Back in his bunk, Vidar made another honest go at the book of rune theory but soon grew frustrated. In a show of absolute self-control, he didn't throw it at the wall but dropped it off the side of the bed when he'd had enough. Another class was just about to start, one where he'd get to show off what he was capable of.

  Practical rune craft was held in the same classroom, but with a different teacher. This time, it was an older woman. Her bent back, thick glasses, and gray hair, along with the kind expression on her face, made Vidar think of someone's grandma. She even spoke in a soft voice with both hands resting atop a cane.

  Sven was already sitting when Vidar entered, a few minutes late.

  "What if she fails me?" Sven whispered when Vidar took the seat next to the boy.

  "You think she's going to fail you after one lesson?"

  "I couldn't trigger the rune."

  "What rune?"

  "You know," Sven whispered, throwing nervous glances around. "With the dragon."

  Vidar frowned and glanced up at the front of the classroom, where the old woman was attempting to write something on the blackboard, her hand trembling so much she had trouble holding on to the white chalk. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

  Sven accepted a stack of papers from one of the other students, took one, along with a pen, and then handed the stack over to Vidar. "You think?"

  "Shut up, I'm trying to listen."

  With a paper and pen in front of him, he tuned out Sven's complaining to listen. In the middle of the shaky lettering on the blackboard, the teacher made the two lines of the kenaz rune. A bunch of mathematical formulas followed, with arrows pointing at different parts of the symbol, and lines going from the tip of one line to the tip of the other. Vidar didn't understand a thing, but when Lilian introduced herself and asked them to draw the first line of the kenaz rune on the piece of paper, he started grinning. He’d show them his skills.

  Without further prompting, he drew the two lines that made up the rune, and then a circle around the symbol. Rejuvenating it required little more than a thought and within a few seconds of Lilian announcing the assignment, Vidar's kenaz rune lit up the classroom with a steady, pale light. He watched as their teacher turned, eager to see her expression. But rather than amazement or perhaps eagerness, all he saw was scorn. It was something he'd seen many teachers, not to speak of his father, level at his work before, but he thought those days were behind him.

  "What are you doing?" Lilian's voice was loud and shrill enough to make Vidar wince as she made her way to his desk. "That is strictly prohibited, and for good reason, young man!"

  Her hand reached for the paper, but rather than taking it off his desk, Vidar felt her widening the opening. Closing his eyes, he still saw the bright flash of light as the kenaz rune emptied of essence in a single instant.

  "You asked us to craft the rune," Vidar said. "How can it be against the rules?"

  Lilian gave him a look of disappointment and pointed to the blackboard without looking back at it. "Your instructions were to draw line one while considering its angle and relation to the circle. Not, and I repeat, not to craft the entire thing, and make a mess of it, if I might add, then rejuvenate it and trigger your creation. That is far, far beyond you!"

  Vidar glanced at the piece of paper in front of Sven. A single, shaky line was drawn on it and Sven himself was staring down at it, careful not to look up at either Vidar or Lilian.

  "I don't see what the problem is," Vidar said, doing his utmost to keep his voice sincere rather than dismissive. "The kenaz rune is so simple."

  "Deceptively so," she said, addressing the entire class of perhaps fifteen students. "Two little lines. How could you possibly get it wrong? Yes?"

  "Yes," Vidar said.

  She shook her head. "No."

  "No?"

  "Absolutely not," Lilian said, heading back to her desk to fetch a full circle of flat wood covered in numbers.

  She placed it over Vidar's now inert kenaz rune, lining up a thick line on the tool with the bottom part of the symbol, before pointing to a number where the top line showed up outside the circle's border.

  "What does this say, young man?"

  Vidar leaned forward to get a better look. This time, the numbers stayed put so he could read them. "Forty-nine."

  "Forty-nine," Lilian agreed, turning her back on Vidar and once again pointing to the board. "And what should the angle between the two lines be?"

  A few other students in the back raised their hands, but Lilian waited for Vidar's reply. Unfortunately, the numbers on the blackboard did not stay put.

  "Fifty?" Vidar guessed.

  Lilian raised her voice again. "Fifty?!" She turned to face him and put a finger on her strange measurement tool. "No, young man, not fifty. Sixty-five!"

  "So I was a few points off," Vidar said, crossing his arms over his chest, nodding to himself. "Not bad."

  "Not bad? It is very bad, young man. The essence expenditure is exponential, not to speak of the inherent risk to the stability of the circle. Four points can be the difference between life and burning yourself into an early grave, or spending the rest of your brief life as a husk, unable to move."

  She looked up at the class. "You all have a long path of learning ahead of you, but you need not worry. Pay attention and follow instructions, and I'm sure you'll all be fine rune scribes one day."

