It felt like everything in the room froze. Each of us stopped breathing and I could hear eyes click around me as the other three looked between each other. Lorelei only stood at the table with her hand on the book and stared at me.

“What do you mean by that?” Victor asked and I felt a weight life off my shoulders when Lorelei’s sliver eyes turned to him. “How would that work in the middle of a battle?”

Lorelei’s brows rose slightly. “Good to see you got your mother’s intelligence and not your father’s. You’re right, that would be tough to do in the middle of a monster fight, wouldn’t it?” She faced me again and I cursed under my breath. “How do you think it works then, Aidan?”

“I don’t know…”

“Don’t know what? How sex works? Or how having sex during a battle would work?”

I sputtered for a second and then sucked down a breath. “The second one.”

She smiled, her head canting a bit and her hair shimmered in the sunlight that had drawn farther up the wall since we entered the room. She enjoyed my discomfort. “Ah, well you have what you need already. Just put that cute brain of yours to the task. I’m sure you’ll come up with the right answer.”

“This a test?”

She shrugged. “You can see it that way if that would make things easier.”

I shook my head and looked at the other three for some kind of help. None of them even met my eyes, not even Jorge. I clenched my jaw as I turned back. Lorelei rounded the table and sat on the edge of it before me, legs slightly apart and her skirt barely hiding the fabric of her panties beneath. I tore my eyes from her legs and locked them on her face. She smiled.

“It has… it has to have something to do with the term seeder, right?”

“You tell me.”

“If it works like… I don’t know, if it works like a field then the seed would be planted and you would wait for it grow, right? That being the case then… then the magic can be seeded before hand and the magic harvested when the witch needs to. This analogy is falling apart—”

“No, no, you’re practically right there,” Lorelei said as she leaned back which caused her skirt to ride up a bit higher. Her panties were a pale blue color. I was sure she meant it as a reward, but it made everything that much more awkward for me. “That is how it works. The mage primes the witch’s magic so that when she wants to use it, its there and ready to do so. Of course, to continue to use your analogy, there is only so much one can harvest from a planting.”

“So the seed has to be replanted,” the guy with messy brown hair said. “I heard things got crazy at the academy, but that it was all part of how it worked was left out.”

“And you’re Shawn Telvin? You’re right, we don’t publicize such things as no family wants to send their boys and girls off to bang away for the sake of the city, even if they are adults. The idea never would sit well since we identify many magic users when they are young,” Lorelei said with a small chuckle. “But that is what happens here. Well, could happen here for you. Most likely it will happen and it could kill you.”

“Of course it could,” Jorge said. “No way we could fuck our brains our without some bad outcome.”

“Oh, well the girls can fuck all they want, all day and night. They gain power by it and that power comes from your seed which takes some of your magic away.” She stood and picked up the book. She opened it and held it out to me. I took it and she tapped the page with a blue nail. “Read the top few paragraphs for the class, please.”

I skimmed it quickly and then began to read. “The mage must be careful and guard his magic like it is his life force, because in many ways it is just that. It too many witches are seeded in too short of a time frame the mage’s magic will break and then consume itself and its host. Sadly, there is little way to know how many witches are too many as it is different for each and every mage. A mage’s magic will regenerate if given time to rest.

“Many witches are intoxicated by the need for seed and will, without realizing it, drain their mage until they are killed. The danger is greater as for a witch and mage to bond, the desire to do so needs only to be higher in one than the desire not to is in the other. This is why the academies have limited the amount of witches a mage can seed using their test results as a guideline. Due to the high numbers of mages that have died due to over seeding, mages are to be trained to show restraint and to choose their partners wisely for the mage is the limiting factor in this exchange.

“When choosing witches with which to bond, the mage should take great care that his coven does not grow beyond his ability. Also, it is best to keep in mind that different species will require different amounts of magic from their mage. A Wilkit will need more than a vampire and a vampire will need more than a human. The mage’s advisor should have final say before a witch joins a new mage’s coven.”

