Fair Princess Beta read

Squirrel was watching as her brother jumped to his death. She waited, rubbing chalk on her hands, breath tense, heart hammering as her toes gripped the beam below her. She had done this hundreds of times, but never lost the nervous tension. Her brother caught her eye, and a moment later, leapt off the ledge. Her brother caught a bar in mid flight that had been doctored up to look like a ship’s rigging, pulling his legs up and swinging out over open space.

Finn was flying through the air with a grin when the bar slipped from its rope, wrenching sideways, causing Finn’s grip to break as he began to sink through the air. He was falling too soon, Squirrel wouldn’t be able to reach him. Squirrel was already pushing off the bar with her feet, propelling herself straight forward and down, her arms stretching to their limits

They met in midair, hands clasped together. Squirrel desperately reached out and caught the bar that had swung forward with her left hand. The muscles of her arms and back pulled tight, and the two of them swung to the other side of the canopy, riding the bar’s return swing.

Her brother twisted, drawing his feet straight up above the two of them, pulling on her arm with muscle-rending force as he tumbled up and away. It was a familiar strain, and Squirrel tightened her shoulders to give him a little extra spring. Finn spun twice through the air, and landed on the platform, presenting a cleverly concealed rapier to an empty auditorium, following the script despite his panting breath and flushed cheeks.

“Hold!” Bellowed a voice from the stands. “The audience has to fear for the safety of the prince. Was he looking at his wire man and giving him a signal? No! Look at the ground, not at her.”

“But the bar broke,” Finn said, his cheeks red.

“I know the bar broke, I’m talking about before!” The ringmaster, Reginald von Gattson shouted as he pointed at Finn. “I knew it, she knew it, The audience will know it!” The two of them watched as their adoptive father slapped his left wrist, his face flush from yelling. “The audience is on your right, Finn! Don’t make eye contact, and signal with your left hand. Get that bar fixed and get back to your places!”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” The ringmaster said, his voice as reticent and sudden as an unwilling cough.

Finn took a deep breath and began climbing the ladder again, returning to his place and retying his bar to the ropes. Squirrel, like her namesake, nimbly hopped over to her starting bar, unconcerned by the height. Her calloused toes once again wrapped around the bar, and she settled into a waiting position, balanced on the thin pole.

Finn met her eyes for a moment, to be sure she was watching, before looking down, bowing his head as if in sorrow.

“Tie that rope tight if you like your spine the way it is.” Squirrel whispered across the gap between them. Finn winced, and clenched his left hand, before diving off the platform.

After the rehearsal, Squirrel approached Reginald. “I hate using some else’s gear. Someone’s going to get killed.” she said, toweling sweat out of her hair. Reginald grunted, nodding as he crossed his arms.

“We have to be out of here in another quarter hour, then it’s someone else’s problem.” Reginald said.

“Your play, It’s a good story but you have to consider our audience,” Reginald said, making a sour face. “If you want to win, make the villain a disfigured commoner who only managed to best the nobility through sheer bumbling luck. If you alienate a single one of them you’re likely to be arrested, or worse. Pandering to the client is basic sense.”

Squirrel nodded, studying the ringmaster as she took the advice in. Reginald’s hair, which had been coal black throughout her childhood, had begun to streak with grey three years ago. Word around the troupe was that he was looking for a successor, and Squirrel intended it to be her.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Reginald asked. “There are easier ways to prove you’ve got what it takes. Less risky ones.”

“Risky?” Squirrel asked, setting down the towel as she followed her foster father out of the massive tent. The sounds and smells of the fairground assaulted her. The low hanging smoke of breakfast hung over the assembled performing troupes. The cold snap in the air muted the usual smell of horse manure, mixed with the exotic aroma of Florence, the elephant housed in a nearby cage. Florence had been nervous on account of the tiger owned by the troupe on the opposite side of the grounds.

“I get nervous any time those in power round up all the people of a certain nation or creed,” Reginald said as he accepted a bowl of soup from Chef, who nodded to him. Squirrel took a wooden bowl from Chef and sat beside Reginald, draining her bowl quickly, enjoying the warmth that traveled down to her stomach, fortifying her against the early morning cold.

“It’s a summons for a grand festival, there’s even a prize for the winner, what’s there to be afraid of?” Squirrel asked, squinting through the morning glare at her mentor.

“It’s a fine excuse isn’t it?” Reginald said, the worry lines in his face deepening. He glanced back up at his daughter. “This festival worries me, so we’re going to appeal to them more than anyone else in this entire camp. We’re going to suck their dicks so hard our teeth pop out.”

Squirrels face wrinkled as she frowned. “That’s disgusting,” she said.

“You know what I mean,” Reginald snapped back. Her father heaved a sigh, his breath disturbing the steam rising from his bowl. “This is an opportunity, it’s true, but it takes a younger man than me to arrange a more fantastic performance than the rest of this rabble.”

“Man?” Squirrel asked, her brow arched.

“A younger girl than me,” Reginald corrected himself. “Now get to work, I’m going to take the morning off.” Reginald stretched his knees out under the table with a hiss of discomfort, the rigid aura of command slipping from his shoulders as he slouched forward, sipping his soup.

Squirrel nodded before standing. The cold air took the last of the morning’s sweat away as she patrolled the camp looking for leaderesque things to do. Squirrel stalked through the tents, stopping to chat here and there, asking about the preparations for the festival. Florence’s handler brushed her off, repeating that everything was alright, but Squirrel resolved to work out a schedule with the troupe on the far side of the fairground, to keep the tiger and elephant as far apart in the rotation as possible.

Squirrel was on her way to the other side of the camp when she spotted Tom and Hardy, their carpenters, happily talking with two men from another troop as they worked on the rigging that they would be performing on in the palace. Squirrel’s brows furrowed as she watched the strangers pass beers to the two men, laughing amiably.

Her feet swerved before he body followed, and Squirrel strode toward the two drunkards with a suitably menacing expression. She came to stand before them, looking down at the piles of polished wood poles, with chalk marks denoting where they would need to be cut to match the dimensions of the stage in the palace.

“How goes it?” Squirrel asked pointedly, her gaze travelling to the pristine wood.

