“I,” Micah started in an almost sing-song voice, “made you something.” He hopped next to Ryan and handed him the squat, cylindrical perfume bottle made of black glass.

The stream of students pushed and pulled around them, almost all in their mandatory school uniforms on their way into the gym.

Ryan weighed the bottle in one hand and sprayed up once. He sniffed as he walked through the cloud and furrowed his brows.

“It’s a new and improved breeze potion!” Micah answered his unspoken question. The scent wafted over to him and drew attention. “I’m working on something even better—or at least, I think so—but I added some apple mint to this one because, one, I thought you might like it …?”

He went up with his voice and waited, turning the statement into a question. It took a while for Ryan to answer.

“Smells … clean-ish. Is this actual cologne or Micah cologne?” Meaning: perfume or potion.

“Micah cologne. Breeze potion,” he said as if the words were, Keep up. Part of that was out of frustration. Because judging by his expression, he … didn’t like the smell?

He knew it was a little herbal. Maybe even medicinal. Just barely. It was the best he could have done, given what he was working with. He didn’t know if he could preserve the effect if he changed the scent. Or, well, he could, but it would take more time as he’d have to separate and refit the different ingredients and patterns, like some kind of magical puzzle.

He’d hoped Ryan would like it from the start. Apparently not. Back to the drawing board it is, he thought.

Ryan grunted, “And two?”

Micah picked it back up, “And two, because I’m working on pest control alchemicals. Don’t worry, I’ll make you a pure one for the exam. But they’re the big in the Guild magazines right now because of the changes. Why rely on other people to get a hold of their aura when you can do it for them? Not everyone can be as great at managing their Path as you are, after all.” He nudged him. “So I was wondering if maybe you could try it out for a week or two? And tell me if any bees or mosquitoes run in terror or … y’know … attackyouinablindrage.”

He garbled the last bit and sped up, pushing his way through the crowd. He got surprisingly far before Ryan called after him, “Micah?!”

He spun and held his arms out, almost mirroring the way Ryan held the bottle with one hand.

“I’m joking, I’m joking. Mostly.” Walking backward, he was slow enough for the other guy to catch up. “I’ve been experimenting with these like, fly trap bowls, you know? But the opposite? And most of them worked just fine.”

“Most?”

He nodded. “Most.”

Ryan pushed him further back by the weight of his pace alone. Micah almost tripped a few times in the hurry, no idea where he was headed through the crowd. He trusted him to lead.

“I just need to make sure, and I thought a moving sample might be better than the static bowls I put up around the school, so I’m trying one version myself and I thought maybe you could try out the other?”

Ryan stopped all the sudden and held his arm out almost like a doorman. Micah gladly stumbled to a stop, backtracked, and slipped inside the row.

“There’s a higher chance things will go wrong once they start to decay, though,” he explained as he inched past knees and shoes of other students. “So watch out near the end of the second week.”

Ryan let out a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes as if to say, Sure. But I’m not happy about this. He waved at someone else through the crowd and joined him, knocking past the knees of those too slow to move.

Some complained. Ryan complained back, “Move your legs then!”

“Thank you! And I’ll make you anything you want the moment I can. And when I’m rich, because I will be someday, you’re getting alchemicals free for life.”

Ryan hesitated, but the corner of his lips quirked up a bit and it only made Micah’s smile real. Good thing he’d picked it back up.

“What’s this about free alchemicals for life?” Lisa asked as she took giant steps into the row to join them, almost like she was avoiding stepping on something. “What about me?”

“You too, of course,” Micah said. Of course, Ryan had waved her over. “If you trial run my products.”

“Your products?”

He slapped Ryan’s shoulder a few times to get him to show. The guy sighed and held the bottle up.

Lisa sniffed a little and said, “Perfume me.”

He sprayed her.

She made a face and leaned back, crossing her arms. “I don’t like it.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. Smells weird. Too … not ‘clean’, but …”

Ryan nodded wisely.

Micah groaned and threw his arms down. “I mean, if you were a small animal that would be perfect, but—”

She cuffed him, reaching past behind Ryan’s shoulders to get all the way to the back of his head.

“Ow.” He flinched. “What was that for?”

“Don’t know. Punishment for your shitty perfume, maybe? ‘Just felt like it.” She shrugged.

Micah scowled and slowly eyed the bottle still in Ryan’s lap. He grabbed it— The other guy didn’t let go. Stupid [Sure Grip]. So he grabbed the back of his hand instead and twisted it around to spray her.

She was too slow to dodge, so she leaned over Ryan entirely to swat him with her other arm instead, wrestling control over the bottle with her first. Micah leaned back and tried to spray a third time, laughing—

Ryan let go of the bottle and got up to leave.

The moment he caught on, Micah rolled out of his seat to grab him and cried out, “Ryan, no! Wait, wait, stay.” Lisa barred his way as well and together, they dragged him back down.