I looked up to Lorelei as I finished. She strolled between the four of us and stood at the table again. “I’m your advisor, so if there is a witch that you think you have a good fit with then you’ll have to come to me before I let you bond with them. Keep in mind, bonding can be forced, so you must be careful around many witches who are looking for seeders. A witch is powerful without one, but can only reach her full potential with a mage by her side. Sometimes a witch will force a bond out of desperation.”

“They’d rape us,” Victor said and Lorelei nodded slowly. “Shit…”

“Which is why I’m advising you, Mr. Randson, to abolish your little entourage before they decide to make you bond with them.”

Victor cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to the floor. “Noted.”

“Great to hear. Now, there is much to cover and little time to do it, but we’ll start with these.” She tapped her fingers a few times on the table and from it rose a small wooden box, but there was no wood removed from the table. It just appeared. She picked it up and turned to us. “We call these MBDs. As mages you are in charge when your coven is in battle. Your bonded witches will listen to you… for the most part. To help with this we have these for you to use.”

She opened the box and from it she removed a tiny, diamond shaped object. She held it between her index finger and thumb and moved so that everyone could see it. “This little beauty is the newest generation, allowing you keep track of your witches no matter where they are, as long as they are in a place you have also been to. You will also be able to see which magics your witches have primed and how many charges each have. This is where you will work because, as we’ve discussed, magic can’t be seeded in the middle for a fight. It’s your responsibility to keep an eye on what magic your coven has and how best to us it.”

Lorelei placed the little diamond against my temple. A small shock ran along my entire body and I flinched as the feeling slowly disappeared. My eyes itched and I blinked a few times to try to get rid of it and when it finally left I found that the would had a slight bluish tint to it. If I looked at something for long enough an outline appeared around it and a second later a little text box appeared above the item. The words looked to actually exist in the world. I looked to Lorelei and the same outline appeared, but no text followed.

“I take it by your confused look,” she began as she went around placing the MBDs on the other three,” that you’re wondering why no information comes up on me. Well, that would be a vast invasion of privacy, Aidan.” She placed the box down on the table where it was reabsorbed. “The only way to get information on someone outside of your coven is to learn it. Since you know nothing about me, there is nothing to display.”

“What do we do if we want to bond with a witch?” Shawn asked. “I mean, we have to come tell you, right?”

Lorelei nodded. “For now. Once I’ve decided you four aren’t going around sticking your dick in anyone that offers to open their legs, I’ll leave more of a choice up to you. If I find out you are out there just getting your dick wet without trying to bond with witches then you’re going to be in a world of shit, my little magelings. Don’t test me, got it?”

We all nodded.

“On the other side of that coin, if any girls tried to force a bonding you need to tell me. This isn’t something to keep secret and no one will look down on your for coming forward. Mages are few and we will take care of you when things go wrong. The academy will take action against anyone, male or female, that tries to force a bond. If you hide it from me then I’m going to be very displeased.”

We all nodded again. She seemed satisfied with the response and clapped her hands together. I jumped a bit at the sudden sound. “Great. Glad we’re all on the same page. Follow me, magelings, I’ll give you a quick tour and get you settled in the dorms.”

I glanced to Jorge who looked like had found a fish eyeball in his soup. He fell instep beside me. “You all right?” I asked and he gave a unsure nod. “You don’t look all right.”

“I don’t know, man,” he said and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I was all for this when she started talking, but now? That girls could kill us? I’m not so sure of this thing.”

“I don’t think we get a do-over, Jorge.”

He dropped his gaze to ground. “Yeah, we’ll just have to make the best of it. I know I will,” he looked up and the nauseated expression was replaced with a smirk. “Guess I’ll just have to die in a bed full of cuties then.”

“Of course that's what you decide to do when faced with the possibility of death,” I said and shook my head. I expected him to be dead inside the week, but kept that thought to myself as we followed Lorelei through the building. There were so many women in the halls that it looked like a river of multicolored hair. Lorelei parted the crowds as we traveled down. Once again I felt like an ox at market, sized up and bickered over. None of them said anything, they only watched as we followed Lorelei. She would pause here and there to point out directions to classrooms or other rooms that would be useful, but the tour was a bit of a whirlwind and I remembered little of it by the time we reached the other end of the building. I did notice that all the girls had a small version of the MBDs on their right temple.

