Chapter Text
Zorian’s eyes abruptly shot open as a sharp pain erupted in his skull. His head pulsed, body convulsing, and suddenly he was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in his mind.
[Good morning, Zorian!] an annoyingly cheerful voice echoed right between his innermost thoughts. [Morning, morning, MORNING!!!]
Zorian glared at Novelty, quickly reforming his mental defenses as he telepathically struck back at the aranea. His attack wasn’t particularly powerful —he’d only just woken up, after all— and the spider swept it aside with barely a thought. She radiated a smug sense of self-satisfaction, continuing to sit peacefully on his chest.
[Novelty, get off,] he told her as he physically pushed her off the bed and onto the floor.
[Oh, c’mon!] she said, skittering across his room with her many feet. [I’m just making sure you don’t sleep in— the matriarch instructed me to!]
[Not like this, she didn’t,] he complained, rising from the bed. Yawning, he reached out to his bedside table and grabbed his glasses.
[Hey!] Novelty suddenly said, as she watched him go about his morning routine. [Show me some magic!]
[No. What am I, your personal clown?] he rebutted.
[Oh, I see,] she said, childish provocation rolling off of her in intentional waves. [The big, scary first circle mage isn’t good enough yet to even cast a little spell. It would probably exhaust you, I understand. Humans are sooo fragile, after all!]
[Ugh,] he groaned to her mentally. [You’re not nearly as funny as you think you are, you know that?]
Still, her ruse worked. He casted a simple light spell and let it hover in the room, causing Novelty to stare at it in awe.
[Wow… You’ve got to teach me human magic one of these days, Hands! You totally will, right? Right?]
[Wait until I graduate from the academy first,] he told her. [You can’t expect me to pay attention to both my own education and yours at the same time.]
[I’ll hold you to that!] she shouted as he left the room, though she quickly trailed off after him, making a racket with her feet as she went down the stairs.
Novelty was lucky. If Zorian wasn’t so ridiculously fond of her, he would have long since warded his room against her— wouldn’t be hard, either, as most wards were meant to keep non-human creatures like aranea away from the protected area. As it was, he'd long since become used to her eccentricities, and actually didn't mind her enthusiastic presence as much as he pretended to. If the matriarch hadn’t already been his favorite aranea, Novelty might have even held that position.
The two of them kept conversing as Zorian made himself breakfast, with Novelty climbing on top of the kitchen counter to keep him company and then later doing the same thing to stand atop the table as he ate.
A knock brought both of their attention to the front door, his mind sense detecting a middle aged human woman standing outside his house.
[Stay hidden for a bit,] he told Novelty as he approached the door. She immediately went into one of the lower cupboards of his kitchen, where she could easily reach the shaft leading down into the heart of the aranean settlement, but otherwise stayed within the house.
“Hello?” he greeted the woman, making sure to stand in such a way she couldn’t see inside. He didn’t appreciate guests actually coming into his house— too much of a chance one of his webmates might visit him while the human was there, and having to modify flickerminds’ memories was a chore he preferred to avoid if he could help it. He was still prone to leaving traces behind, and on more than one occasion the matriarch had ended up needing to clean up his mess. Embarrassing, to say the least.
The woman gave him an appraising glance, adjusting her glasses. “Zorian Paukov?”
“Uh, yes?”
“I am Ilsa Zileti, from the Royal Academy of Magical Arts. I’m here to discuss the results of your certification.”
“Oh,” he said, trying to recall any memory of having committed some grave mistake during the certification. As far as he could tell, there should be no reason for an academy teacher to—
“You aren’t in trouble, Mister Paukov,” she said, likely guessing his thoughts from the frown on his face. “The Academy has a habit of sending a representative to third year students to discuss various matters of interest. I confess I should have visited you sooner, but I have been a tad busy this year. You have my apologies. If I may come in…?”
He supposed that explained it, then. After somewhat reluctantly allowing her inside, they both sat down at the kitchen table, where Ilsa promptly scattered a variety of papers and documents for some reason.
[What’s she doing now? Is it a spell?] Novelty asked cheerfully. [I can’t see anything from here, let me tap into your eyes for a bit!]
[No,] Zorian said to her in the privacy of their minds as Ilsa continued organizing her papers. [You still struggle with interpreting human senses and if you start feeling sick I won’t be able to do anything about it until she leaves. She’s not doing any magic, anyway.]
He did send her a mental image of the papers on the table, however, if only so she wouldn’t keep complaining.