Once seated, Ryan took Micah’s arm, lifted his hand off his leg, and threw it back on his own.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

He gave a non-committal grunt.

Micah smiled at nothing for a second longer, until his brain started working again and he tried to recapture his train of thought.

The bottle. Right.

“Lisa. You’re smart. Can you put into words why it smells wrong?” Because without details, their complaints would get him nowhere.

“I don’t know. It’s just … it smells clean, but not clean enough, you know? More like scented candles than sterile hospitals or strong detergents. And it smells herbal, but not the good kind of herbal. More of the prickly, earthy kind that makes you think of weeds, and dirt, and thorned bushes, or shady vendors.”

She hung her head in his direction. “Either would have been fine, and if you had gone all the way for one or the other, it would have been good, but both half-measures together? No.”

He blinked and stared for a moment. He actually hadn’t expected such a helpful response. But it made sense. He thanked her and made a mental note to work more on the recipe.

Maybe if he found a way to take all the patterns of his current potion, and layer a nice smell over them? That meant even more work … He looked ahead and let out a heavy sigh like a huffed breath.

The hall was mostly filled already. He could see the teachers conferring on stage and from past experience and their body language, he knew it would be a few more minutes until they began.

He searched the crowd, looking for familiar faces, but had troubles finding anyone through the sea of faces. He took in a deep breath and when he turned the other way, Lisa was looking.

He gave her a questioning look and she said, “Do that again.”

Micah smiled, took a moment to clear his lungs as much as he could, then accepted the challenge, turned away, and took in a giant breath, “Haa—”

Wind shifted and the hair of the people in the row in front of him rustled a little as he took in a large funnel of air essence. He pushed some into his newly-expanded veins to stuff his body as full as it could go, then kept his mouth shut so none could escape and grinned at her.

She smirked, turned, and took in a massive breath. Two, three, five, ten … twenty times the size of his, easily. Maybe more. People turned to frown as if she were casting a spell.

It was ridiculous.

She casually turned to smile at him.

Micah huffed, as strong as blowing wind, and gave her a sulking frown. “That’s so unfair.”

She shrugged and let out a breath of her own, but there was no extra air essence. Where had it all gone?

“From your point of view, maybe. From where I’m standing, you’ve been improving by leaps and bounds. You’re doing good.”

Micah wanted to sulk, but all he could think of was the sheer volume of essences she could breathe in, her compliment, and the thought that he might do that himself someday. And all that welled up inside was excitement.

He spun in his seat and slapped an arm down the back of Ryan’s chair, asking, “How can you even do that?”

“I don’t know. It’s just sort of a side-effect of training in general, I think. Like how learning spells will make learning future spells easier as you get the hang of it?”

“So it wasn’t even your focus?” That made it even more unfair. No, no, he couldn’t get off-track. “But like, it’s still a tool, right? How come I’ve never seen you use it in combat?”

Ryan moved, so they had to adjust to speak past him, but the guy’s eyes glared from side to side.

“I don’t know. I never really thought to breathe something in that wasn’t air … or uhm, other stuff. But nevermind.” She shook her head. “It seems like too much of a hassle to exert your authority like that.”

“My authority? Oh, do you mean like my influence?”

“Influence?”

“You know, what we do to manipulate essences? Wait, no …” He wasn’t sure that was the right word.

She furrowed her brows as well. “Weird that you would choose that word—”

“Dominion!”

“Ahh.” She broke into a smile. “That’s more like it. Uhm, no. I meant authority. But … damn, you don’t even know about stuff like Near or Far. Of course, you wouldn’t know about this.”

“I would if you told me …?” He added on a hopeful smile. “Because you’ve mentioned those before, but never explained.”

She considered, and gave up with a sigh. “Near and Far, or Nearest and Furthest, are actually pretty simple, I guess. Deceptively so. It’s like … red essence and fire essence are ‘near’.”

“Uhm … okay?” That did sound simple. How was it supposed to be relevant?

She must have seen the doubt on his face, because she rolled her eyes and groaned. “There’s always follow-up questions with you. Look, it’s like … if you fuel a pattern with fire essence or red essence, you will get similar effects. If the pattern requires fire essences though, and you fuel it with red essence, you might get an interesting effect. That’s how it could be important to you as an [Alchemist].”

“Oh!” he lit up. He had actually tried that out before. So it was just used to describe similarity?

“But to everyone else?” Lisa went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “Humans? Yeah, it might be less important. But to some beings or forms of magic; spirits and others? It’s really damn important.”

“Why?” Ryan asked.

Micah wondered the same thing.

“It gets complicated. Spirits, for example; a fire spirit that draws on red essence will behave differently.”

“Oh,” Micah said. “So like drugs? Or coffee?”

She went up with her voice. “Maybe?” It sounded doubtful.

“And that other thing, with the authority?”