“We were just about to get started, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Tom said, tilting his beer back, taking a long, insolent swig while Hardy chuckled. Furious, Squirrel grabbed the beer and kicked Tom in the stomach, sending him reeling back. The mug of beer jerked, and Squirrel caught the splash in the mug before draining it in one gulp.

“You have absolutely no Idea when we are going to perform, and you’re sitting on your asses here,” Squirrel said, matching their indignant glares with an even more fierce scowl. “I swear to all the gods, if you two weren’t Nadine’s brothers, Reginald would have tossed you out on your backsides. Ages ago.”

Tom stood there silently, the muscles in his jaw and shoulders tense. He looked like he was about to charge her. “We’re not going until most of the way through the festival, we’ve got time.” Hardy chimed in, his voice dismissive.

“Oh,” Squirrel said, her brow raised. “How do you know that?”

“Those fella’s over there-“ Hardy started speaking. Squirrel glanced over her shoulder and found the two men who had been chatting with the carpenter’s moments before had disappeared.

“And you believed them?” Squirrel demanded, interrupting Hardy. She looked between the two brothers and narrowed her eyes. “Get to work, with the assumption that we’ll be up first. The only person who can tell you when we perform is Reginald, got it?”

Hardy nodded, while Tom glared at her silently. Squirrel turned to leave, and saw a wooden plank with charcoal markings beside Hardy’s seat as he rose to get back to work. “Wait,” She said, raising her hand to stop them. She stared down at the charcoal drawing. “What is this?”

“It’s the measurements of the Hall,” Tom said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Did you think we magically knew big our setup should be?”

Squirrel saw the half full mug resting beside the drawing, and looked up at Tom. “Did those measurements come from the men you were talking to as well?”

Tom’s shoulders stiffened. “Well, we didn’t…”

“Go get the measurements yourself!” Squirrel screamed at the two, shaking the charcoal drawing in front of them. “If, on the one in a million chance these are real, I’ll give each of you a gold coin, and you can spend the weekend up to your balls in hookers, but if they aren’t, I’ll have you running laps around the camp chanting ‘I do my own work’, in the nude.” Squirrel looked at the two of them, standing in front of her with pale expressions. “Get the fuck over there!”

The two men jumped, and started running toward the palace, a moment later, Hardy ran back and snatched up a plank of wood to draw on, and a measuring stick. Squirrel watched him run away and sighed, letting the demonic expression fade from her face, rubbing at her cheeks and eyebrows where they had begun to cramp. “What did I do to deserve them?” she asked herself quietly.

The stiff ground crunched under light feet, and Squirrel turned to see Finn standing beside her. “I dunno, they’re fun to have around sometimes,” he said, before lifting the wooden bowl of soup to his lips.

Squirrel squinted, picturing the two dressed in fool’s clothes, set loose on the stage and prodded with farming implements, forcing them to dance. It brought a little sunshine into her life. “They would make excellent fools,” she said, her voice distant, as they fell over each other in her imagination.

“Nah, you know how hard it is to be a good fool,” Finn said, glancing at his adopted sister. “They’d break their necks.”

“Yesss,” Squirrel hissed, shivering in delight at the idea.

Finn rolled his eyes and strode away, yawning. his light step taking him back to his tent. Squirrel shook the visions of the two brothers laying dead from falling improperly from her mind. Taking a steadying breath, she once again began striding toward the troupe on the opposite side of the grounds.

***

“Let me get this straight,” Randall the Savage said, as he looked down at her. The giant with the curly black hair was the ringmaster of the troupe across the ground that used a tiger in their acts. “You want me to give you my slot in the schedule, because you asked nicely?”

Squirrel looked up at him squarely. “Because your cat is making the other animals nervous,” she said matter-of-factly. “You should go last, out of respect for the other performers. If your cat sprays in that palace, not a single act involving other animals will be able to perform.”

“And how is this my problem?” Randall asked, crossing his arms. Squirrel glanced over at the tiger, who reclined lazily against the iron bars of its cage. A horse being guided past the cat shied away as it yawned, exposing palm-length fangs.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll spread hind blood all over your performers costumes,” Squirrel said, staring at the giant towering above her. “Then we’ll get to see them act skittish when they smell like prey.” Randall lunged forward with a snarl, catching Squirrel by the throat and slamming her against the tent pole.

Squirrel’s vision went white for a moment, and Randall’s voice faded back in through the ringing in her ears. “…Test me little girl, I’ve made people disappear-“ Squirrel decided she’d heard enough, and twisted in his grasp, bracing her spine against the tent pole to deliver an unnaturally strong kick to the giant’s balls. Randall turned red and sank to his knees, his lungs seizing.

“Go last or suffer the consequences,” Squirrel bent down and whispered beside his ear. The giant took a ragged breath, and Squirrel dodged out of the way of a meaty fist.

“Fuck you,” Randall groaned, struggling to stand. He lunged forward, intending to catch her. Squirrel slipped around the tent pole like she was made of water, and the giant slumped against it.

“We’re going first, you hear me!” Randall’s shout followed her as she pranced out of his tent. The other members of his troupe sent her cold looks, and Squirrel hurried back to her own camp, where she found Reginald inspecting a pile of pins, check each for metal fatigue.

Squirrel knew it was an excuse for the old man to rest, but the task was a necessary one, so no one complained when Reginald did the tedious chore. “How’d it go?” Reginald asked, running his thumb over a smooth pin that would hold a support fixture together.

“Randall is dead set on going first, and thinks I’ll sabotage him sometime during the night,” Squirrel said, sitting beside her mentor. “And I spotted a few people trying to give Tom and Hardy the wrong numbers for the palace hall.”

“Good job,” Reginald said, moving to the next pin. “Randall’s going to stay awake all night worrying about it, and be unable to give it his best. Out of spite, he’ll probably encourage the tiger to mark the palace, or somewhere near, to unsettle our Florence.”

“Who we won’t be performing with,” Squirrel continued for him. “Because he’s gotten too old… and fat, and old.”

“I hear you, girl,” Reginald said bitterly. “But don’t get too proud of yourself for foiling one plot. Somebody’s going to get the better of us, in some way or another. You can try to stop it all you want, but it’s going to happen. How you deal with it afterward will determine how qualified you are to do my job.”

