The rest of Mirian’s week went smoothly. Each day she went to her classes, each night she studied. Fourthday, she met Xipuatl and Nicolus again who split their time between debate and study, while Nurea loomed in the corner.

That weekend, Mirian went dueling again. During one of the bouts, she noticed Selesia watching her from the crowd, but when the bout finished, she couldn’t find her. She was curious to talk to her again, but it seemed the feeling wasn’t mutual. That was only slightly depressing.

“Have you talked to Selesia again?” she asked Lily when she got back to the dorm.

“No. Hey, check this out,” she said. Lily opened up her spellbook and concentrated, her hands brushing over the spells. The hairs on Lily’s neck stood up. She could tell Lily was casting a spell, but not what. Human senses could only just perceive arcane energy, and it was hard to describe what that sense felt like because it wasn’t connected to any of the other senses. Arcanists usually ended up comparing it to a sense, but that was inadequate.

When the desk started to levitate, Mirian figured out what the spell was. “Holy shit, Lily! Nice work!” The desk was solid wood, with the drawers stuffed with papers, so it had to be at least seventy pounds. Lily let the desk slowly drop back to the floor. Lily’s study of enhanced spells was already paying off. Mirian could lift about five pounds with a force spell. “You can almost lift a person!”

“Well, not a person,” Lily said. “Because of the… soul-thingy.”

“Entropic mana dissolution because of celestial displacement inhibition,” Mirian said.

“Yeah, that.”

The non-academic way of saying it was that the soul, being composed of celestial energy, anchored the arcane energy around a person. In turn, that arcane energy repelled and disrupted any other arcane energy nearby, like the tide parting around a rock. Every living thing had this spell resistance, though it was almost unnoticeable in plants and insects. It only really started to be a problem when the animal in question was the size of a cat or larger.

The resistance only worked for arcane forces. Once a spell had transformed into heat or force, a person’s aura did nothing to resist the effect of the spell. In this case, though, Lily would need to form the spell around the person before it transformed into a lifting force, and this particular force spell (the classic lift object) was formed in contact with the target to save mana.

“What else are you working on?”

“Mostly just the intensify enhancement. It’s the most broadly applicable, and most spells a mage is going to use has a known intensify glyph set. Oh, you won’t believe what happened. You know that idiot Platus?”

“Oh Gods. What did he do this time?”

“I mean, I don’t know how he even got into the class, my friend is sure his family must know someone on the Academy’s board. He tried to hasten a spell.”

“No way.” Of all the enhancements, that was probably the most difficult. Unlike most enhancements, there were no special glyphs. The caster just simultaneously fed mana into all the glyphs of the spell, and only through precise spell control, assembled it in the second before they released it. The risk, of course, was assembling it in the wrong order. Release a fire spell before the glyph indicating the target received any mana and the fire started at the origin point, which was usually your hand.

“He got lucky. His spellbook went flying across the room and he tore a hole in his shirt, but his hand only bled a little. They called a priest over from the temple to see if he’d done anything worse to himself, but he was fine. The professor was furious, though.”

***

Mirian spent the weekend reading through her textbooks and making notes. On Seventhday, she visited the temple, as she always did.

The priest’s sermon was about Xylatarvia, delivering her message of peace, and the meaning of the arcane glyphs to the people. She descended from the stars on a boat made of vines to do this, and the priest was discussing the symbolism of this gesture. Mirian listened politely, as she always did. It was proper to attend, she knew this, but some days she wished she felt the connection to the Gods that others seemed to feel.

Classes kept Mirian busy. In Artifice Design, she’d started work on her spellrod, and most of her time was going into that. She’d re-found Flexible Spellbook Composition for the Practical Mage, and was relying heavily on that as she worked on the glyphstones that would go in her rod. A lot of the work was just understanding machining. It was a prerequisite class, but it had also been three years since she’d done much work in the metal shop. As she worked, she thought about how expensive all of it was. If she was going to open her own spellforge, she’d need a lathe, a grinding machine, a welding machine, a drill press—and that was just for the metal! Nevermind any sort of woodwork and the alchemistry glassware. There was no way she could afford it all. Sure, she could cut costs and use spells instead of a machine for some things, but the spell organs she’d need for all the magical scribing ink might cost just as much in some cases.

