Vivi considered the man across the desk.

  Lysander, the Headmaster of the Thaumaturgical Institute, was about as assertive and arrogant as she’d expected given the opinions Aeris had voiced earlier. The surprising part was the reasonability laced into his disagreeable behavior. The man spoke with a tone that predisposed Vivi to wanting to dig in her heels and argue with him, but when she’d calmed herself and thought about what he was saying, she’d been reluctantly forced to agree. She herself had been the one to accuse him unnecessarily, so could she really be upset when he met that attitude in turn? He had eased significantly the moment she’d ceded. Though had never quite taken on an affable tone, or anything close.

  As for the spatial rift, the Headmaster of the Institute had every right to be upset with her. The moment she’d cast [Carve the Firmament] and cut away the section of space the Red Tithe had been standing in, horror had filled her; she’d known she’d taken a risk she shouldn’t have. The drastic action had been justified in some sense—it had been the surest way to protect Saffra, and in that sense Vivi didn’t regret her actions even now—but she couldn’t have promised that there wouldn’t be catastrophic consequences from unleashing a spell of that tier. Consequences that might have radiated out beyond the Institute and into Meridian as a whole.

  The spatial rift, and the Red Tithe, was something she’d given a lot of thought to in the past two days, during her travel across the void-realm and her head-pounding convalescence.

  “I was going to address this in the upcoming meeting at the High King’s Palace,” Vivi said at last. “But I suppose as the Headmaster, you deserve to know. Morningstar’s assassin, the Red Tithe, attacked me and my apprentice. The garden annex was a meet-up point my apprentice arranged with Isabella Caldimore. As I said, the two were friends, and it was their actions that allowed my quick response to the breach. The Red Tithe was equipped with activated void equipment—I understand Rafael divulged that concept to appropriate figures?”

  “Indeed. The only reason the traitor’s head hasn’t been separated from his shoulders,” Lysander said coldly. “That he might prevent the end of the world, or so he’s convinced our—” He cut off. “Introduced the doubt of, to our leaders of state,” he corrected, clearly a man concerned with the absolute accuracy of his words.

  Vivi’s eyes narrowed. It seemed the Duke hadn’t been totally wrong with his desperate claims that he might weather the storm thanks to the sheer utility he offered. She did understand the general idea—that survival mattered above all else, especially to a world that had been, prior to a hundred years ago, always dangling on a thread—and so she couldn’t fault the High King for taking a bigger-picture view. Or at least not rushing to execution, instead keeping his options open until he understood the situation better.

  But her threat to the Duke from earlier remained. She would solve the puzzle of his voidglass herself, so that he could be dealt with—through legal means—as he deserved, without any so-called ‘value’ to temper his sentence. And yes, she’d decided to leave the Duke to the laws of the world. She strongly felt that she should never be the one to extra-judicially decide a person’s fate. Let the legal system handle him.

  And if he wasn’t handled appropriately… she would deal with that if or when it happened.

  “But never mind that,” Lysander said after the silence stretched a moment too long, Vivi lost in her thoughts and Lysander probably misinterpreting why. “The Red Tithe. I see. I was aware of Morningstar’s involvement, but not that there had been a battle in these halls.” His lip curled in distaste. “I am also to blame, in that case. Excuses could be made, but I will not. A Headmaster should protect his students and ensure the safety of his academy, and in that regard, I also failed.”

  It was that particular blend of good-heartedness mixed with arrogance that left Vivi conflicted about this man. “As you said earlier, a person cannot be omniscient,” she said. “I had to take extreme measures because it was my first time interacting with the material. I chose to remove the threat by overwhelming its resistances with a spell I knew wouldn’t fail.”

  “I cannot strictly fault you for such an action, of course,” Lysander replied, his dark gray eyes appraising her. Vivi waited for the obvious ‘but’, yet one didn’t come.

  “But some blame might be appropriate anyway,” Vivi finished for him. “I know I endangered your students, no matter the circumstances.” And the rest of Meridian, though Lysander didn’t seem to realize that, and she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. “What’s been done’s been done, though. When it comes to fixing that anomaly… I’ve given that a lot of thought. I’ve theorized a way to stitch the shredded space back together.”

  Lysander’s eyebrows twitched at the announcement. “Such a thing is possible?”

  “I can’t say anything with certainty, but I should at least try. And not just to fix the anomaly itself.”

