle joked.
Micah smiled and didn’t disagree. He might not be able to control if people lived or died, but like hell he was going to give plants a say in the matter. They would live if he told them to. Forever.
“You know, we didn’t really go places but our neighbors would sometimes ask us to water their stuff while they were gone.”
“Sometimes, we push it off on Ryan to do as a chore.”
They glanced at him, silently standing in the doorway—or rather, just outside leaning in as if he wanted to avoid being a part of this conversation.
As if he had been caught, Ryan straightened and said, “So did you make the bread yourself, dad?”
He nodded at the oven. The baguette was crusted in nuts. David had cut it into slices and they could see more baked into it. The roasted scent joined the scents in the air as the oven toasted it.
“This is supposed to be a nice dinner, Ryan.”
“So that’s a no,” Noelle said.
“I bought some bread from the bakery we went to last time. Do you remember?”
He nodded slowly.
Micah knew the look so he asked him, “What?” He was keeping a thought to himself, and Micah was ready to jump up and poke him until he spit it out.
“Hm?”
“What were you just thinking?”
“Nothing.” Ryan shrunk back a bit and mumbled, “Just … you know, any family dinner would have been nice. Like we used to have.”
“Aww,” Noelle said. “That’s kind of you to say, Rye. We can always have breakfast as usual while you’re here.”
David was looking at the oven and mused, “Maybe we should have gone with something simpler. We made this last week, and thought of it when we had that last-minute panic to think of something to cook for tonight—”
He stepped closer. “It smells amazing! I’m just saying.”
If he rearranged the meal, it was basically a grilled bacon and cheese sandwich with some asparagus, carrots, and salmon in a cream sauce. It was like eating at his sister’s place instead of the cafeteria. Micah would go for that any day, but Ryan’s parents had stuck to the same half a dozen or so dinner ideas while he’d stayed with them, changed up a little from time to time.
He guessed something like this was new?
“Well, if your nose says it’s good, that’s all the endorsement we need. We can bring the bread out in a moment and reheat it, give the asparagus some time to bake, and then make the salmon …”
David checked off the figurative list.
“Should we wake Hannah up for dinner?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll go check on her in a moment, but she was pretty tired.”
The table had already been set when they got here, too.
“Right. So.” He turned on his son like a door closing.
Noelle joined him with a smile, locking it shut. “Tell us about your school year. How did it go?”
Ryan hesitated, and his leg twisted away. “It went … well, I mean— Didn’t you get my report card in the mail?”
“We did!”
“Awesome grades all around,” David said with a wild gesture. “No question about it. I still have no idea where you get it from. Definitely not from me.”
“Your grandparents were strict about making us study. You do it on your own. I don’t know where we went right.”
“Ryan’s diligent,” Micah piled on, because he deserved this, “even without the Skill.”
“We have, uh … study groups.” Ryan awkwardly rubbed his shoulder and nodded at him. “It was Micah’s idea, actually. To get together.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who does the most of the work. You always know the answers when we need help, too.”
“Really? You help the others?”
“No. Lisa, Alex, Anne—most people we study with don’t need help. Micah is just too busy trying to get Anne’s attention to keep up, so he has to ask.”
Immediately, the adults glanced at him.
“Ryan,” he hissed and shrunk together.
“Anne, huh?” Noelle said.
David didn’t let himself be distracted. “So the exams went well, mostly?”
“Mostly,” Ryan mumbled.
“But you, uh, mentioned in your letter, something happened in your final exam? You didn’t give us the whole picture but your Tower Studies grade took a hit, compared to the rest.”
“Yeah, uh—”
“They failed you?” Noelle asked, sounding confused. “Outright? Just like that?”
Ryan nodded.
“We weren’t sure if we should write to the school to complain or—”
“No! No, I— They didn’t do anything wrong. I screwed up.” Finally, he took a reluctant step into the kitchen and looked at them. “I ran off on my own during the exam and placed myself, my team, and another team in danger. It was against the rules. They warned us and they failed me for it. Punished me, too. Made me run laps around the Tower. I’m sorry.”
“I mean, your grade is still fine,” Noelle started, “and your other grades are perfect but—”
“Why did you run off?” David asked.
Micah almost spoke up, awkwardly leaning against the table between them. He wondered if he should give them some privacy, as Ryan had done for Prisha and him.
Then again, he wanted to be here for him. He hadn’t been there, during the exam. He should have taken a more active role in their team and he hadn’t.
He wanted Ryan to see he was on his side, so Micah gave him a reassuring smile.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said, saw him, and glanced away. “I— We were cooperating with another team to assault a Kobold camp and made a plan. Someone would have to act as bait to distract them. I figured rather than make someone else do it, I’d do the responsible thing and volunteer but … I woke up cranky, after practically sleeping in a sauna on hard rock for a few hours. There was mud everywhere and the Kobolds hid in the walls and— I didn’t really feel like I was doing anything, so I abandoned the plan and went to attack the camp like the others.”
“You wanted to help?” Noelle asked.
Ryan shrugged.
“Ryan,” his dad sighed, “I get the sentiment. I do … It’s a shame about your grade though.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. No need to apologize. Your heart was in the right place, and it’s not like you will do it again, will you? You’ll do better next time?”
Ryan hesitated, then quickly bobbed his head in a yes. “Yeah, I promise.”
They didn’t smile like they had when they’d showered him with praises, but there was a light in their eyes, and Micah was amazed by how much faith they placed in their son.
He’d failed his final exam and rather than punish him or get angry, they heard him out, let him explain his side of the story, and trusted him to do better in the future.
Micah didn’t know if he would want his parents to be more like that—they had always scolded him when he screwed up, and he struggled to imagine them being this nice—but he did think Noelle and David were pretty awesome.
“Maybe next time,” Noelle joked, “bring a sleeping bag or a pillow? Then you might get some better sleep inside the Tower.”
“We thought— It was just a few days,” Ryan mumbled.
“And the mines really were like a sauna,” Micah said, “so we only could have slept on them anyway or it’d be like sleeping in a pool of our own sweat.”
“Ew.”
“Your poor backs,” Noelle said.
Micah grimaced at the memory, but it was a small price to pay for a good-ish grade and more luggage room for loot.
David asked as if he had suddenly remembered, “You have a sleeping bag for your scout trip, don’t you?”
“I do. I brought it with me?”
“Oh right.” He rolled his eyes and tapped his head. It had been plain to see, tied to Ryan’s backpack. “And otherwise? How was your school year? How are your friends?”
“How’s Lisa?” Noelle asked with a grin. “Have you been spending the summer with her?”
Ryan sighed, and Micah grimaced.
“She’s visiting home, actually. After the Registry’s Ball. I won’t see her until a week before school starts.”
Or maybe not at all, Micah finished the thought.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that—”
“Oh right, the ball!” David said. “We haven’t even asked you about that yet! You really need to write us more letters, both of you. We’re dying with questions over here.”
“It’s good to have you back,” Noelle added.
Micah sat on the table and beamed, kicking his legs.
Ryan gave them a smile, too.