“Hey,” small hands shook Magdala, “wake up!”

  “No, it’s too early.” Magdala dug deeper into the covers, trying to escape back into the warm dream and away from her aching body.

  “She won’t wake up.”

  Who was that?

  “Despite your father’s best efforts, your sister has never been a morning person.”

  Was that her mother?

  “But isn’t today the day?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  What was today?

  Dwayne’s examination.

  Magdala jolted upright and fell out of bed, putting her in the perfect position to see her little brother’s grin and her mother’s smirk. They were seated at the breakfast table.

  Magdala clambered back into bed. “Mother.” She glared at the Water Sage, who was wearing her cerulean and white riding clothes. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re here,” her mother took a sip of koti, “to offer our support.”

  “Yeah, to Dwayne!” Hans jumped into Magdala’s lap. “Where is he?”

  Magdala eyed her brother. “Who let you in?”

  “Miss Mei did!”

  Their mother sighed. “Yes. Apparently, your… cousin is relaxing at the Indigo Tower?”

  Magdala nodded. “It was all we could do to make him stop studying.” She smiled as she hugged her brother. “He’s probably there arranging books.”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “Galkin, Lady Pol, the Club Vice-Chair,” Magdala barely kept a snarl out of her voice, “me.”

  “I see.”

  “Answer my question please. Why are you here?”

  “Yesterday,” her mother put her cup down, “I received a note from your dorm housemother informing me that you haven’t been in your room for days, so I took your roommate aside and learned that you’ve been sleeping here.”

  “Oh.” Magdala’s ears burned. “I can explain.”

  “Is the reason why connected to the scrapes and bruises I see all over you?”

  Thankfully, it didn’t. The reason why Magdala’s sides resembled plums and her arms a lion’s marking tree was because she’d foolishly suggested a sparring match with Mei at their first training session. What happened next had been a thorough compiling of everything Magdala needed to learn: how to dodge, to take a hit, to break her fall, to make a fist, to keep track of environmental hazards like thorny bushes, why one braided one’s hair before a fight, and, finally and most importantly, why it was a terrible idea to challenge a seasoned fighter to a sparring match. Magdala didn’t even know she’d blacked out until she opened her eyes and found Galkin standing over her, doing something to make the worst of the pain and the nausea go away. After that, and after Mei had gone to Sen Quincy’s for advice, their subsequent training sessions had gone much better. Now Magdala could take a hit and fall.

  Telling her mother and brother all that made her mother sigh and her brother roll in her arms with laughter.

  “Why in Markosia are you learning how to brawl?” asked Magdala’s mother.

  “Can I learn how to broll?” asked Hans.

  “Brawl, my dear, and no, you’ll learn swordsmanship like a proper noble.” Lady Gallus’s eyes hadn’t left her daughter’s. “Well?”

  Hans’s interruption had given Magdala time to fabricate a reasonable response. “A fighting mage can’t always expect that she’ll be armed or have time to cast. Mei was teaching me what to do when that happens.”

  Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “This has nothing to do with last week?”

  Last week? What happened last week? Oh, right. The bridge.

  “It does actually,” said Magdala. “If I had had decent hand to hand skills, I might have been able to subdue the thief,” Huan, “and hand him over to the Chamber.” Well, actually over to Mei who’d spent nights looking for him. “Besides, my magic isn’t suitable for-”

  “You cannot use that excuse anymore. Not since you have this.” Her mother picked up a silvered torc necklace with an azade stone set into it. “As you well know, water Qe is more than sufficient for subduing miscreants.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Yes, but…” Magdala squirmed. “Using water Qe knocks me out.” Almost worth it considering what had happened when she’d come to. “Casting any Qe spells takes a lot out of me.”

  “Good to know.” Her mother put the torc back down on the table. “Something to consider when we add Qe and nQe classes to the general curriculum.”

  Magdala’s sudden squeeze made her brother yelp. “You’re doing what?”

  “It was brought up in committee. A number of professors want to teach the creation and usage of Qe cores, and even more deans are interested in their research potential. When Wind called for the creation of an evaluative sub-committee, neither I nor Earth disagreed. Well,” Lady Gallus scoffed, “Earth did have several concerns about Qe mages sullying themselves with nQe magic but deferred sharing them after Dean Laurence gave a speech about how every mage learning the same magic would encourage fellow feeling, reduce irrational stigma, etc, etc, etc. However,” her expression turned serious, “we must discuss the propriety of-”

  “My working for Lady Pol the Disgrace of the Magisterium?” Magdala couldn’t let her mother take the conversation wherever she wanted. “I was only filling in for Dwayne while he studied, nothing more.”

