Genius || Variable thirty-two

Spruce sat on the ground, with his head between his legs, and his hands on his head. He was dizzy, and he tried to control himself from vomiting.

“Are you okay?” Yew asked after he walked up to his neighbor.

“I feel sick,” Spruce responded.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, moved his head to the side, and vomited, receiving some ewwws from the nearby students, who didn’t like what they saw.

“Are you sick?!” the voice of the approaching teacher made everyone stand aside. “You don’t have to come to class, if you don’t feel well,” Cacao said, as he came closer. “Take him to the clinic,” he commanded Yew, who stood by Spruce. “I excuse both of you from today’s class. Just for confirmation, Spruce Fire and Yew Sky?”

“Yes, professor,” Yew answered.

“Good, then. I’ll mark your absence as excused today. Just go, already.” Then he turned to the other students and said in a loud voice, “everyone else, get inside the classroom, or I’ll give you negative points for being late.”

The students quickly hurried inside the classroom. Meanwhile, Spruce slowly stood up with Yew’s help and, as they began walking away, the teacher took a final look at them, nodded with sympathy, then also entered the classroom.

“Which way is the clinic?” Yew asked.

“How do I know?” Spruce responded, then added, “it’s fine. I’m not sick. That ride was just crazy.”

They stopped walking and Spruce pointed at the grass under a tree. “I just need to sit down for a bit, and it’ll go away.”

Both boys sat down on the grass under the tree. There were no other people around them, because students and teachers alike were already inside their classrooms holding classes for another hour.

Spruce kept his head down between his legs, and Yew was just quietly sitting next to him, while observing the empty roads, and wondering how odd it felt to be alone in such a vast labyrinth of buildings.

After a long time of rest, Spruce finally felt better. “Let’s go to Sorrel’s class,” he said, then slowly got up. Yew did the same.

Spruce’s legs were still tired from yesterday’s run, so he knew that he couldn’t walk fast. However they weren't far away from the History building, and with the extra time, which they had, he could slowly get there on time.

“So how did you happen to meet with that tutor?” Yew asked, after Spruce began walking.

“I woke up late today, and when I was on my way to class, she saw me and asked me, if I was skipping class. I told her that I’m late and I'm in a hurry. Then she dragged me onto that bench and before I could get off, the bench started flying.”

“She dragged you? Without asking if you want a ride or not?”

Spruce confirmed with a nod.

Yew thought for a moment. He remembered the first time, when Chervil came over to the classroom and introduced herself. She certainly appeared like a rather odd type of a person, and the latest story from Spruce made Yew even more afraid of the gal. He decided that he would stay away from her as much as possible, even if he had to skip Exercise classes every Wednesday.

The two of them arrived early to the Process class. The door was closed, because the previous class hadn’t yet finished. The boys sat by the wall. However they didn’t have to wait long, because soon the classes had ended, and the door to classroom B was opened from inside. The girls of the first year began stepping out and heading toward another classroom. Among them was Wasabi, who didn’t spot the boys, because she was busy talking with another girl from her class.

After all the students had left, Spruce and Yew got up from the ground, and entered the classroom, which was empty except for the teacher, who sat at her desk. Spruce quickly headed for his desk, while Yew took a moment to look around. Being the only two students in the classroom had an interesting feel to it, and Yew couldn’t quite tell what it was.

However, the quiet moment didn’t last long. Soon their classmates arrived. The room became full of students as usual, and the lecture started.

“Now that everyone can use magic, or their magical items,” Sorrel smiled at Spruce, “let us move on.”

She knocked on the board and two words appeared: «concentration», and «stamina».

“As you already know, concentration is necessary to start magic, and stamina is necessary to continue using magic. All of you had some stamina and some concentration, when you first came to Hecate. However, not all of you had enough to make magic happen, which is why you struggled to perform magic in your first week of school.”

She walked up to the word «concentration» and slid her finger under it. A vertical list of ten labels appeared from one percent until ten percent.

“Magic concentration is divided into three ranks: bronze, silver and gold. Each rank is further divided into percentages. Hundred percent of bronze rank is required to graduate Hecate. Hundred percent silver rank is considered to be a professional magus, and hundred percent gold rank is, well, rare.”

She took a moment to quietly look at her students. “When you first walked in this class, your concentration was somewhere near zero percent. It takes about one percent of bronze rank concentration to shake a pen, and in order to advance to the second year, you’ll need to have at least ten percent bronze rank concentration by the end of the school year.”

She turned back to the blackboard. “But concentration isn’t enough.”

She slid her finger under stamina, and once again a vertical list of labels appeared. This time, it started at zero percent and went up to five percent with the intervals of half a percent. “Stamina is also important. To measure stamina we use stamina levels. The lowest one being zero percent, which is that of a newborn baby. Thirty percent stamina is the average for most adults. Anything beyond that is considered above average levels of stamina.”

