"Hey Theo!"
I forced a smile on my face and turn to the sound of Mason's voice. I'd been doing my best to avoid him. Well, I'd been doing my best to avoid everyone really, but everyone else in Angitia had the decency to avoid me as well. Evidently, that incident in Professor Ogg's classroom had done little to endear me to my schoolmates and being tortured into figuring out what conduit works best for you made you more of a person to be avoided rather than pitied. Probably because failing at something so 'elementary' made it abundantly clear I would likely be one of the students culled from the population for the betterment of wizardkind at some point in the near future.
In the week following that delightful first day of school, I'd seen a few people from my spell theory class even turn around and go the other was when they saw me walking down the hallway.
Blaggards, the lot of them.
"Mason," I said, gripping my breakfast tray in my hands. Sausages and biscuits were the cafeteria's offerings, and I was so looking forward to experiencing how all the different bits of pig had experienced their final oinking moments of life. I suppose I could have gone up to the counter and demanded something different, but I couldn't seem to work up the nerve.
Politeness and meek obedience were traits cultivated in nulls, and not ones I'd fully shaken off.
Mason was impeccably dressed, red hair almost bouncing chipperly as he approached me. "Do you have anyone you're planning on having breakfast with today?" he asked.
"I uh…" I stammered, trying to think of something I could say to avoid eating with him. Sadly, the truth slipped out. "No," I admitted. I had been planning on ducking into a stray alcove in the cafeteria and shoveling my food down quickly, as I had done for the last several meals. A social butterfly I was not, and it appeared I never would be.
He brightened at that, almost rocking on the balls of his feet in excited energy.
"Smashing!" he declared. "You should come and join us then!"
Before I could formulate a proper response, I followed Mason through the cafeteria's twists and turns like a lamb after his mother. Mason almost skipped through tables of students, tray bouncing along, before he stopped at a table and placed his food down.
"Here we are," Mason said cheerily.
"Here," as it turned out, was at a table with two girls at it. I gave Mason a side-eye as I placed my food down next to him. The first girl had a face shaped like a heart and hair that sort of golden blond, you only see on people who use an alchemical agent to color their hair.
The other was a girl with black hair and eyes who looked oddly familiar, but I couldn't quite place her.
"This is Theo Crowley," Mason said chipperly. "We met on our first day of class. Would you believe he forgot to bring his books?"
"Really?" the blond girl said, blinking a pair of brilliant sapphire eyes at me. "That sounds utterly mortifying. I would have simply died if that happened to me."
"It wasn't my finest moment," I told her.
The girl blinked like she had forgotten something. "Oh, I'm Rosamund Ehrenfest, by the way."
"Charmed."
I glanced at our other table mate who sat there placidly eating her food. "And you are?"
"We have already met," she informed me. "You almost knocked me down during the entrance ceremony."
Oh. That's why she looked familiar. "I'm so sorry," I said quickly. "I—"
"Come now, Iroha," Mason chided. "I'm sure it was an honest mistake."
The girl—Iroha—gave Mason a flat look. "Perhaps," she said. "Though I have yet to be impressed much by these so-called manners you English are said to be famous for."
"You English?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Oh, Iroha's from Shang," Mason said. "I've always wanted to go myself. Papa has always said it is simply a fascinating place filled with all sorts of mystical creatures. Say Iroha, have you ever seen one of those nine-tailed foxes I've always heard about?"
"Yes," Iroha said without bothering to look up from her plate.
"Really? What are they like? I've always wanted to meet one."
"They are famous for placing curses on men they dislike, and occasionally eat the men they do like."
"Well, that seems a bit unsporting."
Rosamund leaned across the table and whispered to me conspiratorially. "Don't mind them. I've only known these two for a week and they can go on like this for a good hour or so."
"Really?" I asked. I stopped myself from adding, "And you still spend time around them?"
"Oh yes," Rosamund said. "I'm actually thrilled to have someone else to talk to today. So Theo, where are you from?"
"My uncle has an estate in Yorkshire," I said, deciding some modicum of truth might be useful.
"Hmm," Rosamund said. "Who is your uncle? I have never been to Yorkshire. I grew up on the continent, obviously. But I know some of London's tonne."
"Lord Woodman," I said. "I don't believe he has much to do with the tonne."
Rosamund Ehrenfest looked at me like I'd just admitted to only showering once a month. I took that as a sign that things were not going terribly well.