“It’s … basically like vibrancy for the spirit? Or rather, all stats that would govern mana but for your spirit. It determines the strength of your influence, I guess. If both of us tried manipulating something at the same time, one of us will win out. That depends on your authority.”

Ooh. Now, Micah was really interested. He scooted a little closer and said, “Let’s try that! I want to see who will win.”

She gave him a droll look.

“C’mon, I can’t win against you in arm wrestling. I at least want to see if I can win in this.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Why? Are you scared? Are you chicken?” He tried to jab at her, but she was too far away so he made phantom jabs in front of Ryan.

She almost chuckled but shook her head. “Haven’t you ever tried to exert your authority before? And I don’t mean this breathing in of essences or moving them around. This isn’t about volume, it’s about the yes and no of it itself. Making it do as you want, not as it wants.”

“Of course. I had to strain a whole bunch when I started out, especially in the Tower, just to make it work.”

“Mhm.” She nodded wisely, clasped her arm, and rested her elbow against the back of her seat as she leaned in. “And how did that make you feel?”

That was a strange question. Micah huffed and considered it, though, because he knew how her lessons went by now.

What had it made him feel? A lot of things, if he was being honest. Strained as if he had lifted weights, powerful because he’d succeeded, cold in a way that was more ‘calm’ than a description of his body temperature; miserable from coughing, but also … miserable besides.

It felt like he had given something up of his whenever he’d done it. He felt that less now.

But that was too much of an answer, and he could guess what she wanted to hear: “Exhausted.”

She nodded. “I bet you were stressed or emotional during those times, right? It’s the most common scenario where people push.”

“Common? Does that mean it has to be that way or is there another way of doing it, then?”

“Of course. Just like with manipulating your spirit, it’s something you have to practice. You can find different ways of doing it. For me, emotions help. Well, maybe not emotions but passion. You have to find what works for you.”

“So the reason you won’t breath-wrestle me now is … because you’re not passionate about it?”

“Other forms do still work, but …” She trailed off and shook her head. “Look at me when I breathe.” She took in a few steady breaths for a moment with a clear rise and fall of her chest.

Micah watched, then realized where he was looking, and quickly looked up, feeling a blush coming on.

She didn’t seem to have noticed herself, thankfully, but air essences moved with her every breath. He focused on that instead.

“Now, look at you.”

Dutifully, Micah copied her and tried to squint down to see. Even through the stilted perspective, he saw himself inhale much more than her.

Huh.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed that before, but it wasn’t something he’d really put any thought into. It was just another sign of improvement, right?

He turned to her, the question hopefully clear on his face.

“There’s a difference between pushing your authority and just having it. Your passive authority? It’s high. And you can strain to push it even higher. But that’s a strain. Me? I have little doubt that when I push, I can push much higher than you. But so will I have to push the cost.”

Micah considered that for a moment and reluctantly shoved the thought of possibly winning against her in something aside—along with his doubts that she was trying to save face.

It made sense to him, in a way. At least, on its own. Neither of his Paths or he himself disagreed.

He still decided to tease her, “So you are a chicken. Doesn’t my passive authority, or whatever, being higher not mean my active one is, too?”

She made a face but said, “No, it means you’re a brute. You march your will unto the world like a child unto ants.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

And who the hell uses ‘unto’ in a sentence?

“You bully those who wouldn’t stand a chance against you anyway. Loose essences, weak monsters that are nothing more but essence constructs, beginner [Mages], and so on.”

“Hold the stupid metaphors for a moment,” Ryan interrupted, “is Micah breathing in more all the time or what?”

He must have inferred from context. Micah suddenly realized how awkward the conversation must have been for him without an expanded perspective.

“Yep!” He put on a smile, hoping he wouldn’t feel left out. “And I’m a giant compared to the world apparently.” He said it with pride. That’s how he had decided to spin it anyway, since children were giants compared to ants, and it was an awesome compliment.

Lisa rolled her eyes as if to say, I clearly didn’t mean that. He gave her a look back that responded, It’s right there in your words, though.

“Isn’t that a bad thing?” Ryan interrupted them again. “What if you’re near poison or something?”

Micah paused. “Oh. Uhm … hum.” He had not considered that. At all. He gave her a questioning look.

Ryan spoke first, “Can’t you like … unlearn it?”

“Unlearn?” she asked. “No, this isn’t something you ‘learn’. It’s something you rise up to claim. You can learn to suppress it, though.”

Ryan crossed his arms and seemed to consider for a moment before saying, “So you’re being pedantic then?”

She groaned. “Terminology is important.”

“Sure, sure.” He turned to Micah and pointed. “Learn that. Or learn to be careful around dangerous … essences. Or whatever.”

Micah nodded vigorously, but turned back to Lisa, “But why is your authority different from mine then? If it’s something you ‘rise up to claim’. Why isn’t your passive authority higher?”