  Lilian put a small but warm hand on top of Vidar's on the desk with a gentle smile. "That includes you, young man." She took the paper from his desk. "Just don't get ahead of yourself. I don't want you ending up injured."

  The rest of the class, Vidar leaned back in his uncomfortable chair, clenching his jaw so tight it soon started hurting. When everyone else left, he approached the teacher at the front of the room.

  "I've had more practical use of runes than most scribes gather in their lifetime," he said to her back as she attempted to reach the top of the blackboard to erase the text and figures.

  Lilian turned to him and held out the cloth she'd used. "That's nice, dear, but you are a student now. You must heed instructions, just like everyone else. Being precise is not only for your protection, but for those who might end up using your runes in the future. Imprecise lines are the major point of failure regarding the longevity of runes. Shoddy work leads to inferior products. That, more than anything, will lead to clients turning away from you at the least, and at worst, injuring themselves, and even death when a rune breaks down in certain situations."

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  Vidar blinked, overwhelmed by the long and tedious explanation. "None of that has happened to me."

  "Hasn’t happened to you, yet."

  This conversation, more than anything else, told him going through with the examination was a terrible idea. No matter what, they would not allow him to pass. It was all a ruse to get the logiz rune from him.

  That did not mean he intended to sit around and learn to make perfect sixty-five-degree angles and everything else they'd gone over in this one lesson. Vidar knew there would be more, so much more. While he sat rotting in a chair and growing complacent, sweating over letters and information, the world would go on without him outside this enormous building.

  As he thought of being trapped in a spiral of classes and restrictions, the walls felt like they were closing in on him, and Vidar's heart thudded in his chest. Nausea struck, forcing him to breathe through his mouth as he stepped back from Lilian, dropping the cleaning cloth he'd yet to use.

  "No," he croaked.

  Lilian raised an eyebrow. "No? No what?"

  Vidar shook his head and turned his back on the old teacher, then fled out of the room.

  "You forgot your book, young man!" Lilian shouted after him, but the words barely registered. He didn't need the book, didn't need any book.

  Panting, he made it to the dormitory where Sven was practicing letters from a large sheet of paper. He looked up at Vidar, frowning. "What's wrong?"

  "This place," Vidar muttered.

  "What are you talking about? This place is great," Sven said. "Just too bad the girls are kept separate from us. One of the lads here said the groups sent out to rejuvenate runes are mixed, though!"

  "No," Vidar said.

  "That's what I heard, anyway."

  Vidar tore off the student's robes. "That's not what I meant. I don't care about girls, Sven."

  "You’re confusing," Sven said.

  "I'm leaving."

  That made the young man put down the sheet and come to the edge of the top bunk where he was supposed to sleep. "What are you talking about? We just got here."

  "Can't do it."

  "Can't do what?"

  "Any of it!" Vidar spat. "I have to go. Now."

  "Just like that?" Sven asked.

  "Just like that."

  "What about me? What about Siv?"

  Vidar thought for a moment, then sighed. "You should stay here."

  "Really?"

  "If you can graduate, that'll be good for everyone. Just don't get any ideas about working for anyone else but me once you're done!"

  Sven grinned. "Promise!"

  "Can you tell Siv when you find her?"

  "Yes."

  With that, it was done. Vidar didn't bother talking with that administrator woman or the guildmistress. They'd realize he was gone soon enough and understand what that meant. It wouldn't be long until Viktoria came after him to get the logiz rune, but she'd go back home empty-handed. No more compromises. The guild would not get the fire rune.

  Alvarn's room was already cleared out and the now full-fledged rune scribe was nowhere to be found, so there was nothing more to it than to just leave the looming stone building.

  The air was frosty and crisp but not oppressively so, with the sun overhead providing some small modicum of warmth. Taking a deep breath, Vidar felt the knot in his gut and the weight on his shoulder evaporate. It hadn't been a long stay, but the feelings and anxiety that'd been weighing him down for most of his life had rushed back into the much-suppressed crevices of his mind as soon as he sat down with a book in front of him. Never again. That was not his path in life. Not anymore.

  People were out and about with children playing in the street. Somewhere in the milling crowd, a man whistled a merry tune. The dragon was dead and the citizens of Halmstadt could begin the process of healing from those dreadful attacks. Well, most of them anyway. Vidar didn't consider the matter closed, not until he found and interrogated Rend. If that dragon-flying bastard succumbed down in those passageways before Vidar talked with him, there would be hell to pay.

  That was high on the agenda, finding Rend, right beside obliterating the thieves' guild and getting the rune shop up and running. So much to do. At least now, useless lessons and classes would not waste all his time. In the end, a writ wouldn't be necessary, anyway.

