2

“…because blood circulating throughout the body carries mana with it. This is why exercise is fundamental! For every mage!”

Physical Fitness 101 started with a browbeating slideshow presentation. The novelty of seeing a projector—fully electric, its motors set in motion by a slow and steady magic transmission from the hand of a student assistant—had worn off quickly. Now: more sitting at wobbly desks hauled into the dark gymnasium.

Clover looked over to the boy next to her. Here in the third row, she could safely lean, reach over and, with squiggling fingers, twine her hand around his.

Tango smiled over, hesitantly, and gave a mild squeeze.

She smiled back and stuck her tongue out.

She could see he’d been keeping careful notes. Meanwhile, she’d taken none at all. He must’ve been thinking she was a bad student—but if he thought his hectic scrawl and the way he raced around to do things were about to turn him into a model student, well, she was sure it’d be quite the opposite. Something about him was always off or missing, be it a strand of hair (or several) loose from behind his ear or the collar of his robe. She supposed there was something endearing about that. Was this what people meant when they looked at a man and “wanted to fix him”?

It took her a second to figure out the hand she was holding was his writing hand, and that he really, really wanted to get back to that, thanks. She let go without offense.

At the end of class, Clover fought her natural instinct to speed away and said hi to everyone she could. Many classmates said nothing, but a surprising amount greeted her back. They were lonely, just like Clover and…

Tango appeared by her side, gathering his backpack in his arms, and they walked off through the hall.

“You didn’t like that, did you?”

“The, uh, hand-holding? No, it was fine, just not in class.”

“Maybe tonight, then?”

He blinked. “Tonight what?”

“Oh, tonight anything,” she singsonged. “We could stay in.” Yesterday she’d had him over in her dorm. All they did was sit in the common area and relax, free from the rain, before she lent him an umbrella and he left again. She’d told him he was welcome anytime. “Or we could go to a party?”

Tango laughed. “You say that like I could get into anything. Everyone might know you, but…”

They swung around a corner. Clover put on a laugh. “Don’t worry. My strategy has been saying hi to random people. Just like yours. If we see an open door and just swagger in like we know the place, I think they’ll let us in.”

Tango attempted to smile. “Okay, now I’m just nervous.”

She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. “Come on! Will you try it once?”

He sighed, but smiled more genuinely. “I guess I’d be willing to do that. It might be fun with you.”

Now she blinked. “No one’s called me ‘fun’ before.”

He laughed like it was a joke, but he didn’t know the half of it.

“Come by my dorm at like...eight? Eightish? Then we’ll start looking around. Otherwise we can just find a bar or something.”

“Is that even legal?”

“Dude, we are far from the only kids going. Bring a trench coat if you’re so scared. My, uh, relative popularness will help cover you.”

He beamed back.

“Alright!” she said, and reached out to hook a quick arm around his. “Love you.”

“Whoa.”

She hugged him, leaned in, then stopped herself. She was close enough to gaze into his eyes. “Hey, I know this is sudden, but…you think it would be nice to kiss right now?”

“U-um—sorry but no, not here. You know there’s people here, right?!”

Clover let go. “That’s the whole point!” she cried.

“Okay, but your first kiss, it should be a special, private thing, right?”

“Hmm, okay.” She smirked. “Maybe tonight, then?”

He copied her tone. “Probably not, though,” he said, wagging his finger as he walked away. “You take care.”

“Alright.”

She turned around, expecting to instantly switch modes. There was no need to linger anymore, and to reach her next class, she might have to bolt. But instead, she felt something she’d been hoping not to feel. Annoyed, just because of the tender moment she couldn’t have. Well, maybe just not yet.

Clover passed her moment of reflection and sped down the hall.

***

Fiddling with her new lab coat was a decent way to pass the time in Ms. Stratovast’s Surgical Essentials class. These introductory lectures were so dull. They didn’t even give her a chance to meet all the students practically rubbing shoulders with her.

She rather liked the lab coat because as she left, she paid keener attention to the crowd of mages in the lab, then the wandering students on the quad outside. Many looked brutal, some looked sleek, but nobody was going for sheer luminous white—though the look was good. Maybe it was gauche to use a school-provided uniform wherever she went. To Clover, that was a welcome challenge. Buying a whole new outfit was still a bit beyond her budget, but accessories to liven this up might not be.

Between classes, she opened her account at the student bank. Partway through the errand, a thundercrack screamed in her ears, and alarms hammered as a stampede of mages in black stormed in, weapons raised.

Clover whirled away from the teller, who’d already frozen with her hands up. “Line up!” the mages in black were barking. The twenty of them outnumbered the ten students inside. She caught sight of two student weapons going up, only to be potshotted out of their hands by white flashes. Smoke trailed from singed hands. The victors stood over the spoils.

A curse almost surged to her lips. She had brought her own weapon. It was secure—actually, way too secure—in her backpack, and even in there it was pouched within the full leather holster Uncle Addison had included with the gift. Was it still too precious to use? It sure as hell was too precious to see ricochet across the floor, she thought. Still, in the second between her debating and her obediently lining up, hands up, she dreamed of playing hero.