She scoffed. “It has to do with blood. Heritage. But it also has to do with … how you shape it? Okay, so maybe you do learn. A little. But it’s less a ‘learning’ and more of an … unfurling? Unfolding? Like, when you get a birthday present and you have different ways of unpacking it …?”

She was clearly just reaching to cover up her mistake, and only because Ryan had called her out on it.

Weird that he had been the one to do it in spite of his outsider perspective. Or maybe he could only do it because of that.

Either way, Micah smiled— And the thought maybe him wonder, and the wondering made him ask out loud, “Oh, What about Ryan’s ‘authority’ or whatever then? What’s his like?”

She glanced at the guy in question, only a few inches from her face because of how close they sat around him. “I have no idea. I’ve literally never seen him exert authority in my life.”

“It’s nothing to nothing,” he said.

Micah frowned and cuffed his arm. “Don’t say that.”

He shrugged, but it was more of a jerking his shoulder up to make Micah back off. He did.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“And, uhm … Oh, what about Anne?”

Lisa looked a little more interested then. She seemed to glance up in consideration for a moment and said, “The Heswaren’s … don’t care. Wait, no. That’s not right. They can care about one thing and one thing only. Their authority is all or nothing, from one moment to the next about that. Don’t mess with them.”

Her bringing Anne’s entire house into it made Micah wonder, “Wait, is authority how nobles used to use their Skills? And parents, and guards and stuff?”

She smiled. “Now, you’re getting it. I mean, definitely not all of them, but some I would bet.”

He wasn’t, though. Getting it. Except sort of a little, but not how she explained it. It helped if he thought of ‘dominions’ after all. A space; an area. Almost like an aura but much more rigid.

Nearly inviolable.

Just like how you could only control mana for so far away from your body or close to your lines of influence, or how those disrupted foreign mana, authority could only extend in those areas … right?

No.

That didn’t ring quite true. What would?

He pushed the thought aside for later and went through the conversation again to make sure he would remember it. But the gym shifted and voices grew louder around him as people tried to talk over each other or finish their conversations. The assembly would start soon.

Up on stage, Principal Denner received her voice-amplification spell and cleared her throat a few times.

On a whim, Micah leaned over to get one last gib in, “But it’s still a tool you could be using and haven’t, right? Unless … wait, are your other forms of influence better?”

He looked. Ryan was scowling at them and anyone else who was still talking despite the sounds from the stage.

“That,” she admitted, “and it’s just such a hassle, you know? It’s not like you can keep a lot of essences in your mouth.”

“Mouth?”

Ryan elbowed him lightly, mostly to push him back, so Micah sat upright but still twisted around to mouth at her, Mouth?

She wasn’t looking, having been pushed back herself, and before he could hiss to get her attention back, Ryan elbowed him a second time and kept it there to stop him with a glare.

He apologized in a hushed whisper and sat bolt upright as surely as if a teacher had called him out on something.

In the back of his mind, though, he couldn’t help but smile at the thought that Lisa might have misunderstood something. Because ‘mouth’ didn’t fit into anything he did with his breath and maybe … just maybe he had learned to do something better than her for once?

The smug thought made him feel a little proud of himself as he looked up at the stage and listened.

“—and I’m sure we are all looking forward to next year, when we will be able to participate in the Sport’s Festival properly with the other schools of our district,” Denner said on stage.

She shifted papers and went on, “Now, onto more pressing matters. Your final test in your Tower Studies course is quickly approaching and there are a few announcements to be made.

Several parents and students have reached out to us on matters of your assessment, about the mana values we had you tested for throughout the last few weeks, and we want to assure you that for those of you who don’t, or who rely less on spells, these will not be as important. Nor will they drastically change your assessment on their own, barring exceptional cases.

Mana is an important resource, though, and even if this measure is inexact, so is physical aptitude and we have an entire festival dedicated to measuring that. We believe this will be a good step forward.”

She gave them a brief smile. “So don’t worry about that.”

Micah didn’t know how to feel about his own mana. It was fine enough for the exam, he guessed, but from the small sample size of people who had leveled roughly the same as he had, and gotten their mana tested, and shared that information with the Registry, he knew it could be better.

Hopefully, it would now that he was improving. And as he grew up. He was still so far out of what was normal after all.

“—otherwise, your completed teams have been posted in the usual spots,” Ms. Denner said, “So for those of you who have been assigned to teams, you can find your new allies there.”

She looked like she wanted to move on for a moment, but seemed to change her mind and leaned in. Her expression seemed almost exhausted.

“And please, make sure to introduce yourselves to your team before the exam, and use these last few weeks to train properly with them. Do not push it up to a few days before the exam. Thank you.”

Micah smiled, a little unsure if she was joking. Others joined him with chuckles here and there.

Their principal glared at them. “Some of you might laugh, but some of your fellow classmates did just that before the last exam.”

Micah’s smile fell … Wait, what? He glanced around. Who the hell would push that up so long?

