Laurel had been confident she would get used to doing all the sect officer roles herself. The first week alone had disabused her of the notion. She’d managed a handful of hours sleeping in total, between lessons for her students, setting up the various challenges Rebecca and Gabrielle insisted on, keeping the logistics running with chore and delivery schedules, meeting with the council…. It was quite a lot. Not that she would show it. As Sectmaster, it was her role to handle everything and make it look easy. So as she swept into the Magician’s Guild headquarters for her meeting with Sabrina, she was armed with a smile and lunch from the woman’s favorite street vendor in the capital. Annette’s notes on the other woman had come in remarkably useful. That Annette had labeled and indexed notes on every important person in the city was not something Laurel cared to comment on.

  “Good afternoon, I come bearing gifts,” she declared after entering.

  The ice-blue eyes on the other woman, usually so piercing, lit up at the packages in Laurel’s hands. They left one of the novices from the sect manning the desk as they moved into the backroom. What had been Laurel’s bedroom in her first months in the city was now a smartly organized office, With shelves of drawers installed along the back wall, ready to house guild records as they were created. Adam had once spent an entire dinner describing the major filing systems favored by different guilds and Laurel was doing her damnedest to avoid having to know which they had settled upon.

  “How are things going with the guild?” Laurel said after swallowing a bite of her herbed chicken wrap.

  “Pressure is ramping up from some of the other guilds. The Merchants are leaving us alone officially, though they aren’t bothering to rein in any of their more opinionated members. And the Scholars have been kicking up a fuss. The Scribes have been busy, at last count, they were up to 38 different injunctions filed to prevent regular guild activities. All but three were thrown out immediately but it’s taking up time to refute each one.”

  Laurel sighed. “Why do they even care? It’s not like any of those groups are teaching magic.”

  “Because guild politics are all about favors owed and received. The more pressure they can apply now, the worse off we’ll be when our probationary period ends, the easier they can eventually subsume us.”

  “What can I do then?”

  “Just keep yourself and your sect visible. Go around doing benevolent magic things, and try not to make any of the major nobles too upset.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I spent months working with Martin, I learned to prioritize,” Sabrina said. A glint of humor in her eyes was the only sign of the joke in an otherwise deadpan delivery.

  “Guess I’ll go find something magic to do, in between all the other things.”

  The rest of the meeting covered the various ins and outs of the sect and the political battles Sabrina was fighting. As dire as the situation sounded, the capable woman had it well in hand and Laurel was happy to leave it to her, she had plenty of her own fires to put out.

  On the way out, the young woman working the desk called out “have a pleasant afternoon, Sectmaster.”

  Laurel slowed her flight and took a moment to truly look at the girl. Deep brown eyes in an earnest face, wearing one of the sect uniforms Annette had ordered so long ago. Her name was Natalia, but that was all Laurel knew about her. Not her background or her hopes for cultivation. Nothing about what led this particular young woman, barely into her third decade, to join the Eternal Archive. The dissonance made Laurel stop entirely. When had she stopped learning about each of the new members? Hadn’t she sworn to be a better kind of Sectmaster after losing Borin?

  The brutal truth she faced in that cramped guild hall confirmed the opposite. She had taken a few of the students under her wing, and isolated herself from the rest. If she didn’t get close to them in the first place, it would be less devastating if she lost them later. That would end now. Fear was not her style.

  “How are things going Natalia?”

  Laurel watched as the girl visibly brightened. Such an easy thing to actually pay attention to her student. “Things are well, Sectmaster. I’m almost done with my month rotation in the guildhall, and so far nothing unexpected has happened. It’s been great for my reading projects.”

  “Oh? What have you been working on?’

  A gleam of passion lit Natalia up from within. “Farming.”

  “Farming?” Laurel wasn’t sure she’d heard the girl correctly, but her fervent nodding told her otherwise.

  “There’s lots of examples in the library of cultivators using plants, or growing specific herbs or mushrooms for alchemy, but nothing about regular crops. My family works on farmland in the southwest. I’m going to pioneer the first magical farming techniques!”

  “Huh. Not something I’ve ever thought about before but I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Maybe you can start with Mr. Mercer in the gardens before you scale up.”

  “I haven’t wanted to bother him, do you think it would be alright?”

  “I’m sure of it. Plus we have a few mana-infused plants that need special care. Not what your goal is but they might actually be easier to start with. The resonance between your mana and the mana in the plant will probably help you figure out what it needs.”

  Laurel watched as one of the notebooks Annette insisted on buying in bulk appeared from beneath the desk, where Natalia dutifully noted down what Laurel had told her. One conversation and Laurel had just learned of the hopes and dreams of one of her students, along with a potential for a whole new field of cultivation. And joke material.

  “Tell me Natalia, you’ve been here for a month, what do you think of all the inter-guild politicking?”

  The young woman waved a well-manicured hand in dismissal. “We have a saying in the south. ‘You can cut your own wood and butcher your own livestock, but everyone makes friends with the blacksmith.’”

  A slow smile spread across Laurel’s face. “Right you are, Natalia. I guess we just need to become the local blacksmith.”

