#magic academy

I raise my eyebrow in surprise. Putting my pen down, I rub my brow and look out the window. There’s a nice flock of colorful lovebirds chirping out on the trees today. “So let me guess: It’s a big project, or a long one, and you need fire or even electricity for it.” I look back at her. “So that’s why you pulled strings with Lerida. Because there’s no one else for this.”

Velle looks wounded. Her tone is, too. “I would have gotten you out of detention anyways. Spirits, Anton, you are so cynical. I thought we were friends. Don’t friends do favors for each other?”

“Right they do!” I get up, stretching high up. Velle is still staring cross-eyed at me when I look back. I grin and reach out to ruffle her hair. “Sorry, wrong thing to say. You know me; all this plotting and espionage is turning me into a pessimistic oldhead. So what’s this project about?”

“Next time, I’m just letting you rot in detention,” She murmurs, but there’s a hint of a smile there. She beckons towards me as I pack up my satchel. “Come on, I will explain on the way.”

I follow her out of the room, down through the building’s corridors and then to the library bridge. Fellow students —many of whom I recognize now— greet us both as we pass by. Velle adopts her characteristic beaming smile and greets them back, and I do the same as well. Just without the beam.

When we are alone on the bridge to the library and there’s complete silence, Velle starts talking. 

“So you know how silver conducts electricity frighteningly well?”

“Of course.” It was a basic, foundational thing for us Academy students to know. And for Lassants like me, who’d be expected to use Electromancy in battle quite soon. I distinctly remember one snowy evening at Miriel, when the Armymen had come with a coil of thick silver wiring and put me through a peculiar, though simple test: They’d made me transmit electricity into them, all the way through to…. Actually, I didn’t even know what was on the other end. I still don’t know. “They actually use silver up in the Grand Assembly, I believe. Something about those new telegraph machines they’ve been using to send messages out far off… Though the Army prefers to use copper.”

Velle nods. “Exactly. Well, Docent Lusmoire wanted to do a… study on some sort of experimental artefact lately, and he thought of enlisting my help.” She cranes her neck and eyes me. “And yours.”

“Just some sort of experimental artefact?”

She sighs. “That’s all he told me, yes.”

“How very specific of him.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, he also said we would be working with some special silver. Not the regular kind; mana-infused.”

I stop in my tracks, wracking my brain as I stare at her. Velle stops too after a while, raising an eyebrow back at me. “Spirits, you people are working with grailsteel?”

She shrugs uncomfortably. “Well… not grailsteel per se. More like… grailsilver or-”

“I know it’s not technically grailsteel,” I interrupt. “But how did you even get- How are you even being allowed to work with that?”

She smirks. “Being Valorian has its quirks.”

“This is a quirk?” I ask as I start walking with her again. “Stinks of a big, heavy responsibility to me.”

Velle rolls her eyes. Again. She’s never really made a secret of what she thinks about my treatment of my Academy obligations. “Yes, well, it does have a hefty score in it for you…”

I straighten immediately and grin at her. “Say no more.”

Pleased, she continues walking.

“If I do well enough,” I ask with an even wider grin, “Can we swap places?”

“What, me in Fifth and you in Third? Hell no.” She snorts out a soft laugh. “You might be able to barely get into Fourth, though.”

If I don't get there in time, that is an automatic fail. A full half of my Law grade gone.

I'm about to take off at a sprint again when my ears pick up something the bystanders seem to be murmuring and whispering out loud.

"Dear gods," One woman whispers, her fire-lit face contorted in worry, "There's no one inside, is there?"

The man besides her simply shakes his head, looking up at the mess. "I hope not," he mutters.

There's a silent lull in the noise, and then a collective gasp. My eyes follow along what everyone else is looking at, and my stomach drops. There's what I'm sure is a dark shape flitting behind the windows somehow. A person?

I feel queasy as I look back between the burning mess and the road ahead to the Academy. I need this grade badly. I can't let a single slip-up keep me from Top Five, because no Top-Fiver would.

And yet… there's nothing stopping me from going in anyways. My fist tightens around my satchel strap. I could barge in. Wade through the fire and drag out as many people as I can. It'd be the right thing to do, for gods' sake. It's not even dangerous. Fire does nothing, absolutely nothing to me.

