“Stop talking like a wizard!” Oliver shouted. “Those aren’t even real spells!”

  I parried a desperate, badly aimed swing from a boy who had apparently decided to use his staff like a club. Wood cracked against wood. My arms jolted with the impact, but his stance was terrible. One twist and a pull sent his staff sliding past me while my own snapped into his stomach. “I cast Nausea!”

  He folded around it with a choked wheeze and dropped to his knees.

  “Real enough compared to you lot,” I said.

  Across the room, Meka stood trembling beside the far wall, clutching her bunny so tightly its leafy ears were squashed against its body. Her eyes were huge. Fear, guilt, and something fiercer burned behind them.

  I did not have time to reassure her.

  “Spread out!” Oliver shouted. “Surround him!”

  They tried.

  I backed toward the center of the room because it kept them all in my line of sight. The focusing plate hummed anxiously under my feet, still crackling with stray magic from the earlier fireball impact.

  Two boys flanked me on either side.

  “I cast Stone Spike!” one screamed.

  “I cast Ice Lance!” the other shouted at almost the same time.

  Two projectiles tore toward me from opposite directions, one a jagged chunk of stone, the other a narrow spear of pale blue ice.

  I dropped into a low crouch and twisted. The stone shot passed over my shoulder. I met the lance of ice with the length of my staff, swinging through it like someone batting away a thrown spear. The spell shattered against the staff’s reinforcement enchantments, exploding in a spray of glittering shards.

  The crown of the staff continued through the motion and cracked into the hip of the Stone Spike caster.

  “I cast Topple!”

  He screamed and crumpled sideways.

  The other boy panicked and began to chant again.

  “I cast Fir…”

  The end of my staff struck his knee and cut the spell short. “I cast kneel!” He dropped with a strangled sound and grabbed for his leg.

  “Lesson three,” I said. “Finish chanting only when you are certain you know who is still standing in front of you.”

  “Shut up!” someone wailed.

  Another girl, smaller than the rest and trying desperately to prove she belonged here, staggered forward.

  A burst of blinding white light exploded in the center of the group.

  “I cast Flash!” she shouted.

  They all screamed.

  I simply closed my eyes a heartbeat before it went off and counted to three.

  When I opened them again, half the class was blinking tears out of their eyes and clutching at their faces.

  I moved through them.

  Not with grace. Grace requires height and reach and dignity. I had none of those. What I had was speed, a lack of shame, and a staff longer than I was tall.

  I darted under a flailing arm, slid between two staggering bodies, and rapped three sets of knuckles in rapid succession. Staff on hand, staff on hand, staff on hand. Each strike popped a staff out of a grasp and sent it skittering across the floor. “I cast Mass Disarm!”

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  “Hey!”

  “What the…”

  “My Staff!”

  “You do not get to throw spells if you cannot see what you are hitting,” I said.

  A hand caught the back of my shirt.

  I twisted, planting the butt of my staff and using it as a pivot point. The spin dragged whoever held my shirt off balance. He stumbled forward, overextended, and I guided him past me with a shove. He tripped over his own classmate and took them both to the floor.

  I did not have time to enjoy it.

  “Everyone, stop going one at a time!” Oliver screeched. “Cast together! Just kill him already!”

  Several of them froze.

  I saw the line there. Half of them understood, finally, that what they were doing could actually kill someone. The other half did not care, or did not believe it.

  One of the uncaring ones lifted his staff with shaking hands.

  The spell began to form immediately, a jagged brown glow cracking across the head of his focus. An unstable stone burst meant to explode outward on impact.

  “Do not finish that spell,” I said.

  He either did not hear me or chose not to.

  “I cast Stone explo…”

  The crown of my staff smashed into his wrist before the final word left his mouth. “I cast Shatter!” The half formed magic fizzled and crumbled into harmless grit against the stone floor.

  He screamed and dropped his staff, clutching his arm.

  “You are not casting explosive earth magic in a closed room full of children,” I said. “Absolutely not.”

