32 – Parent-Teacher Conference

One week ago…

Lord Bishop Winthrome was not keen on his vacation.

His family had planned a trip to the Northern Senji mountains, a city in permanent winter, where they occasionally hunted frost giants for fun. It was not his idea of a good time, but far be it from him to say no. After all, his oldest brother, future clan Patriarch, had ordered it, and Bishop refusing to attend would not only be disrespectful, it would also call attention to his ‘frailness’ and lack of magical grit.

They would deliberate once more about his decision to have his cores suppressed as a child, and scoff at the weakness of their brother.

What they didn’t understand was that Bishop had made the only sensible choice at the time. It was simple mathematics. He had three brothers and ten cousins, all of whom showed significant magical ability.

They could not all become Masters thanks to the quota, yet it would have brought shame to the family if the sons from the main branch had merely managed to make it to the adept tier, as his youngest brother had done. Bishop had no real passion for stoichiomancy, nor did he have the drive or zeal to become a master. So, he’d chosen to sacrifice his cores at an early age, when it would be simpler to do so, rather than wait till he was older and his cores were more developed, hence more painful to suppress.

Sometimes he still felt the ache of the suppressed cores. Especially at night, he felt a hollowness inside, like something was missing, but he told himself that it would have been even worse if he’d waited.

Yes, he had to bear the jokes of his family till this day, and many of them thought him to be weak or lacking in ambition.

Yet, as mere adepts, they were all looked down on in the magical world, while he was king in the mundane world.

He had avoided a long, strenuous training at a stoichomancy academy and had instead focused on learning the family business. Now he was in charge of the everyday management of affairs, and he would take over from his father after the latter’s eventual passing.

He enjoyed his work, and he much preferred it to spending a long winter with his family.

So when he was about to board the carriage and heard his steward running for him with labored breath, he happily hesitated.

“Lord Winthrome!” Ronald shouted. “Lord Winthrome, there’s an urgent message from you from the lab.”

“I have to be somewhere soon,” he said, but it was a perfunctory statement, something someone should say when they were on their way to a vacation with their family. Yet he lingered at the doorway waiting for Ronald’s arrival, and he opened up the letter immediately.

Dear Lord Winthrome,

We attempted to reach you by messaging scroll but did not receive a response, so we sent this letter by urgent raven. We received word of a new vitality charm counterfeit that hit the market, and upon testing a sample, we found some very unusual components. It’s hard to convey just how unusual it is fully. We urge you to visit the lab immediately for our analysis document.

Thank you,

Dr. Luther Cobson.

Lord Winthroe sighed, even though a sense of relief flooded him. “Well, my vacation will have to be delayed, won’t it, Ronald?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Pen a letter to my brother telling him that there was a work emergency. They’ll have to understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that, he redirected his carriage to the lab.

But all sense of relief disappeared when he saw the actual report laid out in front of him, the bonds that had been created, the incredulous things that had been incorporated into the spell form.

He was silent for some time, his breath caught in his throat. Not much surprised him these days, but it seemed an entire lifetime of shock had been reserved for this moment.

Now, he only had one question.

“How?”

“That’s what we don’t know,” Dr. Cobson said. “It’s not a direct counterfeit. I do not believe that the creator used our designs in making this. But they somehow made something even better, something that our team of specialists had not yet managed to perfect.”

That much was correct.

The creator of this charm had implemented a slow-release protocol that their researchers had been failing at for months. They’d introduced multiple double and triple bonds, stabilizing the spell while giving it more power.

It was nothing short of astonishing.

And perhaps the worst part of it was that he couldn’t claim copyright law against the spell. The owner now owned the design of the spell, and they would need to buy it from them; however, even if they did, he wasn’t confident that his researchers could replicate the same spell form, as stable as it was. What he needed was for this person to come work for them.

He tried to think of which of his competitors could have managed such a thing, or which of the up-and-coming names in arcane research could be behind this.

It couldn’t be some back-alley quack doing this. It just couldn’t.

“Where did you get this?”

“Our report says a student was distributing it at Erynwall. She was selling it for two silver coins a piece.”

“Two silver?” he repeated, amazed and insulted all at once. But there was the leverage he was looking for. The Artificer’s Union determined the price of magical tools, and the current floor for charms was at least eight silver a piece. If he took the case up with the union, it could get very expensive for the seller to litigate.

It was about a four-day journey by train and ship to Erynwall. Five to six days if he took the safer, more leisurely route.

He would miss an entire week of his family’s vacation thanks to this.

He couldn’t be happy about the situation, but it was a perfectly timed crisis.

“I suppose I’ll be going to Erynwall then.”

***

Present day

Elric arrived on campus via his least favorite means: teleportation.

He would have preferred his Griffins, but he was in a hurry, having had so many things to do today before he received a request for an urgent parent-teacher conference with Dean Octavius.

Octavius had sent a messaging crystal through a small portal, and it had landed on Elric’s desk before tracking him to where he’d been in the breakroom. He’d gone somewhere alone to activate it, and it had opened to show the Dean’s unsmiling face saying, “Elric. You should probably get here instantly. Your ward might be in trouble.”

