Aida hauled all of her belongings out into the hallway, stacking her bags neatly in a pile next to her door. Dusting her hands off, she placed them on her hips as she surveyed her now-empty room.

  The third years had been instructed to pack up their items before lunch, so that they could be loaded onto the proper golems to return them home after the graduation ceremony. As the second and first years still had one star cycle of education remaining, they didn’t have to worry about leaving the school yet.

  A transport worker came up to Aida with a clipboard in hand. “Is this it?” she looked down her list, glancing between the door and her belongings. “Aida Loreh, to Buddington Town?”

  After Aida confirmed her destination with the transport, she received a confirmation slip and watched as the worker tagged her items before she waved over a couple of burly men to begin relocating her luggage.

  She turned as she heard a grunt coming from Sue’s door, seeing the lithe blonde dump a box onto the ground. Contrary to Aida’s small pile, Sue had a stack of crates and sacks that came up to her shoulder.

  “You’re already done?” Sue asked breathlessly. “I don’t know how I accumulate all these things…”

  “Suelina Heslia?” the worker asked, ignoring Sue’s comment. “I’m going to ask you to stay until all of your personal belongings have been collected.”

  “I’m going to go check on Ezra,” Aida said softly to Sue. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Yes, go!” Sue waved her hand at Aida. “Don’t forget we’re meeting everyone at the Lake in an hour!”

  Aida gratefully left the commotion in the third-year girls’ corridor behind as she hurried down the staircase to the Healing ward, for one last visit.

  “—anything we can do to help.”

  Aida sidestepped the person exiting the door, continuing on her way as if the Healing ward wasn’t her destination. She leaned casually against the wall a ways down, as if she was waiting to meet someone. Close enough to catch the remainder of the conversation, not close enough to be suspicious…hopefully.

  The silver head bobbed deferentially, inauthentically, as he clasped Professor Lloyd and Healer Luk’s hands in both of his own.

  “No price is too high in order to maintain the health of a Riolt,” Jasper said sorrowfully. “So please, let us know as soon as anything changes with him.”

  “Understood. Please rest assured we will do our best with him,” Lloyd said, ducking his head in a polite bow as Ezra’s older brother gave one final polite nod before heading to the dining hall, leaving hushes in his wake as students took note of his striking appearance and imposing aura.

  Aida pushed herself off from the wall as murmurs began replacing the initial silence, heading back to where Healer Luk and Professor Lloyd were standing.

  “Good morning, Aida.” Luk stepped aside to let her in, the furrows in her brow melting away, leaving only a frown on her face.

  “I’ll be on my way,” Lloyd said to Luk, nodding at Aida. He also seemed a bit more grim than usual. I wonder what Jasper said to make them so upset.

  Slipping past Luk, Aida went to Ezra in the back, keeping a sharp eye out for anything odd in the room.

  Ezra remained just as he had been last night, with no visible—or sensible—differences. Still just sleeping.

  “Mister Riolt—Ezra will be staying at the school,” Luk said gently from the foot of Ezra’s bed. “You don’t have to worry about him.”

  Aida nodded, pressing her lips together. She could guess why they were willing to leave Ezra here: they had no use for a boy who needed constant care, and leaving him at school, out of the way, out of sight, was a neat solution to answering inquisitive associates.

  This whole situation was probably the ideal solution for the Riolts. If what Ezra told her about blowing up his relationship with his family was true, then they wouldn’t have to deal with the visible fallout when people saw Ezra out and about without his family.

  Even though this was also Aida’s preferred solution, she still felt her anger bubble at how little Ezra’s family cared about him. They didn’t treat him as a person. Not even a pet, a living being. They just considered him as an object, one that no longer served their purpose. So how perfectly it all worked out that the school offered to keep him tucked away in a closet somewhere.

  “What did Ezra’s family say?” Aida asked, even though she doubted Luk would tell her any information that was different from her conjecture.

  “They offered recompense in caring for Ezra, for as long as needed,” Luk said, taking a seat next to Aida with a sigh. “We don’t need it, of course, though the thought is appreciated. They also offered to provide additional resources when it came to running the school, as further compensation and appreciation for Ezra’s care. But—“ Luk cut herself off, clearing her throat as she remembered she was talking to a student. “Anyway, all you need to know is that Ezra will remain here for the foreseeable future.”

  “You’re not planning on accepting, are you?” Aida inquired. Luk gave her a deadpan look.

  “I am not the primary decision-maker, but even if I was I wouldn’t involve a student in the process.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I won’t be a student in a few hours,” Aida countered. “Doesn’t a Maglica graduate’s opinion hold any weight?”

  Luk clucked her tongue, giving Aida a disapproving look. “A Maglica graduate’s opinion holds negligible weight compared to the five professors in charge of the school. If you want to dabble with the operation of this establishment, I suggest you go badger your favorite instructor instead.”

  ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

  After the uneasy visit in the Healing ward, the summer air at the Lake’s edge was refreshing. Lily and Levi were skipping stones on the water’s surface, while Sue, Vanita, and Caleb bustled about setting up plates around another circular stone picnic table the Earth students molded.

  “Abedi and Edward aren’t joining us?” Aida asked as she met them. Vanita blushed.

  “We didn’t think it was right to bring them along during our last get-together.”

  “How was Ezra?” Sue asked, holding some cups out to Aida. She obligingly filled them with water—freshly summoned—before Sue set them down.

  “He’s staying at the school.” Aida filled them in on what she witnessed outside the Healing ward and her subsequent conversation with Healer Luk as Levi and Lily returned to the table, overhearing mention of Ezra.

  “That’s good, right?” Lily asked. “At least you know Luk will let you in to see him if you’re ever in the area.”

