Nick struggled to move. He thought if he had some of the other options from his spell

  work, he could shake off the effect the white bird had applied to him. He needed to

  be a lot quicker if he wanted to shoot that thing before it did whatever it did.

  “How are you doing, Granny?,” asked Nick. He could barely move his head to see

  where she had fallen next to a tree.

  “I will be able to walk in a bit,” said Madam Quince. “What was that?”

  “Crow’s them from the way it talked,” said Nick. “There’s no market around for me

  to buy an antidote for me. We’re stuck until someone comes and gets us.”

  “Marvelous,” said Madam Quince. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about these

  markets?”

  “Why would I?,” said Nick. “They’re no one else’s business. Crow’s coming along

  fast. Get ready for a tongue lashing.”

  “How do you know that?,” asked Madam Quince.

  “I can see her approaching,” said Nick. “Someone must be carrying her at the speed

  she is going.”

  “This is embarrassing,” said Madam Quince.

  “Tell me about it,” said Nick. “All right, I can move my hand and take you hostage

  so I don’t have to go back to the Academy.”

  “You will bring that thing back to finish the job,” said Madam Quince. “Then Crow

  will have to bury you after fixing what’s been done to me.”

  The roar of a fire pushed against Nick’s ears. He tried to look around. A fiery horse

  pulled an odd carriage into view. He winced at the unhappy face glaring at him.

  “Look, Granny,” he said with some false cheer. “Crow is here to rescue us from the

  woodland creatures and such.”

  “Please load Madam Quince in the cart, Steve,” said Crow.

  “Nick?,” asked Steve.

  “You can pick him up in a minute,” said Crow. She waved him to get their teacher

  loaded up to be taken back to the school.

  “How’s it going, Crow?,” said Nick.

  She walked behind him, took aim, drew her leg back, and kicked him in the rump.

  Then she did it again because it made her feel better.

  “Ow!,” said Nick. “What was that for?”

  “For breaking your word, and forcing me to ask them for a favor,” said Crow. She

  kicked him again. “This is great. I should do this more often.”

  “It’s not great for me,” complained Nick.

  “That’s the point,” said Crow. “If it was great for you, then there would be no point

  in doing it. But since it’s great for me, I might want to do it some more to get my

  point across.”

  “I think you should kick him some more at the Academy,” called Steve. He made sure

  that Madam Quince was as comfortable as he could in the chariot. “I don’t think we

  should stay out here without more preparation.”

  “All right,” said Crow. “Let’s get him in the chariot so we can get the both of them

  to our quarters.”

  Steve summoned his hundred hands to get Nick in the chariot. He climbed in, and

  made room for Crow to get in. He asked the fiery beast pulling the vehicle to get

  going.

  Nick blinked and they were at the wall around the city. He blinked again, and the

  screams of people in the street were gone. They rumbled over some rough stones, and

  then the chariot rolled to a halt. His stomach told him it was happy with that

  development.

  “How do you feel, Madam Quince?,” asked Crow.

  “Much better now that we have stopped,” said the instructor.

  “Steve, if you could take Madam Quince and Nick into the dining room, we will have

  our meeting over some tea,” said Crow.

  “Do I have to be there?,” asked the generalist. He let the beast go back to where it

  wandered when he didn’t need it.”

  “I think your presence will prevent me from strangling these troublemakers,” said

  Crow.

  “I’m not a troublemaker,” declared Nick.

  “I will kick you if you tell that lie again,” said Crow. “You are a big troublemaker.

  Steve?”

  “All right,” said Steve. “The cart?”

  “We’ll store it behind the dormitory for when we need it,” said Crow. “Maybe we can

  make something bigger for all of us if we need to later. Right now, it did the job we

  wanted done. So it was useful for what we needed.”

  “All right,” said Steve. “Let me call on the hundred hands again. I’ll move the cart

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  later after we have our talk.”

  “Thank you, Steve,” said Crow. “Let me get some water boiling for soup. I think that

  will be what our two troublemakers need to get their strength back.”

  Invisible hands carried Madam Quince and Nick into the kitchen and put them in

  chairs. Crow followed. She took some tinder and put it in with the half-burned logs

  in the kitchen hearth, then lit the paper and twine with a flint and steel. She fanned

  the small spark into a roaring flame. She got a pot and put water in it from the indoor

  pump. She hung it over the fire as she searched the pantry for anything she could put

  in for soup.

  Crow found some carrots and tomatoes. She cut them into discs on a cutting board

  and dropped them into the water to cook as the pot heated up. She put the knife on the

  sideboard so she wouldn’t be tempted to use it on her weakened guests.

  “So why did Steve and I have to go out to the woods to carry you back to town?,”

  asked Crow. She leaned on the counter, looking at the two problems on the verge of

  upsetting any ability she might have to protect the school from the Warlord.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” said Nick. “Granny would have been able to come back

  on her own after I shook her.”

  “Let’s try again,” said Crow. She frowned at Nick. He sagged in his chair. “What did

  you two think you were doing?”

  “I’m the one who should be scolding the both of you,” said Madam Quince.

  “I think the both of you need to talk to them again, and have a better explanation for

  all this,” said Crow. “Otherwise, I think I will stab the two of you until I am happy.”

  “Isn’t that against the school rules?,” asked Nick.

  “Guess which one of us isn’t covered by the school rules since they deserted,” asked

  Crow.

  “I think he can only be declared as leaving the grounds,” said Madam Quince. “There

  is a time limit to pass before someone can be considered a failure.”

