There were three wooden chairs all in a row in the hall outside the Dean's office, and I suppose there's some universal law about wooden chairs in hallways outside of offices. They're always there, they're always somehow older than the building they're in, and they're even more uncomfortable than they look. Yheta was in one of them and he leaped up as I walked out, slamming the door behind me.

  "Not good news?" he asked, falling in to walk at my side.

  "Not actually, no," I said. Fortunately I was not any angrier now than I was earlier. I think that's because this anger was already preemptively bundled in with my anger earlier- when I saw that Nathan had tampered with the grades I already knew that I would be dealing with Academy bureaucracy so I already had my Academy-bureaucracy anger to go along with everything else. I don't know if that makes sense but it feels more or less right to me.

  "How bad was it?" Yheta asked.

  "Well, I figured out how he did it. So technically we could call that good news! The problem is that it puts us no closer at all to being able to reverse it. He did not use political pressures or bribery or blackmail, he did not use the sort of methods that the school's checks and balances are effective against. If there is encouragement from one of the Houses, for example, it will be opposed by enemies in rival houses. If a single administrator starts to make unilateral changes they'll see push-back from territorial troublemakers in adjacent departments. They've got extensive records to prove any kind of wrongdoing, so nobody could ever get away with messing with the school's integrity."

  "So how did your brother overcome the school's integrity?" Yheta asked.

  "Nathan has spent several years now cultivating a hobby for emulating and imitating the handwriting, formation, grammar and style of others," I said. "As well as making a study of stationery, inks, quills and usage. I recently discovered for myself how easy it is to move through the administration wings of the school, unfettered and unobserved. The true power of a well-forged document is that skepticism and mistrust are often cast at persons who question a document. It is a lie more solid than the words of its detractors. I have spent months wondering what he intended to do with those skills when he reached the Academy."

  Yheta spent a few seconds trying to put all this together. "I'm not following you."

  "Nathan forged the documents. He rewrote his grades and slipped them into the school's official files."

  Yheta looked entirely startled. "Nathan?" he blurted, incredulity writ boldly on his features. "But he's.. I mean, he's so..."

  We both paused to mentally consider my brother. Tall, broad-shouldered. Clear tanned skin, wide bright eyes, strong handsome chin. His militaresque jacket and brush-cut hair with a little rogue curl across his forehead. The bold and effortless stance and posture, the expressive gestures and movements. Every inch the hero. A face so honest he could sell subscriptions of snow to Kadot clan. Essentially the polar opposite of anyone's mental image of a criminal, a forger, a faker. Even my mental image was as far from him as possible.

  "If I was a liar and I had a face like that," Yheta said, "I'd be unstoppable."

  I kept my eyes straight ahead because I knew I would not stop glaring and I did not want to glare at him. "All the documents appear to be correct. The pages were posted just as they received them. It's a perfect heist." I could admire the skill and deftness and still hate the fact that he used this maneuver to dunk on me. "If we need to verify standings that would probably need to be referred to the Records department. And if not to them, then some other department but he's not sure. But the Records department should know- so either they can resolve this, or they could refer me to whoever can. And as soon as the head of Records comes back from her vacation we'll be able to straighten that out. And if there is a discrepancy we'll need to begin proceedings for dealing with academic dishonesty, so that needs to be reviewed by the head of the Discipline department, depending on which interim director is in charge of it right now. And if the review comes up with proof, then we will need an appointment with the receptionist that sets appointments for the Headmaster. But it probably won't come to that because the director of Discipline will probably look at the posted results, confirm that they match the forged records in their archive, and rule that every thing is fine."

  "What? Wait what?" Yheta blurted out. "Is that all it takes to defeat their entire investigative procedure? Just forge two documents to authenticate each other?"

  "Pret-ty much," I said, singsonging my annoyance. "Oh, but I could get one piece of information that seemed to get a partial explanation, real useful information that goes beyond just looking at pages."

  "What's that?"

  "My low grade. Apparently Magister Cheresa Braux listed every one of my grades as a null value for the whole year," I said. "So out of eight academic subjects we take, I had a zero riding in one category. According to the admin office, that's what pushed my averages down that far."

  "Wait, you had a zero sitting for every grade in a full class and you placed third for your whole year?"

