Class 1-A’s tactician sat on a stool in the common room’s kitchen counter. Several pieces of paper lay in front of her, half-complete and a mess only she could comprehend.

  She sighed and lifted her mug of coffee off the heat plate it sat on, bringing it to her lips as her mind drifted off.

  It had been two weeks since the battle in the courtyard. Thankfully, it had been quiet and business as usual—due partially to her reclusiveness after the incident and her own need to make herself busy and useful. Befriending the class was no longer on her mind as she studied for classes, wrote up slips for students, and began planning for the big semester-end class exam.

  Regardless of how exhausted she had made herself by staying on top of everything, every night since that day, without fail, she had another dream. Sometimes she’d be sitting on a cliff overlooking burning buildings, sometimes she’d be wading through tall grass, sometimes she’d see her own grave again. But more often than not, she’d confront the dead body of a classmate she could not recognize. And once, on a particularly sleepless night, she had dreamt about Theo in the courtyard again. This time, however, he was the one who killed her.

  Setting down her mug, she sighed and was about to continue tackling her work when there was a knock at the door.

  It was evening, approaching nightfall—everyone in the class was out. She had watched them leave herself.

  Cautiously getting off her stool, grabbing her coat and putting it on, she opened the door.

  “Ty?”

  She knew exactly who it was. Long, wispy light hair, practically platinum. Cocky, determined pale grey eyes.

  “Who are you looking for?” she asked Luci with a straight face.

  Class 1-B’s tactician smiled at her sweetly. “Who else but you?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Come on, you’ve dodged me the entire week,” he whined, arms crossed.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Just a quick walk to the village and back, come on,” he pried, “I just want to chat. I’ve already met with every other tactician in our year.”

  “We can chat right here.”

  She immediately regretted her words, because he pouted and said, “Well, if we can chat here, then we can chat while taking a nice walk, grab some supper. How about it?”

  Though every bone in her body told her to shut the door and pretend the exchange had never happened, returning to her blissful solitude, getting to know the other tacticians was an objectively worthy endeavor. She just didn’t want to do it.

  “Oho,” he grinned. “Is that a yes?”

  Ty swallowed her pride and took off her class cloak, draping it over her work and taking out a small coin purse that she stuffed into her skirt pocket. “Okay,” she said to him quietly once she reached the door, making sure to close it properly since she’d be leaving her cloak and bag inside. “Just there and back.”

  “Just there and back,” he nodded, putting his hands in his pockets and leading the way.

  * * *

  “So, I’ll bet you have quite the story.”

  “Not really.”

  “After you pulled that stunt last week, you’re the talk of the year, ya know?”

  She bit her lip, watching her step down the stone path leading up to the Academy.

  “Don’t you care what people say about you?”

  “No.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but he didn’t need to know.

  “I guess some people are impervious to that kinda stuff.”

  Ty did not reply, instead looking at the setting sun in the distance. At the rate the sojourn was going, there was no chance she’d be back before nightfall.

  Not like you have any promises to keep.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I let Rivi win that first duel?”

  This time, Ty could not help but turn her head at the comment to shoot a critical glare at him.

  Luci held his hands up in defeat at the withering look, explaining, “I know, I know, totally what a loser would say. But hear me out—and this pertains to you, too—” He broke eye contact, watching his feet move down the steps. “Why start off the year by making others think I’m a capable person? Why not just make others think I’m an air-headed kid who doesn't deserve his station?”

  “Is that what you tell everyone?” she asked flatly.

  When he turned back to Ty, he smiled a big, toothy smile. “No, not at all. I just thought you’d figure me out anyway, being the star tactician of the year and, y’know, who you are.”

  Too annoyed to ask him what that meant, Ty wished she could have fought back her impulsive question as she brushed her hair out of her face and continued walking toward the village. It wasn’t too far now. “So, what do I have to do to get you off my back?” she grumbled.

  Luci had it all planned out. “There’s a very cute little tavern near the northern end. We can look at some stuff in the village first, and then grab some food.”

  Espying the storefronts and buildings, a bit closer now that they had made significant headway down the hill, Ty noticed that many already had lit candles hanging outside and inside. This was not a common occurrence where she was from, where many would close their stores once the sun went down to preserve candles, and spell-candles were extremely rare commodities. The bookstore near the base of the hill in particular had a wide array of spell-candles surrounding it.

  “You like books? Me, I hate ’em.”

  “They’re alright.” She hadn’t considered ever liking books. They were all she had back at home. Liking something she had basically spent all her free time with while growing up had never crossed her mind.

