Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

N ot even a full week back at the Fount and I already had three new spells to write, and more to memorize than I had fingers on my hands to count with. I was certain that for every new bit of magic I managed to make stick, something else would slip from my head like water from a duck's back, but I had to at least try. New leaf and all that.

Even so, I had not forgotten Grimm's derision, nor my resolve to vex him thoroughly the next time we met.

It was in this frame of mind—frazzled, slightly sleep-deprived, head stuffed full of other people's words and resentful of each one of them, and even more resentful of Sebastian Grimm—that I ran into Cassius Bethe.

I mean that quite literally. I was making my escape from the library after six hours of study when Cassius rounded a corner and walked straight into me, sending my books and spell folder tumbling to the floor. This wasn't so bad, but Cassius had been carrying a stack of unbound spell papers, and the collision sent them flying in every direction until the floor between us was carpeted in white.

There's a game that's very popular in Luxe, played in bars and on street corners, or any place where people can stop and stare for a while. It uses shells and a stone, or sometimes cups and a marble, shuffled among one another fast enough to make your head spin.

They have a version of this game everywhere. It never goes out of style because people never tire of the idea that they can win. The key is to not get distracted. Don't look away. Don't fall for the trick.

I'm really, really bad at this game. I fall for it every time.

Cassius's face was a study in agony. "Oh no," he whispered, taking in the scattered spells. Then he looked up and recognized me. "I'm so sorry, Leo. I was in a hurry and, well…" He gestured helplessly at the mess.

"No harm done," I said. It was hard to be ungracious to Cassius. There was too much about him that seemed inherently apologetic. His demeanor was as mousy as his brown hair. We'd never spent much time together before, and I'd never cared to change that, assuming that anyone who was friends with Grimm would not be interested in my company, but I knelt down and began to help him anyway. He was Agnes's partner now, after all.

"Do you like him better than me?" I'd asked her, just the night before.

"He's quite nice," Agnes said, distracted. She'd spent the past half hour trying to cast a disorientation spell silently, but the paper wasn't catching. Unlike Grimm, she did better when she could shout the spell at something. "I think he'll be a good partner."

"You do like him better," I said, aggrieved.

Agnes let out a grunt of frustration and lowered the unconsumed spell before facing me. "I do not like him better; I just think he's a good scriver. So are you, no matter how you insist otherwise. Cassius just… tries harder."

I was fairly certain Cassius and I tried equal amounts, only in different directions, but the comparison had stuck in my mind. It returned anew as I helped Cassius gather a truly staggering number of spells off the floor.

"Are these all yours?" I asked.

"Goodness, no," Cassius said, laughing softly. "I'm not so prolific as all that. These are for the library. They're sent so many spells for admittance that they have trouble keeping on top of the backlog. I'm helping sort through and pick out the ones worth reviewing."

This only made my eyebrows raise higher. "You must have pissed someone off spectacularly. Even I haven't been assigned any extra work yet."

No one at the Fount would have trusted me to sort through incoming spells even if I had, but that was beside the point.

Cassius shook his head. "It's not punishment; I volunteered. I find the task interesting. Most of the spells the library receives are too derivative to be worth adding to the shelves, but some of the structures I've seen are quite creative. Inspiring, even. And, well, this sort of thing looks good to the Coterie when it comes time for recruitment."

I handed over a messy stack of spell papers and said, "Recruitment. Right."

Almost everyone who attended the Fount did so with an eye for being recruited by the Coterie after graduation. Ostensibly, this was so they could use their training to protect Miendor's citizens from the monsters that liked to creep over our borders from the strange and sprawling Wilderlands beyond, where magic flourished unhindered, producing all sorts of odd creatures and plant life. Sorcerers who served for the requisite amount of time were also automatically granted property, initiating them into the ranks of Miendor's gentry. And if you were already from a gentry family (as most sorcerers attending the Fount were), there was the prestige of having a Coterie title attached to your name to consider.

Gentry families are snobs about that sort of thing. I would know.

There are some other draws to the Coterie, besides property and bragging rights. During fourth tier, we'd spent one week out of every month assisting the Coterie on low-level missions in order to gain practical experience. They didn't send us to take care of anything high-stakes—the things we'd helped with wouldn't end up in any history books—but we'd gotten to roam all over Miendor, solving different problems every day. Those weeks had been… fun, as far as occupations went. Certainly more to my taste than sitting in the library for hours on end, getting zapped by quietude spells every time I spoke too loudly or began to whistle. Definitely a more interesting line of work than becoming a craft sorcerer and focusing on only one area of magic day in and day out.