“I’ve been doing your job for two years, Reginald Von Gattson,” Squirrel said with a chuckle. “I still like The Great Von Bugler better.”

Reginald shook his head. “Name was getting old with the crowd,” he said with a frown, focused on the next pin. “That being said, have you decided on a stage name yet? How about ‘The Flying squirrel’?”

“Hah,” Squirrel said humorlessly. “I’ll come up with something.” Squirrel shifted in her seat, hesitating a moment before standing to leave.

“I know why you’re pushing yourself to win the competition, girl,” Reginald said, finally meeting Squirrel’s eyes. “You want to know your name. Don’t think I didn’t notice your sudden burst of enthusiasm when the prize was announced. One question from the King’s oracle. I know you didn’t forget about your name, Squirrel. That’s all well and good, but I want you to know, a name is just air. To us, you’re Squirrel, and a different name’s not gonna change anything about you after twelve years.”

Squirrel looked down at the old man, emotions roiling up inside her. “I have to know, Reginald, I can hear my name being called every night in the dream, and when I wake, it disappears like smoke. I’ve had people listen to me while I’ve slept. I learned to read and write, so I could write it as I woke, and yet, every time, it disappears on the tip of my tongue.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be a bad thing,” Reginald said, getting back to work. “I’m saying don’t expect it to change who you are. You don’t need this much drive every day when you become Ringmaster, but I hope you’ll remember how hard you pushed yourself this week when the going gets herd.

Squirrel nodded, and patted Reginald on the shoulder before moving on with her duties. Reginald grunted and followed her with his gaze for a moment before he returned to his already shiny pins.

Squirrel went back to work, managing the troupe as she had seen Reginald do a thousand times before. The members didn’t respond to her the same as they did to him, but she pressed on, keeping everyone on task, and warding off the outside influence of other ringmasters, who each subtly tried to weaken the competition. Squirrel found a band of musicians who had been paid to keep them up that night, and threatened to break their legs, snapping a guitar over her knee for emphasis.

Cook called her over, waving his meaty arms to garner her attention. Cook was a simpleton whose meager talents had been wholly focused on food preparation. When he found himself with a problem he’d never had before, he became lost. That being said, he was honest, and good at his job.

“What is it?” Squirrel asked, coming to stand in front of the fat man. It was a common joke among the troupe that in lean times, Cook’s last meal would be himself. Squirrel felt it was her job to discourage that kind of talk, and more than one troupe member had suffered bruises for disrespecting Cook in front of Squirrel.

“Somm’on shat in the food.” Cook said, sweat running through his short-chopped, greasy hair.

“Just lift it, and a few inches of the grain around it out,” Squirrel said with a frown. “Use a board or something.” Cook opened his mouth, and stood there for a moment, as if his response was on the tip of his tongue. Finally, he closed it and shook his head.

“it’s all mixed in,” Cook said, his voice pitched in a whine. “Can’t even use the barrel no more.” Squirrel gritted her teeth, her jaw aching. Reginald had warned her that something like this would happen, and now was when she started acting like a Ringmaster. It didn’t matter who did it, she needed to fix the problem before identifying the culprit. An idea for that was fermenting in the back of her mind, but for now…

“Here,” Squirrel said, reaching into the pocket inside her leather vest, where she kept currency. Adorning her hip was a small burlap sack filled with rocks with diseased bird shit on them. Ideally, a cutpurse who poured the rocks out on his hand would be wracked with parasites within a month.

Squirrel handed two silver coins to Cook. It was a significant amount, enough to buy food for the small troupe for the weekend. “Take these and go buy a large sack of flour, we can get by until the end of the festival with that.”

Cook took the coins, and turned away, nodding. After a few steps, however, he turned back to squirrel and stopped in front of her with a plaintive look on his face. “Where?” he asked.

Squirrel pursed her lips and thought better of sending Cook to buy food. “Nevermind,” She said, holding out her hand. “I’ll do it.” Cook was not exactly a haggler. Some merchants might be intimidated by his size, but others would see the confusion and naievette in his eyes and send him back with a magic chicken or some such nonsense. Cook dropped the silver coins back into her palm.

“Dump out the barrel and get it clean,” Squirrel said, glancing at the tent where Finn had presumably gone back to sleep. “Tell Finn about the shit, and to use the clean barrel to lure out who might have done it.”

Cook nodded, and turned away, and Squirrel found herself hoping that he would at least remember to tell Finn. Cook, to his credit, understood his limitations better than most, and went straight toward Finn’s tent before he forgot.

Squirrel nodded to herself and turned away, heading toward the gate that separated the fair grounds from the main city. Stalls lined the worn path to the gate, where vendors competed tooth and nail to have the booth closest to the entrance. The smell of food and raucous music overloaded her senses, becoming louder and louder as she approached the gate. She saw a few people from her own troupe, tumbling for a few coins in the clearing at the center of the vendors.

Squirrel was watching Leyland and Phantom do handstands on top of each other as she walked, and a hard shove nearly knocked her down. Squirrel danced away, letting some of the force dissipate with a spin. “What the-“ she started to snarl.

“What the fuck does a plebe think he’s doing speaking to my wife!” a voice boomed from across the street. Squirrel’s eyes widened as she spotted a wizard with a lovely young woman standing beside him. Squirrel choked back her shout and created space between herself and the man who was now lying face up in the mud, the wizard’s sole focus.

“It was a misunderstanding, sir!” the man pleaded, groveling before the wizard. It was fair to say that all wizards are nobles, and so the peasant threw himself into the mud on the ground, begging for mercy. “I said she was beautiful and asked if you were her father is all, sire.”

The wizard stroked his white beard, somewhat mollified by the man’s sniveling. “It is true, she is lovely, and I am older, so I suppose you spoke nothing but the truth, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Squirrel shrugged and turned to leave. The man on the street wasn’t a part of her troupe, and she had business to attend to.

“However!” the wizard said, holding up a gnarled finger. “I can’t abide by what you were thinking when you approached her.” The wizard glanced at his wife, who blushed and looked downward. “It cannot be uttered in good company.”

Squirrel glanced back as the wizard tilted his ear toward his bride as if straining to listen to something. As far as Squirrel could tell, she had said nothing. “My wife has begged for lenience, to let the punishment fit the crime, as it were,” the wizard said, pointing his finger down at the man who lay tensed in the street.