She faced the class once again. “You need at least five percent of stamina in order to graduate the first year. If you fail the minimum requirements in the magic concentration rank or in the stamina level by the end of the year, you’ll have to either repeat the year or find another school.”

She walked up to her desk. "So today, we’ll check your current concentration rank and stamina level.” She pointed at an alarm clock on her desk, “this is a stamina clock. As you see, it has percentages from zero point zero until one point zero. When your stamina goes over one percent, then it will do another circle. So, if any of you have a stamina of three percent then the clock handle will make three circles.”

Then she pointed at something, which looked like a thermometer, “this is a basic magic concentration indicator. It can be used to measure bronze rank from zero to fifty percent. I’ll read your namehoods, so if you hear your name, I want you to come to the desk, and move this pen,” she pointed at the pen on the table. “When you do that the magic concentration indicator will calculate your concentration, and the stamina clock will measure the amount of stamina you possess.”

She read out the namehood of the first student, and when he came up to her desk, she addressed him and the class, “make sure you give your best, or your results will be lower than actual.”

The student did try his best and received zero point seven percent on stamina, and two percent on his concentration. Sorrel noted down the results and called out the next person, who received zero point five percent on stamina, and two percent on his concentration. This pattern went on for another five people, who ranged between zero point five to one point two percent on stamina and between one to two percent on concentration.

Sorrel called out Linden, who came up to the table, and levitated the pen with ease. The stamina clock ranked four point six percent and the magic concentration indicator showed fourteen percent. The whole class couldn’t believe the results, and Sorrel shook her head in disapproval. With a scorn on her face, she wrote down the results. And when Linden was on his way back to his desk, she said to him, “please come to my office in the afternoon.”

Several namehoods later, Aspen was called to the teacher’s desk. He returned back with one point four percent level of stamina, and a whole eight percent bronze rank in concentration.

After all the magic-talented students were called, Sorrel called out Yew’s name. He came up to the teacher’s desk totally stressed. He didn’t know what his results would be, but he prayed that it wouldn't be anything higher than Linden’s. Trying to control his power as much as he could and use only the minimum of it, he slowly shook the pen.

Sorrel noted Yew's results: zero point seven percent on stamina and one percent on concentration.

Yew couldn’t feel happier how perfectly he managed to fit in with the average students around him. He returned back to his desk feeling blissfully relieved.

Last to be examined was Spruce. When he walked up to the teacher’s desk, Sorrel looked at him, and said, “oh yeah, your tool uses fire. Instead of floating the pen, please set it up on fire."

Spruce did just that. The pen burst into flames, and Sorrel looked at the stamina clock, which ran a full circle, and then another one and stopped at two point nine percent.

She took a quick look at the magic concentration indicator, and so did Spruce, who was so surprised that he stopped his magic. “Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, ready to redo the flame, but Sorrel stopped him.

“It’s fine,” she put her hand over the pen, which wasn't even charred. “I already saw the result. Four percent,” she took back her hand, and wrote down both numbers next to Spruce’s namehood in her register book.

All students were beyond words, and many of them also looked at Linden, who simply rolled his eyes. Yew looked at Spruce, then at Linden, then back at Spruce, as he recalled Juniper’s words: “there are two kinds of geniuses in the world, those who start earlier than anyone else, and those who start later than everyone else.”

Item || Variable thirty-one

Spruce stood in front of Sorrel’s office inside the schoolmanor. He was here two weeks ago in order to help Sorrel move the boxes from her office to the classroom, and at that time it was a lot of fun, but today he came prepared for the worst.

In his head, he could already hear the teacher tell him that he has no talent for this; that he should consider going to another school; that if he cannot succeed by next week, he would be expelled. Having his lifegoal destroyed like that was going to be painful, but he couldn’t change the inevitable, so after standing still for quite a long time, he finally found the courage to face his fate. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

The door magically opened with a soft swooshing sound, and Sorrel welcomed him with two words: “come in.”

She was walking around her office room arranging some documents from her desk back onto the shelf. After Spruce walked in, she pointed at the chair in front of her desk and warmly invited him, “please, sit down.”

Spruce sat and waited. In the meantime she kept looking through some of the documents in her hand.

Eventually Sorrel cleaned the documents off her desk and put them back onto the shelfcase. Then she sat down on her chair at the other side of the desk.

“I’m sorry that you had to wait," she started. "Can I see the magical item, which you've bought last week?”

Spruce quickly nodded his head, and put the dagger on the table.

“Oh," Sorrel was slightly surprised. "I should have expected that from a boy." She pointed at the item, "so even with this dagger, you still cannot float a pen, huh?”

Spruce nodded once but firmly.

