Tomayto Tomahto, right?

Morning crept in slow, slanting through the tavern shutters in bands of gold and dust. Tia blinked awake to the sound of boots thumping on wood and Vesh grumbling something about crests and quota for the day.
She rolled from her bed, rubbing grit from her eyes, and shuffled down the narrow stair to the common room, the stair groaning under her tired weight.

The smell hit first – porridge thick with spice, flatbread toasted black at the edges, and the faint tang of cheap ale from the night before. Rika already sat at the table with a steaming bowl, hair tied back, sleeves rolled high. She waved lazily with her spoon.

“Morning, starshine. Sit, eat before I devour it all,” she said with a chuckle.

Balthan was at the far end of the table, quiet as ever, methodically tearing bread into pieces before dunking it in his porridge. His eyes flicked up once when Tia sat, then returned to the food, like he’d already catalogued everything that needed watching.

Corin plopped down beside her with a grin, setting down two mugs of something steaming. “Don’t worry, I saved you the least burnt cup.”

“Comforting,” Tia muttered, but the warmth in her hands was enough to wake her properly.

For a while, the only sound was spoons scraping and the low clatter of the innkeep shifting behind the counter. It felt almost… normal.

The drink was nothing extraordinary, but just a simple herbal tea at the morning does wonders.

Then Balthan set his cup down with that quiet finality that meant everyone else should stop pretending this was just breakfast. “Today Vesh, Rika, with me. Market’s open, work’s out there, and coin’s not going to land in our laps.”

Rika straightened, brushing crumbs from her fingers. “Any whispers we should keep an ear out for?”

“Patrols,” Balthan said simply. “More guards at the gates. Keep your marks ready, don’t linger.” His gaze flicked to Tia as he said it, not unkind but weighted. She shifted in her seat, pressing her mug tighter to her palms.

“And us?” Corin piped up, cheerful as though the heaviness hadn’t touched him. “We’ll go to Mystikos, right?”

Balthan’s stare lingered a beat longer before he spoke. “You two. Mystikos. Learn something useful.” It wasn’t phrased as permission – it never was – but it carried the weight of an order.

Tia grinned. “Yay~”

“You’ll be less of a liability if you know what to do with a spell,” he said bluntly. “Also, no guard’s going to inspect a place like you two described there.” Then he returned to dunking his bread.

Rika smirked into her bowl. “Take notes, you two. I’ll expect a demonstration.”

“And don’t burn his tower down,” Vesh added with mock seriousness. “Or if you do, at least make sure he pays us for it.”

Corin snorted, nearly spilling his drink. Tia found herself smiling despite the knot in her chest.

By the time the bowls were empty and plans made, the group split at the tavern door. Vesh and Rika followed Balthan into the thickening morning crowd, their backs soon lost among carts and traders.

Corin fell into step beside Tia, humming some tune under his breath, hands clasped around his little red tome. Wand in his bag and pointy hat on his head. “Well then. Off to the Tower of Transcendent Thaumaturgy~” He drew out the last words like a carnival barker, grinning.

Tia rolled her eyes, tugging her cloak tighter as they passed into the bustle of Ssarradon’s streets. But not without mimicking some fancy wand movements on her own. Dramatically hiding her face behind her wizard’s hat.

The city was already alive, hawkers shouting, beasts braying, banners fluttering overhead. Fear still prickled at the back of her mind, of being found.
Surely with how much they’re showing off their magical attire, surely everyone would just believe it’s what they’re supposed to do. Reverse psychology or something Tia thought.

As they wound their way down a slope, the giant spire loomed once again, its shadow cutting across the cobbles like a sundial. No guards lingered near its gates, that stupid gate-keeping magic was enough to keep outsiders out.

Corin snorted. “All that pomp, all those scrolls… bet you need six degrees just to sneeze in there.”

Tia let out a laugh – small, but real. The tension that had sat heavy on her since yesterday eased for a moment as they walked past, trading whispered jokes about the spire’s ridiculousness.

Ahead, tucked between crooked streets and tilting houses, a familiar sign swung lazily in the morning breeze. Its faded letters declared in curling script:

Mystikos’ Tower of Transcendent Thaumaturgy

Tia stopped, eyeing the crooked door that leaned slightly inward, as if the whole tower had bowed under its own weight. A window above spilled faint rainbow light, and something inside seemed to slumber.

Corin grinned, already reaching for the handle. “Well, this is either the best idea we’ve ever had, or the worst. Ready?”

Tia swallowed, her pulse quick but lighter than yesterday’s fear. She nodded.

Together, they stepped forward.

And a soft, muffled ting announced their arrival back at the oh-so-transcendent tower.

Same old shelves of books and more or less magical trinkets.