“For the crime of thinking like a horny dog, you shall become one for…” The wizard glanced up at the sun, just past its zenith. “The next four hours.” With a gesture and an arcane word, the groveling man jumped up and began walking on all fours. The watching crowd watched, stunned.

The wizard held his arm out to his wife, and the two left in peace. A moment later, an unsuspecting woman walked by, her hips swaying in time to the music permeating the festival. She walked unconcernedly through the crowd of people who backed away from the man who even then was sniffing around the mud. The man spotted her, and crawled behind her and began to smell her rear.

Chuckles began emerging from the people around Squirrel, and when the man leapt upon the lass and began humping her leg, they turned into gales of laughter. The young woman shrieked as the mud covered man grinded against her ankle, looking up at her with wide, unthinking eyes. The girl slipped a short iron chain from beneath her skirt, striking the man across the face before running away.

The people around devolved into howls of laughter as the man whimpered, trying to shake the pain away from his face. Squirrel looked around, and her eyes widened. She had never seem a performance so spontaneous achieve such an effect. You gotta do something different, Squirrel. Something nobody’s ever seen before. The words of her mentor echoed in her mind.

She had been handling the simple business of the troupe, backstabbing others, and dealing with it in turn, but in order to win she had to make an act that would be head and shoulders above any other. Squirrel looked the direction the wizard had gone, her eyes narrowing in thought as an idea began to ferment.

Squirrel began to head towards the gate, and spotted the enchanted man crawling towards her, staring up at her with soulful eyes. Squirrel lunged toward him and boomed “Scat!” The dog-man turned and ran, yipping as the crowd bellowed. Squirrel hurried to chase after the wizard.

Squirrel sprinted down the muddy street, and spotted the Wizard’s flamboyant robe, being given a wide berth in the crush of foot traffic. Squirrel pushed through the crowd, closing in on him. In the distance, she saw the wizard’s head tilt again, and glance over his shoulder at her.

Squirrel slipped between the last few people, and stopped in front of the wizard, her breathing steady despite the run. “Sir wizard-“ she began.

“No,” The wizard said dismissing her. “And before you say anything, I already know what you want to ask, and-“ The wizard listened for a moment. “No, it’s too dangerous. You know what’s going to happen.” He sighed. “Well of course.”

Squirrel glanced over to the woman beside him, who stood with her hands folded over each other, her gaze directed down. Not a single word escaped her lips, but the wizard appeared to be arguing with her. “I need the help of a wizard in my act!” Squirrel shouted over the wizard, who appeared to be mumbling, lost in thought.

His gaze snapped back to Squirrel and his eyes widened, and he began stroking his long white beard. “Oh, that’s not what I thought you wanted at all,” he said, his brows furrowed. “I thought you wanted to know your name.” Squirrel stood still, her jaw slack at the man’s insight. “Well, normally I would welcome any distraction from my duties as Headmaster, but my morning divination and coffee warned me not to join the circus.”

The wizard nodded at Squirrel’s dumbstruck face. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my wife has offered to treat me to a sponge bath.” The demure women standing beside the wizard, without any change in her stance, reached out and pinched him viciously. The wizard began to howl in pain in the middle of the street, sinking to his knees and crying.

Squirrel shook herself and leaned forward, taking the weeping wizard by the shoulders. “Can you tell me my name?” she asked, staring into his eyes.

The old man pried his wife’s pale fingers from his arm, and she returned them to being folded in front of her. He cast a deliberate gaze at the hands on his shoulders, and Squirrel stepped back, suddenly reminded of what had happened to the man before her.

“Don’t worry,” the wizard said, pushing himself to his feet. “The man was thinking some truly rude thoughts. But as I said, No, I cannot help you with either of your requests, my morning divination clearly said that any wizard involved with tumblers this week would be-“ The wizard stopped speaking, and began to stroke his beard again, and his lips split into and enormous grin. Out of the corner of her eye, Squirrel saw the corners of his wife’ s lips turn up, ever so slightly.

“Actually,” the old man said, the gaps in his teeth apparent behind his white beard. “There is one particular student of mine who might be able to help you.”

CHAPTER 2

Toren Reinbahm crouched behind the minor illusion of a cabinet, blending into the wall behind him, trying to keep his breathing quiet as three students from the school of Enchantment barged into the room. “Spread out,” Neil, the leader of the three said as they entered. “Touch everything, little bastard’s probably hiding behind the illusion of a curtain or something.”

It took a special kind of bastard to have an aptitude for the school of Enchantment. The only school more universally disdained was Illusion. At least with illusions, though, the wizard isn’t making your decisions for you, the illusionists said.

Neil Brann was a paragon of what the Enchantment school stood for. A year younger than Toren at fifteen, he was widely renowned as a prodigy. He was handsome, talented, and most importantly, willing to use his magic to influence the minds of the weak willed mercilessly.

It didn’t speak well of Toren then, that he had astonishing aptitude for both Enchantment and Illusion, the two most reprehensible schools of the academy of Wizardry, earning nicknames such as ‘That Fucking Kid, Slippery Sonovabitch, Lying Bastard, and Cheating Fuckwit.’ Toren took those slurs as a badge of pride. His perfect test scores in Enchantment were only higher than Neil because he had bribed the proctors to lower Neil’s score, a liberal application of some of the more mundane techniques taught in the School of Illusion.

Because of that, Neil had set his sights on Toren, plaguing him constantly. Toren had responded in kind by summoning minor illusions of spiders whenever the two crossed paths, creating a learned wariness of Toren by associating himself with his enemy’s greatest fear, a separate application of The School of Enchantment’s mundane techniques.

This particular incident may have been because of Neil’s older sister, who had, completely on her own, taken a liking to Toren, resolving to try her hand at seducing the most talented wizard apprentice in the academy. Well, that’s how she rationalized it, Toren admitted to himself.

It might also be because Toren had stolen the Grimoire given to Neil by his mentor and slipped its cover on an arachnology book. Toren tilted his head. It could also be…

“Toren, I’m going to kill you and stuff your body through a portal to the Abyss after I torture where you put the Professor’s staff out of you! I know you fucking did it!” Neil shouted, running his hands along the wall and furniture.