“You’re going to have to rely on each other in the Tower, not just for your grades, but for your lives as well. Do well.”

She sighed and it sounded vaguely worried for their sakes, but then flipped to the next page and the expression vanished to be replaced by … something better, but not purely good.

Excited, definitely. Her voice animated and her posture shifted upward. But there was a vague sense of worry around her.

“Now, on a different note: last but certainly not least, we are excited to share some great news with you. The Registry will be celebrating its forty-seventh birthday this summer and it has been gracious enough to invite some of the students from their newest investment, our school, to the party.”

Approximately a fifth of the students bolted straight upright in their seats when they heard that, Micah among them.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? Had it been decided yet or could he get in there? How had he not heard of this before?

“The festivities will be held in one of the Guild’s ballrooms, and while these type of events tend to go on into the night, the students in question would only be invited for a short window.

During that time, you will be expected to socialize, be nothing less than absolutely courteous to the other guests and members of the Registry, answer any and all questions about the school”—her voice took on a strained tone as she said that; the small hint of worry in her earlier expression—”and maybe even share some of the fruits of your studies with them.”

She looked down and summarized, “Delight them.”

So they would be part of the entertainment? Or was this some sort of check-in from the Registry? Both?

“You will also be expected to dance with another. For that purpose, the school will be offering lessons twice weekly. We know that not all of you know how to dance; we also know some of you do. But for any of you who would wish to be invited, you would have to attend at least two sessions to prove that.”

Micah had no idea how to dance, but he was excited to learn? And had she said they would have to dance in pairs? What if … what if Anne went there?

His heartbeat picked up.

“Of course, anyone else who wants to learn simply for the sake of learning will also be welcome to attend, but we can only accept so many students, so please be considerate to your fellow students.”

She gave them a hard look. “If push comes to shove, we will kick people out. If you have an interest in learning how to dance, many courses are regularly held in the community centers.”

Micah hadn’t thought of that, but maybe it would fun to sign up for one of those as well? With a bunch of friends? Ooh, he wanted to see Ryan dance.

He glanced at the guy, but he was listening.

“Now, onto the thick of it: twenty students, ten boys and ten girls, and four substitutes for each in case anyone is unavoidably detained, will be invited. In order to be eligible, you have to sign your name on a list in the administration building, Guild foyer, or the secretary’s office.

We will choose the best of the best from that pool based on your achievements throughout the school year. So if you gave your all these last seven months and continue to give your all during the final exam, you might be one of those twenty lucky students to be invited.

And you do want to be invited. I’ve heard rumors that the Registry is preparing some small gifts for the attendants. Not that the evening in and of itself won’t be a gift, with all the famous personalities that will be attending …” She trailed off with a knowing smile and checked the pages.

Micah was almost twitching in his seat. Could he qualify? Sure, he still had to learn how to dance but … that should be easy, right? Tons of people could do that. But if they had to be the ‘best of the best’ … Surely not everyone would sign up, right? That should improve his chances … he was super high-level for his age … and he had a somewhat unique Path! If it was entertainment the school was after …

He needed more information. Micah needed to know who he was up against, who all would sign their names on the sheet, and where they stood in the rankings. Otherwise, he wouldn’t sleep tonight.

“If you have any questions or want more information, there will be information pamphlets posted along with the sign-up sheets. Or you can inquire in the secretary’s office directly.”

Micah’s eyes shot up. That was perfect. Because he had so many questions already.

She slowly wrapped up the assembly with a few more reminders, but the moment she was done, Micah almost crawled over Ryan and Lisa in his haste to get out of the row.

He pushed his way through the crowd, speed walked to the door, and the second he was around the corner and out of view of the teachers’ sight, he rushed down the hallway to the foyer.

Long rows of boards had been set up on the bottom floor to accommodate lists of names, numbers, and groups. A small crowd of the students from the back rows had already formed.

Most of them flocked to the names first to find their number, and then their team, but Micah rushed by, hopping up to look over shoulders and searching for the pamphlets on the party.

The moment he spotted one, he ran up, and read, and stopped. His heart sank as he saw the date of the event.

Ryan found his way to him after a few minutes, as he always did, and when Micah noticed his presence behind him, he pointed: the fourth week of the summer break.

“That’s when we wanted to visit my parents,” Ryan said.

He nodded. “Do you think they will be mad?”

There was a long pause. Then, “What?”

The bite in his voice surprised him. He turned around and asked, “Don’t you want to go?”

He made a face. “No.” His tone was final.

“But what about … the famous personalities, and the rewards, and all that?” Micah asked. That had to interest him.

Ryan leaned forward with a strange intensity in his eyes, and it took Micah a moment to realize it was anger.

“Micah, I get to see my parents a few weeks in the year, now,” he hissed. “I’m not giving that up to play teacher’s pet at some stupid party for the school. Are you?”