  Natalia’s words were still on her mind when Laurel found some time to read the major newspaper’s big weekly editions. The technique was one she had developed over the last few weeks. Her door was cracked open, glow stones were turned off, and none of the incense or scented candles she was fond of were burning. If any of her sect members walked by, they would see an empty office, not quite closed up when she left in a hurry to do some important Sectmaster business. After the constant interruptions, she’d found this was the best balance. If someone knocked or came inside she would be happy to talk to them. But she wasn’t going to encourage spur of the moment visits. The subtle air mana manipulation to keep the noise of rustling paper from drifting into the hall was just her way of being considerate.

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  Satisfied that she was as focused as she would be, she started in on the Eighthday copy of The Ladies’ Court. The society paper was fascinating to Laurel. It was an education on Verilian culture delivered through sarcasm and false cheer. Reports included gossip over what gambling hall various socialites had been seen in, or who had spurned which dressmaker. Even the strains of tea or specialty paper-sellers that fell out of favor were reported on. The fastidiousness of these mortals never ceased to amaze. Though she wouldn’t be admitting it to Annette, it even inspired a few ideas for how the sect might find opportunity for further entrenchment into high society.

  The Meristan Herald was as boring as ever. A dry recitation of recent news from the Capital and the rest of the country. It was probably the most accurate publication on her desk, but Laurel could barely force herself through it.

  It was the Verilian Express that turned the reading from a necessity to an ordeal. The front page story was about rising tensions with Laskar, the same as dozens of headlines Laurel had read in the last few months. Hidden within the meat of the article, were a few oblique references to “new organizations headed by foreigners” and an “alien way of life”. Just enough obscuring language to be able to deny it, but an obvious criticism of the sect nonetheless. It got worse the further she read. One article quoted several “anonymous concerned citizens” that were distrustful of the magic defenses. Another criticized the air cabs as dangerous and wasteful. Someone else claimed the glowing gold dome was a hoax and that magic didn’t exist. The result added up to a paper obviously set against the sect, the guild, and magic in general.

  Laurel had a vision of smashing through the door to the newspaper offices, destroying the presses and burning anything she could find inside. It would be satisfying until she had to move her sect or face retribution against the more vulnerable members. Or convince anyone that binding to her City was completely safe.

  She pushed her awareness towards the Core, and the pathetically small number of official citizens that had been bonded. Mostly sect members and the people that came to her for healing each week. She leaned back and thought about what Annette would do, what Adam would do, what Theresa would do. She already knew what Martin would do and it mirrored her fantasy too closely to trust.

  A half an hour later she was storming back past Natalia into Sabrina’s office in the guildhall.

  “Who owns the Verilian Express?” she demanded.

  Sabrina narrowed her eyes over the paper she’d been examining. “How would I know?”

  “Have you read the last edition? It’s practically a declaration of war!”

  The guild leader shuffled a pile at the far corner of her desk to pull out a paper identical to the one in Laurel’s hand. She flipped through the pages, eyes scanning from one article to the next. Laurel watched the woman’s expression grow more and more pinched, until she looked like she’d swallowed a lemon by the end.

  “Well, that certainly won’t do.”

  “I agree. I’m thinking we should go down to the headquarters and make things very clear to whoever is writing this shit.”

  Sabrina tsked. “And give them enough to write a story about you strong-arming them? Or how magic users can’t be trusted? No, we need a more tempered approach.

  Throwing her hands up, Laurel began stalking back and forth across the room. “This is the tempered approach! The untempered approach was crushing them like vermin. Lightning makes a very convincing argument and it was my first choice for dealing with this.”

  Sabrina lowered the paper to stare at Laurel. “Annette deserves a medal.”

  “True, but irrelevant.” She continued pacing across the room like a caged animal. “What do you suggest then?”

  “You started with the right question. We need to know who’s behind it, and why they’re doing this. Everything is just obscured enough to give them deniability. There’s no way that’s not on purpose, so something more is afoot than random bigotry.”

  “Fine, we’ll do it your way. Let’s go find out who owns the paper,” Laurel snarled.

  “I can’t.”

  Laurel bit back the rebuke that rose to her lips. Fairweather friends were not something she would abide by. Though to her credit, Sabrina looked upset about the situation.

  “I’m in the middle of negotiating Core development contracts for some of our members in minor cities. I can’t pause things now to investigate.”

  Both women paused and regarded each other a moment.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so confident with everyone leaving at once,” Laurel admitted. “But we’re here now. I suppose it’s time those initiates of mine earned their keep.”

  Putting the conviction into practice would have to wait. That evening, the intrepid foragers returned, dirt-covered and toting bulging sacks saturated with mana in different aspects and concentrations. The conquering heroes wasted no time waylaying Laurel, and pestering the rest of the sect into gathering in the solarium. With the sun hovering just above the horizon, the room was bathed in warmth and light. The diligence Nicholas showed in keeping the plants in top shape turned the room into a little slice of the jungle, humidity and all. Laurel paused to observe the orchid Leander had diligently carried across two continents. The flower migrated through the sect based on what Leander, Rebecca, and Nicolas thought was most appropriate for the day. With spring in full bloom and longer hours of daylight to take advantage of, it spent most of its time in the humid room surrounded by other more delicate plants. Their shade-dwelling counterparts were tended instead in other rooms throughout the building or planted outside, tucked against one of the walls. When everyone had gathered, Laurel summoned her Sectmaster gravitas and went to work.