“What kind of magic does it have specifically? Sky magic? Air magic? Wind magic? Gravity magic?” she listed the most likely options.

Spruce blinked in confusion.

Seeing his reaction, the teacheress explained, “well, I haven’t taught that yet, because magic variations are many in number, but when you were buying this item, the seller should have told you its magic variation.”

“I don’t know,” Spruce quietly admitted, but then he recalled what happened when Linden used it. “I think it may be Fire magic,” he added.

“Fire magic? Oh, then that explains why you couldn’t float a pen.”

After Spruce heard Sorrel’s statement, he looked at her in hope.

“Fire cannot float objects,” she continued. “At least not by itself.” She took a pen from the basket of pens on her desk and put it in front of Spruce. “Instead of trying to float it, try to set it on fire.”

Spruce furrowed his eyebrows, and concentrated.

“Don’t forget to hold it,” she reminded him about his magical item.

Spruce put his hand on his dagger, and imagined setting the pen on fire. A spark appeared, then another one, and three more sparks twinkled consecutively before a flame burst out and surrounded the whole pen.

Sorrel snapped her fingers above the burning pen, and the flame disappeared in an instant.

“I don’t want you to burn my office,” she said with a sweet smile. “But other than that, it’s a pass. I recommend you practice under the sink.”

Spruce looked at the burned pen, and couldn’t believe what had just happened.

“Do you have any more questions?” Sorrel asked the boy.

Spruce looked at her, then back at the pen.

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” She touched the pen, which returned back to its preburned state. Then she put it back with her other pens. “As long as the damage isn’t extensive, it’s always easy to fix.”

“I can use magic,” Spruce still couldn’t believe his own eyes.

“Yes, you can. And if you have no more questions, you can go back and practice more. I expect to see it again tomorrow in class.”

“Yes, professor, thank you,” Spruce responded then got up the chair. He was already on the way out, when Sorrel once again reminded him of the dagger, which was still laying on her desk. He turned around and before feeling too embarrassed, he took the dagger and quickly left the office.

Outside, he couldn’t contain his euphoria. He ran through the hallway of the schoolmanor, and got yelled at by some of the teachers, who didn’t approve of anyone running around or near their offices. However, Spruce didn’t stop to listen to their preachings. He continued to run.

Right after he exited the schoolmanor, he jumped up as high as he could, and screamed, “God-made!”

A lot of students and teachers looked at the boy, who just ran off as suddenly as he ran out of the building. Many smiled with an understanding. They all knew that something very good must have happened to him.

The phrase “God-made” was a common phrase used by those, who experienced something awesome. Some linguists claimed that it was an abbreviation of the sentence, “God made a miracle”, while others sought the explanation elsewhere. The phrase itself had been used for so many centuries, that no one really knew where it came from, but the meaning behind it had never changed. It was always the expression of unlimited joy.

Spruce kept running through the schoolground without taking a break to rest. He passed different buildings, students, and teachers. All of whom looked after the runner with questioning countenances, not knowing the purpose or the cause of his run.

He only slowed down, when he arrived by the hamlet, not because of close proximity to his home, but because his stomach muscles began to hurt.

When he finally entered the living room of his cottage, Aspen, who sat at his desk on the left side, looked up from the textbook, which he was reading.

“So how was it?” he asked.

“God-made,” Spruce answered with the last bit of breath, which he had, and fell onto the sofa.

“That’s good,” Aspen responded then went back to reading.

Spruce, who didn’t sleep well the night before, fell asleep on the sofa right away. He woke up later on, when it was almost dark outside. Aspen was already in his bed, so Spruce quietly took a shower, and while doing so, he kept recalling the meeting with Sorrel. He couldn’t get enough of the warm feeling of success burning inside him.

When he was dressing up into his pajamas, he imagined the reactions of his friends tomorrow in class, and he couldn’t wait until the night was over. He hid himself under the comforter and giggled like a bride the night before her wedding. Not realizing when, he fell asleep with a big smile on his face.

And while he slept, the new day arrived.

He felt someone take off his bedcovers, and heard Aspen talking to him.

“If you don’t wake up soon, you’ll be late to class.”

He opened his eyes, and saw that Aspen was already up and ready. It didn’t surprise him, because Aspen was always up and ready early in the morning.

“What time is it?” he asked, while rubbing his eyes.

“Look at the clock,” Aspen pointed at the round clock above the door.

Spruce slowly turned around his head. However, when he saw the hour, his lethargy immediately disappeared and he began to dress up ultra-fast.

“I’ll be going ahead,” Aspen said before he left.

Spruce quickly finished dressing up. He didn't have enough time to eat breakfast, so he went straight to the entry room, put on outdoor shoes and ran out. But as soon as he left the cottage, he felt a quick sharp pain in his legs. The fatigue from the crazy long run of yesterday took over his body, and he couldn’t move well.