But only the cleverest, most powerful sorcerers made it through recruitment.

"Oh, I think this one's yours," Cassius said, handing over a spell that had escaped from my folder in the collision. It was easy to spot as mine because no one would bother trying to get a tooth-whitening charm admitted into the Fount library. "Do you have a plan yet?" Cassius asked.

I busied myself with putting the spell away. "For what?"

"The first recruitment trial, of course!"

"Oh. Not really."

Every year, after the harvest, Coterie captains visited the Fount to recruit the most promising fifth-tier sorcerers early, before the final trials in the spring took place. It was a badge of honor to earn your place during the autumn trials, and everyone in fifth tier was even more tense than usual, falling all over themselves to learn new tricks like dogs hoping to earn a treat.

Cassius tapped a sheaf of paper against the floor neatly and then shot me a little smile that I thought was meant to be conspiratorial. "Come on, Leo, you must have something up your sleeve."

"Well." I made a point of looking around the corridor, as though making sure there was no one else listening. "There is one thing, if you promise not to tell anyone."

Interest kindled in Cassius's eyes. "Of course not."

"The trick is… I just don't care what happens." I laughed aloud as Cassius's face slackened in surprise. "Come on, there's nothing I could possibly do that would impress a captain. Charms and cantrips aren't going to help them fight monsters."

"Maybe not," Cassius said. "But troops are meant to be well balanced, not just powerful. You don't know what they'll be looking for."

But I did know. He was right in front of me. No wonder Cassius and Grimm got along; they were both picture-perfect versions of what a sorcerer should be. Grimm, with magic leaping to answer his very thoughts, and Cassius, eagerly studying the words of others so that he might write the sort of spells the library would never refuse from their shelves. Both of them wanted so badly to be noticed for their sorcery, and no doubt they would be.

The last thing I wanted was to be deemed remarkable for my scriving. I wanted people to look at me because I had picked up my violin and begun to play. I wanted attention for being clever or even for being outrageous. Not magic. Never magic. The only spells of mine worth anyone's notice were never noticeable for a good reason.

I looked at Cassius and said, "Any troop looking to round out their arsenal with a few cosmetic cantrips is simply going to have to contain their disappointment at my refusal. I have no interest in the Coterie."

"Of course," Cassius said. "My mistake." But he said it with the tiniest quirk to his lips and a slight bob of his head. I don't think he believed me.

It wasn't long before we'd finished collecting the spells off the floor and had them sorted back into their proper folders. I gathered my things and bid Cassius farewell, more than ready to escape further discussion of the Coterie.

Cassius called out my name when I was halfway down the corridor.

"Yes?" I said, turning back to face him.

"I hope there are no hard feelings over Duality class. About the partner switch, I mean. I know you and Agnes are close."

"It's not your fault," I said, surprised. "If your name hadn't been called, it just would have been someone else."

"I know. But I can't help but feel that you and Grimm have a harder task than the rest of us. It's no secret that the two of you don't get on." Cassius hesitated, biting his lip, then said, "Can I offer a word of advice?"

"Please," I said, interest piqued.

"Grimm likes straightforward wording to his spells. Nothing too long or overly complicated. Not that he's incapable of adapting, of course," Cassius hastened to add. "It's just that he prefers short and simple."

I smiled at Cassius, slow and sweet. "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

After that, I spent every spare moment leading up to the next Duality class writing the most unnecessarily long and elaborate charms I had ever composed. I also went out of my way to choose the most flowery, ridiculous words in the old language that I could think of.

Was this a good use of my limited time? No.

Was it at least a valuable exercise in the effect vocabulary can have on simple charms?

Also no.

But it was a form of stress relief. I had trouble falling asleep most nights, and thinking up convoluted spells to annoy Grimm with was nearly as soothing as playing my violin or getting drunk. I lay down after writing them and didn't remember my dreams come morning.

By the time our second class as partners came around, my spell folder was well padded. I took great joy in tossing it onto the table between us.

"Pick whatever you like," I told Grimm. "Doesn't matter to me."

Today, Phade had told us to practice physical means of making magic stronger. Most of what determined a spell's strength was due to how it was written, but there were other ways of boosting effectiveness, if you had the time. It mostly had to do with casting, so I leaned back in my chair and relaxed.

