Eli

  Done throwing up what was left of lunch, I wiped my mouth. “Eli Moore,” came Professor Sebastian’s voice. He sounded almost cheerful as he continued, “As a nobleman of the Mage Empire and as a Professor of this Academic Institution. I herby place you under arrest for the murder of a classmate.”

  Before I could say anything in my defense, a series of spells flashed in the space between us. Something tightened in my throat. Trying to shout at him, nothing but air came out. This was probably a good thing for him as I screamed with all my might as a spell constricted around my core. The spell felt like someone was tightening a vice on my heart. Yeah, I passed out. I just could not handle that kind of pain.

  It felt like someone thrust me under a waterfall. The sudden cold rush woke me up instantly. Clothes soaked, I looked around as the water stopped. I was in the middle of a muddy gray room. In front of me was Professor Sebastian. Off to one side was Professor Olivia and another older gentleman I had yet to meet.

  Professor Sebastian slapped me. “Where are you looking at?”

  Holding back my anger at the slap, I returned my gaze to him. “You sir.”

  “Tell us why you killed your classmate.”

  “I didn’t.”

  He slapped me again. “Don’t lie. All you humans know is how to kill. So why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t. What reason…”

  This time he pulled a blade out and stabbed between my tied legs. Embedding the blade in the metal chair. “From what I have heard, your target liked to get close to the ladies. Did he go after one of the women you liked?” The thought of him going after Alissa caused my anger to flare up. If he had gone after her, I don’t know what I would have done. Of course he misunderstood my expression. “So I was right. Typical.”

  “I did not kill him.” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Just cast the damn truth spell on him.” Came a voice from behind me. It sounded like Randle but he was out of sight so I couldn’t be sure.

  “You can’t. Even if he wasn’t born a mage, he is still entitled to some rights.” Professor Olivia calmly said. Her face neutral, not showing anything after seeing what Professor Sebastian was doing.

  Professor Sebastian laughed at that. “You think the humans cared about such things throughout their history. The Salem Witch trials showed us what they thought about rights. But, I agree. I won’t cast that spell on him. It’s more fun to beat him up until he admits to his actions.”

  “What proof do you have that I killed him.” I shouted before he could do anything to stop me.

  “Our nurses have placed Billy’s time of death to just before the explosion at the lake. Quite convenient that you were in the area practicing attack magic. Especially such a potent spell.” Professor Sebastian looked like he was enjoying this.

  My laughter caused his grin to turn into a frown of confusion as I said, “That wasn’t an attack spell. I was trying to create a shield. It failed spectacularly.”

  “All we have is your word on the spell.” Came Randle’s voice.

  “Check with Sàga. She was holding the spell in a…” That was all I got out before Professor Sebastian yanked out the knife and stabbed it into my leg.

  “I don’t care what your device says. Anyone can get it to say what they want, given time. Make this easy on yourself and admit to what we all know.” Not that I heard anything he said. I was too busy screaming from the knife in my leg. It felt like the thing was scraping against my bone as I jerked around in an attempt to get away.

  Suddenly, a door behind me crashed open. “Headmaster,” yelled a new voice.

  To my surprise, the old man was the one that spoke up. His voice was deep and full of pity. “Why are you interrupting us?”

  “I am sorry. Another person has been found dead.”

  “So, you killed another of your fellow abominations, did you.” Professor Sebastian said.

  “The deceased was a mage.”

  “WHAT!” Everyone said at nearly the same time. Well, all except me. I was struggling to even stay conscious at this point.

  “She also has been dead less than an hour.”

  “That can’t be true. Our only suspect has been here that entire time.” Professor Sebastian sounded conflicted.

  “So, I was right. Eli is not the killer.” Professor Olivia said.

  “No, he has to be. He was the only human in the area.” Professor Sebastian’s hand tightened around the knife in my leg, twisting it. “Tell me who your accomplices are. If you do, I will make your death quick.”

