The dining hall at Wildeguard Academy was a sprawling, high-ceilinged space. Stained glass windows filtered the light into shifting hues of gold and green, giving the room a forest-dappled glow even at midday. Long tables lined with benches stretched the length of the room, filled with students and steaming plates.

  Weylan arrived to find the priestesses already seated, chatting excitedly over bowls of vegetable stew and slices of crusty bread.

  “About time,” Faya called out, patting the empty seat beside her. “I was about to declare you dead, due to being screamed to death by Yveris.”

  “I’m lucky I didn’t skate right into the wall,” Weylan said dryly as he dropped onto the bench. Selvara, still in raven form, flapped once and landed on the edge of the table, eyeing a nearby tray of glazed nuts.

  Across from him, Ulmenglanz sat with quiet grace, delicately breaking apart a bread roll and dipping it into a bowl of infused soup. “You managed to outmaneuver a man twice your size,” she said. “Impressive. I liked his reaction at the end. A lesser man would have screamed bloody murder.” She shot a meaningful glance over to Valen over at the table where the noble students had gathered.

  Darken slumped beside Weylan with a dramatic groan, pulling a tray toward himself. “I need ten minutes without anyone talking about spells, duels, or how strong Kane is.”

  “He could break you into pieces,” Erik said, sliding in next to Darken with a grin. “I’ll vote for you two to be partnered next.”

  As the group began eating, Kane arrived, looking like a man betrayed by life itself, balancing a tray piled with a tragic mountain of plain bread rolls, boiled eggs, and what looked suspiciously like a single leaf of lettuce cowering beneath a slab of meat. He dropped into his seat with a grunt that made the table rattle.

  “They’re trying to starve me,” he declared. “I asked for my standard high-protein bulk meal. You know what they try to give me?”

  Weylan looked up. “Travel rations?”

  “Worse. A ‘light and cleansing vegetable broth’ and a polite suggestion to ‘reconnect with my inner leaf.’ I don’t have an inner leaf. I have outer biceps.”

  Darken nearly choked on his soup. “Didn’t they see your arms? You look like you’re smuggling two ham hocks in your sleeves.”

  “I had to bribe a kitchen goblin just to score these eggs.”

  Faya giggled. “Maybe they’re just trying to balance your humors.”

  “They’re about to unbalance my patience,” Kane muttered, eyeing the lettuce like it was his mortal enemy.

  “So,” Weylan said between bites, “who’s looking forward to Alchemy?”

  “Standard Alchemy,” Darken groaned, resting his forehead on the table. “Which would be fine, except they probably expect us to not explode anything. My specializations all use different theoretical approaches to standard recipes. I have the Alchemy skill, but it’s hard to keep the methodologies apart.”

  Alina leaned forward. “I can’t wait! We’ve only done basic wound cleansing tinctures at the temple. I want to learn how to brew real potions. Battle brews, explosive potions, fire bombs and stuff!”

  Mirabelle nodded. “I just hope we manage to get far enough with the lessons to learn some of the more esoteric brews.” She got out a book from the side bag she always carried with her and started skimming the recipe list and writing in her notebook.

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  “I just hope we’re not forced to try our own potions,” Weylan muttered.

  Selvara let out a chuckle-like caw and snapped up a nut someone nudged toward her.

  Mirabelle barely looked up. “Alchemy is a discipline of precision. It’s not so different from magic. Only the ingredients don’t scream when you mess up.”

  “Unless you’re a dryad working with living herbs,” Ulmenglanz interjected, her smile mischievous and just shy of serious.

  “Do plants feel pain?” Erik asked, blinking.

  Ulmenglanz chuckled and shook her head. “No, not really. Very few plants are sentient, or feeling at all.”

  She tilted her head, studying him. “Say, it’s not that you’re not welcome with us, but why aren’t you sitting with the other nobles?”