Yeah, that was the other one, at least that Neil knew about. Neil bore the bruises of a damn good beating after Toren had framed him for the crime. He shrugged to himself. If Neil hadn’t started it, Toren wouldn’t have to respond in kind. Toren pointed his finger, and a soft scrape emanated from the other side of the room, and the three whipped their heads around to look.

Toren silently padded out of the room, just as comprehension dawned on Neil’s face. He turned to look at the door even as his friends moved toward the vase in the corner of the room. “It’s a trick!” Neil shouted, and Toren winked at the furious face disappearing behind the closing doors.

“Struggle all you want,” Toren shouted, lacing his words with the power of suggestion “I’ve barred the door, you guys are gonna be in there awhile.” Then Toren turned and ran like hell. Angry shouting came from the door behind him, mostly a discussion on how they would manage to break down the door.

Naturally, Toren hadn’t barred the door, he just made them believe it wholeheartedly, and they would spend a few minutes devising a method appropriate to break it down while Toren gained some distance. Toren sprinted down the quiet marble halls of the academy, his robe catching the wind as twin streamers of red and purple marking his two schools flowed behind him.

Toren flew through the empty corridor, pushing against marble pillars as he turned the corner, spotting a cat down the hall. Giles Ennerson, the aged master of the school of illusion probably stood before him, dominating the center of the hall. Toren couldn’t have picked out any one thing that told him that the cat that groomed itself in front of him was his teacher, but his instincts screamed at him to dodge.

Toren juked to the cat’s left and slid, hoping to fly under the invisible grasp of the shifty old man. Toren slid across the marble, half expecting an iron grip to snag his collar and bring him to a halt. The cat glanced at him unconcernedly as he passed, and winked, its slit eyes filled with mirth. The air in front of Toren shimmered, and he found himself sliding to a stop at the feet of his professor.

Toren put an elbow under himself and adopted a relaxed countenance, reclining on the floor in front of the master wizard. “Morning, sir.”

Giles chuckled, leaning closer, until Toren could smell the old man’s perfume. “I see you’ve taken your lessons in confidence to heart, but don’t forget,” Giles said, tapping his head. “Wizards of my level can tell what you’re thinking.”

Toren immediately began to picture being eaten alive in as much detail as possible. Giles shuddered visibly, and Toren launched himself from the floor, dashing away. Toren turned a few corners, not daring to look behind him. Toren cast minor illusions of himself taking each fork in the halls, first taking a right, toward the dorms, then around them toward the mess hall.

In the three hundred years since the founding of the Academy, the mess hall had been given the status of Neutral Ground. The tradition had been inherited from year to year, and none respected it more than former alumni, namely the teachers. If Toren could make it there, he could wait for their tempers to fade somewhat before they punished him for whatever he had done. Aside from staff, Toren couldn’t think of any one thing they might want him for.

He hadn’t even stolen the staff, he had simply made the professor misremember its appearance. The damn thing still rested in the professor’s room, and when Neil had pointed that out, the professor had denied it in a fit of pique and had him beat himself. Of course the professor of Enchantment had a tendancy to unconsciously use the power of suggestion in his own voice, and now the entire academy was looking for a redwood staff that didn’t exist.

It would probably be known as the greatest senior prank if Toren lived through it.

Toren turned another corner, the sound of pursuit close behind him, and saw the double doors to the mess hall ahead of him. Toren leaned forward, putting on a burst of speed as he headed for the safety of Neutral Ground. Toren burst through the doors to the mess hall and found himself stumbling into the Headmaster’s Office, the smell of incense replacing the familiar scent of young men and cheap food.

The Headmaster, an old man with a long, carefully manicured white beard, sat behind his ever-shifting desk. The laminated surface of the wood seemed to ripple like water, and the Headmaster’s arms that rested on it bobbed as it rose and fell.

“Where were you headed in such a hurry?” the Headmaster asked innocuously.

Toren glanced at the Master of Illusion, Giles, and the Master of Enchantment, Kyle Frendon sitting on either side of the room. Toren put his hands up in surrender. “The mess hall,” Toren said, “neutral ground.”

“Cafeteria, huh?” the Headmaster said with a grin, gaps visible between his unnaturally white teeth. “Almost made it.” The Headmaster’s smile faded, and he shifted in his seat. “Take a seat, Toren.” Toren complied, sitting between his two teachers, facing the Headmaster.

“You’re in a very precarious position, Toren,” the Headmaster said, his bushy brows furrowed. “You’re the most talented student this academy has had in a long time, and that is the only reason you are still with us. You cause me to take valuable time out of my busy schedule, and neglect the duties of a Headmaster, just to resolve disputes between these two, on a near daily basis.”

“It would be a greater headache if we were to drop you now, so close to your graduation, and have another academy take the credit for such a valuable alumni,” The Headmaster said, tapping a quill against a gently bobbing inkpot on his desk before heaving a sigh. “So you’ll be graduating.”

The Master of Enchantment stood and pointed at Toren “Expell him, Headmaster!” he said. “He stole my redwood staff!” Giles, sitting beside him, casually covered his mouth with his hand, his body shivering with suppressed giggles.

The Headmaster glanced up at the livid master of suggestion, and narrowed his eyes. “Kyle, you’ve been enchanted,” he said, flicking a drop of ink through the air onto Kyle’s forehead. The ink flared with light for an instant, then flaked away from his face like ash. Kyle sat back in his seat, his face pale. “The boy took advantage of your arrogance, Kyle, and you spun a cocoon of enchantments around the minor suggestion he made about your property. Don’t let something like that happen again.”

“Yes Headmaster,” Kyle said, nodding. Toren saw his fingers shaking in his lap, and quickly returned his gaze to the Headmaster, who was studying him carefully.

“You have nothing more of importance to learn here, young man,” the Headmaster said, dipping his quill, and waiting for his desk to bring a fresh sheet of paper to him. The sheet slid across the table, floated by the rippling surface to rest in front of the Headmaster. “The last three months before your graduation are nothing more than a formality, and so I have invented a new tradition for any student who has dual aptitude for Illusion and Enchantment.” The Headmaster began writing on the paper in front of him, and the ripples in the wood stood still as he did so, waiting for him to pen out a missive.