  I have to say, I was tempted. Is this why tortured confessions were usually false? It made sense. A victim would do anything to make it stop. My hesitation saved me. Professor Olivia spoke up. “That’s enough. The only evidence you had for holding him was that he was in the area practicing magic. Seeing as there has been a second death, one that he cannot be linked to, the evidence is no longer enough to hold him.”

  Tilting my head up to look at her, I watched as she walked out of the room followed by the older gentleman. Professor Sebastian, however, looked pissed. Removing his hand from the knife, he said, “Fine. You are free to go.” Then he disappeared from sight.

  The sensation of my heart being released relaxed muscles I didn’t know were tight. Mana poured out and through my body. I was still tied up and a knife was sticking out of a leg, but otherwise I felt amazing.

  Sitting there, I ignored the pain in my leg as I tried to form a small fireball next to my wrist. One would think it would be just as hard as forming one in your palm, but it wasn’t. Finally, I cast the spell. The rope burned, and so did my skin. With the smell of burnt flesh and twine, I pulled hard enough to snap the rope the rest of the way.

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  Taking a deep breath, I yanked out the knife. Blood spurted out as I felt lightheaded. Turns out the knife was keeping the blood from flowing freely. Crying out as I shoved my hand down onto the wound as I rushed through a healing spell.

  I knew the spell would do little to heal the wound, but it would at least slow the bleeding. The spell just wasn’t strong enough to do anything more on its own. It was only meant for cuts, scrapes, rashes and sprains. Just strong enough to keep us in our classes no matter without having to pester a professor or nurse for healing.

  Finally, the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Grabbing my shirt, I wrapped it around the stab wound and tied it as tight as I could without cutting off the circulation. My next goal was to get back to the dorm and see if I could get one of the others to heal me more thoroughly.

  Stumbling to my feet, I made my way around the chair. My eyes focusing on the ground so that I didn’t trip. I just didn’t have the energy to get back to my feet again once I laid down. A pair of shoes blocked my way to the door. Looking up, I saw that not everyone had left the room.

  Randle and one of his cronies were standing there, blocking my way. With a sickly sweet voice, Randle asked “Do you need any help?”

  Ignoring him, I try to push between them. Neither budges, causing me to nearly fall to the ground. Managing to catch myself on the wall, I let it take all my weight. “What do you want Randle?”

  “Nothing special. Just making sure you didn’t die to early on us. You still need to get strong enough for me to fight. Can’t have you keeling over before that.” A soft green spell flashed from his hand before flying over and covered my leg. Tiny pinpricks of pain turned into ants crawling in random directions.

  “Why do you want to fight me of all people?” I asked through my teeth.

  “Something about you tells me that you would be a decent challenge. Given a chance to grow a bit.”

  “Is that why you told the Professor to use a truth spell?”

  “Yeah,” he looked bored with the conversation. “I just can’t see you as someone to kill another in such a way. Anyway, get stronger. You and I still have a date to fight.” With that, he turned and left the room.

  My leg had stopped hurting. Looking down, I saw that my shirt was a nice red. It was trash. Nothing was going to get those stains out. Pressing my hand to the wall, I pushed against it until I was standing straight. Testing my healed leg let me know that it was fine. The other leg was screaming at me for healing now that it wasn’t drowned out by the stab wound.

  Limping out of the room and over to a table next to the door, I grabbed Sàga and my badge before continuing onto my room. No one seemed to be paying attention to me as I walked. All of them had places to be. The rays of the sun shone across the eastern horizon. I had been in that room all night. After an initial panic about class, I recalled that we had a few days off. That meant I could sleep as much as I wanted.

  It felt like I had just taken off my clothes and laid down when a loud rapping noise woke me up. “Who is it?” I yelled, wanting to kill whoever had decided to wake me up.

  “Eli,” came Robert’s voice, “Joanna and I were going to exercise and practice our magic. She suggested asking for your help with that.”

