56 - Questions and Answers

While Telip was up in the restricted section of the library, Arielle continued to search for more information on the Church of the Wayward. She also searched for any references to multiple Drifts or a congregation.
Nothing came up.
She pursed her lips and looked through the scribbles in her notebook.
There was so much she still didn’t understand.
Who was Heimenech? When she’d looked up the name before, she hadn’t gotten anything, but maybe Telip had found more information recently and had added it to his notebook.
However, Orion yielded no results for that either.
Frustration lined her spine.
She had to go soon. It was almost time for class.
But she stuck around as long as she could, waiting to see if Telip would come down and maybe she could ask him some more questions. Not that she thought he would give her honest answers, but perhaps he would inadvertently give her a hint.
If only she could read his mind.
Was there a spell for reading minds? Probably, but it was likely a master-tier spell. Or a restricted spell. She wondered if she could create something like that, but lower the tier, and also maybe craft a spell that could pull information from the abyss, like the Li’s.
That was a bloodline spell, so that formula was presumably more complicated than it sounded. She doubted she would be able to accurately guess the shape, unless she somehow saw Gio Li or one of the other Li’s use it.
Maybe with time and effort, she could get something close, but there was no reference to an abyss in her spell book, so even then, she wasn’t sure.
She needed to find another way.
For the next few minutes while she waited, Telip didn’t return, so she resigned and headed to her next class, which wasCombat Casting.
She appeared right on time, rather than early like she usually would.
Though Riorke spotted her and greeted her with a nod, she went over to stand by Lyra, the twins, and Maus, who was already stretching diligently, while Lyra crossed her arms and looked anxious.
“He’s going to call on me today,” she said. “I have a feeling.”
“You mean Professor Graham?” Arielle asked.
She nodded. The professor wasn’t in class yet, which was odd. He was usually here before they arrived, but his absence meant the students were a lot more relaxed, some of them sitting in a circle and chatting.
“Have you been practicing the other spells I gave you?” Ari asked Lyra, who nodded.
“Yes, but they aren’t combat spells.”
“Most spells can become combat-oriented if used correctly. A vitality spell can boost your strength and speed. [Air Script] can be used to disorient the enemies with well-placed particles of dust.”
Lyra looked around. “Unfortunately, there’s no dust in the room.”
“[Telekinesis],” Arielle said, mentally isolating the dust particles in the corners of the room and on the high windows, calling them together to float in the middle of her palm for a few seconds before they dispersed again.
“Show off,” Lyra said, shaking her head. “Obviously, I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to. I’m just saying you can get creative with the spells you have.”
She heaved a sigh.
“Severance Trials are in four weeks,” she said. “This is the last stretch, and I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“You’ll be ready by then,” she said.
“I hope so.”
Arielle turned to Maus, who was done with his stretches and was talking to the twins about something. “What about you? Have you been practicing the spells I gave you?”
“Yeah. I’m struggling with [Hollow Air] though.”
“It’s a Vacu heavy spell.”
“I know. That’s the problem. I always think I have it at first, but the spell never comes together in six seconds.”
“Vacu tends to do that. It’s a very shy essence, and it’s scared of becoming a manaling so it always hangs at the back of the pack.”
“Right…” Maus nodded as the twins frowned at her in confusion. “Anyway, I’ll keep practicing.”
“Don’t practice that one without me,” Ari said. He might make mistakes, and that would cause more manalings to be formed, making Vacu even more scared of him. “Next time we have a session, I’ll try to tell Vacu that you’re a friend, so it trusts you. You’ll still have to prove yourself, though, to truly earn its trust.”
The twins gave each other that look again while Maus said, “Okay. I won’t practice without you.”
“I’m guessing you’re not anxious at all about the trials,” Lyra asked Arielle.
“No. Should I be?”
“Maybe,” Landon said. “They said the second and third trials are some of the worst ones.”
“Why?”
“Because of the surprise component,” he said. “There are a total of seven exams for each trial. One of them is a simple duel, evaluated by Graham.”
“A senior told me he starts judging from four weeks out,” Lyra added. “Because, according to him, anyone can have a bad day, so he doesn’t just use the duel on that day, but he pays more attention to average performance over those four weeks. So from now on, every duel is a test.”
“Precisely. But that’s not the part you have to worry about, Arielle. You’ve won every single duel you’ve been a part of, and Graham actually remembers your name.”
“Yeah, it’s the rest of us nameless who have to worry,” Louis concurred wryly.
“He remembers you sometimes, Lyra,” Arielle pointed out.
“Only because of how awful I am, probably,” Lyra said.
“You’re not awful. Just flawed. But you’ll get better soon. Your growth has been good so far, and you have good core control.”
“You mean it?”
Arielle nodded.
She grinned. “You’re getting better at this friendship thing. Thank you for the compliment.”
“It’s the truth.”