  Figuring it was best to give Alvarn some time to make up his mind about coming to work as a partner, Vidar headed to a nearby hatch and descended below street level after making sure no one was following him. The thieves' guild had gotten their grubby hands on a key before. They could do so again, and the last thing he wanted was for them to follow him down into his underground kingdom.

  Down there, in the dark, tight passages and foul-smelling air, Vidar felt himself relax even more than when he'd exited the rune scribes' guild chapter house. This was his domain. Sure, he was no longer alone in the depths below Halmstadt, but every other heartbeat belonged to an intruder, one he would see expunged or exterminated. That went double for any thief who dared set their foot on the wet and slippery passageways.

  Vidar checked his pockets to make sure he carried the necessary runes to protect himself. First, he withdrew a kenaz rune with a leather cord and tied it around his forehead. The kenaz rune was not the only rune on there. Each cord held an algiz rune as well. Various bumps and scrapes remained on his head from all the thumpings he'd suffered through during the last few weeks. No more. Protection was key and algiz was his answer. Two stakra runes made up the entirety of his offensive arsenal since he didn’t want to risk someone in the guild stealing a logiz rune out of his coat pockets. It was more than enough, Vidar figured. The burned-in styrka rune in the palm of his hand had some uses in close-quarters combat, but he hoped no one would get that close to him.

  It was a lot, carrying all those wooden discs around. Not that they were heavy, but it was easy to mix them up and get a non-desirable effect on accident. The small runes were easy to drop as well, especially in the heat of the moment. He needed a solution to this problem, but this was not the time for it. Now, it was time to hunt.

  It didn't take long before he realized what a massive undertaking this would be. Scouring through the many, many tunnels underneath Halmstadt was a daunting task. The layout was simple enough now that Vidar understood the place. Even then, it was easy to get turned around and head in the wrong direction, or miss a passageway to a different tunnel, and continue for a good long while before gettig lost. With much of the map in his head and plenty of experience navigating the underground, no one was more suited to finding a person down there than him. There was just this one minor issue. The expanse of waterways and sewers was enormous. Even if Rend didn't move, it'd still take Vidar the better part of a week to just walk up and down every path.

  He didn't even want to think about the possibility of the dragon rider climbing up to the surface. Finding his target would go from improbable to impossible if that happened. Rend could be anywhere. Still, Vidar searched.

  The area around the upper city was his best bet, so he started by making his way over there, opening his coat to lessen the incredible warmth associated with the underground system. He dug through his pockets, but couldn't find a single isaz rune.

  "Stupid chill runes," he muttered, thinking once again that he should get some sort of holder so he might find and withdraw any rune without even having to look. Perhaps he could commission such a bag from a leatherworker if any money remained once he'd bought the house.

  The only sound Vidar could make out throughout his trek underground was the roaring of rushing water and the more muted, but far more gross, sound of human waste traveling through the tunnels. Unable to use his ears to catch any intruders, he used his eyes, and they spotted nothing for the longest time.

  Then he found something of interest. A rune. Well, the attempt of one, anyway. Painted upon the wall were the two lines of a kenaz rune, except the angle and tilt were all wrong. Not recognizing the paint at first, Vidar leaned in close to surmise its origins, before jerking back. Blood. It was blood. He'd used it enough times to know. Two thin lines of it. Painted with a finger, no doubt. A circle surrounded the symbol, but when Vidar placed a finger upon the rune, he sensed no trace of essence within. Rend, the poor bastard, had attempted to give himself light down in these dark tunnels. Tried, and failed, to push the darkness away.

  "Rend!" Vidar shouted at the top of his lungs. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

  No answer.

  Vidar stopped for a moment to think. Finding this symbol here meant Rend made it this far past the protective wall above ground. It was unlikely the dragon rider then would've turned around to go back. With that in mind, continuing down the route Vidar was taking now wouldn't be a good use of his time. Rend must've made a turn after this, or Vidar would've stumbled upon him. The problem was knowing where. How the dragon rider had even made it this far with his injured leg, in the dark, knowing nothing about these tunnels was beyond Vidar. It didn't seem possible, but there was no other explanation. No thief would paint a rune on the wall down there.

  Following his own process of elimination, Vidar turned around and headed back the way he'd come. When the opportunity to veer off to a passageway leading east presented itself, he took it. After about an hour of walking, seeing no more signs of Rend's passage, it was time to give up.

  Navigating that darkness all alone in the dragon rider's condition probably meant he'd succumbed and fallen into either water or offal. If that was the case, he would never surface again unless he ended up in one of the huge basins. Vidar decided he'd go check on some of those the day after. For now, it was time to deal with the next item on the agenda. The thieves' guild.