~Chapter Twenty-Five: Apprenticeships~

Two days later, Eola was getting frustrated with her new apprenticeship.

She sat in one corner of an empty classroom, tinkering away at a spell-chain that should mimic Reap and Scythe. The spell wasn’t a combat spell—it was something grain-attuned mages used to help with the harvests—but that was the point. Instructor Tarik had encouraged her to try a spell she never thought she’d need.

That was fine, but nothing Colin had done seemed to have changed. He was two desks over, mumbling to himself as he worked through the steps to one of his First Order rituals. And Roth had a harp. An entire harp. The angry-looking boy glared at them from across the room as his fingers danced across the strings, almost like he was daring them to say something about it, and magic welled around him. A ball of glowing, yellow-orange light appeared.

Instructor Tarik clapped. So did Patrice.

Roth’s glare only grew deeper.

Of the five, Eola was the only one who seemed to be trying to take their mission seriously. Patrice certainly wasn’t. She hadn’t cast a single spell, drawn a single rune, or demonstrated any magical aptitude at all.

As her frustration grew, she snapped her copy of Evander’s Guide to Battle-Marks shut and turned in her seat. “Master Tarik, what are we supposed to be doing?”

“What?” The professor tore himself away from the harp and raised an eyebrow.

“I know we’re supposed to be working toward something. What is it?”

“I honestly don’t know. My goal for the first few weeks of your apprenticeships is simply to facilitate as you confront your problems with Ordered Magic. If I can do that, my hope is that I’ll start seeing how Ordered Magic works as well.”

“You don’t know how Ordered Magic works?” Roth asked accusatorily. Colin didn’t even look up from his chanting.

Instructor Tarik sighed. “Of course I know how Ordered Magic works. Every professor knows how it works—on a surface level, and deeply enough to handle the questions we get in classes. But as I tried to explain, the mechanics of attunements, Mana, and soul are a mystery. Miss Lemiene, you’ve had experiences with Mana lines. What do you think of them?”

“They’re like a walker-roller for a child before they can safely walk on their own,” Eola said promptly. “But they’re not necessary.”

“And yet, Madame Reyanna teaches them as if they’re gospel from Y’aer themselves. She was trained with them, and they help her, so she’s training another generation of mages in them without stopping to consider what thinking in terms of Mana lines actually accomplishes. I don’t believe that they’re a learning lie, personally. If they were, they wouldn’t work for so many mages. But I don’t know that. I don’t know much of anything.”

Atta jumped onto Eola’s lap, then climbed onto the desk to curl on top of her rune dissection. She sighed; the cat familiar had started to manifest in the classroom as well as her bedroom, and she was vaguely inconvenient at best.

Roth’s fingers strolled across the strings, and his glare deepened.

“Do you play anything else, Mr. Gerr?” Instructor Tarik asked.

“Yes.” Instead of elaborating, his fingers started to waltz from string to string, letting the notes hang in the air. They moved faster and faster, and after perhaps ten seconds, a glowing shield appeared in the air. It was wider, but thinner, than Eola’s own cast of Safe Shield.

“Runeless magic?” Eola asked after a moment.

“No. It’s not runeless. It’s a different language. Musical notation. It wouldn’t work for anyone with a normal attunement, but I’ve always been a freak,” Roth said. It was the most he’d said in one go, and he shut his mouth right after.

“Fascinating. So, you’re still following the same steps as Ordered Magic?” Tarik asked.

“Yes. My dad wasn’t happy about it. I ended up with my uncle most of the time.”

Eola swallowed painfully. “I was also with my uncle. That’s something we have in common.”

“We don’t have anything in common,” Roth snapped. He stood, picked up the harp, and slowly, gently set it into its padded case. Then he picked it up with one hand—the boy was strong—and stomped to the door, kicked it open, and vanished. Tarik made no move to stop him.

Eola stared as the door swung shut. She hadn’t talked about her uncle or parents with anyone, and she wouldn’t have done it with Roth either, but it had been two days since Evelyn and Bannoque had moved out and Roth and Patrice had moved in. Most of the time, students got shuffled around after their apprenticeships began, but with both Colin and Eola in the same suite, it had been easier to leave them both in place.

Two days with Roth Gerr. Two days with a brooding, angry boy who was constantly playing on his harp, or a flute, or just singing in his room, and who only left it for classes. Just another commonality with her, Eola decided—but it was a frustrating one even so.

“Well,” Patrice said, then let the silence hang.

“Well, what?” Colin asked, finally looking up from his ritual. “Are you going to do some magic? Show us your attunement?”

Eola nodded. “You’ve never cast a single spell when I could see it, and you had Colin cast that hangover charm after Y’aer’s Day. You have to be able to do some magic—otherwise, you couldn’t have come here.” Even as she said it, she shivered, vaguely aware of who she sounded like: Catrine Andrese.

“Nope. This is just another class for me, and I never do anything in classes.” Patrice smiled widely. “I’m the worst mage at Varin’s Academy for a reason, Eola.”

“I’m going to have to see your spellwork eventually, Miss Clerk,” Instructor Tarik said.

“If you insist on it, it’ll just be you and me, Prof, and it’ll be in a demonstration circle, with full protective runes up—or even better, in the cells, if you can swing it for me. Otherwise, I’m out.”

Eola perked up at that, and even Colin leaned in to listen. But Instructor Tarik only sighed and nodded. “Very well. If you really find the cells necessary, we can make that happen. Miss Lemiene, Mr. Tremory, you are dismissed for the afternoon. Miss Clerk, it’s time for me to see what you can do.”

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Patrice grimaced, and Eola winced in sympathy as the red-haired girl mumbled under her breath. “And what I can’t.”

As far as Eola was concerned, her new roommates were an improvement over Evelyn and Bannoque. Sure, Roth looked like he was ready to attack someone almost all the time, and his harp, flute, and beautiful tenor voice meant the suite’s common room was even less quiet than it had been when her old roommates had used it for make-out sessions. And yes, Patrice was loud, talkative, and prone to barging through her door during a study session—or to yelling through it when Eola tried to lock her out.