4

The revving of an incredible engine, the clatter of steel legs scuttling across tree roots—the clack of twigs in hand, to carry back, to squeeze, extract every bit of their magical essence—footsteps clicking in the city—the tapping of a pen. All the sounds of Carmina’s new life poured through her mind, and it was absolutely no help. She was taking a test.

The room was wide and white. Sitting here in the top row of a lecture hall, beside the window, she could be at the peak of a mountain. The air was stale, but somehow that was refreshing—because air that is undisturbed is untroubled. She’d had to fight tooth and nail for so long, and now she was simply working for pay. It was a pretty gentle life, all things considered. But she was probably failing this test.

She looked down at it, gnawing her lip. Nobody cared what score she’d get anyway. The Department of Combat was so interested in her, they said they’d keep her if as long as her grade there stayed above passing and her work in the field was up to par.

Asking her to deliver answers about history was a joke; they were lucky she could even read. She filled in a few perfunctory answers, had already penciled in the obvious, and now resorted to filling the open spaces each with a single straight line. It at least gave her hand something to do.

The hair of the glove rubbed against her pencil. While it had been cleaned since, it still showed the stains of blood from the other day. Whatever had compelled those people to storm the bank, she tried not to care. Goodness knew the department faculty couldn’t stop talking about what she’d done, though. So much so that their curiosity about the group that did it died away when the police who took them in couldn’t get an instant read on them.

It hadn’t been the only incident those black mages started on campus, but it had allegedly been the “coolest.” Some called Carmina a hero and some were just scared. It all added up to a bunch of rubbernecking. It meant she was interesting enough to stay.

Fortunately, Littleburo was interesting enough to stay in. Again the rev of the engine, the scuttling in the early morning, came back to her, but they were interrupted by a tap against her back.

She turned around, only to see the person next to her staring down at her own test. Carmina blinked, looked back at her desk, and found a piece of paper that hadn’t been there before.

Her face burned! Flunking a test was one thing, but breaking the rules was different—it felt different, at least; she could only go so far. She snatched the paper up, not remembering it would make a dreadfully loud swip as it went behind her back.

The teacher down below looked up. By the time he did, Carmina had both hands on her desk, in plain sight.

Soon she stopped holding her breath, reached into the crevice between her seat and her back, and took out the letter. She almost didn’t want to read it, just to spite the sender…but the sender would have no idea. Unless that sender, sitting in one of the many rows stretching down from here, had eyes on the back of their head.

Carmina held the note just under her desk and, very carefully, opened the note. It was so bold and chaotic it almost blared.

“THAT WAS SO COOL!!! How did you do that?! You’re so brave! You’re so...HOT? :) Meet me after class! Or if you want to pass me a note back, that’s fine too! —Clover”

This girl is...an idiot, she thought. A blood vessel in her eyebrow started twitching.

Was this written by the person who came trotting after her after the bank fight? Was this what she had been trying to say? What a bunch of nothing. She knew she was brave, and cool. The implication of hotness was kind of confusing, but yes, she did have the fiery hot blood of valor, if that was what was meant.

Carmina would rather not meet her after class. There were people she wanted to meet, but not her. The first time she laid eyes on someone, she knew whether they had anything for her—food, money, spare wand…and, now that she was no longer a street thief, steady employment. So what good was this?

The note suggested that she pass a note back, but that wasn’t happening. She preferred to send a starker message.

A massive crumpling filled the room. The teacher’s gaze flew upward—so did everyone else’s—but they found nothing. Carmina was already looking at the student beside her, and she was looking at the one below her. Now, that was a true comrade.

Clover had looked up too, but only with the blandest expression.

A minute later, the first students done turned in their tests. Clover was the third to do it.

Carmina studied her as she went. Yes…that was who it was. Apparently she had taken to wearing a blazingly bright lab coat with shiny pink boots. It seemed at odds with the impression Carmina had of her when the first week started. Ordinarily she looked so reserved, stern, straight-backed…

Two days later, she found herself back in Physical Fitness 101. Her palms, elbows, and kneecaps were all swaddled in rat organs—to be precise, they were wearing sheaths and gloves, each containing a thin layer of rat organs. They cushioned blows as well as amplified magic. But they were used gym equipment, so they could only do so much. Accordingly, the texture through the fur was like vomit.

A ball hurtled toward her face—she caught it—she saw a note, taped on.

Carmina’s face burned, again. Clover wasn’t even in this class period! And there was no way she could read such a long note in the middle of a brawl!

“Ow!” She flinched as a ball hit her hard in the side. Rat organs couldn’t help her there.

