“I still can’t believe you’re the Great Sage’s apprentice,” Felton hissed.

  “Barely,” I muttered back. “He’s sponsoring me, that’s all. I’m getting my education here, same as you. Now, do you want to learn this or not?”

  Felton glanced down at the page resting on the library table we were sitting at, newfound awe in his eyes. “Is this… some sort of sage secret?”

  “No,” I grunted, shaking my head. “I learned this before I met him. My village was on the border, so maybe it’s from another country?”

  Well, Arabic numerals were definitely from another country, but probably not the neighboring one. There might be another country on this planet that had numerals of some sort. The Argadians cribbed their entire alphabet from the demons, though, and I guessed that the demons didn’t do much math. Numerals must not have come up, and the kind of people that had to use a loaner alphabet probably weren’t coming up with a way to represent numbers on their own anytime soon.

  Felton studied the page. “Why these shapes? I don’t see the relationship. What meaning do they have?”

  I glanced down at the numerals. “Actually,” I said, flipping the page. “The shapes aren’t relevant.”

  I knew Arabic numerals because they had become commonplace on Earth for representing numbers, but there were other instances of number representation through Earth’s history. Roman numerals, for example, represented numbers too, but not in a way that was as effective for math, in part because they lacked a numeral for zero. There were also Chinese numerals, though I didn’t actually know off-hand how those worked for arithmetic.

  Might as well come up with something new and intuitive for the locals.

  The most important thing was easy to write numerals that could be used through to base ten, and to reserve the important symbols for doing math in a way that wasn’t confusing next to the numerals. It made sense to lean on what I already knew, but my goal was just to help Felton do math, not necessarily revolutionize math for this world. Symbols he came up with would be easier for him to remember, so I’d let him lead and guide him with my knowledge.

  “The first number is actually no number at all. You might think the first number is one, but what’s one less than one?”

  “Uh, nothing?”

  “Right. So we need a symbol for that. For none. I use this,” I said, drawing a zero. “It’s like an empty hole. Get it?”

  “Sure,” Felton said, focusing up.

  “So, then, if we needed a symbol for one…”

  Step by step, Felton, with my guidance, came up with numerals for zero through nine.

  “For ten…” Felton began, and I stopped him.

  “Ah, no. We only need these symbols. See, for ten and larger, we’re going to use pairs of symbols, like so,” I said, drawing our one and zero symbols together. “This is why the shorthand ultimately works.”

  “But… why there? Why this many symbols, not less or more?”

  “Uh,” I said, struggling to figure out how to explain base ten and decimal notation versus other base systems. “Because we have ten fingers?”

  Felton looked at his hands, counting them out. “Yeah, look. None,” he said, putting all his fingers down, before raising them one at a time. “Then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. So we need a symbol for ten.” He held both his hands open to me. “So we need eleven symbols.”

  I stared at him.

  He stared back at me.

  “No. Just trust me on this.”

  Felton shrugged, putting his hands down.

  After showing him how the tens column worked, and why having a zero symbol, none, was important, I stacked two numbers and started showing him addition.

  “So when you add two numbers,” I explained, “like five and eight, and they add up to a number larger than our symbols can represent, we carry the one…”

  More scratches on the page, more discussion.

  “Oh, so, this is like a ten and a three…”

  “And then you have the hundreds column…”

  “So every time you append a none to the number, it’s ten times larger, but you can just do the same thing…”

  Felton sat back at the end of the primer. “And this… goes forever? You can just keep writing symbols until the numbers get larger than you could ever keep track in your head.”

  “Sure does.”

  Felton fell silent, deep in thought.

  I glanced at the pages we had worked through. I wanted to remember Felton’s new numerals and start using those, for consistency. It would slow me down a bit at first—unlike languages and alphabets, I had only ever properly known one numeral system—but the arithmetic we were doing in class, and probably all the math I would end up doing in this entire life, was so simple that it would hardly be an issue.