  “But to reclaim the activated voidglass,” Lysander deduced. “In the vanishing odds that it wasn’t destroyed.”

  Well… yes. That was a reason. More privately, Vivi wanted to solve the spatial anomaly to make sure she hadn’t delivered some horrifying fate to the Red Tithe that would make even the atrocities of the Shattered Oracle seem tame. The Red Tithe might have been an awful person, but nobody deserved a gruesome fate like that. She certainly wouldn’t ever be someone who deliberately doled out cruel and unusual punishments.

  “Those items would serve as a significant aid to our research,” Vivi agreed, letting Lysander assume that was what she meant from the start. She had less than zero sympathy for the Red Tithe, but nevertheless, she suspected her mindset was unusually… humane for this world. Uncomfortable as she found it. “The dagger was more resilient than even the Greater Voidbeasts. And studying Caldimore’s project directly will be easier than chasing its shadow.”

  “A true statement, though I find myself skeptical the dagger survived.”

  “As do I.” It had much greater odds than the Red Tithe himself though. “In either eventuality, fixing the rift is my primary goal. I won’t leave a spatial anomaly in the middle of the Institute for a day longer than I have to, even if I’m confident that it’s no danger to anyone.” She hesitated. “It’s no danger so long as it isn’t being tampered with, at least.” If it wouldn’t have been patronizing, she’d have elaborated, and extracted assurances from Lysander that the mages she’d seen at the garden annex were being exceedingly careful.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lysander seemed to take offense even at the vague allusion, so she’d been smart to moderate herself. “Archmage Theophania is no initiate to meddle with forces she doesn’t understand. We are taking appropriate precautions.” He calmed himself. “It sounds like you have a specific plan for how you’ll ‘stitch it together?’”

  “I’ve always learned faster with hands-on experiments,” Vivi said. A second later, she regretted speaking, because she should have left her plans vague. She continued anyway. “I’ll go somewhere remote and tear open another rift. Then see what I can do to it. When I’m sure I can repair them without issue, I’ll come back and fix the one here.”

  Lysander’s face went blank. A silence stretched between them, and Vivi would definitely have started squirming in her seat if not for her new body’s more serene tendencies.

  “I see,” the Headmaster finally said. “I wouldn’t dare question the Sorceress, not when it comes to sorcery.” His tone made it clear that he was questioning her, though.

  Defensively, Vivi said, “It’s not the kind of magic that will propagate worldwide even in a catastrophic failure. So long as I’m somewhere remote, this will be the fastest way to learn and is no risk to anyone.”

  Lysander’s face remained carefully neutral. “Of course, Lady Vivisari.”

  She felt like she was being judged. Her logic was sound. There were magics too esoteric for her to even experiment with, like tampering with dimensional boundaries, but spatial spells simply weren’t on that level. The worst-case scenario was ripping open another hole she couldn’t stitch back together, and if that happened a thousand miles off the coast in some nowhere portion of the ocean, thousands of feet up in the air, did it really matter?

  “That’s all of the pressing topics, I believe,” Vivi said. “I’ll be elaborating more on my plans, and Vanguard’s, at the upcoming gathering at the High King’s Palace. And as I said, you can reach me through Rafael.”

  “Very well,” Lysander said, standing, which prompted Vivi to do the same. “I deeply appreciate the candor, Lady Vivisari. And that you’ve come to the Institute and trusted us with matters of such importance. I’ll look through the notes you provided”—he rapped the notebook with his knuckles—”and write up a report with my own findings and insight, meager as they might be. And will organize that lesson you requested.”

  “Thank you, Headmaster.” She gestured at the voidgod’s arm. “I’ll come back for that, but you can study it while I’m busy with other matters. I look forward to working with you.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Lysander said, and Vivi could tell he was only half telling the truth.

  ***

  Overall, Vivi’s trip to the Institute had gone smoother than she’d expected. Lysander wasn’t the easiest person to talk to, but he was honestly more amenable than Aeris’s words had suggested. Perhaps Aeris’s view of Lysander was partially the fault of their long-standing relationship, or some emotional interference—she wouldn’t call it jealousy or envy; that felt too blunt—thanks to Lysander being the ‘new guard,’ so to speak. The new prodigy, the new Headmaster. Aeris was only human. Everyone was only human.

