"Your athar forced its will on my own kathar," Baylin explained. "It still did its work of detection, but your magic convinced it that it shouldn't kill you."
Marvel frowned. "You're saying my athar is trying to protect me?"
The shadows at the back of his mind muttered something along the lines of you die, we die, remember?
"But Grandmaster Darius killed me," he muttered.
"There's not much room to change killing intent," Baylin said. "Other spells can be changed, sure, but not a killing spell."
Marvel had never before considered that the person who had brought him back and given him this power might have a vested interest in keeping him alive.
Why would I question a gift like that?
Even now, he didn't want to question it. He didn't care. He wasn't going to throw this gift away just because it was dangerous.
But what does that say about me?
"The person who did this to you is quite impressive," Baylin said. "You're standing right in front of me, and I can't detect any energy or even your centre at all. I only saw it when I did the spell, and even then, I'm certain it was only because I was in the room with you."
That explained why the Conclave hadn't come to find him yet after that athar detection spell.
"Fascinating." Baylin stroked her chin. "Oh, you would make an excellent study of Fusion magic. So much to be learned."
Marvel considered it. Offering himself as an experiment to Baylin would ensure that she kept his secret. She might even help him keep the secret. But why stop there?
"You want to study me?" he asked, rising to his feet. "First, get me out of this cage."
The corner of Baylin's mouth twitched. For a moment, he thought he had pushed his luck too far. In the next, however, she flicked her wrist, and the glowing blue bars around him disappeared.
Marvel sucked in a breath.
She really, really wants this.
Emboldened by his sudden freedom, he stepped forward, approaching her with the sort of confidence he had never once felt in his entire life. "Thank you."
"It's the least I can do for my test subject." Baylin's small, beady eyes shone with a greedy light. They didn't look like windows to her soul at all—just two depthless pits in her head.
He thought about the mutilated bodies of the rats she often used to test new spells. How they ended up deformed after an experiment went wrong. He'd always pitied the poor animals when he found their corpses cleaning up after her.
Marvel was going to be the poor animal now.
"I have another condition," he said. "I will be your test subject only for as long as you're helping me keep my secret and advance my powers."
"There's no point in stopping you from advancing." Baylin cocked her head. "And keeping your secret is obviously necessary."
"No." Marvel took another step forward, placing his hands on either side of her armchair, using the advantage of his height in an attempt to look intimidating. "I mean, if I need something to get ahead, if I need help advancing stages, if I need any help at all with alchemy in any way, you'll give it to me. Not just your free time but your full attention."
A silver eyebrow arched. "Is that so?"
"After all, it isn't like you're going to be pursuing any other fields of study while I'm your subject, are you?"
Baylin hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose not."
"So, you'll help in any way you can, when I need it." Marvel locked eyes with her. "You swear?"
"As long as it doesn't disrupt my study of you, then yes, I do swear."
"And you'll assist me in keeping the true nature of my magic a secret," he added fervently. "You also swear?"
"Yes, yes, yes." Baylin looked up at him, an impressed grin across her mouth. "I rather think I trained you well."
Marvel would have liked to retort that she barely saw him as more than furniture most of the time. He held his tongue. His luck must be stretched to almost breaking at this point.
Satisfied with her word, Marvel straightened up. Though not before she caught his wrist, circling it with her long fingers and squeezing it hard enough to shatter bone. He gritted his teeth under the new wave of hurt passing through his arm. In spite of the pain, he didn't feel the crack of a single bone.
"I swear this to you also, boy," she said mildly as his arm screamed, "if you try to lie or mislead me in any way, if I find you are anything less than forthcoming when I have an inquiry, if you think of leaving this city or try to escape me by any means possible, I will remove everything that makes you yourself from your body until all you are is an obedient little doll that will be far, far easier to study."
Marvel shuddered despite the pain.
She released him, leaning back in her chair.
Snatching back his arm, he inspected it for broken bones. There were none. It didn't make sense. She'd been squeezing hard enough to—
It clicked in his head. She hadn't been trying to break his wrist. She'd wanted him to know that she could, if she so pleased. That the only reason he wasn't on his way to Healer's Section again was because she felt like it.
Satis, was he beginning to despise her.
He couldn't help the baleful glare he threw her way.
Mildly, she smiled. "Tell you what: today I'll make something to soothe your arrays so you don't have to pass out anytime you use magic. That pesky array burn must be awful. I'll send you a brew that can help with that tomorrow, and you'll return to see me the day after that. Alright?"
From this, Marvel understood he had been dismissed. "Yes, Master," he squeezed out, his insides flaming with dislike.
"I'll see you after your lessons tomorrow then," she said, and flicked her wrist before he could even finish a thought.
He felt split into a million million pieces as the library dissolved. There was a rough tug to his spine that dragged his body through space and time once again, dropping him on his feet somewhere else.
Marvel fell to his knees and vomited.
By the time he'd emptied the contents of his stomach, he managed to get a bearing on his surroundings.