“I notice your guardian isn’t home,” Ilsa suddenly commented. “Is this common?”
“Ah,” he said, taking his eyes off the papers. “Yes, she’s away on a business trip. It’s fine, I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
“Of course,” she agreed, though Zorian could tell she wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answer. Tough luck, it would be the only one she’d get from him.
As far as the academy or any other curious humans were concerned, Zorian was just an orphan from the Eldemarian north who had been generously taken in by Miss Paukov, a cyorian spider silk merchant. The actual truth was a little bit more complicated than that, of course, but this set-up sufficed for most of his web’s purposes.
Selecting some of the papers and pushing the others to the side, Ilsa finally began. “So, Zorian. You already know you passed the certification.”
“Yes, I got the written notice,” he replied. “I’ve been meaning to pick up the badge, but when I visited the mage tower it turned out to be more expensive than I thought it would.”
“You don’t really have to do that until you finish school,” she said. “It’s expensive, as you said, and nobody is going to bother you about it unless you plan to open a shop or otherwise sell your magical expertise. If you get questioned about it, just refer them to the academy and we’ll clear things up.”
Ilsa then handed him a sealed scroll. Zorian inspected it for a few seconds and tried to break it open so he could read it. Unfortunately, the seal was quite tough to break. Unnaturally so, even.
Hm…
With a frown, he reached into the flickermind’s surface thoughts. Maybe he’d find whatever parlor trick the academy was expecting of him there…
Immediately, he retreated. After hardly a probe, he came across a shield around her mind— not particularly powerful work, which is why he hadn’t sensed it before, but rather a more subtle type of defense. Despite its relative weakness, Zorian was pretty sure she’d be able to feel it if he tried breaking past it, so after a few moments of consideration he gave up on the idea of reading her thoughts.
If he was interpreting the situation right, this should be a test that any recently-minted first circle mage should be able to pass, so… Which abilities could the academy confidently expect of any mage in his position?
Well, it was really obvious once he stopped to think about it. Holding the scroll, he channeled mana into its seal, which snapped itself in half, allowing him to unroll it. It was written in very neat calligraphy and appeared to be some kind of proof of his identity as a first circle mage. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ilsa nod approvingly.
“Very well, then. The records say you’ve lived in this house instead of academy housing for the past two years. I assume you intend to continue?”
Zorian nodded as he continued to scan the document. While academy housing was closer to his classes, the house the web provided him with was much more comfortable for his needs. He’d never had to worry about roommates or people getting suspicious over his activities, it was decently spacious and it generally had everything he needed, including better privacy wards.
[Even if the house didn’t have all of that, you’d still choose to live here, right?] Novelty reached out to him again, just as Ilsa started some sort of speech about third year students’ responsibilities. His agemate was slowly getting better at reading stray human thoughts— just a few months ago, she would have struggled to interpret any thoughts not formulated specifically at her. [I wouldn’t be able to visit you so often if you lived at the academy!]
[That’s not really the advantage you seem to think it is,] Zorian answered her, projecting a mix of amusement and scorn at her. [Sometimes I really wish you’d leave me alone for a while. Hey, maybe I should tell Ilsa I changed my mind, after all…]
[No! Don’t do that!] she yelled telepathically. [I’m not even the only one that uses the tunnel between your house and the colony— imagine how heartbroken the matriarch would be if you said you didn’t want her visiting you!]
[I highly doubt the academy could stop her from visiting me,] Zorian said, suppressing a smile from showing on his face. [And I was just kidding, don’t take things so seriously.]
As Ilsa’s speech winded down, Zorian nodded along, pretending he’d been diligently paying attention the entire time and not talking to his arachnid friend telepathically. “In any case, let’s jump to the main reason for my visit here: Your mentor and electives,” the teacher finally said.
Zorian perked up at this. “So which mentors can I choose from?” he asked.
“Well, actually, I’m afraid you can’t,” Ilsa said apologetically. “Like I said, I was supposed to get to you sooner. Unfortunately, all but one of the mentors have filled their quota of students at this point.”
Zorian had a bad feeling about this… “And this mentor is?”
“Xvim Chao.”
Zorian groaned, burying his face in his hands. Of all the teachers, Xvim was widely agreed upon as the worst mentor you could possibly get. It just had to be him, didn’t it?
[Is he really that bad?] Novelty asked him, though Ilsa talked before he could think a response towards the spider.