  I couldn’t fault them. Both were great with almost everything they tried. All except their magic. Joanne was great at constructing circles, but she struggled with figuring out how much mana to push into each spell. Robert had the opposite issue. He pushed way too much mana into each spell. Groaning, I got up. Neither of them seemed capable of taking no as an answer. “Give me half an hour.”

  “Just meet us on the field. We are going to get started on our laps.”

  “Freaking morning people,” I grumbled as I rolled off my bed. I missed the edge by half and fell to the floor. My body felt worse than it had before I laid down for bed. I could feel the bruises and strained muscles as I shuffled to the bathroom.

  Hot water pelted my body before streaming down. It soothed my sore and tight muscles while washing away the dried blood. Seeing the flecks of dark red, almost black, flowing down the drain caused me to shudder.

  Turning off the faucet, I quickly dried off and got into a clean set of clothes. While I didn’t know who was doing it, it was nice to have all of the laundry and bedding done while we were in class. They even repaired any damage they found. I did feel sorry for the destroyed shirt, though.

  I found the two of them on the field. They were not the only ones either. It seemed like most of our class had joined them. Seeing me, Robert, and Joanne waved. Deciding that I would rather not join them, I started to pull mana into some element-specific storage spells.

  In one of my classes, I found that I could use them to power a spell without the need to filter it through an element component. Pulling Sàga out, I tried to figure out where my shield spell had gone wrong.

  Fifteen minutes later and I still had no answer. I had been focusing so much that I jumped when Janet spoke from right beside me. “That looks a bit weird. What is it supposed to do?”

  After taking a second to calm down, I answered, “It was supposed to be a shield. Similar to the one Professor Olivia demonstrated. My issue is that it exploded the instant I cast it.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw her shake her head. “That’s not her shield spell. It only has four elements. It also is missing the stabilization that the missing elements provided.”

  That would explain what those odd components did. “Wait, how do you know what her spell looks like or what each part does?”

  “Oh, my device does something like this. Whenever it sees a new spell, it saves it for later review. I asked the professor after class, and she explained a few things. If you want, I can give you a copy of the component glossary I have been compiling.”

  The info she was offering me was perfect. Based on what I knew about her, it would explain the spell and each component in it. What each part did, as well as what every element would do when passed through the different components. I had started to create my own, but Sàga pushed me to focus on growing my mana and basic spells before moving on to breaking said spells down to create my own.

  Pulling out her phone, Janet tapped a few things before swiping toward Sàga. The hologram flashed a light blue as a small mail icon showed up in the center. Tapping on it, it expanded into a long list with small spell components next to each line. They were each too small to see, but clicking on one caused it to expand.

  The only things that were left on the screen were the spell component, now big enough to clearly make out every line. A dot traveling along it, demonstrating how to form the component in one motion without overlap. Next to it was everything I would need to know about the component, including element interactions and simple combinations.

  Pinching three fingers together brought back the list. Scrolling through it, I found the one labeled ‘stabilization.’ Clicking it, I found that it was the one component in the original shield spell powered by light and dark and nothing else. Reading the info on each element’s interaction and simple component combinations told me why.

  Dark mana could be used to stabilize space, while light helped to stabilize magical energy. Using fire with the component would stabilize the energy flow, but only that of physical energy. That included things like thermal and kinetic, but not magical.

  If I wanted to use that spell, I would need to get some light and dark mana into my core. Most of the class knew of my issue. Both Professor Olivia and Professor Alastair had tried to push them into my core. Neither had taken. My core was like a black hole, sucking in both, leaving no trace of either.

  This had left both professors perplexed. They said they would keep looking for ways around the issue, but until then, trying to cast any spell with either mana would be useless. Though, the failed version would make a decent bomb. Sighing, I said, “Thanks for this. It explains a few things I was missing.”

  Surprising me, she sat down across from me and tapped on the combinations screen. Scrolling through for a second before pointing at a specific combination. “I know you cannot cast light and dark mana-based spells, but maybe you can create something that is entirely your own. Something that could achieve similar results. This combination might do what you need. Also, there are a few other components that you might find useful.”