As far as Toren was aware, he was the only student with aptitude for two schools of magic in years, and the first to ever have those two in particular. The new ‘tradition’ was obviously targeting him, but perhaps the Headmaster thought any student in the future who shared Toren’s talent would be similarly troublesome?

“The tradition is such,” the Headmaster spoke, signing his name in long flowing lines at the bottom of the page “You are to be assigned a ‘Senior Project’, to gain valuable real-world experience for the next three months. At the end of that time, your name will be added to the register of officially recognized wizards.” The Headmaster blew gently on the paper to dry the ink. He then passed the order and a pin across the table to Toren. “Your mark, please.”

Toren took the newly written paper and passed his hand over it, checking for illusory script with his mind’s eye. It was probably rude to the Headmaster, but Toren didn’t feel like signing his soul over to be polite. Toren then read the declaration.

“The student of the Royal Academy of Magic; Toren Reinbahm, In recognition of his excellence in academic studies has hereby been given an assignment outside of…” Toren skimmed through the paper, muttering under his breath. The contents of the letter were much as the Headmaster had described, until Toren’s eyes ran over one particular part twice.

“Toren shall not set foot upon the Academy grounds or any other learning institute associated with the Kingdom of Illiestar until he has reached the age of twenty-five, or his register with the Royal order will be revoked?” Toren said aloud, his voice raising. “You’re banishing me?” he said, brandishing the paper in front of the Headmaster.

“I wouldn’t say banishing,” the Headmaster said with a slight wince. “I and other teachers think you need some time to… age.”

“Like a fine wine,” Giles said, resting his chin on a palm.

“I advocated burning the magic right out of your mind and sending you home a simpleton,” Kyle said, staring daggers at Toren. “This compromise doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I’ll be nine years behind my contemporaries when I come back,” Toren said, “I’ll be a laughingstock.”

“I think not, young man,” the Headmaster said, steepling his fingers. “You are years ahead of your contemporaries. What you need now is the responsibility to handle the powers you already possess.

Toren gritted his teeth, biting back a scathing response. The old man in front of him had the power to ban him from legally practicing magic, simply by removing him from the register held at the royal palace. “I understand, Headmaster,” Toren said, clipping his words as he spoke them, struggling to keep his anger from spilling into his tone.

Toren could finish their senior project nonsense and perhaps beg his father for money to go on a journey around the world. The edict specifically stated he couldn’t learn at an institution inside the empire’s borders. If that was the case, Toren could receive training in another country. Nine years was a lot of time. Toren squinted, pricked his thumb with the pin, and smeared a streak of blood across the bottom of the page.

The red streak and the flowing script flared with light, and then began to sink into the ever-shifting wood, receding behind the polished veneer of the Headmaster’s desk. “Thank you, Toren,” the Headmaster said, setting aside the pin. “Now, the matter of your project. A certain young lady is waiting in the lobby, your project is to provide your assistance. She’ll explain the details.” The old man stood, indicating that the meeting was over, shifting through papers on his desk, as if searching for the next task that required his attention.

Kyle and Giles left the room first, and just as Toren was turning to go, he heard the Headmaster’s voice call out to him. “Toren, I understand your enthusiasm to practice something you love, I really do, but you’ll find that other countries will not treat an Illiestarian wizard kindly. Toren stiffly nodded his head, and the Headmaster went back to organizing his tasks.

Toren turned and left the room, finding himself in the opposite wing from the mess hall, standing just outside the Headmaster’s office. A weight settled in his stomach as contemplated the next nine years, an almost inconceivable amount of time to the sixteen year old prodigy. As the third son, his family couldn’t be expected to spend a great deal of its limited resources on him. Toren’s father had been pleased to hear his third son had the gift of magic, and had hoped he might have the ear of the king in a decade or two, when his older brother succeeded the house.

Despite the Headmaster graduating him early, Toren was only at the level of a hedge wizard or junior officer in the military. Not to mention, Toren’s ability in Enchantment and Illusion relegated him to the job of a spy or professional sycophant, and while Toren had talent with intrigue, it wore him down to constantly deceive people. Nine years whispering thoughts into people’s heads and watching his back for daggers would hollow him out, he knew.

The only thing Toren really enjoyed was magic for the fun of it. He saw other boys sitting in class, each holding their aching heads as dry information was crammed into their skulls. Toren on the other hand, felt thrilled to practice even the mundane lessons from his instructors, and discovered that incorporating them into his life indeed made his magic more potent.

Once again though, It boiled down to his overwhelming aptitude for the two most insidious schools of magic. Had Toren been one of the lantern-jawed practitioners of transmutation, or an excitable evocationist, he would not have gotten himself mired so deeply in the Academy’s politics. Instead, he would happily explode dummies in the courtyard until the sun set, ignorant to the backbiting that was rife in the enchantment school, and unburdened by treading the mire of deception of the Illusion wizards.

Transmuters, Evocationists and Abjurers were highly prized in the military, and Necromancers were also sought after, although widely considered shifty. Enchanters had no defined job, although they usually wound up as a spy or an advisor for various noble families. Not necessarily because they were any more wise than another learned man, but because they could make people believe it. Illusionists were pitied as they were unable to make significant changes to the world around them, and financial security was difficult to find for them, as their jobs were as transient as their illusions, usually to make a noble appear to be more wealthy than he was, gilding his house or person for a weekend while his social peers looked on in envy.

The Headmaster was a master of Divination, a rare magic that very few people showed aptitude for, and fewer still mastered. It was said that the old man could tell the future, and his massive personal wealth and spotless private history seemed to back that up.

Toren glanced back at the door to the Headmaster’s office, considering his words. The old man had always seemed to have his student’s best interests at heart. That, combined with the rumor of the Headmaster’s foreknowledge, made Toren set aside his thoughts of leaving the country. Toren squared his shoulders and strode to the lobby where guests and family members were received.

***

“Do you think I did the right thing?” the Headmaster said to his wife, who had silently manifested in the corner of the room. He listened to her silent voice for a moment, and his expression soured. “I know, but narrowing fate down to those two outcomes feels incredibly unfair to them.” The old wizard gave a shrug and went back to his documents. “I guess you’re right, I’ve been surprised before.”