  Luci, taking her arm and steering them both toward the store whose candles Ty was in the middle of admiring, gave her a few words of comfort. “Come on, you must have been around them so often, there’s no way you don’t.” He opened the door and gestured for Ty to go in, but she shook her head, intent on standing by the window out front.

  “Those candles,” she mumbled, nodding to the ones behind the glass, “They’re spell-candles.”

  “And?” It was a silly question, after all.

  “Do they light up spell-candles in the village every night? How fast do you think they go through tomes?”

  Playing along, Luci smiled and sighed before walking over to look at the candles. “A spell-candle lasts three hours after lit. If you have a tome with only one page of a basic Ignite, and the max number of authorizations per page is 15, you’d need around 24 books to keep them lit for the calendar year. However, since they’re becoming more and more ubiquitous these days, most housekeeping tomes can contain up to five pages of the single spell, bringing the grand total to around five tomes a year. Double that if you need them lit two times a day, et cetera.”

  “That’s a lot of blood,” she replied quietly, still staring at the flickering flame.

  “The price of convenience,” he nodded decisively. “It’s why we fight, no?”

  The only replies she could think of were scathing, long-winded ones that required far more energy than she could muster, so she turned away. “So why do you hate books?”

  “Hmm? That hit a sore spot?”

  As he followed her deeper into the village, Luci’s voice was loud and incessant. “Oh, that sure did. What’s wrong, you don’t think it’s worth it?”

  “That’s not it,” she muttered, trying to keep her eyes straight as she caught glances of other students staring at her. So much unwanted attention.

  “Really?” He walked in front of her and craned his neck to make sure she saw him. “Really now, the Ancients don’t deserve all this abuse,” he said with a perfect smile on his face, taking a completely different stance. “We should just leave them alone, get rid of all this ‘magic’ thing so that we can all just be happy. Who cares about spell-candles, healing cuts in a second, the daily conveniences we’ve adapted ourselves to? It’s all just going to blow up in our faces one day, isn’t it?”

  Ty kept walking, keeping her eyes trained on the cobblestone path in front of her, the sun setting, the stores, the quick glances from other strangers.

  But then Luci stopped smiling, standing up straight again as he walked beside her. “No, of course not, MATS would never let that happen. We give them jobs, homes, lives, protect them from people who want them eradicated; what’s a little blood lost for tome-making? Not to mention we tacticians spend our own to authorize it in the first place. Oops—” He put his hand on her shoulder to steer her toward the left. “This way, tactician.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ty shook the hand off and held her tongue, scanning the crowds in the village. Though the Academy provided food for all their students and faculty, the sheer number of those out today unnerved her; to think that her classmates might see her outside…would they dislike me more, thinking I’d rather spend my time with another class’s tactician?

  “What’s next on the docket, hmm? You’re far more complicit than I anticipated.”

  “Only so that we can get this over with.”

  “Well, you should try to at least get something out of me in the process, no?”

  She finally looked over to Luci to give him a dry look. “You don’t actually think I’m stupid enough to trust anything that comes out of your mouth, right?”

  “Or is that what I want you to think?” he beamed back with an innocent face.

  “Funny. It’s as if I think nothing of you.”

  He whistled. “Oof. Give me a bit to find a good retort.”

  “How close are we?” Ty ran a hand through her hair before doing a quick double take at a few familiar figures stepping out of a store, breathing a sigh of relief when they weren’t who she expected.

  “Still a bit to go. Anything else you wanted to see?”

  “No.”

  “Boo, that’s no fun.”

  They continued to walk down the path, Luci with his hands in his pockets, a mischievous smile on his face, and Ty with her usual displeased and ponderous frown. He didn’t tease her further, just smiled into the distance as she finally found enough silence to surmise what she had learned about him so far.

  Luci was neither laid-back nor strict. For the lack of a better middle ground, he was calculating. He put significant effort into appearing relaxed and calm, and nothing seemed to phase him in the least, as if he had considered every possible outcome before words left his mouth, before any response was given. Things that were difficult to talk about were dealt with through the guises of pleasant smiles and feigned seriousness. Say controversial things, judge your enemy. Find out their weak points, and then attack. Appear uninformed, irresolute and fickle. Say every possible combination of options and watch their reactions to find out what makes them uncomfortable. Then, as always, attack when necessary.

  Ty couldn’t make up her mind about him, whether he was on her side or against her. Sure, he was in another class, but to her, it always boiled down to the other dilemma. The Ancient one. The evening had presented her with many reasons to distrust him.

  “You’re thinking about how you’ve figured me out, haven’t you?” he smiled, eyeing her. “Shall I pry it out of you?”