“No,” he quickly said. “No, of course not. I just meant … Uhm, maybe not entirely?” All the excitement he’d had a moment ago fell into his stomach and twisted inward.

“Like, we could visit for a few days and then come back early and … I don’t know, maybe go back again? In and out?” He gestured forward and back. Couldn’t that be an option?

“And pay twice as much in tickets?” Ryan asked. “Hell, three times as much because of late booking?”

“No, but …” Micah wasn’t sure if he could spare that kind of money if he wanted to buy something else. “Do you really not want to try at all? Because we could both try then, and learn how to dance, and dress up, and I bet Lisa would want to go, too, because of course she would get picked, and then you could dance with her maybe, or someone else, I don’t know …

“And you could meet a bunch of famous people! Think of the connections we could make by talking to them! We could impress them.”

He smiled because it sounded so awesome in his head and he couldn’t help but think this would be exactly the type of opportunity any growing climber would jump on. You needed friends.

It was exactly the type of thing he imagined someone like Anne would want to go to, too.

But when he saw Ryan’s face, the dream fell. No matter what he said, the guy hadn’t budged. If anything, his expression had darkened.

He’d screwed up. He had just assumed Ryan would be excited to go because … well, he was such an overachiever everywhere else. Micah had forgotten the flickers of exhaustion he’d seen in his friend.

Of course, he would want to visit his family. He needed to fix this. He just didn’t know how.

“We meet a bunch of famous people all the time,” Ryan said. “Just by being here or hanging out with Lisa. And anyway—” He clenched his jaw as if holding something back. “No.”

Micah wrung his hands a little. He wanted to find the right words; there were none. If he went, if that awesome evening even happened, Ryan wouldn’t be there.

Was he fine with that? More importantly, what did he do?

Just be honest.

He sighed. “I want to go, Ryan. Or at least, I want to try. I would like you to come, too, but I’ll do it on my own if I have to. I feel like this would be the perfect chance for … something. But I still want to visit, too. So even if it’s just a few days instead of a few weeks, or if I have to leave and come back … Can’t I do both?”

His friend stared at him for a long second and said in an almost defeated voice, “Why are you asking me?”

Then he left, slipping between the people behind him. Two steps into the crowd, he shoulder-tackled someone out the way who hadn’t moved fast enough, and pushed the rest of his way free.

Micah couldn’t keep up with him and he still hadn’t read all of the information on the pamphlet or signed up. He didn’t know what he meant by that last sentence, either. Who else to ask but …

Oh! Fuck. His parents. They would be the ones most disappointed if he didn’t show, so he’d have to write them to apologize if he did this.

If.

Damnit.

He glanced back and quickly scrambled to find a pen so he could add his name to the list, then hurried after Ryan. He could come back later and strike his name out if need be.

And he had to apologize.

He was almost through the crowd when someone else called his name across the distance, and he searched the tall bodies until he spotted an arm waving. He adjusted his course.

It was Lisa. Jason stood next to her already, and Ryan was a few steps back, but he was calling someone else over. Kyle?

Someone began to shove their way through the crowd.

“There you are,” Lisa drew his attention. “We have a problem.”

“What kind?”

“See for yourself.”

She pointed to the board. Their team listing? A familiar sense of fear and frustration welled up in his chest as if his body were saying, Oh, no. Not this again.

But no, they had done everything properly this time. There shouldn’t have been any undue surprises. He looked. Kyle shoved past the final pair to stumbled up next to him and joined him.

Ryan Payne, Micah Stranya, Lisa Chandler, Kyle Jonasson, Jason Gale and …

“Who the fuck is Lea Bluth?” Kyle asked.

A voice piped up behind them, and they spun around to see her raising one hand in answer. “Uhm, that would be me.”

Micah knew Lea. Or he knew some of her friends. She hung out with Stephanie often and was almost as friendly as her, Lukas and was almost as tall and athletic as him, with the same blonde hair, and hung out with the other kids he had come to think of as the [Athletes].

She had seemed as confident and carefree as them. If her last name was any indication, she was important, too.

So why didn’t she have a team? That was his question.

“Why the fuck did they give us a sixth member when we specifically checked the box that says, ‘Fuck that’?” Kyle asked. “You checked the box right, Stranya? Please, tell me you checked the box—”

“I did, I did.”

Jeez. He was usually patient with him, but why did he always have to overreact? So they’d have to split their loot six ways instead of five. Big deal. It was just … three percent less money … and one more set of potions … and one more conflicting claim to any loot they found …

Hrn.

The guy leaned against the wall and hadn’t moved an inch, but had all the energy of a pacing guard dog. That had to be it. He was making Micah uneasy.

“That’s just for preference,” Lisa said, laying the wrong way around on Ryan’s bed behind them.

“Then they should respect our freaking preference.”

They were in their room again for an impromptu team meeting. They’d wanted to get away from the swarming crowd.

