“Why are we so focused on me shapeshifting into something?” Emilia wove the spell for the thirtieth time, watched the energies coalesce and fade as she tried to invoke the magic Boris insisted she learn.
“Because your demon familiar is a Formless One.” Boris reclined in his seat under the canopy, safe from the rain that drenched Emilia as she struggled and failed to cast her spell. “I am not aware of any demonic races as given to shapeshifting as your familiar. Even other aliens with innate shapeshifting abilities are not as skilled or prone to shifting as Formless Ones.”
“I still don’t…” Attempt thirty-one pulled a chunk of Prajna from Emilia’s gut, making her double over in pain. “I don’t get why that matters.”
“She is your familiar, the powers she possesses should empower you. Magic that comes naturally to your demon should come almost as naturally to you.”
“Then why can’t you shapeshift me instead?”
“Stop, child.” Boris stood and waved off Emilia’s efforts at transforming. He produced a small beaker from a pouch at his side and handed it to her. Emilia still didn’t know what the beaker contained, but her power reached out for it hungrily. The moment her magic touched the sides of the frosted glass, magical energy flowed into her and restored her depleted reserves. Each time Boris handed her the glass, the faint glow from within the beaker faded. And each time he showed it to her again, the light had restored itself. “There, do you feel better now?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Of course.” Boris replaced his beaker and cleaned his glasses with a kerchief from his coat pocket. “I am not trying to torture you, child. I want to see you excel. And the best way to do so is to focus on a concrete magic you can perform. Our initial transformations were only intended to demonstrate that you could change.”
Emilia nodded, breathing through her nose as the power she’d absorbed coursed through her veins. After a few steady breath, the sense of exhausted depletion faded away. “So why not keep doing it?”
“Because you won’t learn anything else.” Boris looked up at the sky and sighed in irritation at the downpour. “I’ll admit that this weather is not especially ideal. And dinner time nears…”
Emilia’s ears perked up at his hesitation. “And?”
Boris snorted, “…and you are free the rest of the evening to eat.”
Despite the soaking chill, Emilia shot off into the forest. After several days, she knew the route back to the camp as if she’d lived here for years. Mirabel wasn’t here because she loathed the rain, so Emilia was on her own.
“Please practice the invocation tonight, at least!” Boris shouted after Emilia as she raced through the trees toward the camp.
Tonight she expected to see Regina and the others during and after dinner. Aside from her lack of contact with Cary, the Sanctorum’s major downside was how seldom Emilia got to see her friends. Anticipation drove her onward, her feet throwing up splashes of water as she consumed the distance between the practice area and the dining hall.
Betsy stood out in the rain with Max next to her. They stood dry and untouched by the rain due to an invisible canopy over both of their heads. Max’s repeated failures with most magic meant that Betsy had to be the one to invoke that particular spell. When Emilia raced up into the dry field, both of them shielded themselves from the spray of water she brought with her.
Hugging first Max and then Betsy, Emilia said, “were you guys waiting for little ol’ me?”
Max snorted and shook his head while Betsy nodded. When she caught him contradicting her, she elbowed him. “Yes and no. We’re waiting for Regina and Mirabel too.”
Emilia was surprised by that admission. “I didn’t think the fairy would brave the rains…”
“That’s because the Godsdamned rain is the worst fucking thing on this triple cursed planet!” Mirabel hid underneath a large white umbrella held by Regina.
“Hey guys, hey Emilia!” Regina waited until Mirabel was safely inside of Betys’s dry area before she lowered her umbrella and hugged Emilia. “Long time, no see.” She winked at Emilia as if to underscore that she was only teasing.
“Same to you. It’s like our schedules are at constant odds.” Emilia held Regina a little longer than she had Betsy or Max. Regina’s skin smelled of earth and flowers, a bit of her old life that Emilia actually didn’t hate.
Regina scanned the area, noticing the steady line of residents into and out of the dining hall. “We should go in before the crowd gets insane.”
Emilia nodded, uncertain of what Regina had been withholding. As soon as they entered the dinging hall, Betsy’s field of warmth dropped and she released a dramatic sigh. “Gods, that’s harder to do than it looks.”
“I can’t do that stuff at all, color me impressed.” Emilia gently elbowed Betsy, who’s face glowed at the compliment.