  “All right,” said Crow. “Then I will have to commit a minor crime of murder by

  accident. The knife slipped. I can live with that.”

  “I suppose I would have to be stabbed too,” said Madam Quince.

  “No witnesses,” said Crow.

  “If I had known this was going to happen, I definitely would have tried harder to get

  away,” said Nick.

  “You were going to shoot Madam Quince in the leg,” said Crow. “That was the whole

  reason I asked them to intervene.”

  “You were going to shoot me in the leg?,” said Madam Quince. “Your magic is going

  to be sealed. You’re a public menace.”

  “His magic isn’t going to be sealed,” said Crow. “I need him for the moment. I am

  using him as a shield. So he has to be functional and able to do what I want him to do

  without whatever this was.”

  “This was Granny telling me she wanted me reassessed and if I didn’t go along, she

  was going to seal my magic,” said Nick. His hand curled on the table top as he tried

  to aim his arm.

  Crow slapped his hand off the table. He frowned at her, but it was an effort to lift his

  hand up. She shook her head.

  “He stepped out of the city wall,” said Madam Quince. “He didn’t put that down on

  his assessment form.”

  “That’s because it’s only useful to me,” said Nick. “It’s not magic. It’s just how the

  skill works so I can get things to shoot if I have the money.”

  “It kind of is magic, Nick,” said Steve as he entered the room. He pulled down his

  teapot and filled it with water. He hung it on the central bar next to the soup pan.

  “It’s a temporary thing where I can work on trying to modify my weapon,” said Nick.

  “You still should have put it down so we could figure out how to make it work

  better,” said Madam Quince.

  “You can’t,” said Crow. “Just like you can’t teach Steve how to modify his spells,

  or me how to talk to them. There’s nothing the Academy can do for us. You are

  optimistic, but our abilities don’t work like normal magic, and can’t be shaped

  like normal magic.”

  “I told you,” said Nick. He tried to smile but half of his face refused to pull up.

  “On the other hand, Nick was wrong to break his word and try to take off when

  he knows I need him to take care of my business here at the Academy,” said Crow.

  “They were amused but told me I should get someone better like the brothers to

  help me.”

  “The brothers?,” said Nick. “Those guys?”

  “They won’t do something stupid just to see what would happen,” said Crow. “The

  soup will be ready in a bit. I need to take a lie down. Please keep them from trying to

  kill each other, Steve. I know I am imposing, but I am tired after what happened.”

  “We’ll have some tea, and share the food when it’s ready,” said Steve. He waved her

  off. “Take care of yourself.”

  Crow stood to leave the room. She kicked Nick in the leg as she passed him. Then she

  was in the hall, leading to the base of the stairs to their rooms.

  “Why the kicking?,” asked Nick. He couldn’t rub the pain out of his leg.

  “Because you are a pain,” said Steve. “I admit I expected better out of you, Madam

  Quince. You let me down.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the teacher. She didn’t sound sorry.

  “Oh well,” said Steve. “How was the meeting with Crow’s masters?”

  “It dropped us in our tracks,” said Nick. “I couldn’t get a bead on it either.”

  “Mentally accomplished too,” said Madam Quince. “It referred to Crow as its oracle.”

  “Probably is gathering information to give her so she can carry out whatever it wants

  her to do,” said Steve. “And she needs Nick and his fireballs for that. Some kind of

  monster hunting might be in the offing.”

  “The headmaster needs to know about this,” said Madam Quince.

  “Needs to know what?,” said Steve. “We don’t know what is going on ourselves. I

  doubt he will be able to wave a wand and do something about an event that hasn’t

  happened yet.”

  “So we have to wait until Crow knows something to tell us?,” said Nick.

  “And you have to keep your head down, and quit acting stupid,” said Steve. “How are

  you going to help us if you separate and get murdered before we can look at the

  things that are happening?”

  “I’m not giving up my ability because of people I don’t care about,” said Nick.

  “Is there going to be a problem, Madam Quince?,” said Steve.

  “I will keep this to myself, but I am not happy,” said Madam Quince.

  “I am sure Crow’s them would love to talk to you again,” said Steve. His eyebrows

  went up as his tea kettle whistled. “Shall we have tea?”

  “All right,” said Madam Quince.

  “I don’t think I can hold a cup,” said Nick.

  “You’ll be able to sip from the cup,” said Steve. He put down three cups and put tea

  bags in them. He got the kettle with a heatproof mitten. He poured the hot water into

  the cups.

  “Give it a couple of minutes to cool to make it easier to drink,” said Steve. He waved

  the kettle in the air to cool it before placing it in the kitchen sink. “Then I will serve

  the soup.”

  “Is Crow right about your ability to spell cast, Steven?,” asked Madam Quince.

  “Yes,” said Steve. “It’s the way of things. She did suggest a way to train more spells

  that maybe I can use. I have to look at it.”

  “All right,” said Madam Quince. “I suppose you need someone to help with that.”

  “I don’t know,” said Steve. “I will look at it and see if there is anything I can do on

  my own first.”

  “All right,” said Madam Quince.

  They sipped their tea, and Nick felt strength returning to his limbs. He nodded as he

  felt more normal with each passing moment.

  “I’m not going in for a reassessment,” said Nick.

  “And how should I explain all this?,” said Madam Quince. She waved her hand to

  take in the building.

  “I’m the weakest mage on the grounds,” said Nick. “Which is true.”