“So there’s good news and bad news,” Kylie told me the next morning as we sat down to lunch.

“Why is that always the way of things?”

“Our coven – ”

“Coven?!”

“I’m not going to keep calling it our ‘witch group’, it’s too clumsy.”

“Yeah, but… I mean, you know what people think when they hear the word ‘coven’.”

“I know what people think when they hear the word ‘witch’, too.”

“… Point. You were saying?”

“Our coven,” Kylie repeated, enunciating the word clearly just to annoy me, “can meet up on Friday. Except for Cheryl.”

“That’s the bad news?”

“Yeah. She’s sick. Some kind of dizzy fever, and her master wants her close to medical help.”

“In case it’s the curse?”

“I suppose so. Or maybe she’s got the ‘flu and he doesn’t want it spread throughout the entire school. Who knows.”

“Ugh. The whole ‘hey, you know how spells work and that curses are just spells, right?’ conversation doesn’t seem like one that should happen over email.”

“We might not have a choice. We can discuss it at the meeting, though. Maybe it did come up when she was talking to someone else.”

“I hope so.”

“What is that?”

“Huh?” I glanced at the piece of paper I was pulling out to study over breakfast. “It’s a holding rune. It’s like, the core of a lot of runic circles, and I want to learn how to at least tell it apart from other runes by the end of the day. I really need to learn to draw it from memory as soon as possible.”

“You’re super into runecrafting, then?”

“I’m not super into it, I’m just really far behind. You have no idea how far those of us not born into fancy rich mage kid families have to go to catch up. This one is the core of a lot of stuff we’re going to be doing, apparently, so I have to get it right.”

“Does it do anything cool?”

“It… tells the magic where to be, so far as I can make out? Like, it tells it to stay put. Holds it in place when it’s not moving through the rest of the circle.”

“And that’s important?”

“Apparently.” Man, I was so far behind. I supposed that if I turned out to be terrible at the small amount of magic I could actually do, I could just go back home after graduating and work at Target all my life or something. Would being a mage increase or decrease my chances of getting a job a Target?

I finished breakfast and headed to potioncrafting class, where Saina eyed my greatly improved knife skills with deep suspicion. “You’ve been practicing potions without me!” she accused.

I crooked an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware we were competing.”

“We’re not,” she said. “It just means I have an excuse to do less chopping.” She slid all the choppable ingredients across the desk towards me and started measuring the liquids instead.

“Did you want to practice together outside of class?” I asked. “I mean, if we’re going to be partnering up all semester. It seems like we should get practice working together.”

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea. Do you have any earlier potionmaking experience, or is it something you decided to pick up for school?”

“Saina, I wasn’t raised by mages.”

“Oh! I suppose commonfolk probably don’t make many potions, right?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t make any.” Not that I’d ever seen, anyway. I’d always assumed that the few potions that were available to nemagisti were made by mages. “You don’t have much to do with the nema – the non-mage world, I’m guessing?”

Saina shrugged. “Well, you know how it is,” she said vaguely, even though I very obviously didn’t. “Can you crush the salt?”

I got to crushing the salt. “I’m still kind of surprised that we’re the only two acolytes here. I would’ve thought lots of people would want to make potions. Frankly I’m relieved to find some magic where you can follow a recipe and nobody says that ‘oh, but every spell is different, you can feel in your soul if you’re doing it right, maybe it will work and maybe it won’t’ sort of nonsense.”

“Well, you do have an advantage there,” Saina said.

“I… do?”

“Of course. We’re all new to this. You’ve had your whole life to figure out your spell. Of course everyone’s going to want to fill their schedule with at-will casting lessons; they’ve got this new part of themselves that they have to understand to graduate. People probably want to figure that out first and then circle back to things like potions, if they’re interested in potions, whereas you get to skip ahead.”

I tried to figure out how to correct Saina about my spell without derailing the conversation into a Kayden Pity Party, but there didn’t seem to be a neat way to do that, so I dropped it. “What about your spell?” I asked instead.

She snorted. “Harmless. Very specific, very limited, not really all that much to train.”

“Oh.” Would it be rude to ask what it did? Maybe. “What does it – ?”

“This.” Saina cupped her hand over an empty spot on the desk and lifted it to reveal a butterfly. I didn’t know what kind it was – I don’t know a lot about butterflies – but its tiny wings were splattered in multiple vivid colours. It fluttered them lazily, but didn’t take off. Carefully, I reached down and, just as I’d expected, my finger moved right through the wing with just a slight tingle. It was an illusion. An unbelievably realistic illusion.

“That’s amazing!” I breathed.

“It really isn’t.”

“It’s so realistic! My old serveyanto, Taine Cooper, is an illusionist, but his illusions are nothing like this. He just makes blue outlines of stuff, and if it’s anything complicated he can only copy what he’s looking at. I’ve never seen anything like this. You could do so much with this. You could, you could make fake people and – ”

“Only if they’re butterflies.”

“What? Are you saying you spell can only make butterflies?”

“And moths. About a hundred and twenty different species of butterflies and moths, at least that I’ve found so far.”

I stared. “That’s, um… specific.”

“Tell me about it. I wonder what kind of people had this thing in the past, to train it so specifically. It’s not exactly a career-defining spell.”

“That’s probably lucky.”

“How so?”

“Well, you’re from one of the mage families, right? And legacy mages don’t tend to.. I mean, the spell isn’t that important, right? I know Max’s grandma only uses hers for party tricks, and you can do some pretty great party tricks with illusory butterflies.”

“Max?”

“Max Acanthos.”