But is there even someone inside? What if I simply waste my own precious time trying to save someone when there's no one who needs saving? The prospect of jeopardizing my entire future for nothing jangles at my nerves.

There is, I realize, a woman screaming hysterically in front of the burning building, near-clawing her way over to it and being held back by two others begging her to stop. My attention caught on her, I stare as she collapses down to the ground sobbing. And then she starts yelling at the other two for holding her back. For stopping her from going after her five year-old son.

I make up my mind immediately. My feet start taking me towards the fire, almost as if on impulse, and I lightly tap on the woman's shoulder. She looks up at me, pale face tear-streaked, and I muster up a smile at her. "Where will your son be?"

She simply gawks at me, looking lost. "What?"

I look up at the two other women who now give me curious, worried stares. "Where can I find her son?" I put more force into the words than I intend to. And, just to make myself even clearer, I roll down my sleeve and brandish it in front of them.

Two gasps. Three gasps. Even more as curious bystanders take notice of the tattoo inscribed prominently along my forearm. A dark blue, almost blackish work of art, almost orange in the light of the fire, shaped like a raging inferno and a thunderstorm and a mountain and a tsunami all in one, somehow capturing each of their essences without contradiction.

The marking of a Lassant.

Having made my meaning very clear, I look hard at the women, switching my gaze between them. "Third floor!" One says, pointing up tremulously at the window. "He's in the third floor, just please!"

I nod briskly. And just for posterity's sake, cast a glance around the crowd, many of whom are now looking at me.

Walking up to the building, I take a deep breath, wrinkling my nose at the acrid smoke, and reach into the depths of my mana.

It's there, clear and cool as a mirror and vast as an ocean, ready at my beckon any time. I dip into it… And run the mana through my body. A slight heat creeps through my body, far more obvious than that of the fire which I have barely taken notice of, and I feel my body strengthen to ridiculous heights.

With a casual leap, I bound forward and jump for the third floor window.

I barely hear the sudden gasps and exclamations of the crowd as I quickly sail right in, nearly losing my balance on an unstable, cracked patch of stone floor. Shaking my head, I look around and take stock of the situation. The fire really is raging around here, and in ridiculous amounts. Fortunately, there's nobody here.

Grimacing, I quickly make my way through the doorway and then down the corridors. It is remarkably easy to bust down the doorways —if any still remain standing— as I go through. Each time I peer inside a room with trepidation, hoping not to find a charred corpse or a half-dead person inside, and then sigh with relief when I don't.

I feel almost nothing here, though my clothes certainly do. The uniform of the Academy —an immaculately-stitched work of deep blue— catches on fire and starts steadily smoldering down to nothingness as I make my way with haste.

My mind quickly starts thinking up potential methods to deal with this fire if I ever find someone to save from this place. Using water is out of the question; there's none to be found here, and I certainly can't pull enough water from the air inside here to appreciably quench the fire.

Unbeknownst to those at the Academy, I actually have a great grasp of Pyromancy, but alas, I do not know how to put out a fire using those powers. That was, unfortunately, not among the purview of what the Army had bothered to illicitly teach me during my adolescence.

That probably leaves simply covering the boy —and whoever else I rescue— with my own body as much as possible and fanning the fires away enough with wind to stave it off. A bit of Thermomancy to cool down the air so they don't die of overheating sounds good. And clear that damn smoke away so they can breathe. I scrunch my nose at the noxious odor of it now; it's positively oozing into my lungs.

I don't like this plan much; it barely does much to keep the fire away from my rescues, but it's really all I have. I strain my eyes and ears as much as possible with each room I enter, meticulously scanning for any people.

This place is remarkably empty, I notice. I still have no clue of the context of this fire, but clearly, people had enough time to escape. Most of them, at least.

It takes me a while to place that strange noise I start hearing as a person. More accurately, a child's screams. I strain my ears to ascertain where it's coming from, and immediately bolt down that way the moment I know.

Sliding to a stop at a doorway, I spot him. Black-haired like his mother, sitting cornered against the wall in hysterics as the fire slowly spreads around the room. I should have figured it out earlier, but this is spellfire, judging from the way it slowly creeps along even brick. Fortunately though, it hasn't gone too far by this point and the boy looks quite unharmed so far.

