[participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge]

Spring arrives in a flash, bringing with it new developments and more of the same frustration I’ve put up with all winter. I’ve grown faster, stronger, more skilled at both fighting and making glass—but I boast no new Skills. Still, I have nothing to complain about. Work at the studio is going well, and I’m in a good rhythm.

My routine doesn’t last long.

Ember drags me into the office early one morning, before the start of the work week, and jerks a thumb toward an elegant man in expensive-looking black silks. His face is smooth and his hair lacks any gray, but his eyes look far older than the rest of him. “Nuri, this is Ezio. I don’t have time to teach you properly. You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep playing with mana, so I hired him to take the fall instead if he can’t fix you.”

A tutor? Hired with her own money? She’s full of surprises to the uninitiated. I consider myself a leading expert on her behaviors after so many years of close proximity, but this one catches me entirely off guard.

In a daze, I incline my head and introduce myself to the teacher. It’s only after I open my mouth that I remember Ember already gave him my name. Ah well. First impressions are never important, right?

Ember jerks her thumb at the door. “I got work to do. Get out of my office.”

“What about my orders?” I squeak out, still baffled by the turn of events.

“Lionel and the Linas already split them up between them. You can thank them later—or not, if the clients complain. Now shoo.”

Ezio falls into step beside me as we vacate the office, his silks rustling in an impressive, scholarly manner. A look of consternation momentarily creases his brow, but he smooths out his features, offers a perfunctory smile, and manages to look downright dignified as we walk past the grinning co-conspirators outside.

“Don’t forget to tell Mikko who helped you fulfill your orders,” Avelina calls, fluttering her eyelashes in the most exaggerated fashion I’ve ever seen. Her sister elbows her in the ribs, but they both smirk when I simply roll my eyes and walk away.

“Is this typical around here?” Ezio asks softly once we’re outside. “Seems like a rather, ah, spirited operation.”

I shrug. “Beats not having any fun. We work hard, we play hard.”

“As long as you apply yourself to your studies with equal vigor, I shall refrain from any premature judgement.”

“Ha! That line proves you’ve already judged us. Too late to back out now. Ember said she hired you—past tense—so that means you’ve got your money. I expect you to make her investment worthwhile.”

“That depends entirely on you,” Ezio replies with a sniff.

I’m sure he feels extremely superior in his disdain, but it sounds stupid to me. Who goes around sniffing as though it makes him scholarly? What a cliche approach to life. In an utterly magnificent display of exemplary willpower, if I do say so myself, I keep my thoughts silent as we stroll to the other side of town.

“Academics don’t often venture into the Crafters Quarters,” I observe after we’ve left the hustle and bustle behind, watching for any signs of a bad reaction. To his credit, Ezio doesn’t so much as twitch a muscle. Maybe I’m the one who’s guilty of premature judgement—a sort of reverse discrimnation.

“We’re a rather insular group,” he replies, suspiciously agreeable for a self-impressed young man. “Perhaps it would do us all some good to get out more. New experiences naturally give rise to new thought processes, after all.”

I stop in the middle of the street, noting the immaculately manicured lawns and stately wrought-iron gates now that we’ve passed into a new, more upscale district. A few servants are sweeping the streets in front of the houses, ensuring that the minor nobles in residence never have to deal with anything as mundane as dirt or debris. “Is that why you agreed to take me on? Maybe dealing with a working-man rube will provide just the insight you need to progress to the next threshold.”

Ezio shrugs, but doesn’t stop to face me. He keeps walking, forcing me to keep up if I want to continue the conversation. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with making choices that benefit yourself. Or do you think altruism is the only virtue in life?”

“I don’t mind ulterior motives; I just like to be aware of them. People are more predictable with clear motivations and goals. ”

“Pragmatic. I appreciate that attitude in a student.”

“How old are you, anyway?” I ask when I catch up. His long, measured strides cover entirely too much ground to be natural, and I have to jog to join him again. As soon as I step into line next to him, I find that I can walk at a normal pace, but we’re still passing by houses far more quickly than before. Perhaps he has a hidden movement Skill with an area effect?

I scratch my jaw. What an odd thing for a [Scholar] or [Tutor] to pick up. If Ember hired him, then perhaps there’s more to him than first impressions might suggest.

“Appearances are deceiving,” Ezio says grandly. “My age is reserved for my friends, but perhaps you can figure it out for yourself during our studies together this week. Bonus points if you get it without asking my colleagues. I will give you a single hint, however: aging tends to slow as you approach the second threshold.”

I ponder his words until we arrive at his office, less caught up in the mystery than I am fixated on the week timeframe he provided. Does this mean that Ember is giving me an entire week off from work? That seems unfathomable; a single day off unasked for would have been generous indeed by her standards. Paying for one of her most talented glassworkers to miss a full week of work? Unconscionable! She didn’t want me to learn in the first place—and now this expensive investment in my future! What’s really going on here?