Thankfully, Mason took that moment to cut in. "Oh my family doesn't much to do with the tonne either, Mama says it's far too much trouble to bother with such things outside of finding a spouse and even then it will be far easier for me to go hunting for a troll wife when the time comes."
"What?" Rosamund and I both said, turning to look at Mason, but for entirely different reasons.
"Your mother would rather you marry a non-human than a member of the tonne?" Rosamund asked in clear distaste.
"Troll wife?" I said, feeling like I'd completely lost the thread of things.
"Yes, well, Mama has always said I've never had much luck with humans, and I am the second son, so it's not like I need to inherit the family name." Mason waved a hand dismissively. "Honestly, I do think she is getting ahead of herself. Who knows, maybe I'll meet a potential bride here at school."
There is a bit of a pause at our table.
"There are several clans I know of who actively marry in spiritual beasts, yokai, and other such creatures," Iroha said. "I imagine the right one would serve your needs rather effectively. So long as it does not eat you, of course."
Mason gave her a wounded look, but Iroha ploughed through whatever protests he may have considered.
"Have you considered where you might find a wife, Theo Crowley?" she asked me, and I couldn't tell if she was trying to get Mason to stop talking, or attempting to proposition me.
"No?" I said, because I had honestly never given it much thought.
"Ah," Iroha said, nodding to herself like that was the answer she had hoped for. Iroha returned her interest to Mason. "I have no issues with him joining us then."
"Joining you?" I asked, feeling as though I had been left out of something.
"Yes, well, I meant to say something about that." Mason looked a bit put out. "I was going to ask if you would be interested in joining our little study group Theo, we meet in the library after classes have ended for the day and go over what we learned and the like. I've found it's been immensely helpful in keeping up with my own schoolwork. Mama always said I never had much of a mind for demonology, but Iroha is absolutely smashing at it, and Rosamund is a natural at—"
"Why would you want me in your group?" I asked before I could stop myself, and I cursed inwardly. It was probably not much of a secret I was struggling to keep up in classes, which I believe could be fairly attributed to the fact that it was my first time at an actual school and that Lord Woodman only gave me the most cursory of education before dropping me off at the horrid place. Most wizards prepare for schools like Angitia from the cradle and have several generations of carefully arranged magical pedigree bred into them from well before even then.
"Well," Rosamund said. "Mason was talking to us about you a few days ago. He said you were the nice sort and, well, how you've been having a rough go at… things."
The look of vaguely condescending pity on her face did little for my self-esteem.
Neither did Mason's follow-up.
"Quite right, and Papa always says we must help those less fortunate than ourselves," Mason nodded. "And you seem like a good enough sort." He leaned forward to me conspiratorially and said in a poor attempt at a whisper. "Besides, I don't have any real mates here yet, and I would like a bit of back-up when it comes to dealing with these two ladies."
A glance behind Mason showed both Iroha and Rosamund had clearly heard him. Rosamund had a tight smile on her face, and Iroha almost seemed to roll her eyes.
"I suppose," I said, "I could come by this afternoon if you tell me when and where in the library you'll be meeting."
Mason beamed.
***
I never had much skill with languages, English aside. I'd never really had much call for them before Lord Woodman came along and took me off the farm to prepare for the entire "infiltrate one of the seven great schools of magic" plan he'd concocted. The training regime he put me through admittedly had some rather large holes in it, I was reasonably confident would kill me someday. Most of what I learned was spy craft and thievery, how to pick a lock and hide oneself quickly, that sort of thing. After that were noble manners, which I decided revolved primarily around not calling people wankers to their face and knowing what kind of fork to use. Finally, there was magical theory and dead languages, which Lord Woodman taught me sporadically whenever he had a moment to spare. He was willing to outsource the sneaking around and being polite to other people, but kept a solid grip on my magical education, and that's why I'm a reasonable thief with a veneer of politeness, but an utterly terrible mage.
French class made that abundantly clearer to me every day.
Professor Francis Dumont, the same overly made-up mage who introduced Headmistress Griffin at orientation, taught my French class. Blond hair that reached his shoulders in elegant cascades framed the face of a saint carved from marble. Professor Dumont cast an overall unnerving visage to my eyes. Too perfect and clean to be remotely in the realm of human possibility, and even if one discounted the man's unnaturally lovely appearance, his skills as a teacher left a bit to be desired.
"All right, here's today's verb," Professor Dumont said, lazily drawing a series of letters on the chalkboard. "Can any of you remember how 'er' verbs conjugate?"
I would admit that it was a bit of a relief to not be the only person in a class who stared at a teacher with a blank expression on their face. My other classes made me feel like enough of a simpleton for several lifetimes.