“That’s what makes it even sweeter.”
“Then there are the spell-casting exams,” Landon continued. “That’s invigilated by Professor Valeria. Basically, she gives you five spells to cast, measuring speed and accuracy.”
“And then Professor Llywyd’s test.” Louis took over for his brother. “It’s the balancing exam. She essentially puts you in this chamber that messes with your cores, and you have to balance them out. It’s hard to explain, but basically, it tests your core control.”
“That’s killer,” Maus said. “You’re going to feel so sick after it.”
“Professor Flintwick, Professor Aurelius, and Professor Woden just give us an exam and an oral presentation. But the real killer is the surprise exam, which the next trial will contain.”
“The surprise exam?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it is, and the seniors are pretty tight-lipped about it, but it accounts for most of the dropout rates. Usually, students leave during severance because they fail the trial, but this particular exam, a lot of students just quit after they’re done.”
“That’s scary,” Lyra said.
“Yeah. And they don’t talk about it either. Maybe they’re under oath or something.”
“Oath spell?” That piqued Arielle’s interest.
“Well, probably not that. Maybe they’re just not allowed to talk about it with us, or they would get some kind ofpunishment or demerit. But the professors can tell us some details, though not the exact test. I asked Professor Woden about it, and he told me that I shouldn’t worry. It’s not that the exam is traumatic, but apparently it’s just brutally honest and demoralizing, and students choose to quit rather than keep fighting against the tides.”
“That’s still inhumane,” Lyra said. “Why the secrecy? Why can’t we know what the test is ahead of time, so we can prepare for it, or decide if we want to go through it or not?”
“Maybe they will tell us at some point. Maybe they give you the option to walk away right before you enter the exam hall.”
“Maybe it’s fully optional,” Maus said. “Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds, and they’re not telling us because they don’twant to scare us unnecessarily. What do you think, Arielle?”
Arielle was focused on something else. “Humans can have magical oaths with each other?”
“Sure,” Landon said distractedly. “But anyway, I also heard the likelihood of anyone actually passing that surprise exam is like zero percent, so it’s probably not weighed very heavily in the grand scheme of things. It’s likely just giving you an honest evaluation of your skillset and letting you choose if you want to continue with that or not.”
“The only two people who passed that exam were Gio Li and Selena,” Louis said. “Gio was the closest to having a perfect score, and so because of that, people call that exam The Archmage Exams. Because basically if you pass it, there’s a good chance you’re going to be an archmage, and so the professors pay special attention to you and they try to fast-track your progress as much as possible.”
“Arielle, that’s essentially what you’re doing with Valeria now,” Lyra said. “Right?”
She nodded, and the doors opened with Professor Graham walking in, looking frazzled.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he said. “Got caught up making a very lucrative trade. Lyra!”
Lyra jumped at the sound of her name. “Y-yes?”
“I was very impressed with yours and Maus’ dance on Family Day.”
“Thank you.” She grinned.
“So I figured that you would want to entertain us today, too,” he said.

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Her smile dropped. She gave Arielle a look as though to say, I knew it.
“Now I have to warn you, class, that though severance is in four weeks, your exams for me start today. I’ll try to give you as many chances as I can to prove yourself, but I will be evaluating you objectively after every class and reportinghonestly whether or not I think you should remain in the program. The grace period has ended, and the time for mercy is over. Now, it’s pure objectivity. Understood?”
The jovial air immediately died, sobriety injected into the atmosphere.
Lyra swallowed.
“Lyra, you’re up first. Against Fallon.”
No one moved, and everyone stared at Professor Graham.
“There’s no Fallon in this class,” Lacey said.
“Right. I meant…” Not finding any other substitute name, he snapped his fingers in Faulkey’s direction.
Arielle’s breath caught as Lyra stiffened. That was an extremely unbalanced match-up. Faulkey was not the best in their class, but Lyra was still close to the bottom, and she was only just growing her confidence and her skills, while Faulkey had confidence in spades.
He was standing with his usual crew, and when his eyes travelled to them, he grinned vindictively.
“This is going to be fun,” he said.
Lyra paled. She glanced back at Arielle pleadingly.
“Tell me I can beat him,” she said.
“You can beat him.”
“Tell me that I will beat him.”
“I don’t know if you will.”
Panic skittered across her expression, and Arielle asked, “Would you like me to lie to you?”
“Yes,” Landon answered for Lyra, who shook her head.
As she started walking to the circle, Landon leaned in and said, “Next time lie to her but don’t tell her you’re lying.”
“You mean in general?”
“No. Just when she’s anxious about something.”
Arielle took that in, bookmarking it for Lyra’s next anxiety attack.
Lyra walked to one end of the duelling circles, with Faulkey on the other side.
He grinned at her, and she paled even more. What was worse was the Vitae orbs that had been sluicing smoothly along her limbs, now stilled in reaction to her nerves. They began to draw closer to her, sensing danger.