“It’s not that bad,” Ilsa assured. “The rumors are quite exaggerated, and mostly spread by students unwilling to do the kind of work Professor Xvim requires of his charges. I’m sure a talented, hard-working student such as yourself will have no problems with him.”
Zorian snorted. “I don’t suppose there is any chance to transfer to another mentor, is there?”
“Not really. We had a really good pass rate last year, and all of the mentors are swamped with students as it is. Professor Xvim is the least burdened of the available mentors.”
“My, I wonder why,” he mumbled. Something was fishy about this. He had an inkling Ilsa was lying to him somewhere —like how she claimed to be ‘late’ when Zorian literally lived only a few minutes’ walk from the main academy building, and could have been visited any time over the summer— but he couldn’t figure out why without reading her thoughts. Ugh, it was so annoying when flickerminds used mind shields. “Alright, then. What about electives?”
As Ilsa took out a scroll with the list of possible electives, Novelty droned to him mentally about how bored she was in the cupboard, at one point even launching a minor telepathic attack on him out of sheer want of entertainment.
It would be a very long morning.
* * *
Surrounded by bookcases, in a library so massive it had spread and taken over the tunnels of the Dungeon’s upper layer, Zorian couldn’t help but groan in annoyance.
It was always like this with flickerminds. Honestly, why had he expected any different?
He’d been holding off all summer on visiting the academy library until he got the proper documentation confirming his status as a first circle mage —which Ilsa had belatedly only given him this morning— but it turned out that what he’d most been looking forwards to researching wasn’t even accessible to him, or most people, for that matter. A part of him wanted to storm out of the building in a fit, but instead he closed his eyes and tried to reason with himself.
For flickerminds, mind magic and psychic abilities were rare, unfamiliar, and scary. In a sense, he could understand the logic behind making the discipline so restricted; if just about anyone could practice mind magic, then mental attacks, thought surveillance, and attempts at memory manipulation would be much more common in the mage community than they currently were. Considering most of Zorian’s fellow first circle mages were at best only vaguely familiar with mental defenses, it was understandable that this type of restriction would be put in place to protect those most vulnerable.
And really, Zorian wouldn’t have learned anything new. While he had been curious of the psychicless approach to mind magic since he’d been a child, he had to admit he was already beyond what a human mind magic book could teach him. The aranea were excellent teachers, and he had yet to see them regard any human as more skilled than them in this field.
Nodding at his own logic, he reopened his eyes and snapped shut the book in his hands, calmly making his way towards the library’s entrance gate.
He was upset enough over the matter that he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on the spellbooks actually available to him, so it was best to leave for the moment and come back once he could pay proper attention to them. Restricted and banned disciplines aside, the library had an awe-inspiring repertoire of spells which he could now access whenever he wanted. Zorian was sure he’d find plenty of study material here to hold his interest, even if it wasn’t mind magic.
He stopped by a nearby bakery for some baked goods, and then continued on a walk through the most scenic parts of the city. The central park had a particularly relaxing view, so he decided to set course there and eat his newly acquired food on the edge of its fountain. It should help improve his mood, if nothing else.
Just as he rounded a corner, however, he came face-to-snout with a small swarm of rats. Their heads, disturbingly mutilated and leaving their brains fully exposed to the air, turned to him as one. Unfortunately, the grotesque disfigurement didn’t seem to do anything to impede them from remaining lively and agile.
Zorian acted quick. He simultaneously strengthened his mind shield as his strongest mental attack blasted the minds of six rats before he swiftly removed himself from the situation. Zorian’s mental defenses had only been brushed —nowhere near trespassed— but it would do him no good to remain near a swarm of cephalic rats. He could overpower a few individuals, not the collective.
Cephalic rats were natural enemies of the aranea, and though they normally remained a meek and elusive species out of fear of being hunted to extinction by the spiders, they’d been strangely active in the past couple of months. Zorian couldn’t imagine what would prompt them to block one of Cyoria’s roads so publicly and in broad daylight, but whatever their reason, he now had a duty to bring this information back to his matriarch.
So much for a relaxing afternoon walk. He changed course and instead headed for a nearby park, in a last ditch attempt to stick to his original plans. As beautiful as Cyoria was, sometimes it could really be a little too magical for its own good.
“Waah,” a childish sob reached his ears as he approached the park’s bridge. There was a little girl by the railing, crying her eyes out. Curiously enough, no one in the surroundings of the bridge acted concerned over her or even seemed willing to help. Zorian considered just passing by her, but eventually decided to intervene. It’d hang on his conscience if he ignored the kid, he just knew it.