“You’re out!” the teacher cried.

She ripped off the note and thrust the ball to the floor, where it went dribbling off. It might have bounced into another student’s face on the way, but it didn’t register.

As she walked to the losers’ bench, she unfolded the note. Somebody tried to read over her shoulder. She leaned away.

“Dearest Carmina… I apologize for what must have been a disturbing first impression. You must be a very sophisticated girl. I only wish I could say for sure, and plumb the intellectual depths of such a one. While I profess I cannot help but express a little wit and giddiness at the best of times, I am equally capable of restraining myself, especially if…”

This girl is…an idiot, Carmina thought, again. What did she want from her? Was this a dig at her, in exchange for the dig from Carmina? Or, worse, a threat? She hoped it was just a long joke.

Two days later, as the weekend approached, Carmina power-walked out of class, as usual. Also as usual, and also while power-walking, she took a winding route around campus, marching through student crowds. Not because she wanted to lose anyone—the thought hadn’t occurred to her that anyone might be following her, though lately, maybe it should have.

She looped around the Essential Quadrangle, sighting the legs of the Spire from afar and passing by the somewhat unromantically named Bone Vault. The gears on the edges of the brick buildings churned, leaking dust and gas. Carmina took a break on a bench to people-watch, sniffing the air.

A mage whose neck was wreathed in peacock feathers broke from the crowd and immediately handed her a note. “Hey, you’re gonna be late,” he said.

Carmina gave him a scowl. “Late for what?”

“Uh, the school tag team bash? Duh?”

She kept scowling at him.

“Oh, I get it!” He laughed. “There’s beef! You’re beefin’! Can I read that?”

“No,” she said, unfolding it. As she read it, her expression dulled. “You wouldn’t want to. It’s just an address, plus a crying smiley face and the word ‘sorry.’”

“Oh, that’s awesome.”

As she squinted at his words, the mailman left.

She wished she had a tactful way of asking what “beefing” was. Still, this was bad. This could mean one of two things. Either Melo Academy itself was putting her up to this and her scholarship and livelihood and well-being were on the line, all hinging on some stupid random competition she didn’t even know existed until now…or it was the more obvious possibility…

When she arrived at the Melo Coliseum and was pushed into the locker room, face-to-face with a single other competitor, she gave a massive sigh.

It was Clover, of course, and she had already suited up—in full-body armor slightly superior to rat organ body socks. Under the hard leather shoulder pads and helmet, her smiling face was exposed. Slyly smiling.

Carmina stood before her, having plopped her armor on a nearby bench. “If I leave, am I going to get expelled?”

“No,” said Clover, “but it’s going to be extremely disappointing.”

She thought back to the signs outside of the Coliseum, the ones with the competitors’ names spelled out in gigantic bold letters. There were too many for her to have found “CARMINA VAUGHAN,” but it had to be out there. If she’d had any friends, any contacts who knew a lick about the social scene here, she’d have heard about this sooner. But she earnestly wished to have no friends, to continue to spend her free time adrift. It made her feel serene, and focused.

There was a silver lining of a sort. It made sense that people liked to watch her fight, because she could be pretty bloodthirsty. Fighting for survival, she was merely used to—but fighting for sport, that could be different. Carmina flexed her hands in their gloves, the ones she’d brought herself, that the Academy had given her, and that had served her well in killing.

Within what felt like moments, they were in the heart of the stadium. It was bafflingly huge. The sandy oval arena was split into several sections by steel walls—naturally Carmina couldn’t count them, though she guessed maybe a dozen—but even then, she felt like she was standing in a vast basin. Stands rose above her, their crowds roaring. Could there be this many people in Littleburo? Or that and the ten closest villages combined?

Carmina was so disoriented that she couldn’t even focus on the announcer. His voice, distorted further by the crowd, practically wafted overhead. As she wandered out into the center with Clover, she said, “So they’re all here to watch us kill each other.”

Clover’s princess-waving to the crowd was not interrupted by her peal of laughter. “No!” she cried. “The Academy’s not just gonna off its own student body. Especially not us. We’re the good ones!”

Carmina couldn’t tell where her sarcasm began.

“Now,” Clover said, coming to a stop and clicking something on her lower arm that peeked out from underneath her armor, “they’re not going to be throwing innocent children at us. They’re sending out battle-hardened monsters. In fact, since we’re among the last groups, some of them might have killed students just now! So ideally, we should coordinate.”

“I...think we should have used our time in the locker room strategizing.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not here to win.” She pumped her fist as the crossbow on her arm clicked. “I’m here to have fun!”