  “Is it okay if I show this to my father?” Felton asked, looking at me nervously.

  “Sure,” I said with a shrug. “I promised to show Felris, anyway. But, uh, I don’t need any credit for it.” I was gaining enough attention just through [Sage] association, and I didn’t need the country also interested in me from a math revolution. “We’ll just say we learned it from a book or something.”

  Felton looked unsure about that. He probably didn’t like lying to his parents.

  “But before you show them this, you should probably learn how to use this for subtraction, too…”

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  “There’s more?”

  * * *

  Shortly after that, some second and third year students started to trickle into the library and we were joined by Felris, which forced me to start all over from the beginning. At least the second time around we could jump right into teaching her the numerals Felton had already come up with—this time having an answer for why they represented what they did—and move swiftly into addition.

  Felris was interested, though a bit less enthusiastic about the whole thing than her younger brother. She seemed the more hands-on type, and also a bit tired at the end of her school day. The second and third years ended their days with practical training, which is why their classes tended to run a bit longer.

  “Oh,” Felris said, glancing up. The younger kids were trickling out, and some teens, around fourteen to sixteen years old, were coming in. “The seniors are done classes. Time to go.”

  “Are we not allowed to use the library once senior classes are out?”

  “We are,” Felton said. “It’s just that—”

  “Hey Felris,” a smug, pretentious voice said from behind us. “Were you waiting for me?”

  I glanced back at the older boy. He was probably around fifteen, and clearly a noble. His blond hair was carefully coiffed, and he had venomously green eyes, which were locked on his target. He didn’t spare me a glance, his wolfish gaze on Felton’s older sister. I suppressed a grimace. Yay, more rich people drama.

  “Gustar,” Felris said politely, tipping her head down. “Merely pleasant happenstance. We were studying, but I’m afraid we were just about to leave.”

  “Pity,” the teen said, leaning over her with a smirk on his face. “We really should arrange some time to spend together.” He glanced over at Felton and me, his eyes barely registering us beyond our presence. He lowered his voice. “Just the two of us.”

  “Perhaps,” Felris said, gathering her things and standing. She nodded. “Good day.”

  Felton was right on her heels, so I quickly stood as well, grabbing my stuff and following.

  “What was that about?” I asked once we were outside the library.

  Felris sighed, frowning, and Felton answered for her. “That… was Gustar,” he said, his tone betraying what he thought of the teenager. “He’s, well…”

  “My fiancé,” Felris grumbled.

  I missed a step, faltering. “Your what?”

  “Gustar’s the first born of the lord of a neighboring county,” Felton said, shaking his head. “Our families arranged the marriage between them, two years ago. We’re a smaller barony, so it’s a good match, but…”

  Felris shuddered.

  “...he’s a bit, uh, pushy.” Felton finished, politically.

  Hold up. Two years ago? So they arranged a marriage when Felris was eleven? Ew.

  Gustar seemed to be a fifth year, so at the time he was probably a third year. Maybe he had encountered her during the shared lunch period and pushed for the engagement from there? It definitely seemed like his intentions were more than just the business of tying two neighboring families together.

  And next year, she’ll be on the senior schedule with him. Hmm.

  I glanced at Felris from the corner of my eye, as she heaved another deep sigh. It was hard for me to see her as anything more than a kid, normally cheerful and energetic, but it was also pretty obvious that she would grow up to be a beauty. She and Felton both had pretty excellent genes, though Felton didn’t carry himself with the kind of confidence to capitalize on it. He also hadn’t quite hit his growth spurt yet. When he did, and with a little confidence, he’d probably have no trouble when it came to dating.

  Though I guess nobles might go about things differently. Still, they’re only human.

  Having once been a teenage boy myself, I knew what a teenage boy’s priorities were. Add to that a healthy dollop of privilege, the expectations of a set engagement, and Felris growing up, it was not hard to imagine what sort of “time spent together” Gustar was probably hoping for.