The shop’s layout still was no architect’s masterpiece, but the two young apprentices found the trapdoor up against a corner next to a particularly unstable looking shelf.

They both looked at it, no sign of their grand almost-archwizard mentor.
Ceiling being low enough, Tia reached up and gave the wooden trapdoor a few knocks.

“Oi! Mystikos, your two apprentices are here!”

Just as the first time, thumping and muttered curses followed.

A muffled voice answered after the thumps. “Hold, hold, I’m coming, don’t knock it to splinters!”

The trapdoor rattled, hinges squealing, and with a grunt Mystikos shoved it open. His floppy hat appeared first, brim bent so far it nearly folded over his spectacles. He squinted down at them, face flushed with the effort of hauling the door aside.

“There you are,” he said, as if they had been terribly late. “Quickly, quickly, up you come before the dust learns to settle again.”

He vanished from sight, and a ladder clattered down, its rungs uneven, one wrapped in twine to keep it from splitting.

Corin glanced at Tia, his grin wide. “After you, apprentice.”

“Gee, thanks,” Tia muttered, grabbing the ladder and starting up. It creaked alarmingly under her weight, but it held, and soon she pushed herself through the opening into what looked less like a study and more like the aftermath of a paper hurricane.

Books lay in drifts against the walls. Quills sprouted from mugs and jars like dry weeds. A chalk circle covered half the floorboards, smudged by footprints. A stack of scrolls leaned precariously, shifting as if they might topple at any breath.

Mystikos blinked into view from behind a tower of leaning tomes, hat askew and floppy as always – today it leaned suspiciously to the left, brim bent like it had been in a fight with a broom. He peered over his spectacles, eyes gleaming. Did he forget them last time or was it just to look more tutorish?

“Mind the step!” Mystikos called cheerily, even though there wasn’t one. He shuffled to make room and almost walked into a low table. He righted himself with a theatrical cough, then plucked a skinny candle from a jar and held it up as if unveiling a treasure. Why did they need a candle at noon? They didn’t know.
“Shall we begin!” Mystikos called out.

Corin scrambled up after her, nearly catching his sleeve on a hanging glass orb. He gave a low whistle. “This is… just like last time.”

Tia raised a brow. “This is a fire hazard. Love it.”

Mystikos puffed out his chest as if that were a compliment. “Controlled chaos, my dear. Every pile is precisely where I don’t remember putting it.” He clapped his hands, sending a puff of dust into the air. “Now, lessons!”

Corin set his little red tome on the bench like a small altar, careful as if the book might judge him for haste.
“Chantcasting works by aligning intention with sound – breath shaped by the Empyrean,” he read, throat doing the practiced breath-control thing. He let out the vowel as the book marked it: “Èpernea.”
A bead of light swelled on his fingertip – not much, a warm pinprick, but steady enough to read by. The page glowed; the paper hummed faintly as if it liked the attention. Corin’s grin was quiet and proud.

Tia could not be subdued. She shoved her hat back, rolled her shoulders, and did what felt right: a loose snap, a theatrical point, no chant, no wand. A fizz jumped from her finger like a struck sparkler. The little starlet of fire popped into harmless glitter-smoke, smelling faintly of orange peels as it drifted over the bench. One mote stuck to Mystikos’s hat and hung there like an ornament.

Mystikos made a sound that was half-laugh, half-gasp. “Incredible. But–how?”
“I… didn’t mean to,” Tia admitted, cheeks bright.
“Gesturecasting,” Corin said, bewildered and fascinated. “She did it without formal–”
Mystikos waved a candle like a sceptre. “Theory says gestures should be bound, timed, aided. You had none of that. Yet–there they are. Charming chaos.”

Corin’s small halo steadied, Tia’s sparks wobbling into a shower of harmless motes. Mystikos’s face split into a grin that looked like permission. “We will call them Mystikos’ Fireflies,” he declared, and scribbled the name as if the world had always needed it.

Corin swallowed, cheeks flushed with a mix of embarrassment and delight. He liked the way things were ordered when done right.
Tia’s chaos sent his neat little brain into terrified, delighted fireworks. He read from his book about pronunciation marks and breath patterns, then tried a small auditory spell: a soft pop, then a bell-like chime that sounded exactly like the shop’s brass one waking up.
He succeeded. It made him glow with quiet victory.

Tia chuckled at the steep learning curve waiting ahead of them, seemingly for all three of them. Mystikos’ occasional muttered “aaah, that’s how it works” didn’t make him look like a competent knowledgeable archwizard, but still.

“Mystikos, this is more like a study group than private lessons, isn’t it? But meh, tomayto tomahto, right?”