They would interfere with Lyra’s spells.
“You need to calm down,” Arielle called out. “Or you’ll lose.”
“Not very helpful, Arielle,” Lyra responded.
Should she have lied to help her? Probably, though it didn’t make sense for her to lie about something like this. Still, it was worth a try.
“You do not need to calm down, and you definitely will not lose.“
Lyra shot her a brief glare as Professor Graham coughed into his fist, and said, “Good one, Arielle. Alright, enough talking. Are you both stretched out?”
“Yes,” Faulkey said as Lyra began stretching, still keeping an apprehensive eye on her opponent.
“Lyra,” Professor Graham said.
“Yes.” She straightened.
“I would take Arielle’s advice if I were you. Your anxiety is clear as day on your face, and not only are you letting your opponent know that you’re scared of him, you’re also letting your body know that you’re scared. That fear is going to make you fumble if you let it. Try to take deep breaths. Relax. This isn’t a world-ending battle. It’s just a normal duel that may or may not decide your fate in this academy.”
Lyra nodded, and her hands clenched into fists.
“Believe in yourself,” he continued. “Your performance on Family Day showed that you do have good control, and your casting speed wasn’t half-bad at all. You already have the basics down, but if you constantly doubt yourself, you’ll flail. So don’t doubt it.”
Arielle agreed with the speech. Lyra had good control and casting speed. Perhaps it was from training her cores under the active interference of Vitae, but when the Vitae resistance was gone, she had essentially the same speed as Faulkey.
Was that why Graham had paired them together? Because he saw that as Lyra’s true level?
“Alright,” Graham said. “And Faulkey, no messy stuff. If you pull any dirty tricks, it’s an instant fail from me.”
Faulkey narrowed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t play favorites, Professor.”
“I don’t. But I know exactly who my students are and what they need. Lyra needs to believe in herself. You need to stop being an arse.”
Byron and Riorke both snorted, and Faulkey frowned deeply.
“I’ll take it easy on her.”
“That’s not what I said. I said fight fair and don’t break the rules. Understood?”
He nodded, but his angry gaze spoke of retribution, perhaps for the ‘arse’ comment.
Graham stood back, and while they waited for the bell, Arielle started tugging the Vitae orbs away from Lyra’s body with her eyes.
She worked fast, though Vitae resisted her hold valiantly. Even when she’d successfully pulled them away, more Vitae around the room started inching closer to Lyra. Then, when she pulled those away, keeping them in her grasp, even more poured in from outside the room.
It was incredible.
The more she trapped, the more recruitments came, answering to Lyra’s silent call for help.
They began to stretch Arielle’s current capability. She could have held them all, but then she would need to move her hand to do it, and that would give something away.
Then, the bell rang.
“[Air Shield]” Lyra called out right in time for Faulkey’s attack. The Calor and Massa essences snapped in place as Faulkey’s “[Controlled Blast]” reached them.
The twins cheered for Lyra’s timely block, but then Faulkey called [Controlled Blast] again and targeted it at her feet instead.
She jumped out of the way and said, “[Kinetic Push].”
“[Air Shield],” Faulkey said.
“[Soil Change],” Lyra said next, and switched the small patch of ground underneath Faulkey’s feet to wet loam.
It was a clever trick that caused Faulkey to stumble.
Lyra could have finished it all with another [Kinetic Push].
However, when she called the next spell, it didn’t come together in time. One of the Vitae orbs blocked her flow, and the spell broke a millisecond before Lyra let go of it.
Arielle stopped the backlash in its tracks, but she had to let go of some more of the Vitae orbs, which went on to interferewith Lyra’s follow-up spell, [Air Script].
Lyra frowned at her wand when the spell didn’t happen, right as Faulkey said, “[Controlled Blast].”
The explosion of air shoved Lyra out of the circle, dumping her unceremoniously on the ground.
No one clapped, even as Faulkey made a show of yawning.
Everyone looked at Lyra with shades of pity as she stood red-faced, walking off to stand by Arielle under Professor Graham’s disappointed gaze.
Arielle opened her mouth, but Lyra shook her head. “Not now, please. I don’t think I can take another word from you right now. Tell me later.”
Arielle closed her mouth and nodded.
Lyra was in low spirits for the rest of the duels, and Arielle thought about how to fix the problem.
The Vitae orbs had a very strong reaction to Lyra’s anxiety, to the point where they had continued to call more Vitae from the surrounding areas to guard her.
The only way to stop them was for Lyra to control her anxiety or for Ari to undo whatever had been done to her.
The former would be hard for Lyra, but Arielle wasn’t sure how to do the latter either.
Yet another thing to add to her growing list of questions she didn’t have answers for.
It was quite frustrating.
After the class, she went back to her room, pondering how to get the answers to her questions.