  “No,” she rejected instantaneously.

  “Maybe over some food, then,” he continued to grin, turning into a cozy alley lit with more spell-candles before stopping at a wooden door with a small sign with the words The Rose Pillar.

  “Here we are, ladies first,” Luci waved again, like he had at the bookstore.

  She was about to make another unenthused retort, but then decided that he put no weight in his words anyway and pushed against the door with her open hand.

  …Callie?

  “Calliope,” Ty exclaimed critically, halfway through the entrance, staring wide-eyed at the open-mouthed waitress who was also in the middle of walking towards her. It didn’t matter to her whether there were other guests, or how finely the establishment was furnished—this was a serious problem.

  “Oh, the holy Earth Mother and all the Graces, please let me disappear,” uttered Callie, shocked stiff.

  The tactician’s companion had a different agenda. “Hello, hello,” he chirped, poking his head through the door with his advantageous height. “Let’s go in and eat.”

  “Callie,” Ty repeated in disbelief, letting her hand drop as she was ushered closer to her classmate. “Callie, you—”

  “Oh, come on, Ty, leave her alone. We’re here for supper, for Graces’ sake.”

  “I…”

  “‘I will have a table for two, please,’ is what she’s trying to say,” explained Luci courteously, “Preferably by the corner window, if possible.”

  “R-right. This way, please.” Nodding, Callie rushed over to a corner table near the back of the restaurant, complete with a window of the lit-up alley outside. “I’ll—I’ll be back shortly with a menu,” she squeaked before practically running away.

  Ty sat down at the table. She watched her ever-obedient support disappear through a door in her cream-colored dress. The other patrons stared at her and Luci, promptly looking away when caught.

  “Why does every small thing have to always blow out of proportion when it comes to me?” Ty found herself complaining absently, observing the wooden tables and chairs decorated with rose patterns.

  “Good question. Maybe you’re the one blowing everything out of proportion. We’re just going to have a nice meal together.”

  Slowly turning her head to face Luci, she tried to think of what he meant. The deeper, convoluted meaning he would likely never say out loud.

  His pale eyes were fiery in the candlelight, unwavering.

  “Students aren’t allowed to work without first obtaining a promissory note from the administration through the class tactician,” she articulated perfectly.

  Still, unwavering. Waiting.

  She understood.

  “You like playing these games, don’t you?”

  “I do.” He finally turned away, hearing a door open as he watched Callie walk over. “Now I vaguely know the answer you denied me earlier.”

  Callie, thinking she was being spoken to, quickened her pace to their table, setting down two sheets of paper. “Was there something you needed?” she asked Luci with a tremor to her voice, hands folded in front of her.

  He beamed at her, the falsest smile plastered over his face. “Callie, right? You look familiar—are you in the first-year spear class, second division? I’ve seen you fight, you’re very good.”

  Blushing, Callie really looked to be on the verge of tears, barely able to make out a coherent sentence. “I…y-yes, I...that’s...that should be…right.”

  In an effort to change the subject, Ty picked up her sheet and looked at it, snapping impatiently, “Don’t pick on her.”

  If there was anything she had learned about Callie, it was that she was good at her job and at helping others. Helping herself, however, was still quite a blind spot. And some of the other students knew it, too. Somehow, it made Ty displeased to discover this even though she wasn’t exactly on good terms with her.

  Luci pouted at Ty for a brief second before focusing back on Callie. “Do you have any sweets today? I’m fancying some dessert.”

  Happy to talk about something else, Callie finally smiled a bit more confidently. “Since tomorrow is Grace’s Day, we have some fluffy sponge cake with cream and seasonal fruit preserves. It’s quite good.”

  “Then I shall have that, thank you.”

  “T-Ty?”

  She tried to concentrate on the paper, not sure what to pick because she hadn’t heard of many of the dishes. Yet she could not find the courage to ask anyone else for suggestions.

  Resting his elbow on the table, his head on the palm of his hand, he chimed in smugly, “Ty, get some cake with me.”

  Instead of taking the easy way out, she continued to look at the menu, rereading the same lines over and over again—Luci in the corner of her eyes still uttering nonsense—before finally coming to a decision.

  She set the paper down, avoiding looking Luci in the eye, and said to Callie, “A pot of tea, then.”

  Slightly taken aback, Luci was speechless for once as Callie nodded unquestioningly and rushed back over to her counter.

  “Tea.”

  “You heard me the first time.”

  He straightened his back. “Tea for supper.”

  “You’re having cake.”

  “Last I checked, cake is not a drink.”