It took him a few tries just to get the girl to calm down, and then some more time for her to tell him what had upset her so.
“T-the bike,” she told him, interrupted by her own hiccups. “It fell in!”
Leaning over the railing, he confirmed there was indeed a bike half submerged beneath the bridge. It was clearly dirty, but didn’t look broken as far as Zorian could tell.
Using a levitating spell, he got the kid’s bike out of the creek underneath the bridge, and returned it to its tearful owner. The bike was still wet and covered with doubtful mud, but even if Zorian had known a cleaning spell, his mana reserves had already fallen considerably low from just the levitation and probably wouldn’t have been able to cast it. Luckily the girl didn’t seem to mind any of that as long as she had her bike again, thanking him profusely.
Finally, as Zorian sat down on a different part of the park to eat the baked goods he’d bought, his nose was lightly struck by a single drop of water.
Soon, it would be followed by many more.
* * *
[That many cephalic rats? And in public, no less?] the matriarch mused in his mind. She was standing next to him as he sat on the floor, damp clothes trickling rainwater onto stone, in one of the underground caverns of the dungeon.
[Yes,] he confirmed, commanding his light orb a little closer. The main areas of the settlement had always been too dark for his liking —aranea required far less illumination than humans did, and not many accommodations had been made in that regard after he joined the web— but at least light spells were considered one of the most trivial, even for non-mages, so it hadn’t been too difficult to procure one during his first year at the academy.
Still, he wouldn’t need a light source if the matriarch hadn’t recruited him for sewing duty as soon as he’d arrived. Having hands could be such a chore-magnet, sometimes.
[It’s concerning,] she continued, tapping a couple of her feet against the cave floor. [The foreign forces gathering in the floors below have been acting strangely all day, too. Smarter, more organized… We must be cautious. I hold no doubt whatever they are planning will mean nothing good to our web. Could it be they are speeding up their plans?]
Zorian hummed out loud, tying up a pair of threads as he finished mending one of the backpacks his webmates used to carry items, before picking up the next. [Can they even do that? I thought you’d said they needed the planetary alignment at the end of the month.]
[That’s what the members with unprotected minds believe, yes,] the matriarch told him. [But the higher members are not without mental defenses. Considerably strong ones, as well. It’s possible that only certain people have gotten the full story, while the lower masses have been fed lies. Perhaps even in a purposeful attempt to misdirect us.]
As he sewed close a rupture in another of the backpacks, Zorian couldn’t help but doubt the matriarch’s theory. She was behaving uncharacteristically paranoid; much more so than the situation warranted, in his opinion.
He didn’t need to voice this before she picked it up from his surface thoughts.
[You believe I am overthinking the facts,] the matriarch told him, her message stained with non-amusement. [Behaving carelessly around an unknown enemy is a grave mistake to make, Hands of Invention. It’s better you learn this before it’s too late. I would much rather be remembered for unnecessarily overestimating a group of fools than for leading my web into an early and unjustified grave.]
[I know, matriarch,] he replied, avoiding her many eyes. [I just can’t see how they could be such a threat to the web— all of them are flickerminds, and many of them don’t even wear mind shields most of the time.]
The matriarch skittered closer to him, then. [Things have changed,] she said quietly, in a soft, calming tone she rarely used. [I don’t mean to concern you with this matter, but… Four of our scouts died earlier today, and more than double that number were wounded in unprecedented attacks, initiated by the invaders. They’ve anticipated combat formations not used against their group until now, they have all begun to sport at least basic mind shields, and some of the war trolls have had mind blanks placed on them. These tactics are clearly meant to counter our abilities. It is not the time to be reckless, nor to underestimate our adversaries.]
Four scouts? Dead? Zorian’s hands stopped in their task as he looked at his matriarch. This… certainly explained her behavior.
[Who—?]
[Glittering Pearls Forged of Stars, Winter Winds Freezing Everything in Their Path, Warm Waves Crashing at the Shores of the Ocean, and Lightening Through Storms Striking at the Highest Target.]
Oh. He hadn’t been very close to any of them —of those four, only Winter Winds had bothered to learn human language, and not to a particularly proficient degree— but still, it was…
Upsetting.
[I imagine the web will counter this attack with one of our own, right?] Zorian predicted, putting down the backpack he’d been mending. [We can’t just let them do whatever they want.]
[Of course,] she agreed. [Hunts have already been organized. We’ll be careful, and only target their most vulnerable spots. The remaining scouts have explicit orders to retreat immediately if they believe to have encountered any opponents beyond their level of skill.]