  Someone behind me lunged, trying to tackle my legs.

  I jumped, knees tucking instinctively, felt hands swipe under my feet, and came down hard on the boy’s back. My weight was not much, but momentum added enough to drive him into the floor. “I cast Stomp!’

  He groaned.

  I kicked off him, using his spine as a convenient launching point, and spun, staff extended to keep the rest of them at bay.

  “Greta!” I yelled again. “Greta, if you do not come in here right now, I am going to start really hurting them!”

  That earned me a few flinches.

  “Stop whining for your instructor!” Oliver shouted. “She cannot help you! You are all alone!”

  “Incorrect,” I said. “I have one very motivated apprentice, and she has horns.”

  Across the room, Meka stiffened.

  Her leaf bunny wriggled and tried to climb onto her shoulder, as if seeking a better vantage point. She whispered something to it that I could not hear, then took one hesitant step forward.

  “Do not join in,” I said sharply. “You are not ready for this kind of fight.”

  Her jaw clenched. She stayed where she was.

  Good. One less life for me to keep track of in this mess.

  “Fine,” Oliver snarled. “If spells do not work, then we will just beat you the old way. Get him!”

  Apparently deciding that tactics were for people with functioning brains, four of them rushed me at once, staffs lowered like battering rams.

  I stepped forward to meet them.

  The first swung high. I ducked and jammed the butt of my staff into his ankle. “I cast I Don’t Have Time For This!” He shrieked and pitched forward, crashing into the second boy, who had no time to adjust. They went down in a tangle of limbs.

  The third jabbed straight for my chest.

  I twisted, let the thrust slide past my side, caught his staff with mine, and rolled my wrists. His weapon spun out of his grasp. I kept hold of it just long enough to smack him lightly on the back of the head with his own staff before tossing it away.

  The fourth actually had decent form.

  He brought his staff down in a clean vertical strike that would have split my skull if I had stayed still.

  I did not.

  I stepped inside his reach, feeling the air move as his staff whistled past my shoulder, and drove the crown of my own staff up into his stomach. His breath left him in a rush. He folded over the wood and slid down it to his knees, choking.

  “Do you understand yet?” I asked, turning in a slow circle, staff ready. “You are not trained. You are not careful. You are dangerous only because no one has bothered to teach you that you are.”

  “Shut up!” Oliver shouted again, but his voice cracked this time.

  He was sweating. His hat had slipped almost over one eye. His carelessly perfect hair stuck to his temple. He raised his staff with both hands; fingers white on the grip.

  “I cast Fireball!” he screamed.

  The spell left his staff in an instant, a tight sphere of orange light roaring straight toward me.

  I did not have time to dodge entirely.

  I brought my staff up instead, angling it so the crown met the fireball at the edge of its trajectory. The impact shook my arms to the shoulder. Heat washed across my face.

  The fireball burst against the staff’s enchantments, splitting into a spray that streaked past me and scorched the stone on either side.

  The staff felt good against my palms.

  I grinned despite myself.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is the right weapon for me.”

  Oliver tried to cast again, and the moment I saw the shape of the spell forming, my blood went cold. Too much power. Too unstable. The crystal on his staff was already spiderwebbing with heat. If he finished that incantation, the entire room would become a crater. No Greta. No instructors. No backup. Just me, a child’s body, and a dozen idiotic novices about to die.

  I slipped in under his arm.

  “I cast silence,” I said.

  The crown of my staff crushed into his throat. Not a tap. Not a warning. A full, brutal strike meant to break the word out of him. His airway collapsed under the blow. Oliver’s eyes bulged as he dropped his staff and collapsed, gagging noiselessly, unable to breathe at all.

  His classmates screamed.

  I stepped in, caught him by the shoulders, and eased him to the floor. “I said I would hurt you,” I growled, “but I am not letting you die here.”

  I started chest compressions and screamed, “Greta! Get in here now!”