Ezio ushers me inside, and motions for me to seat myself on a plush red chair near a mahogany table polished to a shine. He pulls out several slender wires and a strange, oblong metal tool, humming to himself as he arrays them all on the table in front of me. Back in his own element, he’s far more personable.

“This is a mana gauge. Have you ever seen one before?”

“No,” I reply, squinting at the little contraption as though extra scrutiny will reveal secrets of its construction and purpose. I decide to bluff. “Seems straightforward enough, though.”

Ezio nods, apparently pleased with my assessment. “Precisely. It does more or less what you’d expect from the name. Tell me, Nuri, have you ever tried a mana control test? Ember said your foundation is lacking, but she was too busy to give more than scant details.”

I shake my head, then second-guess myself. “Not officially, no, but I have a set of glass orbs I made in the hot shop. They’re both mana- and heat-resistant, so they make good training tools as I try to develop my control over [Heat Manipulation] by warming and cooling the pair in a set sequence. I have to precisely adjust how much mana I use, or else the glass lights up with the wrong color, since I used temperature-responsive elements to make the batch.”

Ezio tilts his head to the side, as though examining me in a new light. “I’m impressed, to be honest. Practical drills like that are essential, and are too often skipped because they’re hard and—let’s be realistic—extremely boring. Your glass orbs will function in a similar fashion to this test, if I understand their function correctly, although this is significantly more painful.”

I chuckle nervously, and shift my feet on the floor so I can jump up and run more easily if I have to make a quick getaway, but he’s piqued my interest. “Painful? I thought we would just go over some paperwork. You know, school stuff. What exactly do you mean?”

Ezio’s sudden grin takes on a predatorial cast. “It’s up to you. I won’t force a temporary student to take the test, but the benefits are well worth the trouble. Just like your glass orbs, you’ll pull out the stored mana through one node of the test apparatus, and inject the flow back into the other node, which houses a mana sensor. Simple, but not easy. Outside mana intrusion itches like a nasty rash all throughout your mana channels, and overcoming the initial resistance to taking in foreign energy will feel like getting stabbed. Repeatedly.”

I’m halfway to standing when Ezio waves me back down, and the force of his attention is not what I expect from an academic. He’s the other side of Ember’s coin, then. More verbose, but just as ruthless. I slump back down in the seat, swallowing the lump that forms in my throat.

“The advantage of taking an actual test like this,” Ezio continues, steamrolling my brief attempt at leaving, “is that despite the significant discomfort, it produces a standard, repeatable result. When the pain is over, we’ll have a measurable way of establishing your baseline, as well as tracking future progress, assuming you come back for additional weeks of training. I am not in the business of taking on students lightly. So, tell me, Nuri. Are you in this for the long haul? Do you have what it takes?”

I sit up straight and eye the metal test apparatus with sudden longing. Future excuses to get out of work, and to train my mana under the auspices of a Silaraon Academy instructor? I’m not stupid; there’s no way I’ll pass up a double blessing like that. I nod firmly, but my attention never leaves the mana gauge. “Let’s do it. I’m ready when you are.”

Ezio marks down a note on a pad of paper at his desk. He leans forward, and I glance up and meet my gaze almost inadvertently. He taps his fingers on the top of the desk for a long moment. “You’re absolutely certain? I’m not underselling the pain. Trust me, I’m not as sheltered or weak as I look.”

“I’d be a fool not to take the mana test,” I declare more confidently than I feel. I want the results, but I’m sick to my stomach just thinking about how awful it will feel to abuse my body like that with foreign mana. Even if the mana is unaspected, and the test is administered by an official, the risks are not unsubstantial. Some fighters specialize in intrusive mana attacks, and I’ve heard it’s terrifying to face. What if my insides explode?

I wipe the sweat off my palms by rubbing my hands on my pants, and stand up to face Ezio on my own two feet. “I have one condition for the test, though. I want to watch you first, and try to discern how to follow the flow of mana. Ember’s had me studying fine mana application to try to learn a new Skill, and I’ll rarely get this kind of opportunity at the glass studio.”

Ezio winces. “It’s been a while since I willingly subjected myself to a mana control test. And since you don’t have any [Mana Sense] or [Lesser Manasight], I’m not sure it will benefit you to observe. Nonetheless, as a show of good faith, I’ll take the test if you want to see how the process works.” He breaks off with a smirk. “I suppose it will also show you just how far you have to go to catch up to my scores, young man.”

I nod eagerly, excited about measuring myself against a true scholar. Although, if I’m honest, part of my excitement will be watching this stuffy academic squirm a while. “Yeah, I’m not going to change my mind. Let’s do this!”