Regina nodded. “I can’t do it either. Though I can do some other fancy things.” She pointed her finger at Emilia, uttered a few syllables and snapped her fingers. The water dripping off of Emilia instantly vanished leaving her dry with a the faint odor of cinnamon about her. Sniffing at Emilia, Regina frowned. “Cinnamon again! I swear I am going to get something else out of that spell eventually!”
A few nearby students, all mortals recoiled from Regina’s shout. Mirabel flitted from the area around Regina and cozied up with Emilia. Perched on Emilia’s shoulder, Mirabel rubbed her cheek behind Emilia’s ear, which made her squirm from the ticklish feeling of the fairy’s wings and hands. “You smell delicious to me.” She pointed to Regina. “I would be fine if you never adjusted that spell. In fact, make it more cinnamon-y! I have demands!”
“You sure do.” Regina chuckled. “They’re bigger than you.”
Following Regina, their group planted themselves at a booth. They might have fit at one of the freestanding tables, but Mirabel preferred to have her own seat, even if she only ever sat on Regina or Emilia’s shoulders.
No sooner had they situated themselves at the booth than a tall serpentine demon approached their table. Though he — Emilia only guessed at his gender — resembled a cobra with a majestic hood, he had a pair of arms at his shoulders. He took their orders with a perfunctory manner and left as quickly as he could manage.
Emilia scanned the crowd of serving demons. After days of missing Cary, she’d grown accustomed to monitoring their connection. Though she knew from the faint tug in her belly that Cary was not in the hall, Emilia still checked.
Mirabel patted her ear and whispered low enough that the others would miss her words. “I’m sorry your little pet demon isn’t here. That sucks!”
Surprisingly, Mirabel had been a full-fledged member of Team Cary the moment she learned about her. Stopping short of encouraging Emilia to run off and find the demoness, the more Mirabel learned about Cary, the more she rooted for Emilia to stick with her. Aside from Betsy and her other friends, Mirabel knew more about the demoness than anyone else in the camp, not counting Joshua of course. Emilia still withheld the true nature of her relationship with Cary from Mirabel. The possibility of their secret spreading beyond the sworn group was too risky.
“How’re Boris’s lessons going?” Regina waited to ask until the serpent demon had slithered away. “You still trying to manage a shift?”
“Yes. I don’t mind shifting under his spells, though I’ll admit the first few times were pretty weird, I can’t change under my own magic to save my damn life.” Emilia frowned at her words. She couldn’t manage much by way of magic. Aside from the small number of spells Papa Butch had taught her — all varied magics — she hardly knew anything worth demonstrating. “Let’s talk about someone else’s failures…”
Mirabel took that as an invitation to speak. “Well, I tried to break into Fella Stinkbottom’s flower pot this morning, but one of her spider guards caught me!” The fairy grabbed her shoulder and shook. “I hate spiders! That reeking stink-bitch! She has to have picked them exactly because I hate them so much!”
Emilia swallowed her laughter. The little fairy’s constant battle of one-upmanship against Fella Sweetblossom seemed to always be on the forefront of Mirabel’s mind.
“I managed an transmutation today.” Regina held her head up with pride. Emilia could practically see her pulling at imaginary suspenders as she spoke. “It turned a lump of soil into coal.”
“Wow!” Leaning over the table, Betsy said, “did you have to use a catalyst?”
“Yeah,” Regina frowned with the corner of her mouth and nodded. “And it was one I had to borrow. But Master Silas thinks I will manage without it in a month or two.”
“That’s amazing!” Betsy’s eyes twinkled as she stared at Regina. Emilia detected a hint of envy in Betsy’s praise, but she didn’t comment.
“How about you, Max?” Betsy’s twin shook his head and grimaced at Emilia’s question.”
“I am remedial.” He pointed with his empty fork toward the door. “Any time I try to move something, it’s like I’m being punched in the gut. I was better at magic outside of the Sanctorum.” As if he’d only then realized what he’d said, Max’s face blushed and he stared at the table. “I mean… I don’t mean that bitch made things easier.” He dropped his fork onto the table and pushed it away. “Shit, I don’t know what I mean.”
Betsy laid her hand on his shoulder. “All three of us know what you mean. This place is different and sometimes learning things in a different environment is harder. You know you don’t have to…”
Max shrugged off Betsy’s hand and jumped up from the table before she could finish. In his haste to flee the hall, he ran into the path of the serpent demon. In an amazing display of agility, the demon dipped under his flailing arms and avoided dropping any of its load. Max took a spill over the floor, which earned him a round of applause from the nearby tables. With his face burning even brighter than before, he escaped the hall before the clapping ended.