All the big spellforges were run by large companies now. She supposed Nicolus was right. That was the way of the future. It wouldn’t pay nearly as well, and it wasn’t what she had dreamed when she’d started this journey so many years ago. Mirian’s mind had always gone to a cozy, well lit shop, the workbenches littered with machines and devices. Each day, customers would come in, and she’d fix their problems, and when she imagined it, it was all immensely satisfying. Churning out the same glyph by rote on a factory floor just didn’t have the same appeal.

Mirian’s rod was a mix of practical and cheap.

All of her mana relays were copper wire, even though silver would have made it more efficient. The glyphs would be contained in three cylinders, two of which could rotate, one of which could not. A clever mechanical lock would keep the cylinders from moving unless a button on the handle was depressed. That was just basic safety; the cylinders rotating mid-spell could cause the device to detonate, and she knew Professor Torres was looking for best-practice design principles, not just magical aptitude. Firstday, she finished the second of the cylinders, and Seconday she finished up the core of the device, snapping the magical catalyst into place. Even with the Academy subsidizing the materials, it was going to be an expensive project. But it was hers after she was done, so it also gave her a way to make something really useful.

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At five, she headed to the study session. Xipuatl and Nicolus verbally jousted again, but talking through the alchemistry concepts made a lot more sense than whatever Professor Atger had talked about. Mirian suspected he didn’t actually know the material at all, and wondered how he had gotten the job. The Torrviol Academy was known for only recruiting the best teachers. Were the academies in Akana Praediar changing that?

Thirdday, classes went as they usually did. But Nicolus wasn’t in Spell Engine Alchemistry. Which was strange. He never skipped classes. Mirian wondered if he had gotten sick. She hoped she wouldn’t get sick. She didn’t have a lot of silver to pay a priest. And if it was one of the diseases that the priests couldn’t cure, that was worse. Students got a discount at the local hospital, but even with that, it wasn’t cheap. Or, more likely, he’d realized attending class was useless if you’d read the book. Yeah, probably that. The class had thinned out considerably since the first day.

Geoarcanology assigned a myrvite fossil study project. That would involve a visit to the geology labs, and the only instruction Professor Holvatti had given them on the arcane resonator was a brief talk while he showed an illusionary picture of one. She could already feel the work it was going to take to research all the little minerals in the specimen and figure out how to use a resonator, and she was still working on her spellrod!

Lily had gotten busy too. She hardly saw her roommate, who spent her evenings mostly at the practice range where the ward system made it safer to try new spells. If she wasn’t doing that, she was researching intensify or extended spell glyph sets.

The dorm was dark when she got back, and there was little to do but go to the diner alone. Mirian regretted not trying to make more friends at times like these. She missed all her preparatory school friends, but she’d made the commitment when she joined the Academy: studies first.

Fourthday, Valen knocked over her ink pot in enchantments, and Mirian was sure it wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t the first time, though, and Mirian had a spell for that. She cast reassemble liquid, using a drop of the ink as a spell component. She badly wanted to confront Valen, but she knew the other girl would just mock her for even talking to her.

Again, Nicolus wasn’t in class for Alchemistry, but neither was Xipuatl, and Mirian considered just leaving.

At five o’clock, Mirian went off to the study session.

The room was locked.

At first, she was confused. Had she gotten the days wrong? Or maybe Nicolus really was sick. But wouldn’t Sire Nurea send a message or something? She stood around awkwardly.

Xipuatl showed up a few minutes later. “No need to wait on my account,” he said.

“It’s locked. Have you seen Nicolus?”

“Locked? But we’ve got the room reserved.” He tried the door, as if Mirian must have been mistaken. “Huh. No, I stopped going to class. Waste of time. Professor Atger wouldn’t know his own ass from a melon. Where is Nicolus?”

“I was hoping you knew.”