As I sidle up to him to take him though, I discard that thought. He looks far, far too pale to be healthy, and is barely even conscious by the looks of it. His eyes look at me in fright as I grab him and heft him up.

"Time to go," I tell him, and then I start bolting out the door and through the hallways. Unfortunately, his and his mom's tenement is deep inside the building, not near the window; I'd just have jumped out of one if there was one. Anyhow, I take the hard way out.

This moment is when the Academy's relentless, almost nonsensical training comes into use. As tongues of spellflame lick out from the walls, I'm forced to blow them away with whatever air there is here, lest the boy catch fire. At the same time, I redirect the smoke and hazardous gases away from our path, letting in proper air instead so that the boy —and I— may breathe. And finally, I chill down the air considerably so that the adverse heat doesn't overheat his fragile body.

The exertion on my mind from doing all these things at once is quite large; most mages struggle to use mana for more than one thing at once. Here, I'm being forced to divide my attentions between at least three activities, and putting considerable amounts of my mana into them to make their effect even noticeable.

For the first time ever, I actually find myself glad for the way the Academy has trained me.

I think I'm coming back the way I came from; it'd certainly be far more convenient that way. The boy starts giving out wracking coughs, and I quicken my pace even more. Some of the stone from the ceiling is just outright peeling off now. Several times, I'm forced to slap away or redirect flaming bits and pieces of stone via kinesis. The mental load of managing multiple spellthreads simultaneously —for the boy's benefit, not mine— almost threatens to overwhelm. If I had come across this situation mere months ago, I might not have been able to carry this boy out without heavy burns.

I shudder at that thought.

At last, after a long half-minute, I glimpse the window. The morning is brightening outside right now, turning into a hazier, lighter blue as time passes by. From what I see, it's the same street I came from.

With a final jump, I leap through the window, eliciting gasps and gawking from the entire assembled crowd, and land solidly in the middle of the road.

All eyes are on me as I walk over to where that woman is on her knees, cradling my satchel. Her jaw looks like it might as well be on the floor as I neatly plop down her son, pat his head good-naturedly, take my satchel, and walk away.

I feel a bit bad for just leaving them like that with no explanation, not even checking the boy for his injuries and afflictions, but I'm in a hurry, and I think we are finally in good hands by now. I glimpse men and women dressed in vivid lime and orange uniforms among those who glance at me; fire brigadiers. At last.

There's just a few here right now, most working desperately on containing the fire from spreading outwards. I keenly observe their work as they bring forth massive reservoirs of icy water from aboard their heavy, wheeled spellwagons, and blast it out at the fire. Immense gouts of steam hiss forth from where the water meets spellflame, and almost immediately, the fires start sputtering. As I've heard, they enchant that water with something to make it better than ordinary water.

There are Constables down here now, too, barking orders at people to back off from the fire and otherwise keeping space for the fire brigadiers to do their work. One attempts to step in front of me, opening his mouth, but I immediately raise my hand at him.

"Thank you, good sire, but can't you see I'm in a hurry?"

He closes his mouth, and I take that as my cue to just walk by him. He stares off at me in confusion as I start off at a sprint again.

My uniform isn't that burnt, I realize. A few smolders and steaming wisps rising up here and there, but its remarkably still in one piece with few holes, if any, and maintaining its vivid color yet.

A sudden thought hits me. What if there were more people inside? Would it have been alright to just leave off after rescuing one person? What if whoever else was inside there perished? Would I feel guilt over that? If so, could I bear it? And would their relatives feel justified anger at me?

I shake that thought off quickly. I've done all I can without jeopardizing my own life. Well, I might have jeopardized it already. As I run and run and turn down the streets, dodging people and the occasional spellwagon, I frantically cast glances across at the large clock towers positioned strategically across every avenue and intersection. Their filigreed hands show what I feared; I spent multiple precious minutes out of my limited ten that I need to get to the Academy. And what if they don't accept the charred state of my uniform? Will I even be allowed to take the test with it in such a state of disrepair? Or am I simply going to be sent off in disgrace, ordered to get a new change of uniforms?

In such a case, would they even allow me to reschedule the test?