  "Aren't you glad that I'm not in your year, competing there?"

  Yheta marched at my side, keeping up with my fast-clipping stride. "Hmm," he said. "So, it sounds like maybe Nathan did not screw you over particularly? Maybe Braux's sabotage is screwing you over right now, and all Nathan did was to move himself up, rather than moving you back?"

  "Maybe," I said. "Still leaves me pissed off. What kind of school would see a teacher assigning all nulls to a student, a student that the teacher tried multiple times to murder, and would log those grades as-is? Without review? Gods this place sucks."

  "It would make sense for them to recuse her or whatever, considering that she did try to kill you in your bed," he agreed. "So what do you do now? Go after Nathan? Go after the Lautan woman? Ambush the director of the records department? Blow up the building? I'd hold your coat while you blow up the building."

  I turned, opened a door, and started mounting the stairs headed upwards. "All tempting, to different degrees. But no, instead I'm going to fight dirty. They did not just mess with a brilliant academic, or inventor. They did not just mess with a unique and powerful sorceress. Nor an influential noblewoman with a high title. And, again, it's not just a violent murderess with a proven temper. No, Yheta, they messed with all that and more! Because I am still Lady Natalie Francine Daria Harigold... esquire."

  The Legal Department was not ready for us. I don't think they ever would be- by the look of it, their main activity here was keeping their heads down and hoping that the academy would not need a legal department.

  Getting past the receptionist was easy, he folded after three uses of "injunction", two "subpoenas", two "affidavit" and a good solid "damages". The doors opened before me and I stalked the halls with my verbal arrows already on the string. Paralegals scattered like beetles from an overturned log. A pair of clerks posted as lookouts ran off to report back to their leader, and I was hounding an off-duty barrister when they finally sallied their defense.

  I abandoned the barrister I had treed, and turned to deal with the Head of Legal, a broad-shouldered, broad-waisted, broad-faced man with hair slicked down so hard it looked like a tattoo, the tiniest mustache I've ever seen, and wiry black hair in between the knuckles of his hands.

  "What's this I hear about injunctions and depositions?" he cried out instead of the more traditional fee-fie-foe-fum. "Are you threatening legal action? Academy policy is to counter-sue in all cases, attorney's fees plus damages plus interest plus punitive!"

  I heard my foe challenge me to tilt in the lists, and I wheeled to meet this opponent. "Hah! Show me your spine, before you settle like a craven! Take this down, mewler!: defamation, libel, harassment, negligence, incitement, enticement, complicity, collusion and conspiracy! Assault in the second, fraud by false pretenses, malpractice, malfeasance, misconduct and dereliction! If I can find the right jury I could get sedition to stick, you louse! Did anyone in your charge even consult with Legal before they doubled-down as accessories for a murder attempt against the daughter of a duke?"

  By supporting her grading rubric, I had a legal argument that the school was supporting Braux's actions. Educational institutions need to be really careful about siding with faculty committing crimes against a student who is politically connected.

  It was right after lunch, he was logy and I was all fired up. In Hearstcliff the legal system does not favor cogent arguments or well-researched precedents, but pure showmanship. I walked into their ring, strapped on my gloves and started throwing knockout punches right away. The first page of the class rankings was re-released, the top three positions were all listed as "under review". It wasn't good enough but it was a start and I needed to get to my classes.

  Nux Gysmo, the Madman, had taken my notes about thermodynamics and displacement and invented the hot-air balloon. Well, in his handwriting it was a 'mobile-deployment elevated firing position', but someone with more sense of strategy than pure weapons development had amended this with 'and observation post'. I added sandbags for adjustable ballast, and vents along the envelope to let cooling air escape to be replaced by warmer.

  "That way you won't have your heated air pushed away by descending cold air," I showed him.

  "Lamb racks lack rams," he said, nodding. "But her butter tea teething things could hood good wood."

  "Back atcha buddy," I said. He seemed to be babbling pure echolalia, but as long as he could stay involved in a design and production process involving weapons, danger, harm and pain, he was relatively well-behaved. He started adding sketches- the sandbags replaced by racks of weighted flechettes, a valve to turn the flame into a flamethrower, a contact switch to prevent the operator being taken alive.