“Damn,” Betsy swore, but waited to finish speaking until he serpent demon deposited their food on the table. Once he finished, she resumed, “he’s been having nightmares about Cynthia. At least my twin superpowers think they’re about Cynthia.”
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Emilia nodded. “I’ve had nightmares about her almost every other night.”
“I know, Em. And you know…
Cutting Betsy off, Emilia held her hands up as if to wipe away the air. “It’s not like that. I meant it as a solidarity thing, not as a we all have our own problems thing.”
Betsy nodded, but Mirabel said, “why not both? I have spider nightmares. But mostly on the nights when Fella’s minions managed to stop me from breaching her guard.” Mirabel stood atop Emilia’s shoulder like a war statue, her sword extended forward and her back hand on her hip. “Death to all nightmares! And spiders!”
Regina, Betsy, and Emilia raised their glasses to that.
Their conversation drifted off into idle chatter while they ate their meal. Roast pork with apples and pumpkin and a salad with assorted greens filled most of the plates. Mirabel ate from her own small plate bearing a tiny portion of the pork and a heaping pile of little fried nuggets. Experience warned Emilia away from asking about those almost cylindrical nuggets. The first and only time she’d asked, Mirabel had responded that they were roaches. A tiny goblet of wine completed Mirabel’s setting, but the others refrained. According to their masters, alcohol would make the magic unreliable while they learned their spells.
The serpent demon returned two more times to check after them, and aside from refilling Mirabel’s goblet, no one else asked for more food.
“You haven’t seen Cary in a few days, have you?” Regina broached the subject first, which brought Betsy’s eyes up to lock with Emilia’s.
“No, I’m not sure how they expect me to work with my… link, if she’s never around.”
Mirabel slurred her words as she said, “the link’s distant should be herrele… mirrele… It shouldn’t matter.”
“Really.”
“Trust me, I’m barsickly a marster.” Mirabel hiccuped and laughed at herself as she grabbed Emilia’s shirt for balance.
Betsy snorted and Regina said, “BS. You’re a master of what now?”
“S’not sneaking into petunias. Fuck that Fell bottombitch!” Mirabel swayed and clung to Emilia as her wings drooped. “I’m a marster of Illusions! Blam!” To punctuate her words, she clapped her hands, pointed at the table and glittering bits of light streamed out of her hands. After a shimmer, the table turned into a large stone platform. Mirable belched and shook her head. “Damnit, that’s not right.” She shook her head and aimed her hands at the table a second time. This time the shimmer resolved into a piano. Emilia had no idea what went on in the fairy’s head as the image of a piano set her into a bout of laughter. She tried to explain herself, but with the slurring and the jumble of words, none of them could make out her meaning.
After dessert, Regina excused herself, kissed all three of the others on their cheeks, and walked out of the dining hall. As she left, Emilia turned to Betsy and said, “classes or coursework?”
Betsy shrugged. “Beats me, she talks to me about as much as you these days. But I think I remember her saying she’d taken on another class of novices.”
“Wow, I hope she doesn’t overextend herself!”
Mirabel snorted and let out another loud burp. “That’s the fucking point, duh.” From the sound of her voice, she was starting to sober up.
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Betsy narrowed her eyes at the fairy. It could be hard to tell when Mirabel was only messing with them and when she spoke the utter truth.
“I mean the masters here want to overextend you.” She rolled her hands together like she turned dough. “They shovel more and more onto you to see either when you recognize you’ve had enough or when you finally collapse.”
“What the fuck!” Emilia gasped. “Why would they do that?”
Mirabel snorted. “Because that’s the best way to find your limits, aside from throwing you in a pit with monsters. And that could get you killed.”
“But Boris hasn’t been trying to crush me.”
Mirabel shook her head. “No, but you didn’t pass the Test of Stone. You’re stuck somewhere between being a novice and a true apprentice. Until you pass the test or awaken your real magic, he’s gonna go the slow burn direction.”
“Shit!” Betsy stood up, her fists clenched angrily. “I’ve been wondering why my master is such a total prick! Are they all like that?” A few nearby tables fell silent and heads swiveled to face Betsy and her outburst.