  And honestly, while somewhat unpleasant, Lysander had been about five times easier to deal with than Osmian. She was purposefully setting aside that meeting for later. A night’s rest combined with Mae’s miracle concoctions had mostly solved Vivi’s manaburn headache, but a background throb still existed, and a general ache to her body that had left her not in the best mood. Osmian was a drain on her—one she was putting off till she felt better. Perhaps that was why she’d been so aggressive toward Lysander at the beginning of the meeting. Though more realistically, it was just misplaced anger at what had happened to Saffra.

  Late morning had arrived, and while Vivi had a busy schedule for the next few days, she’d promised Saffra an apprenticeship. To provide instruction and lessons, or barring that, to find tutors who could—though Vivi didn’t think the latter was necessary yet. So the next item on her agenda was returning to her manor and finding the girl.

  She did so, teleporting into the estate and tracking down her target. Saffra was curled up on a chair in the sitting room, a White Glove standing to the side and watching over her. The girl’s cat ears twitched, the first indicator she’d sensed Vivi’s arrival. Saffra glanced up, did a double-take, and scrambled to her feet.

  “Lady Vivi. You’re back.”

  Vivi was strangely pleased that Saffra hadn’t started calling her ‘Lady Vivisari.’ The girl was even jumpier than before, when she’d thought she’d been apprenticed to some ancient immortal, but honestly not by much.

  “Saffra,” Vivi greeted. “Sorry to disappear. You were asleep, and I had business with Aeris and the Institute.”

  Saffra froze for a moment before responding. “No… problem? It’s kind of a given you’ll be busy. Not sure why you’re apologizing to me about it.”

  “Because I left you without a spell to work on, even before I jumped into that portal. I promised you my instruction, even if I knew I’d be occupied with my own business.”

  “I don’t think you knew you’d be this occupied,” Saffra said dubiously.

  Amused, Vivi agreed. “No, I didn’t. But that doesn’t change anything. I’m afraid I can’t give an extended lesson, but I want you to pick out a second spell so you have something to work on these next two days.”

  “Two days?” Saffra asked, picking up on the specific phrasing.

  “I need to fly across the mortal kingdoms and drop [Warp Anchors] everywhere I can feasibly reach. In case there’s another tear in the dimensional boundary. That’ll take about two days by my estimation, and it’s my highest priority at the moment.”

  Saffra digested the words, then her ears flattened down. “Does… it even make any sense?” she mumbled. “To keep this going?” She gestured between them. “You’ve got way more important things to deal with than teaching some silver-rank. I really don’t understand why you are.”

  Vivi held back a sigh, and the urge to summon her staff for a corrective tap on the head. “I’m not going to be busy forever. Just for a bit. I need to deal with the immediate fallout of recent events, and some preparations. After that, things will calm down. Much of what I need to do in the medium- and long-term is filling the Codex and researching void material, which may take weeks or months, and will be boring, extended work. And for all we know it’ll be years”—or decades or centuries, Vivi thought—”before the next dimensional breach. I just wouldn’t forgive myself if one happened in two days, and I couldn’t respond because I hadn’t bothered to drop [Warp Anchors] in a timely manner. After that, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to keep my promise.” She considered the girl. “And it doesn’t matter if you understand why or not: I want to teach you.” Rather than letting those words linger, since Vivi knew how Saffra responded to earnest statements like that, she ended with: “Also, I have a task for you. Something you can do to help me in the meantime.”

  It didn’t surprise Vivi at all how instantly Saffra latched to that last part. “You do? What is it?” She seemed more than eager to return the favor in whatever way she could.

  “I need you to find out what Isabella wants.”

  The girl paused. Confusion knitted her eyebrows together. “What?”

  “If I asked her myself, I wouldn’t get an honest answer. But I understand that she’s in a complicated situation. I intend to help her settle into whatever routine she wants, going forward, but I need to know what that is first.”

  A series of complicated emotions flashed across Saffra’s face, ending on, unexpectedly, self-satisfaction. “I told her you would, but she didn’t believe me.” Saffra lifted her chin. “I can do that. She’s probably a little lost herself, but I know her well enough to pester an honest answer out eventually.”

  Vivi smiled, and for once, it was genuine enough that it tugged on her lips physically. If just a twitch. “Good. Then do that, please. Now: [Grimoire].” The huge tome dropped into Vivi’s hand. “Let’s find you another spell to start working toward.”