  “Let’s see the spoils then. Recall we are looking for proper harvesting along with a wide range of plants and resources. Who’s first?”

  Both girls shuffled forward, but Gabrielle took the initiative to thrust out her bag and offer. Laurel pulled out a bolt of black silk embroidered with an enchantment, picked out along the edge in gold thread.

  “Lay each piece down separately,” she instructed Gabrielle.

  The rest of the sect watched in silence as plants, rocks, and a singular mushroom were placed along the cloth. Laurel recognized a few of the plants, one would help with regulating internal mana flows, another could be used to prevent infection, but most were foreign to her. There was one lump of stone that was utterly unremarkable except for the fact it was bursting with ice mana. Not to the point of a natural treasure, but Sabrina would probably pay a good sum to have it if none of the sect members were interested. In the end, a dozen pieces were laid out, none of which triggered the enchantment to detect anything overly dangerous.

  “There were more but they were the same kind of plant,” the girl said awkwardly when she finished.

  “This is quite good for a first harvesting trip,” Laurel assured her. “And it’s good to know we have so much variety in the area near the sect. As promised, you can keep anything you found or sell it to the sect for contribution points.”

  “Actually,” Laurel paused and looked out on the novices of the sect, recalling Natalia’s surprising insight earlier. “Is anyone thinking of pursuing alchemy?”

  A couple of hands tentatively went up. A couple young men Laurel was fairly certain came to join after the leviathan attack, like Cooper, having recently left the university. “The contribution point fees will be reimbursed on any material you identify and/or codify the use of. There are some basic alchemical primers that we translated in the library, and some more advanced texts and memory tablets you can access as well.”

  Getting back to the challenge at hand, she gestured Rebecca forward. The smug look on her face was enough of an indication of who had won this particular challenge, but they had to go through the formal process. In the end Rebecca pulled out half again as many harvested resources as Gabrielle. It hadn’t been a fair challenge, with the younger girl’s mana having a wild aspect, she would naturally find it easier to find the secrets of the wild places of the world. But no challenges were truly fair and that was a lesson it was important for her students to learn as well.

  “That’s one each. What was the next one?”

  “Crafting,” Rebecca called out from where she was standing and glaring daggers at Gabrielle.

  “That’s right,” Gabrielle agreed. “Woodworking, candle making, tea blending. We’ve worked it out already with a few journeymen from the different guilds, using our stipends for the time and materials.”

  Laurel suppressed her laughter. If these two were able to coordinate on that level already she wasn’t going to interrupt the process. “Let’s say three more weeks and come back with whatever you have to show for them.”

  At the clear dismissal the sect began to disperse. It wasn’t as flashy as a magical obstacle course but it would do for now. Laurel swept the bits and pieces into her storage tattoo to catalog later.

  “Cooper, hang back for a minute.”

  The young man startled but did as she asked, watching the rest of the initiates file out while listening to Rebecca and Gabrielle negotiate crafting timelines. Laurel walked over, letting her fingers trail along the leaves of the plants closest to the window.

  “Your family’s rich, right? In the high brow social circles?”

  The young man’s face reddened as he stammered out an affirmative. Maybe she should have phrased that more politely.

  “Do you know who owns the Verilian Express?”

  “The Express?” He shocked himself out of his own discomfort. “No, no one does. It was a big thing a few years back when they started printing critiques of some of the steam engine producers. The official word was that they didn’t publicize their ownership in order to be free from undue influence.”

  “And the unofficial word?”

  “Oh, I mean, I never paid too much attention to all that. My dad thinks it's someone high up in the palace administration. Or someone like that who doesn’t want to be associated with the opinions. But no one knows for sure.”

  He still looked confused at the line of questioning. “I take it you haven’t been reading it lately.”

  “Yes, well, you see Sectmaster. I tend to enjoy more of the fictional options from modern publishers, along with the historical tales from the Archive.”

  She waved away his nerves. “You’re not in trouble. It’s just they’ve been criticizing the sect and the guild. You know we’re trying to get people to become official Citizens, pacting to the Core?” She paused to wait for his nod before continuing. “It’s not going great. It will be worse if these rumors start to stick.”

  Another pause and she looked out of the glass wall, into the countryside that hadn’t at all recovered from the last beast wave. “How about this? The girls are focusing on their challenge for now. Would you be able to take on an official mission to investigate the paper?”

  “Umm…”

  “You can get help, of course, and I’ll make sure the contribution points are enough for a natural treasure to aspect your mana. Unless you’re going with something really obscure, then we can negotiate.”

  Laurel watched as the confusion and fear in Cooper’s eyes gradually transitioned to determination. “I’ll do it.”