Chapter Thirty-One: Pressure

Three things changed for Eola after the duel.

First, Catrine Andrese started avoiding her. That was a major improvement, but while the noble had clearly been beaten, she hadn’t been defeated. Eola caught her dagger-like gaze every day in her classes, and her lackeys hadn’t gotten any better, either. Still, Eola had to admit that a distant, seething Catrine was much easier to ignore than one determined to torment her at every opportunity. She wasn’t looking forward to that coming back.

Second, the crack in Roth’s armor grew.

Not much. He joined Eola, Colin, and Patrice for meals about half the time, both in the cafeteria and in Varin’s Town. He never said much, and when she tried to dig into who he was or why he was at Varin’s, he only answered with noncommittal grunts and single words. Eola wasn’t ready to give up on him, though. She’d seen him without a glare, and she was determined to see it again.

Granted, he’d never told her what he had against House Andrese, either, and unlike Colin or Patrice, he’d often disappear to play his instruments in the middle of a conversation. He was a mystery, and Eola had plenty of those to work on.

And third, Eola started making progress on her magical research.

She had two projects.

The first, and more straightforward, was something she could do on he own. Understanding the connections between modifying marks and base runes in her spell chains would, in theory, help her cast more efficiently. According to Instructor Tarik, she was using as much Mana as he did to cast Third Order magic. But there was a limit to how efficiently she could connect a spell chain before a fifth modifier was required—and as soon as that happened, she was back to square one, because that fifth modifier was always an attunement mark, and it always caused the spell to fail. Occasionally, that failure was catastrophic, and she started doing her practical testing in demonstration circles.

That limit of four modifying marks also meant she had a hard cap on how powerful her magic could get. So, until she could figure out a way around that, Eola was also focused on that glimmer she’d seen in her fight with Catrine. She’d seen part of a spell while it was being cast. If she got better at it, she could do it again. Eola had two possible methods: either memorize a selection of spells and where the modifying marks were in their runes, or get better at seeing the individual marks as a caster cast.

She could do some of this in her classes. Mana Studies, for example, was digging into First Order Mana-stretching spells, and the room was often full of students casting spells for her to examine. Magical Dueling had moved into the list of First Order spells a duelist typically cast while waving a sword around, but it was harder to learn there, because the person casting was also trying to stab her. And Introduction to Monsters had moved into more detailed discussions about how best to handle the library’s monstrous denizens, but that didn’t require magic at all.

Outside of class, though, she had only two viable study partners.

Colin’s casting was slow—perfect to learn from, precise and perfect, but slow. She could, on occasion, pick up modifying marks in his spells. But Instructor Tarik was her best partner, and he was only available during their apprenticeship time. He was simply better than Colin. Faster, more versatile, and more willing to do things that tripped up Eola’s brain and left her scratching her head.

As the days went by, Eola settled into the new routine—and when Colin made a breakthrough on his ritual magic, she was more than willing to share Instructor Tarik’s time with him. There were rules to magic, Colin believed, and those rules could be followed even more precisely than Ordered Magic did. Eola shared her insights on modifying marks with him, and he started applying the question of that mysterious fifth mark to attunements, a move their master very much approved of.

As for Patrice…she was still Patrice, and she still did nothing in class. She was, after all, the worst student at Varin’s, and she had a reputation to uphold.

And Roth’s studies were harder to quantify, because he didn’t have to cast when he played music. In fact, most of the time, he didn’t. Eola had yet to figure out the rules of his magic, though Colin was pretty sure he understood what was happening. He refused to say anything, though. Eola wanted to know more about Roth as a person, not about his magic.

One day, her curiosity got the better of her, and she made a deal she’d regret for a long time—and one that’d leave her surprisingly hungry.

Atta, to Eola’s absolute shock, had elected to come along to dinner in her cat form. She hung from her neck like a clawed, purring scarf, making painful biscuits through the thick cloak and staring at Patrice.

“Why look at me?” Patrice asked after a minute, patting the buckled satchel at her waist. “I don’t have anything for you to hunt, and Colin’s familiar is right there.”

“Rude!” Colin said.

“Atta can’t respond,” Eola said quickly.

Patrice rolled her eyes. “I know Attic can’t respond, but she can hear me, and if Nera can understand what Colin tells him, your stupid cat definitely can, too.”

“Attic?” Colin asked. For a moment, no one said anything. Then he snorted. “Oh! Because she lives in Eola’s loft?”

“Exactly! And because she’s an annoying pest who likes bullying other familiars, and she needs to be bullied back.”

“You just tried to sic her on Nera, Patrice. Don’t go acting high and mighty. What’s your familiar, anyway?” Colin asked. “And how’d you cast Call and Calm?”

Patrice’s ears went pink.

Eola ignored them both. Atta didn’t, but the smell of dinner tonight had most of the cat’s attention. She didn’t stop staring at Patrice until the cafeteria’s doors opened and a lemony, garlic-filled scent wafted out—with a strong, fishy odor underneath. Atta tensed, then leaped from Eola’s shoulders.

“Absolutely not! You’ll get yours, but be patient,” Eola snapped, pointing her finger at the bright blue cat. Atta hissed, then hopped onto a bench and licked her paw. “And stay there! We’ll be back soon.”

The scent of…well, Eola couldn’t quite identify the fish, but that only made her hesitate for a moment before grabbing a tray and piling it high with as much as she could get. The delicious smell wafted through the room, and she hurried back to her seat. “It’s been baked, with a lemon and garlic sauce and a hint of…dill?”

As she took her first bite, the others joined her, looking at the flaky white meat a bit more skeptically. Roth poked at it with a fork, but didn’t eat, even after Eola slid a few scraps Atta’s way and polished off what was left of hers. She stared at him, then at his plate. “Are you going to…”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Because I could—“

“I know.”

Eola backed off, watching as he pushed his dinner around on his plate. Then she coughed once. “You know…”

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“What?” Roth asked.

“Nothing. Only…you only helped me because you knew who I was dueling. With Catrine, I mean. I’ve been trying to figure out why, but I don’t understand.” Eola set her fork on her plate. “If you tell me, I won’t bother you about food for two weeks.”

“Three.”

“Two and a half?” Eola asked hopefully.

“Three.”

“Fine. Let’s hear it.”

“The things I do to be left alone…” Roth’s eyes narrowed as they locked on hers. Then he looked down at his fish. “I’m from the far north. Farther than Foglight. It’s a rough place. Everyone’s got to pull their weight if they want to make it, and there’s no nobles. Or at least, there weren’t. Four years ago, House Andrese found—“

“Silver,” Patrice interrupted, eyes widening. “That’s where it came from. I was wondering, because all of a sudden, just after my time as their ward ended, they got way, way more bold politically, and started throwing money around more.”

“Yeah. They claimed the land around Mount Blue Point. Mining, logging, whatever they could do. My dad…he’s a hunter and trapper—uses the whole woods. But now, House Andrese owns it all. Dad got squeezed. Couldn’t make ends meet. He had to get rid of something. Chose me. Not that I ever fit in there. Some people back home liked my music, but it’s not a good attunement for pulling my weight when that means pulling an elk through the snow.”

“So, you came here?” Colin asked.

Roth’s eyes shifted over, then down at his uneaten fish. “Not at first. My uncle took me in, but he couldn’t make ends meet, either. So, I swore revenge against House Andrese and came here. Got a scholarship—otherwise, I’d be freezing on Varin’s Town’s streets.”

Colin shook his head. “That doesn’t add up. Roth—”

“It’s what happened.” The table went quiet, and after a minute longer, Roth slid his plate at Eola. “Here. Take it.”