He believed that he could still make it on time, if he walked, so he began the difficult journey toward the classroom. His body gave him signals that it would rather rest than walk, but he didn’t want to give up. When he was halfway to the classroom, he felt a sharp stab in his side and he had to make a stop.

“Skipping class?” a female voice asked him from behind.

He turned around and saw Chervil Sun walking around leisurely at a time, when most students ran as fast as possible to make it on time to their classes.

“My legs hurt,” Spruce said.

“Take a day off,” she suggested.

“I don’t want to.”

“What resolution,” she snorted with fake admiration. “But your hands are fine?” she asked with a smirk.

“Yeah?” Spruce didn’t know how it was related.

“Which building are you heading to?”

“History building, classroom A.”

Chervil took him by the arm and pushed him onto a nearby bench. “Then grab on,” she said and also sat down.

“I have to go,” Spruce began complaining, but stopped, when he realized that the bench started levitating.

“All passengers aboard, please hold on,” Chervil said like a kid playing a bus conductor. “We take no responsibility for passengers, who accidentally leave the plane mid-flight.”

Spruce grabbed the bench and held on as hard as he could. His intuition was telling him that he wasn’t going to like it. When the bench was at the height of about five meters, it suddenly moved forward at a speed, which was way too fast for a travelling bench.

“Oh no,” Chervil shouted, “the speed limit is only twenty kilometers per hour. Our car has exceeded the speed limit,” then she looked behind and said, “we’re being chased. We must increase the speed.” Instead of slowing, the bench moved even faster and faster, taking sharp turns around the buildings and among the trees.

Spruce began to feel sick after six or so turns, but before he had a chance to throw up, Chervil announced, “we’re sinking, the boat is too heavy.”

The bench began to slow down and flew downward toward the ground. It suddenly came to a halt, and while it was floating right above the ground, Chervil shouted, “remove excess baggage!” before she threw Spruce off the bench right in front of the History building, classroom A.

All the students, who didn’t enter the classroom yet, were staring in surprise at the method of arrival, which Spruce had acquired unwillingly. Meanwhile, Chervil stood up on the bench and declared, “this is a pirate ship.” The bench once again began floating up. Chervil pointed into the distance and shouted, “the treasure is right ahead,” and the bench quickly flew away.

Test || Variable thirty

Then came the eighth day of Byzh, a Monday morning, which had arrived way too fast. The students headed to their classes, and nobody could understand why Linden was so happy early in the morning.

When they were close to the History building, Spruce asked him, “what makes you so happy? Your negative hundred twenty-five points?”

“Who cares about homework points?" Linden shrugged. "Free food is only for test points,” he responded and walked into the classroom with a smug face.

After Cacao Bark arrived, the students greeted him and he greeted them back. Then he walked up to his desk and tapped it twice. Upon his action, a pile of papers appeared on top of his desk next to his hand. He grabbed the first answer sheet.

“For those of you, who don’t know. Any score of ninety percent or more grants you seven days of free meals in the cafeteria. Since this test was for a total of hundred points, this means anyone, who scored at least ninety points, will receive from me a free meal pass. Let me start, Aspen Breeze, ninety eight points.”

Aspen walked up to the teacher and got back his answer sheet together with the free meal pass, which looked like a small sticker, which he could stick onto his student badge. The sticker was less than two centimeters long and had the word “bread” in the center. Aspen stuck the sticker at the top of the number one in his student badge, which he kept on his chest.

The students started to accustom themselves to the school's tradition to openly announce their scores together with their names, so no one reacted strongly to it anymore. And no one was surprised at Aspen’s score, because he always had the highest score.

One by one the students took their papers.

“Yew Sky, eighty three points.”

Some more names were called, then...

“Linden Cave, hundred points.”

It was the first time someone received hundred points, and most students thought that they had misheard the name, but when they saw Linden walking to the front, they could no longer doubt their ears.

Before Cacao handed Linden his answer sheet and the free meal sticker, he warned in a rather threatening voice, “allow me to remind you that your total score is still negative twenty five points. You won’t pass this class with a negative score."

Linden showed no reaction, and upon receiving his items, he nonchalantly went back to his seat.

Afterward the teacher read the next name, “Spruce Fire, thirty two points.”

It was the lowest score in the class. And even after all the names were read, the second lowest score was only fifty six points. Spruce couldn’t hide how horribly he felt. He remained silent throughout the class, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk, even when they headed to the much nicer Process class.

There, Sorrel Cave walked up to each student, checking if they succeeded moving the pen. Everyone, except for Spruce, succeeded in magic, and that included Yew, who shook it twice, a bit faster than he intended, but the teacher didn’t see anything odd about it.

