“I see you have decided to grace us with your presence,” professor Alydia said, eyeing me as I sprinted towards the class.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said, holding up my wand. “I skipped lunch to make this.”

  Yushin gave me an interested look, but didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt professor Alydia as started speaking again, pulling out the magical paintbrush to begin painting the contingency sigil on my hand.

  “I think this is an excellent lesson to apply to the real world – no matter if you’ve got good reason, when you’re late, you drag down everyone around you and disrespect them. Your team will now be forced to fill you in,” she said. “You’re also going to be the only team to not know what you’re going in against. Congratulations.”

  She swept her staff out, and there was a ripple of blue light. An instant later, Yushin, Jackson, Salem, and I were all standing in the entry hall of a large house. It wasn’t a mansion that could compare to any of the Dreki family estates, but it was definitely large enough to be worth at least a million silver, maybe more.

  Except… That couldn’t be right. I took in a deep breath, and I could smell the musty air swirling through the house, the thick layer of dust over everything, and the scent of rat droppings. The chandelier overhead had clearly been meant to glow with a dozen golden weirlights, but now only a single one remained, and even it flickered, the artifice that held the ether in shape on the verge of breaking.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  “We were told that preparation is never in vain, even if you do not face what you thought you would,” Yushin snapped, her voice filled with irritation. “Remember when we were supposed to prepare to face undead, but were surprised with the demon trial? This is undead of some sort. We were supposed to be to–”

  Jackson’s hand slammed down on my shoulder, causing me to jump slightly.

  “Here’s a lesson for the professor!” he said, his voice practically booming in the confines of the abandoned manor house. “She tried to cast you as a sinner, to make us dislike you. But that only works if we play along. You are our friend. You made a mistake. Oh well. The past is immutable. The future is not. If we let us fight amongst ourselves, the undead will take advantage of that.”

  Salem’s eyebrows raised, and I noticed that he had the silver studs back in them.

  “He’s nah’ wrong,” Salem agreed. “Plenty’a undead beasties can feed of’a negative emotions’n’such. An’ if I got upset at ‘im for bein’ late, it’d be pretty hypocritical o’ me. We’ve all got our secrets.”

  Yushin glanced between the pair, then turned to me and offered me a short bow, then spoke in rapid Hua-Long.

  “Apologies. I let the teacher get in my head, but she was trying to set us off. I will strive to do better.”

  I bowed back, then smiled.

  “Not a problem.”

  I turned back to the group.

  “Actually, I have an idea. One of the spells I’ve learned is called hidden conversation. It stops people from eavesdropping on us. If there’s a ghost or something of the sort listening in on us, then this should help a lot. It also slightly muffles the sound, which should help a little if we whisper.”

  “Do’t,” Salem whispered, the whisper causing his words to slur a little.

  I raised my wand and began casting, flicking my hands in the right gestures while shaping the ether and chanting as quietly as I could. Interestingly, even though I hadn’t put any of the power of the wand directly into hidden conversation, the spell still came smoother and easier than before, as I was able to slightly bend the rules, shaving off several parts of the incantation and gestures.

  I did it on instinct, as if I was being propelled by professor Caeruleum’s abjuration affinity, but breaking it down in my mind, the bits I was able to skip were the parts of the spell that were the most similar to the other spells that I had infused into the wand – for example, I skipped over three of the words that were in a similar placement in the allies’ sigil chant, the three that marked who the spell would be cast on.

  I finished, and the air shifted subtly as the abjuration magic wove its mesh around us.

  “Done,” I said. “Alright. Let’s go through this logically. If I remember correctly, professor Alydia said we might be facing off against ghouls, a poltergeist, or…”

  “The remains’f’a necromancer’s experiments,” Salem said. “Though that’s not ‘xactly the clearest.”

  “Skeletons,” Jackson said. “Or zombies. Low circle necromancers can’t create more complex undead.”

  “They can,” Yushin said, shaking her head. “Jiangshi and egui.”

  “What?” Jackson asked, tilting his head. The gesture reminded me of a dog hearing an odd noise.

  “Jiangshi are hopping vampires, corpses with rigor mortis that hop around and try to drain your life through touch. Egui are hungry ghosts that operate somewhat similarly,” I explained.