I cast those useless thoughts away and speed myself up even further. I'm close to the Academy now, just one block away. At this point, the people here, all dressed up in suits and dresses of deep, vivid shades and robes that signify their affiliation as Arkanists are entirely too used to Academy students running frantically through the streets —I'm not the only one to be late to something. Most dodge me with shocking ease and I even see someone rolling their eyes, or hear a harassed sigh from one particularly distinguished lady. Each time, I mutter quick apologies and move on.

The entire area near the Academy, in fact, is considered a separate part of the city of Ederhall all on its own. Like an unofficial ward of sorts. Though it is not administratively considered separate, I certainly have heard of quite a few proposals to split it off as its own region with its own special privileges for Arkanists, scholars, polymaths, librarians, students and the whatnot. Those comprise the majority of the people who make their time here anyways, aside from those who make a living catering to them; stationery sellers, artefact shops, coffee houses, book collections, libraries, jewelers, et cetera.

The architecture here matches its function as well. All of Ederhall is somewhat ostentatious in its grand facades and artful inscriptions, especially in comparison to the mountains where I hail from, and yet this place takes it up a notch. Wide-open boulevards lined with flowering bushes and shade-giving lindens, tall buildings and towers of marble with regal calligraphic carvings adorning their length, stained glass windows of such wonderful color that even I can't tear my eyes off them sometimes, and the ever-present feel of spellwork being done in each and every building here. It is absolutely grand, even for me.

And then, I'm in front of the Academy's gates. A massive, intricate, curved working of black grailsteel, itself inscribed with golden calligraphy that I'm sure must be active wards —though for what functions exactly, I'm not sure. There are not less than four guards clad in black and gold at the gate, and they give me curious glances as I come to a stop at the gate. None heft their spell-lined rifles; at least one of them must be a Psyker, and he knows I'm not a particular threat.

I don't have to say anything before one man grunts and casually pushes the gate in, letting me inside. I flash him a grateful smile and a murmur of thanks, and rapidly slip in.

The Academy grounds are unusually quiet at this moment, though not for a lack of students here. In fact, there must be hundreds congregated here right now, all anxiously waiting for their turn to be called and tested. Wind whips through the immaculately-kept grounds of the Academy, sending tree leaves and flowers rustling and waving in the air. Columned, portico-ed buildings of warm brown marble soar up into the air, each one as grandly-raised as the ones outside, and far more ominous at this moment.

Two towers in particular catch the eye; The Grand Academic Library of Ederhall that sits right in front of the thick, squat, domed building my test is in, and then the Volispire off in the distance —a restricted, secretive place that few students are allowed to glance inside, no doubt filled with all sorts of advanced prototypical artefacts, spellmachines, spellprinters and other complicated breakthrough works of artifice in development at the Academy.

Today, we have the Trials of Speech. Law, Literature, History; we are supposed to prove our knowledge, our intelligence and our mental reasoning to not just the teachers here… But to outsiders. Prominent Arkanists, aristocrats, industrialists, scholars, academicians, politicians, even visiting dignitaries and diplomats from abroad. After all, this place is where such important people pluck their most promising apprentices from.

Critically, they can also interject into the various debates and oral provings that we are made to do at these Trials. They all have opinions too, after all, and what better test of real wit and quick-thinking than to make a young man or woman defend their position to their potential superiors?

I doubt my near-lateness and my smoldering uniform will impress them all too much. Which, though I don't really plan to serve them, could still be an irritating setback, because a tardy and messy student is unlikely to get graded very highly by the Docents here.

Fortunately, the Alestadt Dome is not too far away. Taking off at a sprint again, I make for the entrance, opening up my satchel and ripping out my enchanted seal of permission right as I bound up the stairs and screech to a halt in front of the exam's Admissor. Her yellow eyes widen in surprise as she takes me in. I recognize her —this is Docent Walda, my teacher for Literature.

"Anton?" She exclaims, taking my seal and giving it only a cursory look. "What were you doing?!? You are late —and oh by the Gods, what happened to your uniform?"

"Fire," I say impatiently, twiddling my fingers in front of me. "Had to drag someone out of it. I'm sorry, Miss, but I really am starved for time -I'm not late, am I?"