Professor Dumont, unsatisfied with the response, scowled at us. A frown on his face was the sort one might expect to see on one of the Roman gods Lord Woodman was fond of, Cupid perhaps, a perfect sort of scowl that simultaneously displayed displeasure, disappointment, and simmering sensuality.
"Come now," Dumont complained. "We went over this yesterday, remember?"
No one responds to his complaints. For my part, it's largely because I had little inclination toward French. I only took it for the language requirement, and even then only at Lord Woodman's directive. He had assured me French was an easy language to learn, and for a reason beyond me, I had trusted him.
Professor Dumont made a growling, whining noise that didn't quite fit with his beautiful face. The man looked like he was carved from marble, but he sounded like he'd start whining like a petulant child at any moment.
"Come now," he said. "Surely one of you can remember?"
I flip through my notes, searching for an answer, but I cannot find one. French, it seemed, would just be another class that I failed to excel at in Angitia's walls. Eventually, I stopped turning pages and resolved myself to sit there staring blankly ahead; counting every second until the class was over.
***
I had not been doing terribly well academically. Lord Woodman had given me cursory knowledge in most subjects that Angitia would expect me to know. Essentially, the bare minimum of what a mage of my age and alleged breeding should know.
I rarely gave him credit for that because it had allowed me to maintain some degree of plausible cover at this academy.
Tragically, some degree of cover was not much of one at all. It had only been a week, and it was already becoming obvious from how the professors would frown at me after handing back the quizzes and homework I had turned in, covered in red ink, that they were becoming skeptical I had actually passed the entrance exam to the school.
In point of fact, I hadn't. Lord Woodman and his contacts had falsified records, claiming I had taken an equivalent test while sojourning with relatives in the Australian colonies to regain my health after recovering from an almost life-threatening illness. I believe they said I was suffering from consumption, lockjaw, or the like. Rather melodramatic, I know.
On paper, it would not be the worst of ideas to join a group of other students and use them to gleam what knowledge I would need to actually do well enough at Angitia to not flunk out and be subjected to whatever punishment Lord Woodman would subsequently give me. In practice, though, I was less than confident in my abilities to pass myself off as just another clueless country noble who wormed his way into a prestigious magic school, rather than someone clueless enough about magic and manners to warrant suspicion.
There was a fine line between the two, and I'd rather not have anyone look too closely at me and whatever records Lord Woodman falsified about my background. However, I annoyingly actually needed help with my lessons, so I resolved to join Mason Albright's little study group but only provide them with the bare minimum of information about myself if they asked. So after class that day, as opposed to slinking back to my dorm to toil over my textbooks by myself as I had done for much of my first week there, I went to the library.
I'd never been to Angitia's library before. It was a mediaeval sort of building, almost a cathedral with its different towers and arches. It actually looked far more impressive and church-like than the actual chapel on the other side of campus, which laid low to the ground in a one-story stack of red bricks.
Mason's group was tricky to find. I wandered through the sweeping stacks of library books, passing different tables and alcoves sprinkled throughout the building. When I finally located the lot of them, they were at a long wooden table pressed up against a wall in a section titled "Animal Husbandry."
No other students were in the area, but a librarian intermittently wove her way throughout, restocking shelves with books.
"Theo!" Mason waved his hand at me excitedly as soon as he saw me. The librarian gave him a withering look, but Mason didn't seem to notice. I felt a bit embarrassed on his behalf, so I all but ran to reach the table, hoping it would get Mason to stop.
He did thankfully stop waving as soon as I reached the three of them and sat down between Iroha and Rosamund, who gave me a nod of acknowledgement and a brilliant smile, respectively.
"Now, how were everyone's days?" Mason said at near full volume, eliciting another scornful hush from the librarian restocking books that he again seemed not to notice.
"Well enough," Iroha said as she withdrew a book from her bag and laid it on the table. "I found today's quiz in alchemy relatively easy."
I winced because I had found my quiz in alchemy impossible to parse through. It had been about the history of alchemical traditions in Greece, and I was fairly confident I had confused the names of several people and most certainly had misspelled all of them.
"Same here," Rosamund nodded. "I think most of the classes so far have focused on reviewing things from the entrance exam."
Which I had never taken or studied for. Wonderful.
"Really?" Mason said, frowning and cocking his head to the side. "I've actually been finding classes challenging…"
"Me too!" I said quickly. "I've been having trouble with a few things since I got here."