  “Hungry ghost, that’s it. They’re made of evil-aligned life energy,” Yushin said. “I would not put it past the professor to send us against them. Strong enough ones can even fly.”

  “Not a problem, then,” Jackson said brightly.

  He pulled a wand from his pocket, made of a shimmering yellow material that looked somewhat like bone, and it was engraved with a sigil that resembled the one that he had tattooed on him, the mark of the sun god Effervesce. Its tip was the stone that the Erudite had given him. A moment later, he fished out an amulet that was made of the same yellow material, also in the sun-shaped symbol, pressing it against his chest, while flicking the wand. An orb of silver and gold fire the size of his head bloomed to life in mid-air, spinning and shedding light around us.

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  “My soulfire should be incredibly effective against undead,” Jackson said. “The more malicious, the better. The only thing it won’t be quite as effective against is the ghouls, it sounds like.”

  “We should start exploring, instead of standing in the entry,” Yushin said. I nodded, and we started moving. As we did, Salem piped up.

  “Why’s your fire nah as effective agains’ the ghouls?”

  “Ghouls aren’t intelligent dead,” Jackson said, his voice filled with excitement at getting to explain something. I winced as I felt it strain against my spell, and gestured for him to quiet down.

  “Sorry,” he said, voice dropping. “But yes. Ghouls are mindless, and they’re not commanded by another will, like zombies. My fire is made to protect, so it should still be powerful, bu–”

  “Watch!” Salem shouted, his eyes going wide as he spun. He clearly had felt another mind enter his range, but before he could point anywhere, a large suit of ornamental armor that was perched in an alcove along the walls moved. Its arm shot down, chopping down with the sword it held to try and take off Jackson’s head.

  I whipped my hand out, and a blue shield snapped into existence in front of Jackson. The armor’s blade crashed into it, and my shield shed blue sparks, but held. I flicked my wand out and struck it with a battle curse.

  The armor slammed its sword down again, and I angled it, conjuring a second shield around me. Orla manifested next to me, letting out a bark. On a wave of blue magic, the ghost exploded out of the armor, and it collapsed neatly next to me.

  Jackson was moving then, bringing his wand down and sending the silver orb of flame right at the ghost. It thrust its hands out, and there was a rattle as the bits of armor began to spin as if they were caught in a tornado, but I spun my shields around me, and under the power of my misfortune curse, the attacks slipped to the side, bounced off the shield, or lodged into the wooden walls of the manor house.

  Jackson’s fire struck the ghost, and it actually dissolved chunks of its essence, burning it away, but the ghost dove towards us, swirling into existence in the middle of us. Salem mumbled out a chant as it tried to dive into Yushin’s body, but bounced off.

  “No possessions,” Salem muttered, and I spat out several quick words, flicking my wand and layering allies sigils over all of us.

  “Fireball us, Jackson!” I shouted. He started to protest, but I cut him off. “Do it!”

  He didn’t wait any longer, to his credit. He swept his wand down, aiming at the ghost, and a silver-gold bead of fire shot from the crystal at its tip. It impacted the ghost and a massive wave of fire roared over the entire area. It rushed over me, over Yushin, over Salem, over Jackson, and most importantly, over the ghost. It burned with a brightness that made my eyes hurt, but my sigil appeared in the air over each of our heads, absorbing the fire before it could get too close to us.

  The air was still uncomfortably warm and bright, but as the fire faded, we were all left unharmed. The same could not be said for the ghost, though. It was little more than an ectoplasmic head and a single arm, and it reached out a single hand towards Jackson’s throat.

  Yushin’s hand flashed out. It was covered in scales, and her fingers had sharpened into tips that looked like claws, sheathed in a void-black energy that smelled like a mix of ether and her bloodline magic – she was doubtless mixing her venom in with an assassin affinity spell to allow her to strike spirits, which was a scary thought.

  It tore through the ghost’s head, and it dissolved. Yushin’s hand returned to looking like a serpent-kin beastfolk’s, and she let out a laugh.

  “I was not sure that would work, actually. Shadesword illusions attack through a psychic vector, so when Salem was able to stop it…”

  “Good thinkin’,” Salem said. “But how’d ya’ shape it?”