No matter how many attempts, Sorrel gave to Spruce, the boy couldn’t do it, and he ended up to be the only student, who had a mandatory afternoon meeting with Sorrel in her office. Yew felt sorry for him, but he had no means to help him, so instead of accidentally hurting Spruce with words, he kept his mouth shut.

During lunch in the cafeteria, Linden paid for Yew’s and Spruce’s meal, and tried to cheer up the poor magicless student, “did you hear that a bad beginning is a sign of a great ending?”

Spruce however remained gloomy, “if I don’t finish the first year as a top student of my class, my father won’t allow me to attend Hecate anymore.”

“Ignore your parents, and chase your dreams,” Linden declared. “Don’t let others tell you what to do.”

Spruce narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes, but Linden looked totally serious, so Spruce didn’t say anything in response.

After the meal, they went to the Exercise class, and were surprised to see Juniper Root, with a bag in his left hand, leaning on the wall near the entrance, and no sight of Maca Waterfall.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “Welcome to the greatest class ever.” When all the attending students went inside, Juniper closed the door and walked right to the center of the room, “so you wonder, where’s Maca, I bet. Our tutoring group had a meeting yesterday and arranged a schedule, which will allow us to have more time for our own studies.”

He turned his body around, taking a good look at everybody in the class. “Since you’re only first years, there ain’t much to teach you, so each day you’ll have a different tutor. Monday it’s me – Juniper Root, Tuesday it’s Chervil, Wednesday it’s Beech, Thursday it’s Maca, and Friday it’s Sage. On Saturday, it’ll be whoever volunteers.”

Then he rubbed his hands, “so unlike last week, by today you ought to know a little bit of magic, so let’s do this...” He took the bag and turned it upside down. A rain of green leaves fell to the floor.

“Make them levitate,” he said, “like this...” And then all the leaves began floating up and then around the classroom.

“I don’t expect you to move them all at once,” he said, while the leaves began moving toward the students. Then each leaf fell on the head of a different student. “It’s one leaf per student, so you only need to move your own leaf. When you succeed I have a little reward for you.”

The students took the leaves off their heads, and began trying. All except Spruce, who didn’t even bother removing the leaf from his head. Juniper saw that and came over to the boy. “What’s up?” he asked.

Spruce looked up at him, and said, “I cannot do it.”

Juniper squatted next to him, took the leaf of his head, and held it in his hand, “why do you say so?” he asked genuinely curious.

“Because I couldn’t even shake the pen in the classroom.”

Juniper blew air at the leaf, which changed color from green to orange. He let go of the leaf, which floated and rotated sunwise in one place, right in front of Spruce.

“You know, not everybody gets accepted to Hecate,” he said. “Do you know why?”

Spruce shook his head sideways.

Juniper moved a finger forward in the air. The leaf moved closer to Spruce, and landed on his lap.

“Do you remember your last day of kindergarten?” the guy asked.

“Somewhat,” Spruce answered. “We had a test, but it wasn’t scored. We had to write answers to some questions. They were testing us on orthography and reading skills.”

“The copy of those answers were sent to Hecate together with the application,” Juniper stated.

“So what?” Spruce was getting agitated.

“Do you remember this question: Is there anything in your life, which you want but cannot have?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you answer?”

“Yes.”

“Just one word?” Juniper smiled, and Spruce nodded. “You know, some people write more than that. They write many details about their dreams. However, all schools around the world prioritize those, whose answers are short or mysterious. Can you guess why?”

Spruce slowly shook his head sideways.

“Because if someone keeps his dream a secret, it’s because his dream is far bigger than possible. They don’t want others to laugh at them.”

“So what?” Spruce got irritated by the unhelpful chat.

Juniper stood up and looked at other students, who were practicing hard with the leaves, then he looked back at Spruce. “There are two kinds of geniuses in the world, those who start earlier than anyone else, and those who start later than everyone else."

Right after he said that, he walked away before Spruce processed the sentence.

Juniper approached another student, who already managed to float his leaf. “Good job,” he complimented the boy, and from his pocket he took out a candy.

Yew, who sat nearby, heard the last comment Juniper told Spruce and furrowed his eyebrows. He wondered how geniuses could start later than everyone else, because that couldn’t make them geniuses, but the very opposite - incompetent failures.

The Exercise class ended with twelve students successfully floating their leaves. Spruce sat the whole time, while doing nothing, and Yew wasn’t even trying. He decided to practice later in secret, with nobody around.

After the class ended, Spruce went to see the teacher, while Yew and Aspen went back home.

Back at his cottage, Yew decided to tell Linden about the Exercise class, “you know, today our tutor wasn’t Maca. It was that other guy, Juniper.”

“Hmm…” Linden responded, barely interested. He was lazily lying on his stomach on the sofa, and hugging a pillow under his chin.