The sky was the lovely amber and pink of the sunset, and he was on his hands and knees in the grass. An evening breeze caressed his cheek. He glanced up at the castle in front of him, the Academy in all of its magnificent glory, home to thousands of mages who were all desperate to get as powerful as they could to—
To what?
Definitely not purely for the reason of fighting golems. Knowing what he did now, he wondered what it was all really in service of.
Baylin's words came to him. Nobody who becomes a mage wants to be weak.
Marvel didn't want to be weak. But really, what did true strength look like?
He didn't hear the footsteps until they were on top of him.
Strong arms grabbed him on either side, taking him by surprise. He struggled against the grip of the two men that held him fast to no avail. He recognized them: Cato and Magnus, two people from the Novice class.
With his arms trapped, forced to remain on his knees, Marvel's jaw was roughly forced up to see the sneering face of Caspian Griffith.
Caspian grinned a grin that promised Marvel a world of pain. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the little smartass hotshot. Ready to take back what you dished out?"
Marvel faced the idiot squarely, debating whether to throw himself at the man's mercy like he usually did. He didn't want to. Having already beaten this idiot once, he knew what pride tasted like and wasn't eager to return to begging.
With Baylin's assistance, he would get strong enough to destroy Caspian eventually. For now, his joints aching, stomach unsettled from being sent away, and miserably exhausted, he decided that his best option was probably to cower.
"Caspian, in class today, I didn't mean…"
He trailed off as Caspian's face tightened with black hatred. Belatedly, Marvel realised why. He'd just called the idiot Caspian Griffith by his name, which was allowed by etiquette now they shared the same status. For Caspian, that had to be a reminder that for all his wealth, power, social standing, and looks, he was on the same level as a nobody he had spent years beating up like Marvel.
How ironic. The thought, unfortunately, made Marvel laugh, sealing his fate.
Oops, he thought as a threatening blue orb appeared over Caspian's hand.
But even as the force of the kathar broke Marvel's nose, he decided it would all be worth it in the end.
After all, even if it took him decades, he was going to surpass Caspian.
He just had to keep trying.
***
Caitriona Bardot wasn't getting paid enough to observe a group of shits beat the life out of another little shit.
From her vantage point on the top of an outer tower, she leisurely watched the leader of the two goons who held the helpless victim dunk the boy's head in a barrel of water, shouting all sorts of uninteresting insults at him.
It amused her how, for all their talk of mastering alchemy, not a single mage had caught her sneaking around the grounds yet. They never would. Her skill surpassed even those of the best Grandmasters within those walls. Her cloak was of excellent make, the invisibility spell stitched into it made permanent by the blood of the dead Enchanter who created it.
Sadly, neither her skill nor her cloak had helped her get into the mages' castle so far. For three days, she'd lingered around the premises, unable to enter.
The Magus who founded the Academy of Utter Morons had made it impossible for anyone who carried even the slightest sliver of akathar in them to get into the building through any of its entrances without bursting into flame.
When it came to portals, only the Sorcerer Orson Baldrik apparently possessed permission to create and control portals that led to and from the Academy. Short of kidnapping the man, she had no other way of getting in.
She had seriously considered the kidnapping. Unfortunately, the man rarely left the castle. On the few occasions he did, he was wrapped in so many layers of protection, it made her teeth ache thinking about going near him.
With no way in, Caitriona had spent two days surveilling the castle grounds, hoping to locate her quarry by sheer luck. It wasn't much of a strategy, she knew, but what was her alternative? Return to the one who hired her and admit failure? That path led only to certain death.
If only those damned golems hadn't ruined everything…
Sighing, Caitriona leaned back against the cold stone wall of the tower roof where she perched, her gaze sweeping over the scene below. The grounds were washed in pale moonlight, with orbs of soullight bobbing about like distant stars, casting a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours. The windows of the castle shimmered with trapped sunlight, and beneath those lights, large and small, flickered thousands of kathar orbs.
Lights upon lights. If she were an ordinary maverick, the sight might have hurt her eyes. And if she were anything less than what she was, she might even have been awed.
The night wind scraped across her cheeks like icy claws. She was grateful she couldn't feel the cold. Her eyes scanned the clusters of mages below, the faint hum of their voices rising up to her. She could sense the small bursts of unsophisticated spells they conjured.
Couldn't just one of them reveal themselves as her target and end this tedious waiting? How had they not even been discovered yet?
Her akathar stirred, restless, whispering that a little chaos could make things more interesting. Perhaps she should let some of her inferno loose.
Not here. Caitriona suppressed the urge. Don't bother me right now.
The akathar obeyed, leaving her mind in a dull silence. Its presence still buzzed incessantly in her thoughts, but she'd grown used to the background noise centuries ago.
As she looked upon the Academy, a fleeting thought crossed her mind: perhaps death would be a welcome release from this endless waiting. Her employer would certainly make it a painful demise, but at least—
She ducked, but it was too late.
The pebble slammed into her gut, embedding itself in her flesh.
And then it detonated, the explosion ripping her abdomen apart.
The blast hurled her off the tower, sending her hurtling through the night sky, her insides trailing behind her like a gruesome comet.