Lisa didn’t seem to care about breaking the rules—more and more people had begun to, since the school seemed pretty lax about its enforcement around school hours.

But Lea sat on the edge of Kyle’s bed, closest to the door, and looked around curiously at the guys’ room. Her face was calm, but her prim and proper posture seemed nervous.

That didn’t fit what he knew of her. Maybe … she was nervous because of Kyle and didn’t know what she had gotten herself into? That could make sense.

Freaking Kyle.

“You were assigned to us?” Micah blurted out.

She jerked away from looking at the cracked closet door and turned to him with wide eyes. “Apparently.”

“You didn’t have a team?”

Kyle shut up and Ryan collected himself enough to listen. Lisa and Jason already were.

She blew a raspberry and said, “I thought I did.”

It was all she said. “But then? Did something go wrong … with the organization or what?”

If it could happen to them, maybe it could happen to others?

“Kind of? Maybe. No. No, I just … I was on a team with some of my friends for the last exam and I just assumed they would let me be on their team again. Apparently, they decided otherwise and didn’t say so until the last minute …”

‘Let me’? Micah wondered.

“Ooh, the others stabbed you in the back?” Lisa asked, almost with a smile on her face. She seemed to enjoy the drama but no so much that it seemed mean.

At least, Micah thought so.

Lea’s face darkened a little. “I guess,” she said and hung her head. “I thought … I should have seen it coming.”

“You really should have,” Lisa agreed.

She looked up abruptly. “Since when do you hang out with people again? Or are you only here for the exam?”

Wait, they knew each other? Of course, if they were both friends of Myra … but were they friends themselves?

Lisa shrugged and held her arms up a little as if to gesture around herself. “This is my team.” She put light emphasis on the word, as if she were saying, ‘My Team’ in capital letters.

Lea furrowed her brows and glanced around, assessing the rag-tag gang of people around her maybe.

“Micah,” he tried with a smile. “And you know Lisa, apparently. And this is Ryan”—he leaned back to squeeze his shoulders, then pointed across the room—”and that’s Jason, and the angry one is Kyle.”

“Fuck you.”

“He means well—”

“No, I don’t, dipshit.”

“Lea,” she introduced herself.

Jason opened his mouth to say something but seemed to decide otherwise. It was a little awkward, Micah agreed.

But Micah had already spoken most of them, and Ryan hadn’t said anything, so he reluctantly accepted the role of speaking for the team. “So your old teammates … kicked you out?”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t have time to find another team?”

“Not really. They only told me a few days before it was time to hand the papers in.”

“Couldn’t you have … I don’t know, asked Stephanie and Saga?”

She shook her head. “Their team was already full.”

“Myra?”

“Hers, too. And—” She hesitated. “Well, she kind of said she wouldn’t want me on her team even if she had had room.”

Too much information, was Micah’s first reaction. He winced as his second, because that sounded like Myra, but his third was voiced by Lisa.

“Why?”

Myra usually had … reasons for doing things. Not necessarily good ones. She had very high standards for people. Had Lea maybe not met those?

She took another deep breath. “Well, they uhm, they only really didn’t want me on their team anymore because they found out about my Class? And then they told the others.”

“Why?” Kyle of all people asked, and he sounded curious rather than angry. Micah had no idea what was going on anymore. “What’s with your Class?”

“Or rather, the lack thereof at the time,” she said and brushed a bit of her hair behind her ear.

He needed a moment to process that, just because the concept seemed so alien to him that it couldn’t be what she was saying. He didn’t think he had met anyone at school without one.

Lisa spun around on the bed to look at her in shock.

Kyle immediately went back to outrage and took a step forward, “You don’t have a Class?”

“I do now!” she said and had to raise her voice to speak over him, or to stop him from going on maybe. “I’m … a level two [Athlete]. I play tennis. And I leveled during the festival.”

“Well then maybe you should have stuck to fucking playing tennis.”

Micah shot him a glare. He was lucky enough the guy saw because it shut him up for a second.

“What do you mean you don’t have a Class?” Lisa asked.

Yeah.

“I just told you—”

“Yeah, yeah. [Athlete] level two. Just … explain. I’ve seen you work multiple summers at your family’s tent. You’ve been climbing for years. How have you not had a Class then?”

Lea went silent and looked back down at her lap. She didn’t seem to want to answer, but none of them were moving on until she did. The whole point of this meeting was touching base.

The silence stretched on. Her voice was quiet, “It’s just … I tried different stuff, but none of it felt right …”

… What?

Lisa laughed.

Ryan blinked and looked around. It reminded Micah of when the someone had told a joke he didn’t get but Ryan didn’t want to say anything.

Jason shifted awkwardly, and Kyle moved a tensed arm toward his face as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

Micah had no idea what his own reaction was, but he had to salvage this somehow. “Do you have a Path?” he asked.