Pragmatic thoughts filled her head as her back hit the wall. She imagined every one of the nine mages at either side of her, except the two with the tear-streaked faces, was thinking through the possible ways to escape, of how much power they might have compared to the enemy. The mages in black were all older, gruff-looking men, their cloaks weathered with faded patches. Maybe they weren’t all mages, but clearly they could all punch.

Even in a world of magic, there was such a thing as fairytales: there were no effective, efficient ways of freezing a heart, turning people to stone, forming barriers, or any such defensive thing. The best magic was a gun. Flames, bolts, bursts of speed and light were the ways it operated. So Clover and the rest of the students hesitated, knowing they’d have to find a way to be a quicker draw.

“Keep your hands up!” cried the black mage at the end of the line, his voice scratchy. Clover looked past another one standing guard, craning her neck as much as she dared. It looked like that mage had tried to fight back with batons on his wrists that were once hidden under his sleeves. Now two thieves were wrestling them off.

She saw it now: they were going down the line. Patting people down, yanking out their pockets, turning them around to tear the bags from their backs. Clover was seventh. Forget her books; her wand was in there.

It had to be better to reach in there and use the wand, just to try. To go down fighting. Nobody had died yet. But Clover hesitated, and didn’t quite know why. Was the need to save her own skin that strong, that she wouldn’t risk a battle even if nobody else had gotten more than a bit of rough handling? It couldn’t have just been the argument that she couldn’t open her sealed backpack in time. It wasn’t even the embarrassing possibility that if she tried to be a hero and failed, it might be a blot on her reputation.

Maybe she failed to act because she was, in the end, just a regular person, a bystander with no real-world experience.

She hated the thought. As the frisking mages came further down the line, she reached backward, but didn’t make it more than a twitch. There was a line standing guard parallel to the students, and they were paying attention. There went the element of surprise. She had ruined her best chance.

Clover turned back to the student mages beside her. Just two away. Okay, maybe her best chance was coming up—would come when they put their hands on her. She decided she’d study how they frisked this student, a short girl in brown so close to her.

“Keep your hands up,” they told her. It was doubly important because instead of a baton, mace, or blade, she had on fingerless gloves that stretched halfway across her lower arms. As weapons, they weren’t unheard of, but like with brass knuckles, an amateur wielder would do a lot more damage to themself.

A hand was forced into her pocket. What looked like an uncashed check came out, along with loose change spilling to the floor. Her dark eyes were stoic, her brow heavy. Then the mage in black moved straight to removing her gloves.

When he crouched in front of her, she cracked her skull against his, and Clover swore she could hear the break.

As he groaned, she took advantage, swooping down with her still-gloved hands. Reddish, translucent aura tattered like frayed feathers streamed from her hands as they literally tore into the man.

Right away, more lightning beams flashed toward her. Whether they hurt her or not, Clover couldn’t tell—first because she was wild, lashing out, her magic whipping with her arms. Briefly she flew through her memories, wondering if she’d seen this person in her Combat Magic class. Her movements were so fluid, so little hesitation. She fought like she was risking everything.

Second, the other students were taking advantage too. When half the thieves turned their focus on the girl, everyone else turned their focus on the thieves. And the door.

She went for the latter. Whipping her head toward the doorway, she noticed another student, then two, in pitched combat with the door guard. With their weapons taken, all they had were their bare hands to channel force. They’d clearly gotten the jump on the guard, but whenever they struck a blow, he met it with a forearm, brushing it aside.

Darting closer, Clover reached deep into her bag. Still hesitant to commit to the wand, she took out some emergency weapons that really should have gone in a more convenient compartment.

Burrs collected from the forest floor flew in the guard’s face and, on impact, exploded. They were tiny, weak bombs, but a wonderful distraction, and for a moment, the mage buckled.

Clover hoped the other students would use that window to take him down. They moved to, but the wild girl got there first, blazing into view.

The heat of her magic made her sweat on the spot. Clover stumbled back as the girl, drips of blood running down her forehead and staining her gloves, tackled the guard. She didn’t have to keep clawing at his torso—the way out was open, and every student who could barreled through it. Including Clover.

She whirled out of the building and noticed a couple of school security officers standing on the lawn just outside, their titles loud and clear, sewn across their chests. They looked pitiful. They would probably have needed a lot more than two. Unless they were willing to unleash their full reserves and fight like their lives depended on it.

…She couldn’t understand it. Using magic drained the user—every single time leeched a little more. For someone’s body to explode so brilliantly like that, gloves or no gloves, they’d have to have used little or nothing in their youth. Yet the way she’d wielded it had been so…natural, almost alarmingly so.

As school security multiplied and student victims in the distance gave their reports, Clover lingered around the corner of the bank, her eyes on the door. When the wild girl slipped out, Clover beamed.

She ran over. “That was so—”

The girl kept walking, speeding off like all she needed was to get back to class.

Clover sighed and watched her go. Already she and the bank had become just a story to tell.