“Shhh! This is a secret!” Emilia suddenly felt reassured about her decision not to let Mirabel in on her own secret. “And don’t be so dramatic. Magic is hard and most of you stupid mortals would get yourselves murdered or sold to demons if you didn’t learn your real limits.”
“But…” Betsy’s face had turned red. “I’ve been fraying at the edges trying to finish my GED and get my TK under control!”
Mirabel rolled her eyes. “When I was a little sprite, a woman like you would have already squeezed out two or three little brats. On top of that, if your local village learned you studied here, they would hang you or roast you over a pyre. A little studying and extra magic practice never resulted in death by smoke asphyxiation, so calm down!”
Betsy opened and closed her mouth as if gasping for air. “Fine. But I am gonna…”
“What? Complain about your all-expense paid magical and mundane education?” Mirabel popped a final chunk of fried… something in her mouth and chewed noisily. “After this is over, you’ll speak two or three new languages, aside from your dumb English, you’ll have a high school diploma thingie, which humans just fawn over, and YOU WILL KNOW FUCKING MAGIC!”
At Mirabel’s shout, the rest of the tables who’d leaned in to eavesdrop shifted and ignored her. The fact she rose up and swiveled around as she raised her voice further discouraged any idle listeners.
Betsy shrank back down into her bench seat. “It’s not fair they don’t tell us.”
Mirabel floated back to the piano surface and danced over keys that failed to respond to her footsteps. “Fair is a stupid word. And I officially refer your further complaints to re: free room, board, and magic. Go complain to a bridge troll.” She pointed up at Emilia. “You! You’re not complaining. Take me to Fell Stankcrotch so I can pee in her daisies! Be quick about it, mortal slave.”
Emilia humored the fairy only because, based on past experience, she would pass out from the drink well before they reached Fella’s dreaded potted flowers. Betsy lagged behind, grumbling to herself.
True to the pattern, Mirabel was snoring before they reached the gardens. Emilia diverted back toward their dorm. “Do you think she’s right?” Betsy pointed at the sleeping fairy.
“I don’t know, Bets. I mean, I’m not happy that the masters might be intentionally messing with us, but I mean… this is a lot better than before.” Emilia hated to bring that up, as much for her own sake as for Betsy’s. But when Betsy had started her complaints, the memories of Cynthia’s treatment rose up in her mind.
Betsy’s skin darkened under the moonlight. “Shit. I guess I got too used to this nice treatment, huh?”
“I mean, it’s not like I think they would send us back or anything. But I would rather spend my nights here struggling to learn magic than… anything else.” They didn’t need to say the words. After over a decade of regular beatings, neither girl needed a verbal reminder of Cynthia or the scars she’d left on their psyches.
“Now I sound like an ungrateful bitch, don’t I?” Betsy waited until they were in their room before she spoke.
“No, I don’t think so.” Emilia set Mirabel down on a pink pillow she’d brought into their room when she moved in. It was the closest thing to a bed the fairy kept. “I think the same way we got used to life at the Wonders, we’ve started to get used to this place. I mean it makes me furious to find out that the masters and administrators have hidden agendas. But when I say it out loud, I can’t be surprised.”
Betsy nodded, staring down at her sheets. “I guess I thought this place would be different. Is that crazy?” When she looked up at Emilia, Betsy had started crying. “I wanted this place to be different.”
By the time Emilia reached her, Betsy had started outright bawling. Grabbing her best friend in her arms, Emilia found herself weeping alongside Betsy. Between choking sobs, Betsy said, “If they start hitting us, I’m burning this place to the ground.”
“If that happens, I will find you matches and kerosene…”
Emilia lay atop her sheet in bed, crushed cotton pajamas kept the slight chill at bay. A few feet away, Mirabel finally stopped snoring while Betsy never actually started. Her instructions from Boris forgotten until then, Emilia sat up and decided she’d take a late night/early morning stroll and try to invoke the shapeshift Boris had assigned her.
“Where you going, Em?” Clapping a hand over her own mouth kept Emilia from shouting in surprise at Betsy’s voice.
When she could recovered from her minor shock, Emilia said, “I was going to go work on some magic and stuff. Wanna come with?”
“Yeah, I can’t sleep and I don’t wanna try using magic to put me out.”
“Good thing, you’d probably knock yourself out for a hundred years like a certain dumbass princess.” Both Emilia and Betsy started at the sound of Mirabel’s voice. “Gods and pots, you girls are too loud even for your size. I gotta piss and get some tea in me, but I’ll go with you and make sure you don’t accidentally start a fight with a Temptress.”