She could not read minds.
She could not pull information from the abyss.
But…she could technically pull information from the entire school with her Orion spell.
Not at once, of course. That would elevate the spell into the master tier.
She would do it quadrant by quadrant, room by room, adjusting the boundary until she’d covered all ground.
If anyone on campus had the information she needed, she would know.
If not, she would expand it to the Island. Then maybe stretch it to Khor. And then…
Well, it seemed ridiculous to expect that she could methodically pull information from the entire world right from the comfort of her room.
But perhaps…she could.
When she got to her desk, Arielle wrote down all the things she wanted to know and began to search.
She closed her eyes and activated Orion, spreading the Massa particles for the given boundary to include her room and four of the neighboring rooms.
No results.
She repeated the spell, this time adjusting the boundary to the rooms at the end of the hallway.
Nothing there.
She did it again, targeting a different zone. Then the fourth zone. Then the fifth zone.
She had only just closed her eyes for the sixth zone when she got a knock on the door.
It was probably not Lyra who had gone somewhere with the twins after class.
It might be Maus.
She got up and opened the door, blinking at her unexpected guest.
“Dean Octavius?”
“Typically, I would send for you another way,” the dean said. “But I was already on this trajectory when he arrived.”
“Who?”
He moved aside, and Ari’s eyes widened, a smile spreading across her lips. “Elric? What are you doing here?”
He didn’t smile back. “I came to talk to you about something very important. You’re done with class for the day, aren’tyou?”
She nodded, wondering what this was about.
“I normally wouldn’t allow this outside designated visiting days, especially on such short notice,” Dean Octavius said.“But since this is part of an investigation, I’ve allowed him to talk to you and a few other students.”
“Investigation?”
“Yes. I’ll let him tell you about it. Would you like to discuss in my office?”
“No,” Elric said. “We’ll walk to the shore.”
The headmaster’s eyes twinkled knowingly. “Okay.”
Elric led Arielle out of the dorms, and they got several glances from students and staff on the way out.
“What’s this about?” Arielle asked, but Elric shook his head, not saying anything until they walked on the sand, staring out at the sunset over the blue waters.
“Khor,” Elric said, using one hand to enclose them in a soundproof dome. “You were there?”
Arielle’s heart dropped. He turned to her, and she noted that he did not look pleased at all.
In fact, he looked almost…angry.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice, looking at her shoes.
“Why?”
“To open a bank account.”
“Why were you in disguise?”
She didn’t try to deny it. She knew he would see right through her.
“I can’t tell you.”
“What do you mean you can’t tell me?” His voice was indignant. “Arielle, explain it to me right now.”
She remained silent, toeing the sand with the edge of her shoe.
“It was you who stopped the trolls, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You did it to save people? That’s commendable, Arielle, but–”
“Partially.”
He paused. “You only partially did it to save people?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the other part about?”
“I wanted to impress the bank manager.”
“What? Why?”
“So he would let me open an account without revealing my identity.”
“Why would you need to do that?”
She opened her mouth again and felt the spread of heat on her neck.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you that either.”
He blew out a loud breath, and when she snuck a peek, he was pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Arielle, I’m not in the mood to play games with you.”
“I’m not playing a game, Elric, I’m serious. I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
She opened her mouth to try to find a way to tell him that she was under an oath.
But no. She couldn’t even tell him that much.
“There’s a thing…”
“A thing.”
“Yes. A thing stopping me.”
“Like a spell?”
She shook her head.
“A curse?”
She shook her head again.
Oath, Elric, she thought, despite the burn. Say ‘oath’.
But he didn’t say it. She bit the insides of her cheek, her frustration growing.
“Tell me what it is you’re hiding, Arielle.”
“I wish I could, Elric.”
“You wish you could? Meaning you can’t?”
She nodded frantically. Maybe she could tell him this way.
His frown released its grip on his face.
“It’s not that you don’t want to tell me,” he said slowly. “It’s that you can’t?”
She nodded again.
“Is there an oath holding you back?”
Yes! He said ‘oath’.
She was about to nod again, but the flare of pain in her neck had her dropping to her knees.
“Arielle!”
Elric held her as she coughed and grabbed her neck, the pain unbearable, spiking into her eyeballs. Her hand shook from it, her teeth cold and sensitive, like they’d been chewing on ice. Her entire body was near convulsing, just from her almost saying the wrong thing. It was pure agony.
Stop! she wanted to say, but she couldn’t speak.
Elric was telling her something, but she couldn’t hear him.
Yet she stubbornly held on to her goal.
She had to stop it. To break the oath.
In the midst of her agony, a thought occurred to her.
What if this was how she could study the oath?
Maybe that was the trick, the thing she hadn’t thought of, the elves’ built-in safety feature that she could exploit.
What if only by fully activating the oath could she know how to break it?