“Mmm. Octavia Acanthos, the seer?”

“Yeah. And everyone talks about her like she’s a bigshot. And like you said, a lot of students have really dangerous spells. Yours is safe, and you can cast it really well already, so that puts you ahead even if it doesn’t do anything cool.”

“Easy for you to say, but I’m the one who has to explain to my mother that I’m an illusionist.”

“What’s wrong with illusions?”

“Nothing, technically, it’s just… complicated.”

“Is this a family politics thing?”

“Very much so, yes.”

Nothing I wanted to get involved in, then. “Well, if anyone gives you shit about it, boom. Army of giant attack butterflies.”

Saina giggled. “They’re incorporeal. They can’t hurt anyone.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to tell them that.”

Just then, our potion, which we were supposed to be monitoring carefully, erupted in a shower of bubbles all over the desk. Which was definitely not supposed to happen.

I supposed we’d be getting more potioncrafting practice that day whether we wanted to or not.

By the time of our next (ugh) coven meeting, I could tell the holding rune apart from similar runes the majority of the time, and almost never made potions explode any more, which I thought was pretty good progress. Cheryl was still sick, but the rest of us decided to go ahead with the meeting anyway, which would be held in a small room right next to the library.

“You two could spend time in the actual library, you know,” Max remarked as he, Kylie and I headed in that direction.

“Why?” Kylie asked. “Everything’s online.”

“I was in the library earlier this week,” I said. “You were there. You saw me.”

“Tracking Magista down to talk about seckie games doesn’t count. Did this hallway always curve like this?”

“Yes,” I said. “It curves a little and then there’s a ninety degree turn up there.” I grinned. “Clearly you’re not going to the library enough, if the route confuses you.”

“I usually go straight from class. Different route. It’s just… mm. Wiggly.”

“Unlike the rest of this cave network full of changing hallways, which makes perfect sense,” I said. “Who puts a school in a place with a movable floor plan? I’m amazed we ever make it to class on time.”

“I’m amazed the plumbing works,” Kylie said.

“It’s a system of teleport enchantments,” Max said. “So – ”

“Max,” I said, “if you’re about to tell me that mages just magically vanish poop instead of installing real plumbing I swear I am going to lose it.”

Max’s cheeks flushed. “I meant in the hallways. We seem to be teleported between sections of hallway; I very much doubt the hallways themselves move.” He stopped. We were outside the library. “Enjoy your meeting.”

“Have fun reading,” I said, giving him a little wave. Kylie and I turned to our room and I caught sight of Cheryl striding down the hall, glaringly obvious in robes mixing blue and green with flagrant disregard for the school’s colour grading scheme.

“Hey, guys!” She gave a little wave. “I managed to make it.”

“I thought you were sick?” Kylie said.

“It’s nothing. I’m feeling a lot better than I was, and we’re headed back to New Zealand tomorrow. I wasn’t gonna miss it.”

“That’s fair,” I said. “So you snuck out?”

“Yep.” Her eyes landed on Max. “Hi. I’m Cheryl.”

“Max,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“So are you… one of us?”

“No, no. I’m just a stock-standard mage.” He touched his arm gingerly, like he expected the mage mark on it to explode. Hesitantly, he continued, “I haven’t had magic for that long; still getting used to it. How long have you?”

Kylie and I both shot him warning looks. This was not the way to broach this topic.

Cheryl laughed. “I can’t use any magic yet. Tristan won’t teach me anything while the curse is dormant, probably because of some escape clauses I worked into our contract. So I may or may not ever get magic.”

Max nodded. “Has he explained – ?”

“Dormant curses sure can be frustrating, huh?” I cut in, smiling glassily while Kylie subtly tried to get between Max and Cheryl. “Anyway Max, we’ll see you after the meeting, right?”

“Ah… yes. Have fun.”

We turned to our booked room, where Talbot and Hua were already waiting. Cheryl stumbled in the doorway and leaned on the frame.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m feeling a lot better today, actually. It’s not like I’ve been coughing or anything.”

Kylie brushed her fingers against Cheryl’s arm. “You’re very hot,” she said.

Cheryl stumbled into the room and headed for a seat. “It’s fine, I – ”

And then she dropped straight to the floor.

And her whole body caught fire.

Everyone screamed. Kylie, who was nearest to one of the lighting crystals, smashed it on the ground and the remaining lighting turned a deep red, while Talbot flicked a hand out and the flames died down. Cheryl lay on the floor, gasping for air, eyes staring at nothing.

“Ka eventar?” Hua asked.

“It’s a homeostatic cascade,” Max said from the doorway, apparently summoned by the screaming. For the first time, I regretted the heavy, sound-deadening doors of the school; had the people in nearby rooms not heard us? Where was help? “Janitors usually respond within two minutes, so if she can hold on that long…”

“She’s also suffocating,” Talbot said, his voice strained. “If I let any oxygen in, she’ll catch fire again. Can she live without oxygen for two minutes?”

“I can help,” Max said. He strode forward, put his hand on Cheryl’s forehead, and immediately swore in pain but didn’t remove it. He just… sat there, breathing.

Cheryl stopped gasping. Talbot and Max kept invisibly working, faces a picture of straining while they didn’t appear to be actually doing anything in the least outwardly interesting first aid I’d ever seen. The rest of us kept the doorway clear and hovered awkwardly, looking for absolutely anything we could do to help.

And then brown-robed janitors were pouring in, and having quiet conversations with Max and Talbot, and the rest of us were rushed out of the room.

In the empty corridor, one closed door away from chaos, Hua cleared her throat awkwardly. “So. Meeting cancelled?”