  Ty fidgeted with her hair, bringing it over to one side before looking out the window. How soon had night fallen. “I don’t care,” she murmured.

  “What about a challenge?”

  A long sigh escaped her mouth as she kept staring at the darkness outside.

  “I have a feeling that you’re not going to make it past second year.”

  He had her attention now.

  “I’ll hand it to you,” he mused, meeting her eyes with a perplexed look, “I think you’re clever. I don’t doubt the exam marks, but how...how are you this soft?”

  Thousands of replies ran through her mind, but silence was her answer.

  Luci tried again. “I saw what happened during the duel. Everyone did. But...you…” With a look of genuine confusion, he shook his head and chortled, “You’re temperamental, you don’t try to hide anything, you’re oblivious to what any of your classmates are up to, and you are so unbelievably dense and easy to take advantage of.” Then he leaned forward in his seat, speaking quickly. “I’d ask you if you were taking any of this seriously, but you clearly are, so the only conclusion I can come up with is that you’re completely and utterly crazy.”

  Ty tried to scrutinize his expression, his perpetually veiled words. But he actually looked sincere for once.

  Growing up, there was no one but her and her mother. There had never been anyone to talk to, anyone she could confide in without accidentally giving up her secret—how often had she wanted to pour her heart out to someone else, to tell them her truth, choose to be candid rather than to lie. Even if it was to someone she disliked, someone who was completely untrustworthy. She just wanted to hear the words leave her mouth, wanted to tell anyone who would listen, but she never could. Her secrets kept her safe. Her solitude kept her safe. That was the singular, most important lesson she had learned.

  And yet, against all that she had been taught, against every bone in her body, she felt a fragment of her truth tumble out like it had with Theo.

  “I think you’ve just got it wrong, Luci.”

  A small smile began to form on his lips. “Tell me more.”

  It took a second for her to reply; not that she was annoyed at his response, but because it became more and more apparent to her that he too had been lying to himself.

  They were not so different, after all.

  “I...I think I have a lot of shortcomings,” she spoke quietly, focusing on the spell-candles that lined the sturdy stone walls. “You could call it...crazy if you’d like. But I still have a lot to learn, like everyone else. I know I’m not very good, and I may have been born the...the way I am, but I—” Halfway through her small speech, she realized that she had no idea what she was talking about. “But I’ll...I’ll get better. I’ll learn. For...” She looked down at the back of her hands. “For my classmates. For my family. For...for those who cannot fight back.” Taking her first good, genuine look at Luci, she observed his gentle and calm features. Felt the disquietude slip away as she bashfully turned back to look at her hands. “Because what would that make me if I turned a blind eye to those who were suffering?”

  The backs of her hands looked soft. Pristine, they looked like they hadn’t spent a day doing hard labor. Like she had her life served to her on a silver platter, nurtured and taken care of since the day she was born. “You ask me why I’m soft, dense, easy to take advantage of.” Ugly. They were so ugly. Even her palms were soft and thin, pink and lined with creases. “It’s…because I’m scared of hurting people.”

  Creases and black stitches.

  “I know what people say. But I’m not a monster. I was born a…a human, like everyone else. I’m not a…I’m…”

  Wash away the blood.

  The unfinished sentence lingering on her lips, she suddenly jolted awake from her reverie, feeling her heartbeat start to race as she began to see her surroundings in a clearer light, fumbling, patting her pockets. She had only brought some spending money with her. Her usual pocket tome wasn’t with her. How foolish could she be?

  “You,” she seethed, taking out a silver piece out of her pocket and slamming it down on the table while glaring daggers at Luci’s smug face. “You are disgusting.”

  Just as she was about to storm off, she caught a glimpse of Callie walking out of the kitchen with a tray in her hand and turned back angrily for another shot.

  “And don’t you dare touch Callie.”

  Running her way through the village and back to the school, the sickening feeling continued to persist, even when she finally reached the doors to her class dorms, slowing down and placing her class pin onto the marking in the delicate wood with shaky hands. It made the slightest rattling sound before the door gave way, and she walked in, steeling herself to be reprimanded by Theo for missing her appointment that night.

  “I’m—”

  But there was no one.

  Ty looked at the clock on the wall, and then back at her mug sitting on top of her papers on the counter. She looked at the threads in her hand, ran her finger across them to feel the bumps.

  Aching.

  Grabbing the unfilled class attendance list by the door like she always did at night, she put back on her coat and sat herself at the counter. She lifted her mug off the papers, slowly sorting them one by one on the table so she could see clearly. She took her pencil and gripped it tightly to steady her hands as she began to write again.

  She told herself everything was fine.