“And he said something super weird," Yew continued. "He said that there are two types of geniuses, those who start earlier than others, and those who start later than others. Weird, right?”

“Sounds about right,” Linden murmured into the pillow.

“How is it about right?” Yew furrowed his eyebrows again.

“He said that about Spruce, yeah?” Linden raised his head a bit, and Yew nodded in answer.

“Then you’ll understand tomorrow,” Linden ended the conversation, and without any further explanation, he put his face on the pillow and ignored the whole world.

Practice || Variable twenty-nine

A knock on the door was followed by Spruce’s voice calling the name, “Linden!”

“What does he want?” Linden spoke to himself and walked to the entry room. Yew also went to see what was the issue.

Spruce was waiting in the entrance. “How does this work?” he asked, pointing at his newly acquired dagger, which he held in the other hand.

“This is something you should have asked before you bought it," Linden snarled back.

“Just tell me," Spruce half-begged and half-demanded.

“Give it to me,” Linden stretched out his hand and Spruce put the dagger onto his open palm.

Holding the dagger, Linden stepped outside and away from the cottage entrance. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, the simple dagger turned into a long sword. It had detailed golden decorations carved on the blackest handle, and white shining decorations on the smoothest metal, which any of them ever saw.

Furthermore, the sword was surrounded by raging flames of bright orange-red fire, which also surrounded Linden and circled around him like guard dogs. The sudden spectacle brought attention from those of their neighbors, who were outside, and those who at the time looked out through the windows.

“What was that?” one of them asked, after all the flames disappeared and the sword turned back into a dagger.

“His magical item,” Linden gave the dagger back to Spruce, before he re-entered his cottage.

“Wait, how did you do it? Do it one more time!” Spruce begged and ran after Linden, who ignored him and walked into the restroom, where Spruce couldn’t follow him.

Yew looked around at the people present in the neighborhood, many of whom were also his classmates. He saw that some of them were clearly amazed and jealous of the magic, which they just saw. Surely many of them had changed their opinions regarding magical items.

Seeing that Linden wouldn’t help him anymore, Spruce returned back to his cottage. He was nonetheless feeling overjoyed at the possibility that one day he’d also be able to do the same.

Later that day, Yew went to do his homework, while Linden totally dismissed his. Instead, the beautiful boy was reading a book about the oldest jokes of the world. His occasional laughing bothered Yew, who nevertheless managed to concentrate and complete his assignments.

Afterward, Yew ate supper and went to take a shower. Once he was done showering, it was already fairly late, so he planned to go to bed. However, when Linden went to take the shower after him, Yew saw it as an opportunity to check his magical talents in secret.

While Linden was taking his shower, Yew took a pen and put it on the table in the living room. He focused his eyes on the item, and imagined the pen moving up and levitating above the table. Instantly, just like he imagined it, the pen began to move up, then it stopped midair roughly half a meter above the table.

Yew looked around, afraid of being noticed, but there was no one else to see his magic. Linden was still taking his shower, and the closed curtains on the windows were blocking the view of anyone, who’d still be out at this late hour.

In the same manner as before, Yew imagined the pen slowly falling back onto the desk and the pen did just that.

Yew decided to test the brooch next.

Linden said that he could use it to fly, so he decided to try levitating. While holding the brooch in his hand, he imagined himself levitating. He couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like, because there were just too many details, but even without an exact image, he slowly lifted off and levitated about a meter above the floor.

He was euphoric at his success to the point, that he wanted to scream in joy, but the fear of being discovered kept a tight muzzle on his other emotions. Slowly he levitated himself down and onto the floor. He didn’t want to accidentally get caught by Linden, who could finish his shower at any moment now, so Yew decided that he wouldn’t test the limits of his magic or his magical tool anymore for today.

Suddenly, the front door opened with an extremely loud bang and Spruce, dressed in pajamas, ran inside, screaming, “did you fly?”

Totally confused and terrified, Yew only stared back. Next, Linden stepped out of the shower completely naked and looked at Yew, “did you use the brooch?” he asked nonchalantly.

Yew instinctively shook his head to mean ‘no’.

Linden looked at Yew, then at Spruce, then went back to the shower room.

“It’s insane,” Spruce continued, “we all flew!”

“Levitated is the correct term,” Aspen, also dressed in pajamas, said after coming a bit later. “There’s quite a big commotion outside. It looks like we weren’t the only ones, who experienced that. The people in the neighboring cottages also levitated.”

“I wonder what caused that?” Spruce said excitedly, and ran out to talk with the others, who gathered outside.

Yew almost certainly knew, what caused that, but deep inside he prayed that it would forever remain a secret.

“Anyway, it looks like it’s over, so I’m going back to sleep,” Aspen said and left.

Yew also went to bed, and even though the commotion outside continued for a long time, somehow he quickly fell asleep, glad that nobody suspected him.