  That might be a problem for her next year. If she could get through that, and he graduates the academy, she should have a two year reprieve before her own graduation.

  Pulling myself from my thoughts, I realized we had made our way back outside. Shaking off the downturn at the end of our study session, they thanked me for my time and the tutoring session. There were still some things I wanted to go over, and we would, though we would be more cognizant about the timing and leave the library a bit earlier next time. I made my goodbyes with the siblings, who walked off together, while I navigated back to Byron and our carriage, which now also carried some goods from the market.

  “Are you well, master Tovar?” Byron asked on the ride back to the manor.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… how common are arranged marriages between nobles?”

  “Fairly common,” Byron answered.

  “Even when they’re eleven?”

  Byron hummed. “Did someone... inquire as to your availability?”

  “What? No,” I said, laughing slightly. I told Byron what had happened, and the butler hummed again before answering.

  “It’s not uncommon to get engaged so young, though eleven is younger than most,” he finally said. “I can understand your concerns over the count heir’s... desires.”

  “Yeah. I just don’t want him to pressure her into anything she doesn’t want. Besides, she’s way too young for that,” I thought aloud.

  Byron raised an eyebrow at me, and I caught myself.

  “I mean, I’m too young too. We’re too young. Shouldn’t even be thinking about that sort of thing.”

  “You seem… well informed about this already, young master.”

  “Well,” I said, struggling to come up with the right words. “I, uh, have a lot of younger siblings, and it was a small house. I learned pretty quickly where, uh, babies come from.”

  That was a partial truth, since I obviously knew from my first life, but it actually was a pretty awkward part of growing up in Redding. My parents had really put in the work building our large family while I was growing up, and there wasn’t much in the way of soundproofing.

  I somehow survived the rest of the incredibly awkward ride back to the manor and quickly departed from the old butler, making my way back to my room to change my clothes before dinner. The robes were a bit stuffy and there was no need to risk getting them unnecessarily dirty.

  After the meal, I returned to my room, trying to get a bit of study time in before I passed out for the night, but I found myself distracted.

  Between the math lesson and encounter with Gustar, at least the details of my sponsorship hadn’t come up, but no doubt Felton had already told Felris. As much as I liked them both, they were children, and not immune from gossip. That information was likely spreading from Ramius, as well, and since he had found out from some higher-up, no doubt much of the nobility already knew.

  Getting wrapped up among the movers and shakers of Ivarnel had not been my intention when I got my revelation. I had just wanted to study magic, but I ended up being sponsored by someone incredibly important and then thrust into the world of nobility and their children’s politics. I could probably distance myself from it all, isolate myself and focus just on magic, but that would come with its own downsides, too.

  While dealing with certain noble children was a bit mentally exhausting, engaging with the other students came with some serious upsides as well. I already had a verbal commitment from Felton and Felris to come visit their barony and check out the dungeon, after all. If I can kill some monsters, maybe I can get another level.

  Giving up on memorization, I shut the grimoire and lay back on the bed with my hands behind my head. I continued to debate the best paths forward until my eyes grew heavy. I dreamed about math, dungeons, and marriage.

  * * *

  As the term progressed, a lot of my concerns faded into the background. People did learn about my sponsorship, as I knew they would, and while some did suck up to me or badger me with questions about the Great Sage Somnial, most left me alone, out of either respect, fear, or both. Classes quickly became a bit more intense and most students, who had only had direct tutoring in the past, discovered they needed to focus up more to stay on top of the classroom style education with less hand-holding.

  The upper years had it worse as they had to pursue self-study when it came to invocation memorization. Their magic class time was spent on actual casting, working on intention and pushing their limits.

  I also got used to living in Ivarnel, learning the city, and started walking to and from the academy. This took a bit more time, but it gave me freedom to spend time with Felton and Felris outside of class and avoid too many unwanted interruptions.

  The school days of my first term passed quickly, and before I knew it, it was time for summer vacation.