She quickly nodded. “Yeah, [Bluth Path]. My family’s Path.”

“I mean, I don’t know what the issue is,” Jason spoke up. “Taking your time to find the right Class is a good thing. Not everyone can be as lucky as us to just … know it.”

Micah nodded eagerly. “Yeah, yeah, of course.” But he still said, “Family Paths are powerful though, right? What does yours do?”

“Well, my family is really focused on quality. And I uhm, I got [Appraise Object] as my first Skill?”

Micah lit up. “That’s good!” he said. His own attempts to learn an appraisal Skill were moving along sluggishly, in part because he only had so many scheduled practice sessions per week and in part because he needed to find the right essences to form ‘lenses’ so he could see what the glasses showed him on his own.

He still wanted to see ‘kinetic essences’, but no matter how much he focused on that, he found nothing.

His estimation of Lea rose. Not that he’d had an estimation already. Well, he had but …

He sighed. He didn’t know why he was grasping for something. Level two … He was level seventeen in total and two years younger than her. Their school had high standards, dammit.

The best of the best.

He glanced to his right where Ryan was frowning at her. Pretty openly, too. Maybe if they screwed up, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all. Then he could get to spend the entire few weeks with his parents and it might make him happy. That seemed like it might be for the best.

“I can only use a few times per day, though. It’s not … not exactly a spell like other people know? It’s more like something like [Surge].”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Micah said. And he’d wanted to ask her if she had any other Skills from her Path because Alex had a whole bunch. Even Stats.

But Kyle snapped, “No, it’s fucking not.” He pushed off from the wall and gestured at her. “We have to freaking escort someone level two through the exam and let her sponge off our efforts.”

Lea glared at him. So did the rest of them.

“Kyle. Stop,” Ryan said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Yes, there is. We can freaking go to the school and complain. There has to be some other team out there that doesn’t have six members—”

“Kyle.”

“We checked the box. If this has any influence on our assessment—” He didn’t get any further.

Ryan jumped up and stormed at him. Before the guy could react, he had his jaw in a grip and hissed, “Shut up. They’ve said countless times the assignments are final without good reason and this isn’t a fucking good enough reason—”

Kyle tried to grip his arm. Ryan slapped the hand away and pushed him back toward the door.

“And if you had fucking listened for once, you would know that,” he went on.

“Ryan—” Micah tried.

“But noo. You have to uncooperative at every fucking opportunity for who knows what reason, like some brat. If anything goes wrong, it will because you screwed up. Like you always do.”

Kyle stared at him with wide nostrils for a long second. Then he headbutted him.

Ryan groaned and flinched back, clutching his nose. His voice sounded oddly distorted and then Micah realized he hadn’t pulled his punches. He’d actually headbutted him.

He threw himself at the guy, shoving him back and trying to trip him up.

Kyle tried to get a hold on him to throw him off, muttering, “Fucking attack dog—” under his breath.

Two arms wrapped around him and as easily as one of his parents picking him up when he was little, Lisa heaved him off and threw him a third of the way across the room onto Alex’ bed.

The slats creaked underneath his weight. He bounced off the mattress and almost fell off.

Ryan and Kyle stormed at each other and Lisa held an arm out to either side to push both of them back.

“Don’t,” she said to Kyle.

He ignored her for a moment and still tried to push his way past her arm, glanced up, and froze.

“What the hell, guys?” Jason asked.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Lea echoed him, louder. They looked when she got up. “Are you cracked in the head or something? All because I don’t have a Class?”

No. This isn’t about you, Micah realized but didn’t say it out loud.

“So what if I don’t have a Class? I’m not useless. I’m just waiting for the right one, but I’ve trained all my life. Tons of different weapons, you name it; I can fight with it. And tons of different styles. I’ve studied. The Tower, these new reports, magic. I can cast spells. I have four Skills on my Path, which is more than most people at school can say. And I have tons of great equipment.”

“What?” Micah asked.

He hadn’t expected her to hear him, but she pointed. “Yeah. What? ‘You really think my parents would let me go into the Tower without a Class and no items?”

She had the floor now and they listened. “I have a wand, and an enchanted axe, and Growing Boots, and some high-quality equipment besides, and a summoning crystal from the Gardens, and ring, and—”

She lost her momentum as she seemed to have troubles remembering all the items she had.

Rich people, Micah scoffed before he groaned and let himself fall back onto Alex’ bed. It made sense, why she had been assigned to their team now. He immediately pushed himself back up his elbows to check on Ryan. Was he hurt?

The others seemed to sag as well, either losing the fight or relaxing. Lisa still glanced at Kyle with caution.

“What?” Lea asked.

Ryan was still holding his nose, more gingerly now, and because of the hand and his red face, Micah didn’t know if it was bleeding. He slowly lowered it and said in a nasal voice, “Couldn’t you have led with that?”

Kyle stormed out and slammed the door behind him.