He pursed his lips, “what? Tomayto? Tomahto?” Then scribbled something in a notebook.
Corin stared at Tia as if it were a new spell. The two exchanged a look of profound confusion, which only made Tia laugh harder. She loved that they took everything so literally, it made her feel like a magician amongst serious scientists.

Then Corin asked carefully, “So which is better – chanting or gestures?”

Mystikos waved a hand like a conductor washing away a question. “Both. Chanting gives you structure. Empyrean is precise; catalysts store strength. With a proper wand and a good shard, a novice can pull forth a village lantern. Gesturecasting is nimble – less power, but more freedom. Peasant magic, the old world calls it” – he grimaced – “but I think it’s not lesser, just different. You do need to learn to speak the wind or move the wind with your bones.”

Tia pushed her sleeve up and mimed touching an invisible wall. “So, chant is like baking from a recipe, and gestures are more like freestyle cooking?”

Mystikos blinked. “Freestyle… cooking?” He tasted the words, then wrote them down with a look of solemn concentration. “Explain.”

Tia continued, “I mean, to make a nice cake bakers would stick to their family recipe or something, but, uh I mean you don’t know him probably, but Balthan seems to just throw in whatever he sees fit and makes delicious food without a set recipe.”
Corin and Mystikos listened like scholars hearing a new theorem. Mystikos scribbled “tomato/new herb → unexpected spice?” in the margins of his book.

They laughed, triumphant and exhausted. Mistakes had been made – a scorched sleeve, a singed page, a hat that refused to stop jingling – but they were the productive, laughable kind of mistakes that felt like learning.

Mystikos hovered between them, sometimes reading the book with one eye and sometimes watching them like a proud, bewildered father. “What I know is… piecemeal,” he confessed at one point, rubbing at his temple. “I learned by doing. Best I can offer is… method, error, and improvisation, not a formal education sadly. But…” He glanced at Tia, “–tomayto tomahto?” He waited for the laugh he hoped would come.

She snorted, surprised he adjusted to her otherworldly joke so fast. “Nice one, Mystikos.”

The lesson wound on in that fumbling, half-brilliant way of theirs. Corin bent over his tome, furiously whispering syllables as Mystikos tapped chalk diagrams on the floor, while Tia idly traced a circle in the air just to see if sparks would come.

Her attention drifted to the window – a crooked pane propped open for light. Something shifted outside.

Not the breeze. Not a bird.

A hooded figure, half-hidden in the alley below, stood looking up. Directly at her.

Her chest went tight. For a second she thought it might be a trick of shadow. But no – the figure lingered, faceless in the shade, cloak pulled low. Watching.

“Tia? Did you hear me?” Corin asked, his voice bright with discovery.

She blinked hard, heart hammering. The window was empty now. Nothing but slanting sunlight and the far-off cry of a peddler.

“Uh… yeah,” she muttered, forcing her smile back. She didn’t tell them. Corin’s excitement and Mystikos’s clumsy wonder were too fragile to puncture. But her gaze kept flicking back to the window, half-expecting that faceless hood to return.

As the last sparks dimmed and Mystikos blew dust off his notes with an overdramatic puff, Tia tilted her head, biting her lip.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask…” She hesitated, then pushed on. “Teleportation. Is it… possible?”

Mystikos froze mid-scribble, spectacles slipping down his nose. “Teleportation?” He said the word like it was sour. “Blinking from one place to another without walking?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like… being here one moment, then – poof – over there. Or even far away.”

He tapped his quill against his lip. “I’ve read of it. Old scrolls. I got a big book down there. But… I mus admit, even my great mind cat wrap around it. Space is stubborn, my dear. It resists being folded, like parchment gone stiff with age. The Arcanum calls such attempts…” He lowered his voice. “Black practice. Dangerous and illegal.”

Tia frowned. “So it exists.”

“In fragments. Whispers. If anyone has true knowledge, it would be the archwizards cloistered in the Arcanum – or perhaps the high priests, who claim the gods can walk where they please.” He squinted, tugging at his hat. “But if you ask me, that sort of power never ends well. Bodies tear, minds scatter. It is not walking… it is falling between Worlds.”

Tia forced a nod, though the answer wasn’t enough. Not by far.

Corin, oblivious, was already trying another pronunciation exercise, his little light bobbing like a stubborn firefly.

They laughed until the room hiccuped with it – a trio of half-competent apprentices, a proud, doddering mentor, and a handful of glittering “fireflies” stuck where they shouldn’t be.

Mystikos tugged his hat down, peered out the tiny window, and waved with all the pomp of a man expecting praise and tea. “Do come back soon!” he called. “I will prepare… more candles.”

Tia grinned at Corin as the tower door closed behind them. For the first time since the Guild card lit in her pocket, the future felt like something they might shape together – messy, dangerous, and entirely theirs.