By the morning of the third day of Byzh, everyone in Hecate had heard about the late night occurrence in the hamlet of the first year students. Most teachers assumed it to be a joke by some students from the higher years, and this had become the official explanation of the event.

Other than that, nothing had changed from the previous days. Linden lost points for not doing his homework in the History class. In the Process class, they trained in magic, except for Yew, who was just sitting there staring at a pen, making the teacher think that he was simply that talentless.

Only fourteen people showed up to the Exercise class, including Yew, Spruce and Aspen. Maca was the only person present there. She wanted to help, but her explanations were too clumsy to be useful.

After returning back home on the third day of Byzh, Yew saw that his stuff had arrived from home, and his father wrote him a letter. He received an additional four thousand syfras to his money card, and Kapok asked him to notify him again, if Yew needed anything else.

The fourth and fifth days of Byzh were the same, with the exception that instead of going to the Exercise class, the boys went to Sheepcrown to eat, and to save money buying the cheaper food.

On the sixth day of Byzh, Linden walked into the History class, all in a good mood. There was no homework the day before. Instead Cacao announced that they will have their first test. Most students wondered why Linden, who already had a negative hundred twenty five points could be in such a good mood, but some just assumed that he was crazy.

The test started and they had an hour to finish. But not even half an hour passed, when Linden stood up, walked over to the teacher and turned in his answer sheet. Cacao took his answer sheet and began reading it with furrowed eyebrows. Meanwhile Linden quietly left the classroom.

The teacher sighed as he put the answer sheet upside down on his desk.

After finishing the test in the History class, the students moved on to the Process class, where the day went on as usual. Except, at the end of the class, Sorrel announced that those students, who wouldn’t be able to at least shake the pen by Monday would have a mandatory afternoon meeting with her.

So when Saturday classes came to an end, many students went to the Exercise class to get help from Maca, who was the only tutor available. Surprisingly, even with her clumsy, but well-meant help, almost all of them succeeded at least shaking the pen. The only two students, who couldn’t do it, were Yew, who knowingly did nothing, and Spruce, who tried hard but couldn’t do it at all.

Unfortunately for them, Maca was magic-talented and she had no idea how to help magicless students. The two boys learned that their magicless tutor was Beech Meadow, who had yet to show himself.

Spruce and Yew spent the rest of the day reviewing the textbook and looking for clues on how to use magic.

The next day Aspen went to the city of Sheepcrown early in the morning before the sunrise, and Linden also did the same but closer to the noontime. Spruce spent the whole day trying hard to move the pen in his cottage, so Yew had his cottage all to himself.

To Yew, this was a perfect timing to practice moving the pen. He didn’t want to shock everyone by making the pen float, but he didn’t want to have a meeting with the teacheress. So he concentrated on subduing his magic.

On his first try, the pen shook quickly and many times. This was very different from the skill level of his classmates. So he tried again and again until the pen slowly shook once, just like it did for the majority of students in his class.

When he accomplished that, he took a break, and afterward, he continued to try to do the same, while holding a brooch. He couldn’t spell without it, if he wanted to keep his disguise as a magicless student. So he touched the brooch and did exactly the same as before, but the pen shot up into the air then fell onto the floor.

Yew bit his lower lip upon realizing how much more difficult it would be to control the magic in the brooch.

He picked up the pen from the floor, and put it back on the table. He already had a lot of magical talent, and the powerful brooch unnecessarily amplified his magic. He knew that it was going to be hard, but nonetheless he continued.

After severalteen failed attempts, he recalled the time, when Wasabi showed them the magical battle of the ninth year students. The magicless student from that battle didn’t hold his rings, instead he only touched them for a brief moment.

Yew clipped his brooch onto his shirt. Afterward, he tapped it and used the spell right after tapping it. This time the pen only jumped up a little bit.

“Now this is doable,” he said to himself and continued to train.

Market || Variable twenty-eight

Linden looked at the five boxes on the shelves, and asked himself, "so what do we have here?"

He checked the first box. Inside, there was a necklace so beautiful that it looked like it had been made for a queen. "Meh," he sounded disappointed.

"That looked expensive," Spruce commented after Linden put the box back.

"Everything here is expensive."

"I don’t have that kind of money," Yew felt anxious.

"Buy it on credit. It’s worth it," Linden provided him with the solution, as he opened the second box. Inside there was a dagger. "This looks good. Hold it," he gave the box to Spruce.

Looking into the third box, which contained an armband, Linden commented, "maybe, if there's nothing better."

When checking the fourth box, he immediately closed the lid with a judgement of "definitely not", then put the box back before the other boys could even see its content. As for the fifth box, he paused as he eyed the simple yet elegant brooch.

"Hmm… too difficult," he was going to put it back on the shelf, but then he turned to Yew. "Do you want a powerful item which is hard to control, or an item which is super easy to control but isn’t so useful?"