  Hmm.

  "Hey Nux?"

  "Glass lass ass as a ax tax taxiing," he said with the measured and reasonable tones of a comment about the weather.

  "I'm looking for a way to kill a lot of monsters," I said. "In a cave underground. Probably in or near water. No light, they're all eyeless, bipedal, and aggressive. I'm prioritizing lethality, portability, and reliability."

  He tapped on the table, looking deeply in thought. "As the core of the sky touches the heart's own blood, something is awakened to devour," he told me, and started pulling out one of the binders he left at his workstation here in the development lab. He flipped through it, all pages with diagrams and schematics. All of them hostile. "The deadly hunger can be defeated with a key torn out the least deserving." He pulled out a couple of pages for dastardly little creations.

  There was no lack of variety, that was for certain. He was pulling out certain pages that seemed to prioritize attacks that most opponents would get out of the way of. But since i specified unseeing enemies, he was selecting traps and weapons for that scenario.

  "Huh," I said, tapping on one. "This looks like a good start, but it is very dependent on level terrain and straight corridors. Could you make it self-correcting for natural caverns?"

  A new page came out. The barrel of blades and caltrop dispensers developed an axle inside, connected to the saber-like blades that projected out of the barrel, so that resting on uneven surfaces would move to withdraw the longest legs and reinforce the shorter. And from the middle 90-degree arcs a pressure-feedback gearing on the axle that would steer it left or right if it hit something that did not yield.

  The design was a sort of porcupine-barrel that would walk on sharp blades like stilts if it was pushed. And as it rolled, dispensers along the bottom would drop out small caltrops.

  In the dark, an enemy groping around by feel could stab themselves in the hand, and inadvertently push the device out of their reach so they would have to find it by feel again, and also try to avoid the sharp floor-hazards it left behind. An enemy that was patient, careful, clever or could see would all defeat this challenge relatively easily. But for the brief I had given him, Nux seemed to be right on target.

  Well now. I can make requests. The man can design bespoke weapons. And he can redesign them for specific environments. There's something left to find out: whether he's full of shit.

  I cast the spell to call forth steel, and I crafted his design straight from the page and into real life. Without a sound or a flicker, a steel drum was now sitting near us, resting on a radius of saber-blades. Nux lit up like it was a Torquemada Christmas, and he grabbed up a broom handle and used it to push the barrel away, giving it movement. The blades flashed in the air, glinting as it traveled, and the body of the barrel dropped a handful of four-pointed pyramidal spikes that would suck to step on. He jabbed it again, the barrel rolled further, dropping more of the things. Just like his designs promised.

  I nodded and de-conjured it, erasing it entirely. "All right," I said. "Feedback and critique. It would be an absolute menace to set up under normal conditions. Getting it into position is the first problem. The caltrops drop in the same position each time, they'd be more effective scattered. The turn-response mechanism is not very responsive, but that needs more testing. It seems well-suited to my needs for the time being, but we can always drop back to the drawing board."

  I took a charcoal and added a title to the top of the page. The Barrel of Laughs.

  Nux nodded his agreement. "He covered for his lover but the clever cleaver severed him from navel to marines."

  "I hope you just said something really great and not horrifying at all," I said.

  And adding to my worries was a new prompt that just appeared for me. And I think I know what it means.

  [ New Quest Begun: Jury-Rigged Jungle ]

  I've been trying for hours to distract myself. To think of anything other than those rankings, and what Nathan did. To not worry about Crichard Pentle sending me a note: "Sorry your visions were not quite accurate we will no longer be returning your calls". Or the Hearstwhile court system coming after me. "Our records indicate that one of your most specific and quantifiable predictions has been false! We're hereby revoking your Vendetta Defense and putting you in prison for six thousand years."

  Look, some of my scenarios may be kind of outlandish, but I am under a lot of pressure!

  And I was partially able to suppress my worries and wonderings, focus on classes to a degree. But as soon as each class ended the conversations broke out: what'd you get, who'd you beat, what percentile are you at? And I'd be stuck in third place again.