"Yes," Mason said nodding, "It's been frightfully tricky to distinguish the differences between an internal versus an external Narrative."
He'd lost me.
Rosamund frowned. "Well, they are very similar, often indistinguishable, I think."
"How so?" I asked, trying to keep how I had no earthly idea what they were talking about out of my voice.
Rosamund frowned at me. "Well, Narrative is the basis of most spells? And I think most traditions of magic correct? I believe the difference between an internal and external Narrative really depends on how one interprets the spells used."
The root of all spells? Lord Woodman had never really described Narrative as such in the rare times he would deign to instruct me in spell craft. He always described Narrative to me as an external force, a path that spells simply had to follow when they were cast.
"I thought mana was the basis of all magic," I said before I could stop myself
Mason, Rosamund, and Iroha all gave me odd looks, and I realized I must have slipped up.
"It is," Rosamund said slowly. "In the sense that mana is the fuel used to create Narratives that in turn become a spell. You need mana to create the story you tell the world that, in turn, becomes a spell being cast."
I was still lost, but I was also reasonably confident appearing to have no idea what they were talking about would be incredibly suspicious based on how Iroha was eyeing me.
"Right," I said, then I did my best to change the subject. "So, how does this whole study group thing work? Do we do homework together or trade spells or something?" You could trade spells, right? That was a thing, right?
Thankfully, I appeared to have finally said something that actually made sense to the three of them.
"We usually go over our homework together," Iroha said, speaking for the first time. "Then we go over any issues we've been having in our studies and see if anyone has any useful insights."
"We've only been doing this for a week though," Rosamund said, giving me a winning smile. "So we're still figuring out how all this should work."
"I, for one, am pretty eager to get everyone's thoughts on what sort of conduit I should get," Mason said. "Mama always swore by using a seashell, but I can't say I've had an affinity for them."
Conduit. I knew that word. My mind returned to the first day of class and when Professor Ogg had forced me to the ground with a spell, and that feather. That rush of power I'd gotten from it that had stayed with me for a few hours before fading away. That was mana, wasn't it? You used a conduit to gather mana. It seemed odd that Lord Woodman had never mentioned it to me. The need for a conduit to gather mana seemed like the most essential tidbits of knowledge I'd need.
Mana… not having enough to cast spells had always been something of a problem for me. It was why most of what I could do amounted to little better than parlor tricks. I'd always just believed that as time went on, I'd gain more somehow, develop the ability to draw it straight from the air around me because that's what Lord Woodman had always seemed to do. But if I had a conduit, that wouldn't be a problem. I could access real power, maybe even start actually participating in class, and more importantly, develop some tricks to better protect myself.
It might also be nice to actually do some of my more practical bits of coursework in some classes. So far, I'd manage to narrowly avoid or pretend to attempt actual displays of magic in class, but I knew I couldn't keep it up forever. I needed mana both to survive and to keep up my facade as just another student.
My mind raced. "What sort of affinity are you looking for in a conduit?" I asked Mason slowly.
He blinked. "Well, old man, I've not given it much thought. I've always been rather good at working with illusions, so maybe a piece of mirror? What do you think?"
Iroha cleared her throat. "Homework first. We should prioritize the things we need to get done for our academics before we begin supposition on what we think needs to get done, eventually."
"Oh all right," Mason said, deflating a bit in disappointment but still taking out a book from his own bag.
I did the same, but my mind was working.
You needed mana to cast spells, I'd known that. And you needed a conduit to gather mana. I'd learned that at the hands of Professor Ogg. You'd think Lord Woodman would have mentioned that piece of trivial knowledge before dropping me off. Bastard.
I'd need to be able to cast spells in class, sooner rather than later, and for me to figure out how to do that, I'd need a conduit to gather mana. Another feather like the one I'd used in class that day then? But it hadn't felt "right." Was that what Mason meant when he said affinity?
What was my affinity then? And what sort of conduit would work?
I pondered that for a bit as I went over our homework for the night with the rest of Mason's group, until I noticed a shadow moving oddly against a far bookshelf. I narrowed my eyes, focusing on it, and it resolved into the ghost of a faceless child wandering from shelf to shelf.
Then I wanted to kick myself, because it was so bloody obvious what sort of affinity I'd have. I was a necromancer. My magic was inherently linked to that of death. Bones, graveyard dirt, and all sorts of other nonsense most decent people would find repulsive to go around looking for to keep in their pockets.
Wasn't there a mausoleum on campus?
Perhaps it would be worth paying it a visit.