  Erik shrugged. “I’m lower nobility. I’d be accepted, sure, but always at the bottom of the ladder. That’s been my whole life. Honestly, it’s refreshing to be around normal people for a change.” He smiled. “Especially such a charming assortment of healers.”

  Alina rolled her eyes.

  Faya, sitting cross-legged beside a cushion, smiled warmly. “Aw, that’s sweet. Careful though, you keep saying things like that and one of us might fall for you.”

  Erik looked a little flustered, but he smiled back.

  Ulmenglanz smirked softly.

  Mirabelle, halfway back to her notes, blinked again and gave Faya a slow, suspicious look, then slowly returned to her notes. Now with half an ear on the conversation.

  Faya just hummed contentedly and popped a dried berry into her mouth, looking completely innocent.

  Ulmenglanz merely raised a brow, amused. Mirabelle blinked between them, then slowly returned to her notes, but now with half an ear on the conversation.

  Weylan’s gaze drifted from Faya to Erik. “Say, as a learned noble, do you know anything useful about this place?”

  Erik shrugged with an easy grin. “Probably. Depends on what you’re looking for. I could point you to a secluded pond where you might find some lovely, and mostly solitary, Swan-Maidens…”

  Mirabelle looked up sharply, frowning. “You’re not actually sending him to the Weregeese, are you?”

  Erik gave her a wounded look. “You’re no fun. It’s tradition! My brothers told me about it — every year, someone new gets sent to that pond. Builds character.”

  Ulmenglanz raised an eyebrow and glanced between them. “And how many of those new students survive this harmless tradition?”

  Erik held up a hand with mock innocence. “Hardly any fatalities! Most therianthropes are perfectly civilized. As long as you don’t provoke them, they usually stick to… practical jokes. Harmless ones.”

  Faya leaned in, grinning. “So… what you’re saying is, I should absolutely go there.”

  Erik winked. “You’d probably end up Queen of the Weregeese by the end of the week.”

  Mirabelle rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible.

  “But seriously,” Erik continued, “here’s the one piece of advice everyone gave me before I got here: take the point system seriously.”

  Weylan tilted his head. “Because of the rewards?”

  “Exactly.” Erik’s tone shifted, just a bit more earnest. “The academy’s enchanters make incredible stuff. Even more comes in through the adventurers they sponsor. Some of them are even direct gifts of the gods. The kind of artifacts you don’t see outside royal vaults. You can claim one if you get enough points by semester’s end.”

  That got everyone’s attention. Even Alina, who usually tuned Erik out.

  Weylan nodded thoughtfully. “So how do you win?”

  Erik laughed. “Ah, if only I knew. They tweak the rules every year. Best advice I can give? Treat every competition seriously. Every single point counts. We’ll probably visit the prize gallery in a few days. Seeing it really hammers the message home.”

  Mirabelle was already scribbling something in her notes. “According to my timetable, we’ve got Alchemy next. Anything we should know?”

  “Yeah,” Erik said, more seriously now. “Don’t bluff your way through it. Make sure you’ve got the actual Alchemy skill. Not Potion Lore, not Herbology, and definitely not Cooking.”

  Faya blinked. “People actually tried that?”

  Erik smirked. “Friend of my oldest brother did. He used cooking until he messed up. Ended up as a test subject for half a semester. Glowed green for a week.”

  Weylan frowned. “Is there any way to get the Alchemy skill quickly?”

  “Sure,” Erik said brightly. “Super easy. Barely an inconvenience. All it took me was three weeks with a personal tutor and about a hundred gold worth of wasted ingredients.”

  Weylan didn’t answer, but the corners of his mouth twitched as Erik launched into another of his animated tales. Something about a mirror maze and a teleportation spell gone wrong.

  By the time the group rose to leave for the next lesson, Weylan was walking a few steps behind, deep in thought.

  He didn’t have the skill.

  But he’d learned to move silently before he had Stealth. Shot a revenant before ever getting Crossbow. Everyone could swing a sword before unlocking the Sword skill.

  Alchemy couldn’t be that different… right?