  And there had been dinner at the dining hall: Of course the Mean Girls had to know everything about this so I had to rehash it all. Elica flinched when she found out how it was done. "No influence, no manipulation, just.. craft and guile!?!" She sounded disgusted. If me working magic was beneath me then what Nathan was doing came dangerously close to working with his hands. But finally I got them obsessing about other things.

  People weren't watching me anymore. Maybe it's because the novelty of the Big Damn Hero has been eclipsed by Ratings Day. Maybe it's because I didn't win. Maybe it's my imagination, these things are very prone to personal perception. Or maybe all the extravagant attention is going to Nathan.

  When I walked into my study hall at the end of the day he was holding court with pretty much everyone in our homeroom gathered close to hear his advice how he was able to take the top score out of our year. He was trying so hard not to sound smug about it. You really would think he had earned all that arrogance. The teacher was just off in a corner ignoring us all as usual, catching up on her grading. Nathan was in his usual spot, lower left near the aisle, but this time the rest of the room was arrayed out around him in concentric layers of hero-worship.

  I stood at the back, and waited to catch his eye. I mouthed the words "we need to talk", and gestured for him to leave his sermon and take a meeting with me. He gave me a smile and went right back to soaking up the adulation. People asked him questions about what it felt like to be so smart. He had really well-thought-out answers to that ego-stroking.

  Some girl I'd never spoken to was right next to me, and she turned and gave me a glare. "You can just back off you know, and go sit somewhere else."

  "I need to talk to my brother alone," I said stiffly.

  She scoffed nastily. "Whatever. You can just keep yourself to yourself from now on, you know. We all know your secret now."

  Some day I'm going to stop going into a panic reaction every time I hear someone say that, I mused to myself. But today was not that day either, and my blood pressure shot up as I considered what would happen if 'everyone knew my secret now'.

  I calmed myself. There's no way that any of the important stuff has gotten out. I'm careful.

  "Really? And what secret is that?" I said sweetly.

  She smirked like she had the upper hand. "That you never were the smart one and you've been taking his credit your whole life. Everyone knows you just have to be the best at everything. Because you're crazy."

  My laugh cut through the room and everyone stared at me. I couldn't stop it, I held a hand over my mouth and the other at my stomach, eyes crinkling and cheeks red. This was not a princess laugh, this was a guffaw. I bit down on it, shoulders shaking, and I waved everyone else to ignore me and go back to worshiping my brother.

  I wound up biting my knuckle to help me calm down, but the giggles kept bubbling up. I sat down next to the snide bitch. "Oh my gods, is that really what people are saying?" I asked, conjuring a fan to fan myself. It's midwinter, not really fan weather, but suddenly I needed it. I pressed tears out of the corners of my eyes.

  She seemed a lot less sure of herself now that she'd seen my mirth. "Yeah, that's right," she said. "Makes sense, no way you'd be that smart and have magic."

  "Really?" I said. "Do you think that being very smart makes someone less likely to practice magic? Or do you think that spells keep someone from having a good mind?"

  "Well, no," she said, refuting both of my scenarios. "But it just makes sense, you know?"

  This is the dumbest conversation I've had in a while.

  I smiled at this new acquaintance and brought forth the most devastating malediction I could muster. "Well, just bless your heart. You have a nice day, all right?"

  With that I stood up and walked away, with even more to think about. Is Nathan telling people that I have been stealing his ideas our whole life? Or is this the kind of rumor that people start on their own to build up? Either way, I think I need to consider this carefully.

  In general I do try to encourage many sides of a story. I don't just want a narrative, I want a narrative challenged by other narratives. I want conflicting stories! But do I actually want to encourage people to think I'm dumb? Or worse yet, average? Or that I'm so shady I'd steal my brother's ideas? How will these impact the days ahead? All I can do is speculate and guess. Roll the dice.

  What decided me was that I thought it would be funny as hell if there's rumors that I'm not nearly as smart as I claim, while I walk into the most rigorous classes this school offers. I really try not to let irony make my decisions for me but this one was actually funny to me in a sardonic, backhanded way.

  I walked back to the snide girl. "I guess you caught me fair and square," I said, smiling again. "It's time to stop living a lie, right?"

  And then I walked away, and found a seat next to Quarl Billiams, and told him about all of that, and laughed quietly while he tried to figure out why in the world I would do a thing like that.