Rynelle tapped her pen on the desk, joining an orchestra of rustling papers and creaking chairs in the tiers upon tiers of the lecture hall as dozens of students inked their answers to an exam on transfiguration techniques. Behind the podium, Professor Owlstone, a elderly birdlike Siren with spotted brown plumage, clicked his beak as his head pivoted left and right, ensuring students remained focused on the test. Even with her all-night study session—or perhaps because of the exhaustion caused by it—time slipped away from Rynelle as she left answer after answer bnk, while her peers began turning in their exams for grading.

  From the comfort of my relic, I could think about the questions on the paper before us without the sense of panic that I could see growing in her eyes. I didn't consider myself an expert on magical concepts by any means, but I'd heard questions like these before since Tobias used to quiz Evelyn on these very same transfiguration formus:

  What is the minimum amount of liquid transfigurative catalyst needed to convert a 185-pound human into a 12-pound cat?

  I gnced at Rynelle's notepad, littered with numbers and arrows and frustrated scribblings. She'd worked through a lengthy calcution, but I could hear the words of Tobias in my head about common misconceptions of potion-making, noticing Rynelle falling into the trap the question id out for unsuspecting students.

  I probably should have kept quiet, and yet...

  "It's 5.9 ounces," I said, whispering as quietly as I could to avoid attracting Professor Owlstone's attention.

  Scrunching her nose, Rynelle scribbled her objection on the notepad: Langley Principle says 6.2!!!!

  "The question doesn't say to use the Langley Principle, it says to find the minimum. Malthion's Law should be used for transitioning between objects with simir matter like two living beings. Turning someone to stone uses Langley, turning them into a creature is Malthion, so it'll be lower. And then for the question after that, about the quantity of excess matter—"

  Rynelle clutched me in her hands to cut me off. "Cut it out or you're going in the bag," she said, hissing her words at me.

  Professor Owlstone turned toward us, his rge yellow eyes focused on Rynelle as her words couldn't escape his keen hearing. "Miss Kovali, is something the matter?"

  "Uh, no, professor," she said, her face burning red as other students gnced our way. "My neckce is just making weird noises."

  The professor narrowed his eyes, but he appeared to be in a forgiving mood. "Right, well, just keep it down, please."

  "Yes sir."

  Brushing past the momentary embarrassment, Rynelle took a fresh look at the question. She ran the calcution again for an organic transfiguration, arriving at 5.9 ounces as well. Once she wrote the answer down, the text shimmered on the paper as a check mark appeared in the margins.

  I enjoyed having a use for all the magic shop trivia I'd picked up over the years. My partner didn't seem so amused. Into her bag I went.

  After finishing the exam and wandering the campus for a while, Rynelle pulled me out from her bag again, holding me at arm's length. "If the professor had heard you back there, he would have given me a zero for that test. I don't want to be bmed for cheating, Viridian."

  "Sorry," I said. "You were struggling though, I just wanted to be helpful. It's my nature, although not usually in an academic capacity. I'll be quiet in the future."

  Rynelle turned away, sighing. "Yeah, well, I guess I have to thank you too. Malthion's Law was needed for two other questions, I would have failed the test without that hint. Once again, I just barely managed to squeak by..."

  We stood in silence for a moment, before Rynelle returned me to her neck and continued her trek along the winding stone and gss paths of the academy. "Are we going to be able to spend some time figuring out how to work together now?" I asked.

  Rynelle shrugged. "I honestly don't know. Maybe? There's still a lot on my to-do list this week. Besides, the project itself doesn't sound so bad, just looking around some ruins, right? I don't really need a knight relic's help if things get messy, my elemental channeling's pretty strong now so I'll just use my magic before anything gets close enough for me to need a sword."

  "You've used these magics out in the wild, then?"

  "Well, uh, no," she said. "But I do have experience in Arena-Casting tournaments, I use toned-down battlemage techniques in those. There aren't any professors here that teach anything beyond the basics for elementalism, but I've got some books on advanced elemental spells from the library. I'm making good progress on my pyromancy and aeromancy this year, but my strongest magic is O-type channeling with H-type and C-type not far behind."

  "I have no idea what that means."

  "It means I'm pretty versatile with the elements, way more than anyone else cares to learn these days."

  I gathered my mist over Rynelle's shoulder as we traveled through a portal at the end of a ptform, approaching the white marble tower that housed the Berindal Academy library. "I don't think it's wise to rely solely on your magic if a serious problem arises. I've been in dire situations before, I could make a difference."

  "Yeah, it's just, I'd really like to not swing a sword around, I think we'll be fine."

  "What would you have me do then, if not leveraging every possible weapon in your arsenal?"

  "I don't know. Can you turn into other things? A frying pan might be really helpful, we're going to have to do a lot of cooking outdoors."

  Cookware? The indignity! I needed to take a different approach.

  "So you're just going to let yourself fail the research project?" I said, my core flickering in frustration. "That's a shame."

  Rynelle furrowed her brows as she gnced down at me, only to bump into another student at my distraction. After a quick apology, she walked up the library's steps toward the tall wooden doors. "What are you talking about? Of course not. We're going to meet with the others to talk about Llowyn right now, I wouldn't bother otherwise."

  "The ruins are only half the project," I said. "Promell assigned me to you so you could wield me properly, she thought you'd be the best choice to act as a knight-augment relic's champion."

  Rynelle stopped outside the steps of the library, rubbing her forehead as her tired eyes gnced down at me. "Well, she thought wrong. You know why I enrolled at a magic academy? To study magic! Not swordpy, magic. I'll do what the professor asks if it gets me through to my final year, but swinging you around is not my top priority. I'm not a champion, Viridian Sphere."

  "That much is obvious," I said, as Rynelle resumed walking up the steps to the library's tall wooden doors.

  I had my work cut out for me. Maybe she was right about Promell miscalcuting with our pairing, but I didn't have any other choice before me. I couldn't force her to use me as intended, and someone untrained and unwilling to make the effort only further complicated the idea of handling a bde if trouble arose when far away from civilization. But to fulfill my promise to my fellow relics, I needed to take my role seriously. And that meant I needed to find a better angle to connect with my temporary champion.