Grimm hesitated only a moment before opening my folder and flipping through the spells there. As before, he took far longer than was necessary looking them over, the furrow in his brow growing deeper and deeper before he eventually selected a piece of paper. Next, he retrieved his caster's kit from his bag.

Agnes kept her tools in a leather pouch with various compartments, but Grimm's kit was a small wooden box. From inside he withdrew a candle, which he lit with a fancy silver lighter before placing it on the table, wick still guttering slightly from the movement. Next, he drew out a slim silver knife and ran it through the flame.

"Hold out your hand," he said.

Apprehension tickled the back of my neck as I eyed the knife. Blood was commonly used as an amplifier, so it wasn't as though Grimm was suggesting anything shocking; I just didn't fancy the idea of letting him near me with a blade. But Phade was watching, and I hadn't done anything to Grimm today that warranted violence (yet), so after a moment I held out my hand.

Grimm steadied my palm, fingers light and warm on the back of my wrist, wielding the knife with clinical precision. The silver blade was thin. It bit into my thumb with scarcely more pain than I would have felt from a pinprick. Blood welled to form a scarlet bead, and Grimm briefly touched his thumb to mine, just long enough to smear the blood into the whorls on his own skin. Then he picked up his chosen spell and pressed a bloody fingerprint into the paper like a stamp.

As usual, Grimm didn't speak the spell aloud, but I could tell when he'd begun to cast by the swirling smoke and the sudden heat in my chest. It felt like I'd swallowed sunlight and was being warmed from the inside. The paper in Grimm's hand curled away to nothing and was gone, leaving the air between us smelling faintly of copper.

"Which one did you choose?" I asked, rubbing my chest. The heat there was unexpected, but sometimes amplifying certain spells could have side effects.

"The shortest," Grimm said.

It took me a moment to remember which spell that was, but once I had, I smiled and fluttered my eyes outrageously. "What color?"

"What?"

"My eyes. The spell is meant to change their color. With the extra boost, they should be something truly spectacular."

Grimm stared at me, looking utterly put out at the thought that he had just expended energy casting such a spell. Then he met my eyes and said, "Blue."

I frowned. "My eyes were blue already. Are you sure you don't mean turquoise? Cyan, perhaps?"

"No," Grimm said flatly. "They're the same as they were before. Vanities are unpredictable and a waste of paper."

"It's exactly because vanity spells are unpredictable that they're so expensive and coveted," I retorted. "They're complicated to pull off."

Grimm ran the silver blade through the flame again, then put it away. "That explains why yours didn't work, then."

"I didn't say they were too complicated for me !"

Grimm blew the candle out. "Results suggest otherwise."

I seethed over this for the remainder of our lesson.

Where other scrivers may have skipped over charms in favor of more impressive spells, I'd had no choice but to learn how to perfect them. They were my specialty. But much as I wanted to blame this failure on Grimm's casting, I couldn't. I had watched the magic consume the paper in his hand and I had felt something happen—the strange heat in my chest was proof of that. Yet when it came time to fill out our lesson report for Phade, Grimm wrote down spell did not fulfill its given purpose , and I couldn't even protest because my eyes were very much still their original color. This was confirmed by Agnes when I snuck across the room just to make sure that Grimm wasn't lying.

Considering how well the morning had gone so far, it was hardly a surprise when Phade called my name and beckoned me to approach their desk rather than file out of the classroom alongside everyone else. They held the piece of paper with Grimm's report in one hand but waited for the room to finish emptying before speaking.

"Mr. Loveage, I thought it was made clear that our standards for you would be higher this year."

"It was," I ground out. "Perhaps if someone else were to cast the spell—"

"Are you suggesting that Mr. Grimm's talents are lacking?"

"No. But maybe that's the problem. Pairing Grimm and me together is like asking a waterfall to flow out of a decorative fountain. We're not a good match."

Phade put the report down and looked at me, dark eyes unsympathetic. "I suggest you find a way to remedy that, at least inside this classroom. Or do I need to remind you of the consequences if the board finds your efforts lacking this year?"

"What about Grimm's efforts?" I asked mulishly. "Aren't we supposed to be partners? He's the one who cast the spell."

"Mr. Grimm is not on probation," Phade said simply. "His moves are not the ones in question. Yours are."

And that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? Phade's words were a warning as much as an admonishment. A reminder that, if our partnership failed, the blame would rest squarely on my shoulders, and so it fell to me to find a way to make sure that didn't happen.

I just didn't know how, seeing as Grimm and I were apparently as incompatible in magic as we were in every other way.