[I should join the hunts,] he said, an idea forming in his mind. [If they are acting like they know how to counter the web’s defenses, then I could be your trump card! They won’t be expecting to deal with a fellow human mage, and—]
[No,] the matriarch answered immediately. [You are barely a mage as you are now, Hands of Invention. Maybe if you’d had some more years of instruction, but… You’ve only just passed your first circle examination. And you don’t yet know any combat spells, do you?]
[I could ask at the academy. I have access to the library spellbooks now,] he protested. Somehow, it sounded weak even in his own mind.
Her eyes seemed to soften at him then. [I appreciate the intention, but I cannot allow it. Your value goes beyond this. While all members of the web are irreplaceable, you are most so. I will not risk you for such little gain. Have trust in your web, Zorian. There is no need to involve yourself here.]
This treatment somehow bothered him even more than just being dismissed for lack of skill. Really, what had been the point of going through his maturation ceremony? She clearly still thought of him as a child.
The matriarch then straightened, rising upwards and placing the end of one wire-like foot against Zorian’s forehead, tapping it a few times affectionately. A soothing feeling trickled into Zorian’s mind each time her limb made contact with his skin, calming him down. [Your value goes beyond this,] she repeated. [Grow and learn, so that you may protect the web in the future, rather than now.]
[...I understand,] he relented at last.
He reluctantly picked up the backpack he’d been working on earlier, and the matriarch swiftly moved the conversation towards his soon-to-begin classes.
* * *
“Hi, Roach!”
“Taiven,” Zorian greeted her, suppressing a sigh at the insulting nickname. “What are you doing here? I told you I don’t like you visiting my house.”
“Oh, c’mon you grump. Aren’t we friends? Friends can visit each other’s houses!” she laughed at him, clearly moving to step inside.
Instead of allowing her passage, he quickly stepped outside, blocking her path and closing the door behind him. There, now neither of them was inside the house.
“I don’t care about the general consensus of it, this is a matter of you disregarding a clear personal boundary,” he told her, before dropping the matter. It’s not like Taiven would ever start caring about properness. “Let’s just go to a cafe, then you can tell me what this is all about.”
“Oh, like a date!” Taiven perked up, chuckling. “You know, that was kind of smooth, you should totally try that on a girl you like!”
Zorian raised his eyes to the heavens. It wasn’t even noon, and he already hated this day.
An hour later, sitting at a table in front of Taiven and having just finished eating lunch together, his feelings on the matter hadn’t changed.
“A sewer run?” asked Zorian incredulously, cutting her off. “You want me to go on a sewer run?”
“It’s good experience!” she protested.
“No,” said Zorian. “No way.”
“Oh come on, Roach, I’m begging you!” Taiven whined. “We can’t apply until we find a fourth member of the team! Would it kill you to make this tiny sacrifice for your old friend?”
“It might!” Zorian said. With a dismissing gesture, he added, “I don’t even know any combat spells.”
Hey, if the matriarch was going to keep him from the hunts he actually wanted to join because of that fact, he saw no reason not to use the excuse here as well.
“There will be three other people to protect you, nothing will happen to you, Roach. I will personally keep you safe like you were a little newborn baby,” she insisted. “We’ve been there hundreds of times and nothing really dangerous ever happens down there— and besides, the mission is just to find and retrieve this watch from some giant spiders, so—”
“Giant spiders?” Zorian repeated, a thought clicking in his mind.
“Yeah,” Taiven answered as she leaned forwards, probably sensing she’d finally caught his interest somehow. “Not a particularly hostile creature for the dungeon, but still dangerous enough that the client wanted to hire someone else for the job. Don’t worry, all you need to do is add to our numbers, we’ll take care of everything else!”
He stared at her for a few moments, considering this information. He knew for a fact the only ‘giant spiders’ underneath Cyoria were his web, and if Taiven went there purposefully looking for a fight…
Well. His human friend might be a decent combat mage, but at the end of the day Zorian would place his bets on whichever aranean scout they came across. Especially since Taiven didn’t seem to have the intention to put on any sort of mental defenses before the job.
Should he just join them, and oversee the situation to prevent any potential problems with his web? Maybe he could even get some combat experience out of it.
But then again, it wasn’t like he could learn any combat spells in the day it’d take before Taiven’s little outing, so whatever ‘experience’ he squeezed out of it would at best be watching Taiven and her friends from the sidelines and hoping he didn’t get caught by an amateur’s stray spell. Besides, the idea of wasting an afternoon treading through the sewers with Taiven’s friends wasn’t exactly exciting, nor was her repeated use of the stupid bug nickname doing much to motivate him.