***

Squirrel was pacing back and forth, uncomfortable with the amount of marble looming over her head. As far as she was concerned, wise men don’t make the roofs of their academies out of tons and tons of rock. The wizard with the flowing beard had told her to wait in the lobby and that he would pick a student to join her act. He had also gone on to further impress on her the fact that wizards were invariably noble-born, and without his assistance, she wouldn’t even be able to hire the lowliest apprentice, as her life’s savings wouldn’t make them blink an eye.

How should I introduce myself to him? I can’t have him turning his noble nose up at the sight of me. Reginald said first impressions are important, if I can’t get respect, he should at least be afraid of me. Squirrel though to herself, planning her first meeting with the temporary addition to their crew. If she didn’t crack down on him hard, his noble instinct would kick in, and he would step all over her and the rest of the crew. Squirrel nodded, resolving to ride him mercilessly, at least at first.

The wooden door clicked, and a young man in a black robe, with long purple and red ribbons hanging down from his collar. His gaze scanned the room, paused on Squirrel, looked down at her clothes, and then slid away, dismissing her. A second later, a slight frown crossed the boy’s face, and he furrowed his brows in confusion before he turned and walked back out the door.

Squirrel’s breath caught as his grey eyes met hers, his calm gaze lent him the atmosphere of someone beyond his age. The tilt of his lips and the scuff marks on his clothes suggested a boyish sense of humor, while his pale, unmarred skin spoke of someone born to wealth. Squirrels considered changing her opinion of nobles as he looked at her with interest, then her stomach began to burn with rage as he dismissed her and turned to walk away. Squirrel decided that her first thoughts on how to treat the wizard had been correct. She began padding forward silently.

***

Toren quietly opened the door, stepped into the lobby. The receptionist was gone, and there was a beggar who had taken the opportunity to come inside and admire the marble architecture. Toren glanced around, and didn’t see the girl he was supposed to help. He glanced around, wondering if he should say anything about the beggar, then shrugged. It wasn’t like there was anything incredibly valuable in the lobby that could be carried by human hands.

Toren turned and began heading back to the Headmaster’s office, intending to ask for a more detailed description of the girl in question, and perhaps where to find her, having found the Lobby empty. A weight hit Toren’s spine, and he was thrown violently to the ground.

***

Squirrel found herself on top of the apprentice, her knee on his spine. “If you’re trying to rob me,” the boy beneath her spoke into the marble stone floor. “You should know that we aren’t allowed to keep money on hand.” he said, peering up at her from the corner of his eye. Squirrel leaned forward, putting a bit more weight on his spine, and he shut up.

“I spoke to your Headmaster,” Squirrel said, a hard edge to her voice. “He said you would help me, that you had the best qualifications for the job, and that if you didn’t, you could kiss your life here goodbye. I didn’t come here to be treated like a beggar.”

The boy craned his neck, appraising the girl on top of him with his left eye. “You’re not a beggar?” he asked. Her face darkened, but she stepped off and offered him a hand up.

“No,” She said, her arm extended. “I’m not.”

He glanced up at the hard calluses on her fingers, and the lean muscle travelling up the girl’s arm. He took her hand, and she hauled him to his feet. “Squirrel,” she said, shaking his hand.

“What?” he asked, matching her warm grip with his own.

“My name is Squirrel,” she said, dropping his hand. “I’m an entertainer with Reginald Von Gattson’s Circus.”

“Toren Reinbahm,”Toren said. “Circus… That means you want my help to win the first place prize?” he asked.

Squirrel nodded. “And the prestige that comes with being hailed at the best performance of the year. It’s worth a great deal of money to us.”

“I’ll bet,” Toren said, his eyes lighting up. “Do you have any plans on the question from the oracle this year?”

“Not particularly,” Squirrel said. “If you help us, you can take that prize for yourself, I know you don’t need the money.” Squirrel was lying through her teeth, but the boy in front of her didn’t pay any attention to her, his gaze flickering off to the side as though he were in deep thought. “I know how much wizards like knowing things, I figured it was only fair if you help us win.”

“It’s more than that!” Toren said, ecstatic. “The answer to any one question. You could make yourself wealthy beyond compare or happy for the rest of your life, just asking the right question. We could ask where to find an undiscovered gold vein, or where to find the secrets of ancient magic!” Toren shuddered.

Squirrel glanced away from the boy bouncing up and down like a child, and felt a pang of guilt for deceiving him, seeing as how any one of his questions would do anyone else a world more good than knowing a name. Except for Squirrel. All the gold, power and happiness in the world wouldn’t fill the void of not knowing who she was.

Every night, she dreamt of fire, blood, and running, and always, someone shouting her name. If she didn’t figure it out, it was going to haunt her to her death. Squirrel was willing to deal with the guilt of lying to the wizard apprentice if it meant she could put that nagging doubt behind her. The possibility occurred to her that she might be earning the enmity of a soon-to-be powerful wizard from a noble family, but she’d deal with that when it happened.

“So Squirrel, how can I help you?” Toren said, rubbing his palms together.

“Follow me, I’ll tell you on the way,” Squirrel said, tilting her head towards the door. Toren looked at the door, hesitating.

“Something wrong?” Squirrel asked, watching Toren’s face.

The boy shook his head and grinned brazenly. “No, I’m ready to go.” Toren said, following Squirrel out the main entrance.

Even seeing it the second time, Squirrel marveled at the beautiful architecture, the students relaxing on brilliant green lawns that sparkled like emeralds in the sun, shot through with pale marble pathways branching across the Academy.

“So what do you need?” Toren said, walking beside her, his gaze passing over the opulence without batting an eye.

Squirrel’s attention snapped back, and she willed away the glittering grass and laughter of the students. “I saw your headmaster convince someone he was a dog,” she said, glancing over at Toren, who listened with a thoughtful expression. “People laughed until their lungs gave out. Do you think you could manage that?”

“The Headmaster isn’t the yardstick by which you should measure wizards,” Toren said with a scoff. “The man’s a freak of nature. He claims to have found the unifying principle of magic, allowing him to use all seven schools of magic. Who else could shepherd thousands of wizards, each one powerful in their own right? While the school he used on the man you saw was surely enchantment, completely changing someone’s mind like that with a single sentence is beyond most Enchanter’s capabilities.”

“And you?” Squirrel asked. “Can you do it?”