We came to a fork in the hall and a statue sat in the middle. It depicted a mage and witch wrapped up in each other, legs and arms intertwined and their gazed locked on each other with an expression of love and desire. Lorelei stood before it and held out her hands to each hallway.

“These are the dorms. To my right,” she motioned to the arched hallway with her right hand,” is the girl’s dormitory. Stay out, not for their safety, but for yours. If I catch any of you in their dorms without a bonded witch by your side I will hang you nude from the mess hall rafters during breakfast.”

I began to think that she just liked threatening us. She shifted her hips to the hallway on her left. “This is where you’ll live from now on. There is a common room at the end for just you four. Each class of mages are kept separate so get use to those around you now—Yes, Shawn?”

“Why are are we separated?”

“Two reasons. The first is that when a coven is formed there is enough magic to create and maintain a room for the group. The second is that we’d rather you not get too influenced by the older mages who have long forgotten what it’s like to be a young one.”

“Brainwashing,” Jorge mumbled from beside me.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Lorelei said and Jorge cowered back. She turned down the hallway to our dorm. At the end a large red door stood, the wood cracking from age and the paint peeling away. She turned the knob and used her hip to open it.

The room on the other side had the chill of autumn that wafted between all of us as we stepped in. The place looked like a storm had just finished roaring through. The arched windows were shattered, the stained glass laid as shards on the red tattered square rug that took up the middle of the room. The walls were angled to create an octagon with four openings. The doors for those openings were splinters in their frames.

Lorelei walked to a chair and righted it. She blew a strand of hair from her face and glared at the mess. “The little bastards.”

“What happened here?” Shawn asked.

“It’s a prank by the last group of mages who were here. They all think they’re so clever and original. Little pricks.” She reached up and then closed her hand as if she was grabbing something we couldn’t see. With a quick motion she pulled down what looked like a blanked from the ceiling and as she did so a room appeared from underneath the fabric. She twirled the blanket around her arm where it caught fire for only a second before falling as ash to the now perfect red rug. “Simple illusion magic with an air spell to sell it. It’s the third time I’ve seen it done.”

“That was insane,” Jorge said as he stared around the room in awe. It had the same layout, but the stained glass was still in their frames and a fire roared in the fireplace at the other side of the room. A sofa and four other chairs sat in front of it. Bookshelves lined the empty walls and the doors were back in place. It had been an impressive change and that Lorelei acted like it was routine spoke of the true wonders that probably took place on campus.

“If you’re impressed by that then you won’t last long around here, Jorge. Now, why don’t you all get settled. Dinner will be served in about an hour or so. You can head down to the mess hall when you’re ready. Make sure to change into your uniforms before you go. They’re in your dressers. There is a table for you that is set apart from the girls, sit there for now.” She gave us a little wave as she left and closed the door behind her.

“This place is not what I expected,” Shawn said as he went to one of the windows, his tall and skinny frame threw a long shadow across the rug. “Was it what you thought it was going to be?”

“I didn’t know I was gonna be here until a few hours ago,” I said and looked to Victor and Jorge.

“Same,” Jorge said.

“I expected something like this, but not to the extent it’s become,” Victor said. “But adept and thrive, that’s our only choice here.”

Shawn nodded. “I say we stick together, at least for the first week. We just need to get our bearing and with how… Lorelei spoke, it might be prudent to do so.”

“Prudent…” Victor said with a chuckle. “You fellas do as you like, but I’m not worried about a bunch of girls. Even if they are witches.” He went to one of the doors and disappeared behind it. The other two shrugged and each went to their own rooms as well. I stayed in the common room for a few minutes and moved to stand before the fire. I placed my hands on the sofa and squeezed the wood trim while wondering what I got myself into.