  “I guess Ezra wasn’t joking when he said his relationship with his family was bad,” Sue said uneasily. “I was expecting them to demand custody of him, and then lock him away forever. Getting left behind seems…worse.”

  “I don’t think it’s completely that,” Levi said grimly. “Their offer to fund the school as gratitude for taking care of Ezra is a much better way to obfuscate their intention of having more sway in the direction of the school. Maglica is very careful to remain neutral with the way they select Affiliates, but having Ezra under their care is a liability for the school because they’ll insist that they just want him to be cared for in the way they deem appropriate.”

  Sue stared at Levi. “That’s even worse! They’re using him!”

  “But surely the teachers won’t allow that to happen? They must be aware of what could happen,” Caleb said reasonably.

  Levi snorted. “Of course, if at least three of the professors are sensible. I’m sure they are,” he added reassuringly to Aida.

  “Yeah, there’s no way the teachers would agree to something that obviously would directly benefit one powerful family,” Aida agreed. She had confidence that Kozu, at least, would be objective and rational enough to avoid awkward entanglements, and also vocal enough to make accepting Riolt funding a battle. She gestured for everyone to begin eating, waving off the concern that had begun weighing on their moods. “Come on, let’s dig in before the food gets cold.”

  As they all began working through their final Maglica meal, they began tentatively talking about plans after school. Aida found it interesting that there wasn’t really a concept of “summer vacation” here—everyone just continued working, even during the holiday. The extra star cycle the school decided to grant the third years this particular year was in the spirit of allowing the graduates to start work one star cycle earlier than they normally would, not so that they could go on vacation earlier.

  Aida and Sue’s plans hadn’t changed, of course: Aida was going with Healer Bokar to his Poison clinic, and Sue was going right to the Gullbeaks. Caleb hesitantly mentioned that he was going to sign a part-time contract with the Gullbeaks, for when they needed him to fill in—that way he could still prioritize working on the family business at the Tulver’s Bathhouse. “They really enjoyed their visit to the Bathhouse, so they’ve even offered to help when they’re available. It seemed only fair that I help them as well.”

  Levi insisted that he was going to focus on the Ashet Company, assisting his father with the logistics of growing their business while the family head pursued passion projects instead: “Every Fire season I’m back home, I’m doing damage control to get our agricultural goals back on track. It will be a lot more relaxing if I can just keep an eye on it throughout the year.”

  Lily shyly mentioned the prospect of going to Burston City as well—not working under Healer Bokar, but under an herbalist he enthusiastically recommended. “He said he needed to confirm with the apothecary, but if she agrees then he’ll make the offer in her stead today!”

  “Have you met the herbalist?” Aida asked. “What if you don’t get along?”

  “Healer Bokar vouches for her!” Lily said cheerfully. “And she’s supposed to be really good at divining and breaking down plant properties—so I’m hoping I’ll be able to learn a lot from her!”

  Vanita coughed demurely as all eyes turned to her. “Well…I suppose now is as appropriate of a time as any.” She pulled several velvet bags out of her pocket, handing one to each person.

  “Professors Gemma and Lloyd have been helping me with this project for several moon cycles now, so this is my first attempt at extrapolating the family technique to a different use case,” she said, blushing. “These are bracelets I made…”

  Inside the velvet bag was a bracelet with seven crystal beads, each the size of her thumbnail and faceted so that it looked like one of those gaming die with a bunch of faces Annie had seen her classmates carry around in her previous life. Between each crystal were several smaller metallic beads, spacing out the gaudy gems.

  However, there was one particularly large faceted crystal, and another smaller crystal that had a soft, milky brown glow in it. Looking at the bracelet as a whole, Aida could see that they were all mana-carrying gems of some kind.

  “If you put your mana into the big crystal, then all the other beads that were grown from that cluster will take on your mana as well,” Vanita explained, holding up her wrist where her own bracelet sat. Sure enough, the largest crystal bead on her bracelet had the same milky brown glow in it. As Aida watched, she saw the colorless gems begin filling in around everyone’s wrist, as each person poured their own mana into the seed gem. “Since it’s so hard to get news on everybody…I really wanted a way where we could just—check on each other really quickly,” Vanita said, her composure slipping as she explained her motivation. “The colors will dim the further away you are, but at least we’ll be able to know everyone is still alive…I also haven’t been able to test what the range is,” she confessed, embarrassed. “I only hope it will be as helpful as I envisioned.”

  “As far as friendship bracelets go, this is the best I’ve ever seen,” Aida said, smiling. Vanita smiled back gratefully. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah! I love this—it feels like I’ll have all of you with me, no matter where I go!” Lily declared, waving her arm with the bracelet around.

  “So is this last empty gem…” Caleb trailed off, glancing up at Vanita as she nodded.

  “It is meant for Ezra…I’ve included a note in his bag, so that he’ll know when he wakes up. If all goes as expected, we will see his bead fill, no matter where we are.”

  Aida’s heart swelled at how beautiful Vanita’s gift was. She didn’t know how to convey her appreciation to the tall, stately girl; how could she explain to someone who had never experienced—no, taken for granted the ability to communicate with someone instantaneously, no matter where they were? Even though Vanita’s bracelet couldn’t convey detailed information, it contained enough. Enough to get the important bits across.

  “Hey, we’re all from Buddington, right? Maybe we can get together next star cycle, so we can see how well your bracelet works,” Levi said to Vanita. “Aida and I already made plans to meet up—let’s all do it.”

  “Yes, let’s!” Sue clapped her hands, gazing around at everyone with shining eyes. “Today won’t be our last time together!”