  The day Dwayne went into academic seclusion was the day it became clear that Lady Pol needed someone - three someones in fact - to help her keep track of every event Soura’s next Royal Sorcerer had to attend. While Francesca handled the merchants and Odette wrangled the Lightning of the East herself, Magdala liaised with the nobles, which meant being the first person the queendom’s many minor barons and counts came to in order to learn what kind of person Lady Pol was. While Magdala’s upbringing hadn’t prepared her for mornings training with Mei and Lady Pol, it had prepared her for evenings filled with repetitive conversations about how such and such county was definitely worth the future Royal Sorcerer’s time, even when said Royal Sorcerer escaped said conversations to go complain to her secret lover. How Dwayne had managed, Magdala would never know.

  Unfortunately, in the here and now, her conversational gambit failed.

  “Magdala,” her mother’s tone was cool, “we must discuss how you’re living, barely supervised and hardly chaperoned, in the house of the boy you kissed at the Harvest Ball.”

  “We’re on opposite ends of the hallway?” offered Magdala.

  “Oh, such a far distance. Why it might take one, maybe two, dozen steps to cross.” Lady Gallus sighed, letting the rest of her sarcastic remarks remain unsaid. “I hear that you’re studying with him every night. Do you understand how that looks?”

  “It looks,” Magdala scowled, “like a meeting of the Bradford Thaumaturgical Research Club.”

  Her mother blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  When she and Dwayne had made the decision to study together, Magdala had expected that it would be like before, when she and Dwayne had worked on the spell vials, but Gordon and Andresen had somehow heard that Dwayne needed help, and - after an emergency Club election that Dwayne had signed off on without thinking and that Magdala and Francesca had been unable to attend because of Lady Pol - had charged the newly elected Vice Chair Nicole Fletcher with ensuring that Dwayne’s examination results didn’t embarrass the Club. Magdala knew she shouldn’t be bitter. After all, Nicole had come with a mountain of useful books, a lot of advice from the Qe masters at the earthhoist company she worked at, and so much enthusiasm that Magdala felt like a cad every time she wished that Nicole would disappear so that something would…

  Well, never mind that. The Club was right; it wasn’t just Dwayne’s reputation on the line today.

  At least telling her mother how Dwayne’s studying was going finally derailed the propriety conversation.

  “Wind brought up delaying the examination,” said Lady Gallus, “so that all three candidates would have more time to prepare, but Earth refused, said he wanted to get home before the passes got buried in snow. I had to abstain as my personal ties,” her eyes met Magdala’s, “prevented me from expressing any disagreement.”

  Magdala’s face heated. “It’s not my fault my lord uncle made Dwayne his heir.”

  “I don’t wanna be hair,” said Hans.

  “Heir,” Magdala hugged him again, “and sometimes I don’t want to be either.” She blinked. “You set the agenda for today, right? What’s the rubric? What will the examination cover?”

  “I don’t know.” Lady Gallus sat back in her seat. “Earth handled all the preparations and wouldn’t let Wind or me anywhere near the materials. All I know is who’ll be on the examination panel.”

  Magdala winced. “Is Dean Bruce on it?”

  Her mother frowned. “Why would she be? She’s a researcher; she doesn’t teach. No, the Throne insisted His Royal Highness be on the panel.”

  Her Majesty’s Consort, His Royal Highness Tor Jensen had also overseen Dwayne’s Rite of Attestation. Was he an ally? Probably not. He was most likely there to report back to Her Majesty, who couldn’t attend herself due to specific conventions regarding interactions between the Magisterium and the Throne.

  “Earth then invited Dean Laurence, I think to placate the nQe colleges,” said Lady Gallus. “Then Professor Corn agreed to be on it, along with Dean Quill-”

  “They shouldn’t be on the panel!”

  “Why not?”

  Magdala opened her mouth, but an accusation that two professors were proxies for Lady Pol’s rivals would require actual proof. “Nothing.”

  “I see. I am aware,” Lady Gallus steepled her fingers, “that there’s been a certain amount of maneuvering around Her Majesty’s selection of her next Royal Sorcerer. Only a fool could fail to see a connection between the assault on Sanford, the disaster at the Harvest Ball, and the robbery you thwarted on Bradsbridge. Multiple factions are clearly jockeying for position behind the scenes. It’s even playing out on the examination panel. Of the thirty or so deans and professors Earth invited to join it, only Laurence, Corn, and Quill accepted. Even then, Laurence only did so because I asked her personally. I believe Earth had to twist Corn’s arm to do it. As for Quill…”

  “I assume she was eager,” said Magdala.

  “Perhaps she was, but yesterday…” Lady Gallus winced. “Yesterday, a certain merchant mage and her eldest blew into committee and insisted that a practicing mage be included on the panel.”

  “A certain merchant mage” could only mean one person. “She’s here?”

  “She flew here all the way from Adhua. Not for the examination of course-”

  “Of course.”`

  “-but you know her clout with the other merchants. And her sister’s terrified of her.”

  Magdala set her brother aside and got out of bed. “I have to warn Dwayne. He has to know what to expect.”

  “Agreed. Go on.” Her mother collected Hans. “We’ll see you at practicals.”