They went to the service desk. “Oh yes, it’s still reserved, for one Nicolus Sacristar and three others. Here’s the key,” the librarian said.

“Did Nicolus leave a message with you?” Xipuatl asked.

“No. Why?”

“Ah, nevermind,” he said. They went to the room, and of course it was empty. It was Nicolus whose turn it was to present, Xipuatl and Mirian having already done so the past two sessions. Worse, he had the book he was presenting on, and there wasn’t another copy. “Great. Now what?”

“I don’t know. He’s… well, I guess I don’t know him that well, but he’s usually quite reliable.”

“That’s the Sacristar motto. ‘My word is as law.’ For all his levity, Nicolus does take his family’s position seriously.”

“I’ll admit, I don’t know much about the noble houses. I was taught they were a historical relic, and not to worry about them too much.” Seeing Xipuatl’s expression, she clarified, “The teacher didn’t say that, but that was the impression I got.”

Xipuatl pondered that. “I… well. I can’t say I recommend getting involved in noble family politics. But if you live in Baracuel, you’re in noble family politics. They’ve lost certain lawmaking powers, and equality under the law means they no longer have the various immunities and special exceptions they once did. But there’s the way things are supposed to work, and the way things actually work, yeah?”

Mirian thought of the guard who had ignored her report, and the other one who was working with whoever that mysterious person was. “Yeah, I guess,” she said. “What’s your family motto?”

Xipuatl smiled. “‘The tree that is bare is not dead.’”

“Huh. What’s that mean?”

“Many things, my friend. Things are not always as they seem, for one. Not to trust initial appearances. That one should value resilience. Legend has it that when the great nagual Ixchel of the Ceiba Yan Tree stepped foot on the shores of Baracuel, the Marqué Toledez refused to marry her as agreed because he was in mourning; his favorite tree had died. Ixchel went to the courtyard where it was, and under her spell, the tree bloomed. The Marqué immediately agreed to marry her.”

“That…” Mirian said. “…is a strange story. Sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, I just have no idea why you told me that.”

Xipuatl laughed. “Well, it’s got that oral tradition problem: it’s so packed with symbolism and history, if you’re not familiar with the rest of the story, it makes no damned sense. There’s another good life lesson, you know. Everything is understandable, but you see most of the world without the context that would make it make sense. Like this shit,” he said, gesturing to the Alchemistry textbook. “The reason it doesn’t make sense is we’re missing half of the story.”

Mirian hadn’t heard that one before. “What do you mean?”

“The Baracuel and Akana Praediar academies insist that arcane and celestial energies are fundamentally different. But what if they’re not?”

“What?” Mirian said, and with a lot more hostility than she intended. The arcane and celestial energies were fundamentally different, just as the celestial and the necromantic were different. These were fundamental laws. It was if Xipuatl had told her that air and iron were the same thing.

“Well, don’t worry about it. I have a lot of research work to do before I’ll convince anyone of anything.” He gave a loud sigh and rose from his chair, the feet of it scrapping on the stone floor. “Let’s call this one early. I’ll see if I can find Nicolus. I bet Calisto knows where he is. That girl….”

Xipuatl left before he clarified what was going on with ‘that girl,’ and Mirian had no idea who Calisto was. She wished, and not for the first time, that people were more like math equations. Then they would make sense, and the same inputs would always get the same outputs. Life would be so much easier.

She packed up and left. Again, the dorm was dark. Even the usual third years who were usually making noise on the first floor commons were gone, and Mirian felt even more lonely than she usually did. But ‘mope about while sad’ was not on her schedule, so she forced herself to open up her geoarcanology textbook and figure out what the hell her geology professor was talking about when he kept going on about ‘synclines’ and ‘anticlines.’

The next day, Mirian could only give thanks to Ominian that it was Fifthday. She passed through the central plaza, admiring the Kiroscent Dome, and deliberately tried not to look at any of the guards because they made her feel nervous now.

She was just passing the Alchemistry building on her way to the Artificer’s Tower when one of the third floor windows exploded.