  “Affinity magic working with the spell,” she said.

  “Hold on,” I said, spinning the two shields around me. “We haven’t been teleported out yet.”

  “There are more poltergeists,” Jackson said, nodding in agreement.

  We started moving again, and we quickly fell into a routine. Salem acted as an early warning system, while I defended us with shields, allies’ sigils, and Orla’s barks, allowing Jackson and Yushin to tear apart whatever stood in our way.

  Clearing the manor of ghosts took us about half an hour, but I was feeling cheerful by the end of it. Up until that point, my magic had always been useful. It had been a passion. It had been fun.

  But it hadn’t felt strong. Not when compared to my bloodline, or to the rest of my family. I could pull a couple of tricks with it, but there was just no matching the raw physical power that my draconic bloodline offered.

  Until now.

  Wand in hand, I could conjure shields and layer misfortune curses with the flick of a hand and a single word.

  For the first time in my life, I felt like a powerful mage. Someone who had power truly outside what their bloodline could offer them.

  When professor Alydia re-summoned us, she congratulated all of us for our teamwork and for not immediately turning on me.

  “Though it might not seem like much, I’ve known teams torn apart by minor fractures, especially when their lives were already stressful,” she told us, and her eyes lingered on Yushin, Salem, then on me. “You did well, not falling into it.”

  With the extra time, I stretched and looked over them.

  “I am sorry about that,” I said. “I got caught up in crafting.”

  “No worries,” Jackson said before anyone else could speak. Salem just shrugged.

  “Do not allow it to become a habit, but circumstances happen,” Yushin added.

  I glanced around them and had an idea spark in my mind.

  “Have any of you been to the crystal caverns?” I asked.

  When I was met with a chorus of no, I held up my wand, flipping it over and tapping the ball of quartz at the end.

  “The Citadel is riddled with all sorts of spatial tunnels, connections to Etherius, and probably other magical phenomena too. I think we might be able to find some focusing crystals in the caverns.”

  I nodded to Jackson.

  “Your wand might be good on your focusing component, but how about your amulet? It’s the weakest aspect, but still worth it. Yushin, you didn’t use a wand in there, so you can’t have that many components. How about you, Salem?”

  “Nae had the class yet, s’ one of my Friday courses,” the dark haired mage said.

  “I haven’t constructed a wand or staff yet,” Yushin said, shaking her head. “I have gathered shadesilk from the forest for cores, and purchased shadowsteel and venomous rosewood for the body components. But I do need focusing components.”

  She eyed Salem and me, and then spoke carefully.

  “The professor said that a person cannot use their own materials for construction, but… The feathers of an aberrant-infected were-raven would make an extraordinary core component for my assassin affinity, and dragon blood or shed scale would make an excellent core for Jackson’s wand.”

  Salem eyed Yushin and shook his head.

  “I cannae get those easy, transformin’ means losin’ my mind. No, sorry.”

  “I haven’t actually taken a full dragon form in so long that I’m not sure I’d shed anytime soon,” I said, glancing at Jackson. “But Jackson, I could give you some blood. My bloodline is very potent.”

  Salem smirked and winked at me at that, and I flushed slightly.

  “Does anyone else want some?” I offered, “You’re all my friends. Besides, if you try and use it against me, I’ll just throw a curse up at you.”

  “I do not think it would be suitable for my path,” Yushin said. “But I do appreciate the offer.”

  “I fel’ your dragonfear,” Salem said consideringly. “I hate ta’ ask, but…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I scrabbled around in my pockets and pouches until I found a pair of empty vials and a knife, then I started rolling up my sleeve. Jackson’s eyes widened, and I shrugged.

  “No sense in waiting. This can make you stronger before the caves. Even if we find nothing…”

  I passed the vial to Jackson, then put a cork in the other and passed it to Salem. Jackson put his hand over my bicep, and golden light glowed as he used his healing divine boon on me. He pulled it back then smiled.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  “You’re getting the first focusing component I find,” Jackson said. “Even if it’s the only one.”

  His tone brooked no argument, so I just nodded. Jackson eyed the vial of blood.

  “Give me a bit to cast the ritual, and I’ll be ready to go.”

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