The message had only briefly explained further, but apparently, he had a list of things to answer for when it came to his curious little cousin, including her distribution of counterfeit charms and copying a bloodline spell during a duel.

Safe to say, Cousin Ari wasn’t blending in very well, and contrary to what she’d told him, she’d had a very busy set of weeks, causing mayhem.

Elric had known it would be difficult.

She didn’t have the personality type for subterfuge, even when it lay in her own best interest. She was far too honest for her own good and didn’t know enough about the world of ascendants to understand the socially implicit rules that governed their delicate system.

That was partially his fault. He should have been clearer about the rules with her, but he hadn’t had time to go through every single one of them. Now, she was in trouble.

He had pushed off his assignments for the rest of the day and teleported to campus.

He strode quickly up the stairs and down the hallway, nodding at the bows he got on the way in. Typically, he didn’t mind stopping to chat with the students, but he was in a hurry and simply walked into the Headmaster’s office, where Arielle was waiting for him, seated opposite the Dean, and next to a man Elric did not recognize.

Guilt peeked out of her blank expression as she said, “Hello, Elric.”

“Hello Arielle,” He smiled at the girl, despite the tension. “I was planning on visiting you soon anyway, but not necessarily under these circumstances.”

Family day was in just a couple of weeks, and it was one of the only days when relatives and guardians were allowed on the island to visit their wards. Typically, only two family members each were authorized, but Elric was making special arrangements in her case to allow for more.

“Sorry to drag you here on a weekday.” The Dean said as he gestured to another seat, which Elric took. “I understand you’re a busy man, but well, Arielle seems to have purchased and sold counterfeit charms on our campus.”

Stolen story; please report.

“They were not counterfeit,” Arielle said.

“How would you know?” the stranger challenged.

“Because…I was assured they weren’t. They don’t work by the same mechanism as Winthrome charms, and there is at least a twenty percent difference, which precludes it from being a counterfeit. The creator is a very honest and law-abiding person; they would not make counterfeit charms.” She had a stubborn expression on her face and an indignant set to her jaw.

It didn’t take any special powers of detection for Elric to figure out that Arielle was talking about herself. She was the creator.

He sighed again.

“We didn’t want to interrogate her extensively without her guardian present,” Dean Octavius said. “Which is why we waited until you arrived.”

“Thank you for that,” he said, and he looked at the other man in the room, who stood and bowed.

“Archmage Elric, I am Bishop Winthrome.”

“Ah, Lord Winthrome.” Elric waved his hand. “Please, no need to bow. Sorry, I’m in a bit of a haste so I’d rather get to the point. About these charms, what makes you think they’re counterfeit? Have they been independently tested?”

Bishop straightened, but his expression showed apprehension.

“They’re not, per se. Your ward is not entirely wrong. We had the charms analyzed, and the base makeup of both charms is quite different indeed.”

Arielle gave Elric an arched look, which made the dean and Elric smirk briefly.

“So what was the problem?” Elric asked, lowering his voice and narrowing his eyes. It was clear that Bishop Winthrome had simply lied and used the counterfeit argument to bully Arielle into revealing her source, so he was already starting on a bad foot with Elric.

Winthrome cleared his throat, oozing discomfort at the archmage’s focused gaze. “There is indeed a thirty percent difference in these charms; however, that is also what makes such a charm dangerous. We believe someone fairly clandestine must have sold those charms to your ward, although she refuses to say who. If she continues to refuse, then we will have to escalate it to the union and also launch a search party in Khor city to find the one responsible for this. We might also want to consider the use of truth-seekers.”

“No need for that,” Elric said. “If it’s just the creator of the charms you’re seeking, I can find them for you. But I don’t understand what cause you have against them, or my cousin, if they haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Exactly,” Arielle said, and Elric shot her a warning look to be silent.

“It’s not that simple, Archmage. These charms last longer and have a delayed-release effect. They increase magical ability by at least fifty percent while active and fifteen percent in the days following.”

“So they’re…better?”

The man’s face flushed as he stuck his nose in the air. “I wouldn’t say they were better. They’re simply different and carry more risk for dependency. We would like to personally meet the maker and ensure that they make their charms safer and union-approved.”

“Well….” He glanced at Arielle once more and said, “But do you truly have a right to demand this of my cousin?”

Bishop looked taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“She told you what she knows. She has done nothing wrong and has complied even when you lied about the nature of the charms. She’d simply bought charms that she was assured were not counterfeit, charms that you confirmed yourself are quite different from yours. Whether or not they cause increased dependency is a matter of opinion, and your finding this charm maker has nothing to do with her.”

“He’s not wrong,” Dean Octavius said, a smile still threatening the corner of his lip, though he tried to maintain a sober affect. “You misled me at the beginning of this, Winthrome. I entertained this meeting because you told me it was a counterfeit, but if it’s not, you have no right to question her. And now I’m summarily annoyed.”