Emilia rolled her eyes as Mirabel flitted up from her pillow, shaking her finger at both of them as she did. While the fairy was out doing her business, Emilia and Betsy put on a set of dark blue jogging clothes. They’d ordered them together in order to “go skulking,” without ever expecting to actually use them.
When Mirabel returned, she motioned to the two girls. “You match, it’s fantastic. Let’s go before I sober up enough to make this a bad idea.”
No den mothers or resident advisors watched the hallways of the Sanctorum. Emilia guessed that had more to do with the fact the administration could spy on anyone they wanted to using magic and less to do with giving the students a measure of freedom.
“Where are we going anyway?” Betsy turned her head back to the others when she had her hand on the outer door. “It’s not like we can enter any tent we want.”
Emilia rolled her eyes while Mirabel snickered. “I just want to walk around, not sneak into places.”
“I gotta say, the Banderwols could learn a thing or two from you.” Mirabel laughed at her own esoteric joke while she pointed between Betsy and Emilia.
“I don’t know what that is…”
Betsy spoke up. “They’re some kind of otherworlder thief, right?”
Mirabel whistled and nodded. “Someone’s been paying attention to her lessons.” She tilted her head at Emilia. “Not that ol’ Boris has started teaching you the encyclopedia monstrae, so you’re off the hook.”
“Thanks. Let’s get out of here before we wake up one of the other people in the dorm room.” Emilia poked Betsy, who pushed the door open and led their group outside.
Overhead, the sky glowed with the brightness of the stars. It was as if the canopy of heaven loomed closer here. Torches and gaslights flickered here and there about the camp, but the faint light they put out did nothing to interfere with the view of the sky. The moon had disappeared, or it was a new moon. Emilia wasn’t certain either way.
Betsy raised her hands in a shrug and swept her hand out over the camp. “Where to?”
As if fate answered her question, a small procession of people bearing hanging lamps appeared at the stone entrance to the camp. Emilia pointed over to where they appeared. “There. Let’s see what’s happening.”
Mirabel made a choking noise from Emilia’s shoulder, but she didn’t say anything or try to stop their explorations. After what the fairy had said about the masters forcing them to their limits, Mirabel’s behavior made Emilia’s gut clench. Chances were fair Mirabel was about to let them bumble their way into a lesson. The fairy had said she was basically a master.
The small group of people who processed through the camp led a single man between them. Four people bracketed the man in the center. When they closed with the group, Emilia spotted a set of chains held between the four hooded figures. What she’d taken as a hood from a distance with a black sack over the central man’s head. Golden lines, like a spider web of shining paint, covered the hood. Once she focused on the hood, Emilia could see runes that warped and twisted along the man’s hood.
“What is that?” Emilia raised her hand and pointed. “Why are there runes on his hood?”
Mirabel cocked an eyebrow at Emilia. “I’m surprised you can see that from here. That’s a Fel Slave. A dumbass summoner who got themselves enslaved to a demon.”
Betsy reacted more to Mirabel’s news than Emilia did. A startled gasp and a hand over Betsy’s face acted as a stark counterpoint to Emilia’s sudden stillness. “What do you mean, enslaved?”
Mirabel shrugged. “You’re a rare case. Most of the idiots who summon demons without knowing what they’re doing fuck up and summon something bigger and scarier than them. Or they fuck up the circle and the demon is freed. When that happens, the demon usually forces the summoner into the opposite arrangement that you have. They become Fel Slaves.”
Every cell and atom in Emilia’s body wanted to scream at Mirabel, wanted to demand a further explanation from her. But if she did, she might accidentally confess her own status to the fairy.
Betsy found her tongue in the meantime. “What happens to them?”
“Most Fel Slaves are little more than mindless extensions of their master’s dark will. The Cabal and the admins bring them here and usually put them in storage while they try to figure out which demon claimed them”
Emilia’s throat finally relented. “And then what?”
“There’s no way to break a true servant bond, not once its moved far enough along. So the Cabal tries to hunt down the demon and execute them. Sometimes the Fel Slave even survives their master’s death.” Mirabel spoke with a dispassionate tone, like she read from the contents of a cookbook. “This is boring, let’s go find some mischief we can engage in…”
Before Mirabel suggested vandalizing her most despised petunia pot, Emilia pointed at the group of five. “I want to follow them.”