Toren waggled his hand with a scrunched expression. “I could probably do it with five or six sentences to someone who wants it. Just ask for a volunteer,” Toren explained. “The fact that they volunteered creates a back door in their mind, means they are willing enough to accept suggestion.”

“The audience is going to be packed with nobles, Toren,” Squirrel said.

“What’s the problem?” Toren asked.

“I’m not going to make a noble act like a dog, even if they volunteered,” Squirrel said, then she thumbed her chin. “Maybe we can get them to believe they are a famous hero, and have them take the stage as such.”Squirrel began adjusting her plan to fit the audience.

“I don’t see why you can’t, some of them act like dogs already,” Toren said with a sour face as they walked along a hedge-lined path.

“There you are, Toren!” A voice called from beyond the hedge. Squirrel turned and saw five students with red ribbons flowing from their collars sprinting across the beautiful lawn, jumping over reclining students as they went.

Squirrel looked back to Toren, and her mind was unable to make sense of what her eyes saw. Toren split into three, two running away in separate directions at a full sprint while the third flopped to the ground, rolled up to the hedge and turned green, a leaf pattern covering his whole body. The leafy green Toren held his finger to his lips for silence as the five boys vaulted over the hedge, immediately setting after the two running Torens.

One of the boys, a particulary handsome young man with a strong jaw, light freckles and an easygoing smile, stopped chasing Toren to approach her. He came to stand in front of her, his feet about two feet away from where Toren lay disguised as an extension of the hedge.

“Pardon madam, may I ask what the two of you were talking about?” the handsome young man said as he approached. Squirrel felt the same hitch in her breath as when she had first seen Toren. “My name is Neil, I’ve been trying to catch that shifty bastard for weeks now, but he’s the slipperiest student in the whole academy. Would you happen to know anything about where he might go?”

Squirrel noticed some faint bruising around his eyes and cheeks, cleverly concealed with make-up. She felt a tug of pity on her heart, and found that her mouth was about to tell the young man everything he wanted to know. Neil broke into a shy smile, his perfectly ordered teeth white against his tanned skin, and Squirrel glanced down at the hedge, her mouth open.

A thought ran through Squirrel’s mind like a blast of ice water, and her mouth closed with a click. Is he using magic on me? She thought, looking back up at the boy suspiciously. “And what do you need Toren for?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

***

Neil swallowed, his smile faltering, while Toren sighed silently. One of the major rules of enchantment was never let your confidence break, but Neil was so used to his suggestion working on women, he’d been taken aback by her questioning him instead. Neil recovered quickly, but the spell had already been broken.

***

“He’s stolen something of great value from the teachers,” Neil said squaring his shoulders. “fraternized with students from other schools, was found in the girl’s dormitory assaulting a-“

“Lies!” Toren shouted as he lunged away from the hedge and struck Neil across the nose. Neil dropped to the ground, his eyes wide as Toren’s skin and clothes regained their former color, the leaf pattern fading from them. “You know exactly what happened there, and no amount of suggestion laced lies will change that!”

Neil wiped the blood away from his nose, a vicious smile on his face. “Toren, nice to see you,” he said before lunging forward and grappling Toren around the waist, riding him to the ground. Squirrel watched as the two brawled, hurling insults and recriminations at each other. After a moment of struggling, Neil got on top, and began pummeling Toren from above with his fists, shouting with wordless rage.

Squirrel watched as Toren’s skin gave birth to a swarm of spiders that crawled up to Neil, who had gained the upper hand. The younger boy flinched, and Toren bucked him off, jumping on top and returning the beating. Squirrel sighed and glanced around the academy grounds, where many students had closed in to watch the fight.

It was a childish affair to Squirrel, who had been taught the ins and outs of a brawl by Reginald and the older members of the troupe. It was apparent to her that the wizard academy didn’t place a lot of emphasis on fighting, as she watched the two breathing heavily, Toren weakly trying to get his fists through Neil’s defences. The two were covered in scratches, and both their noses were bleeding, as Toren finally came to a stop, his breath heavy.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Squirrel said, grabbing Toren by the collar and hauling him to his feet. “We’ve got stuff to do today, and I want you in good condition for the next week.” Toren stumbled as Squirrel dragged him away, too tired to resist.

Neil stood and screamed, charging Toren again, Squirrel glanced over her shoulder and saw the battered young man running toward them with his head down. Instinctively, she snapped her leg up and laid a swift blow along the side of his head, dropping Neil bonelessly to the ground. Neil lay facedown on the marble pathway, his bloody nose making a small pool around his head.

The students surrounding them went silent, their eyes fixed on Squirrel, who dropped her foot back to the ground, and bent to check on Neil. She rolled him onto his side and checked that the noble born wizard was indeed still breathing, then she decided to get out of their before anyone memorized her appearance too well.

***

The Headmaster watched all this from his office, his bushy white eyebrows raised as Neil was knocked out. “Do you ever think that we should hire a monk from Jenishan to round out the children’s physical education?” the question came from Giles, the illusion master who had advocated leniency with Toren.

“No,” the Headmaster said, shaking his head. “Jenishan monks teach a subversive philosophy that could land us in hot water with the Royal order.” The old man glanced back at his desk, that now showed Toren stumbling after Squirrel, who had a firm grasp on his ear. “Tensions are going to be strained enough as it is.”

“I know an old veteran who’s looking to retire,” Giles said. “I’ve heard he’s studied in Jenishan. Makes people look like bumbling idiots when he fights them.”

The Headmaster, the man in charge of the Academy’s growth for the last two hundred years, broke into a smile. “Sounds like our kind of instructor, is he willing?” he asked.

Giles shrugged. “Even a retired man needs some kind of work to occupy his time,” Giles said. “I’ll get him on the hook, Headmaster.”

“Thank you,” the Headmaster said, dismissing Giles, before returning his eyes to the desk following the girl. He was curious about why the young girl was such a monumental ill omen, and the only apprentice he trusted to survive luck that bad was Toren. The contract with the students allowed the Headmaster to scry on them at any time, and so he had placed a problem child in need of a lesson next to a slowly tightening knot of fate, giving him the ability to keep tabs on it.

The Headmaster of the Royal Academy of Magic sighed and sat down in his chair, watching history unfurl.