He couldn’t think of a good way to get Taiven to drop the mission, not without explaining things he’d rather not tell her. He supposed he’d just have to warn his webmates of their visit beforehand and run some damage control in the worst case scenario.
“No, I won’t be joining you, Taiven.”
Her face instantly soured, before she scrunched it into something more determined. “How about a bet, then?”
For some reason —perhaps even a premonition of sorts— Zorian had a feeling it would take most of his day for Taiven to drop the issue.
* * *
After a remarkably unproductive weekend, Zorian made his way to his first class of the semester: Essential Invocations. He still wasn’t sure exactly which topic it would cover —the term ‘invocation’ was quite broad and vague— but clearly it was important in some way, since the academy had scheduled a period of it every day of the week.
“You’re late,” Akoja stated once he arrived at the classroom’s door.
Zorian raised an eyebrow at this. “The class doesn’t start for at least ten more minutes. How can I be late?”
“Students are supposed to be in the classroom and ready for class fifteen minutes before the class starts,” she said.
Zorian rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous, even for Akoja. “Am I the last person to arrive?”
“No,” she conceded after a short silence.
Zorian walked past her and entered the classroom. As he did, he nodded in greeting to the few classmates he sometimes talked to. Most of his attention, however, was on his mind sense.
Class had always been the best environment for practicing reading surface thoughts, he’d found. The students were usually focused on a subject —although often that subject was gossip or the like, rather than the class itself— and he already knew they were all too inexperienced with mind magic to notice the intrusion. Reading the surface thoughts of strangers in the street was quite risky in comparison, because one could never quite tell beforehand the level of skill an individual might have in mind magic, but Zorian was very familiar with his classmates’ limitations by now.
Indeed, he found the situation to be as expected; Tinami Aope continued to be the only one to sport a mental shield. Although it was not a particularly impressive one, he still left her alone— no need to strike a potential hornets’ nest if her dabbling in mind magic ever bore fruit. The rest of the students, on the other hand, had completely unprotected minds.
And, Zorian had long since been taught, flickerminds were fair game.
As he acquitted himself with the latest school gossip and what his classmates had done over the summer, only picking up a few actually interesting details here and there, Zorian chose a seat near the front of the class. Frantic hissing immediately came from the seat next to him, a small fire drake voicing his complaints towards Zorian’s direction as Briam held the little creature in place.
“Sorry about that,” the boy said, embarrassed. “He’s still a little uneasy around strangers.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zorian said, waving the apology away. He tried to soothe the creature mentally, as practice if nothing else, but it didn’t seem to do much to help. “I see your family has given you a fire drake of your own. Familiar?”
Briam nodded happily, scratching the lizard’s head absent-mindedly and causing the creature to close its eyes in contentment. “I bonded with him over the summer holidays,” he said. “Familiar bond is a little strange at first, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. At least I’ve managed to talk him out of breathing fire at people without permission, else I would have to put a fire-suppressant collar on him, and he hates that thing.”
“The school won’t bother you about bringing it to class?” Zorian asked curiously.
“Him,” Briam corrected. “And no, they won’t. You can bring a familiar to class if you’ve reported them to the academy and can get them to behave. And, of course, as long as they’re reasonably sized.”
“I hear fire drakes can get pretty big,” Zorian remarked speculatively.
“They do,” Briam agreed. “That’s why I wasn’t allowed to have one till now. In a few years he’ll get way too big to follow me into the classroom, but by that time I’ll already be finished with my education and back at the ranch.”
Satisfied the creature wouldn’t try to take a bite out of him during class, Zorian let his attention wander back to the mental chatter of his classmates’ minds. It was hard to pay attention to multiple trains of thought at the same time, so he laid his head on his hand and closed his eyes in an attempt to place his focus inwards.
Which is how he immediately felt the new mind entering the range of his mind sense. Specifically, he felt the static-like feeling of a guarded mind, hidden behind a powerful mind shield spell.
Unusual. Very, very unusual. It didn’t feel anything like Tinami’s amateur work or Ilsa’s weak layer of defense, instead clearly having the tells of something crafted after years of dedication and experience. It was definitely not something one of his classmates could cast, not as he had known them prior to summer break.
Zorian raised his head as the mind crossed the classroom’s door, and met Zach Noveda’s eyes.