"Of course, he’ll take the powerful item," Spruce answered for Yew.

"What do these items do?" Yew asked.

"The armband can be used to change your appearance on top of having some basic sky magic. The brooch... It kind of looks like a mix of magic which allows you to control air and gravity. You may be able to fly with this."

"How do you know this?" Aspen inquired.

"Spells of perception can allow the user to see the world in different ways. I have something, which allows me to see magic. And since each magic looks different, it’s easy to tell them apart with one look, at least in most cases." He looked at Yew, "so? Which one do you want?"

"The brooch," Yew answered.

Spruce smiled gloriously, assuming at the time that Yew had ambitions as high as his own. However he was wrong. Yew selected the brooch, because Linden described it as powerful but hard to control. Thus in case of something unexpected, he could always blame the magical item in order to hide his talent.

"I told you, he’d take the powerful item," Spruce marveled at his accurate prediction.

"Okay then. Let’s go pay." Linden took the box with the brooch, and stepped out. When no one was inside the safe anymore, the door closed by itself.

They went toward the exit. As Linden put his hand on the handle, he commanded the boys, "stay here. I'll be back in a moment."

They did as told, and waited until Linden came back with the cashier several minutes later. The man immediately looked at the box held by Spruce, then he glanced at the box held by Linden.

"Twenty thousand and thirty five thousand, so a total of fifty five thousand syfras."

"They'll be buying it separately," Linden pointed at his classmates.

"Wait, what? How many syfras?" Spruce yelled out, bewildered at the price.

Yew's mouth dropped open from the shock. The most expensive thing he'd ever bought was his backpack, which had cost him two thousand syfras, and it was the very expensive type, waterproof with a lot of pockets.

The cashier grimaced at the idea of working with poor customers. He looked questioningly at Linden, who gave him a warm smile in return.

"Any discount?" the boy asked.

"You know I don’t give discounts to new customers."

"And how much would that be on the credit?"

"Hmmm," the cashier rubbed his chin, as he did the math in his mind. "No less than thousand fifty hundred per month on the dagger or two thousand fifty hundred per month on the brooch."

"They’re students of Hecate," Linden pointed at their badges. "They’ll be here for the next nine years."

"I cannot wait that long," the man crossed his arms.

"Maybe we can buy something else?" Yew quietly proposed to Linden, who snapped back at him with the ferocity of a mad squirrel.

"If you want good stuff, don’t give up so fast!"

The cashier shook his head sideways, disgruntled by the inexperienced customers. "I’m not giving in no matter what you propose," he directed his words at Linden. "Last time I gave you a discount of eighty percent, but I told you that it'll never happen again. Moreover, they're not even regular customers."

"They might become such. They're both magicless," Linden remarked back.

The man looked at Spruce and Yew, and scratched his chin, as he considered his business opportunities.

"I shouldn't have been so lenient on discounts," he grumbled to himself.

Linden heard him anyway. "I’m not asking for a discount, just a good credit option."

"No less than thousand monthly for the dagger and two thousand monthly for the brooch," the cashier stated in a tone as if he was repeating himself. Yet the boys noticed that he dropped the monthly installments by fifty hundred syfras.

"Spruce," Linden looked at his classmate. "How much money did your parents give you for this year?"

"Twenty thousand, but I already spent some of it," he responded.

"How about this?" Linden spoke to the cashier. "What if we pay half the cost of the dagger right now?"

The man nodded his head, while calculating in his mind. "Hmmm… hmmm… half the cost, then yes, I could drop down the monthly payments to fifty hundred, no, to forty hundred per month."

"Make it twenty hundred per month," Linden pushed.

"Oh no, no, no, no. I am not risking that," he refused instantly. "Not all students of Hecate graduate, and the last three years are always the hardest. You pay half today, and I can give you a credit for forty hundred per month," he directed the last sentence toward Spruce.

"Wow," Spruce said, "now it looks like I can afford it."

"But your money? What about food?" Yew asked, more aware of how foolish it was to spend half of one's capital in one purchase.

"Food is free for top students," Spruce responded with so much optimism that neither Yew nor Aspen dared to remind him of his latest score in History of Magic.

"Then get your money card out, before the offer changes," Linden pressured Spruce, who took out his money card and gave it to the cashier.

The man walked up to the row of big boxes standing on the floor. On top of one of them, there was a small cash register, with a slot for one money card.

"Ten thousand now and then a monthly charge of forty hundred until the counter reaches ten thousand," he narrated as he inputted the numbers. Then he put Spruce's card inside and charged it accordingly with the push of one of the buttons.

A moment later Spruce got his card back, together with a receipt.

"So about the brooch," Linden immediately restarted his bargaining. "How much credit can we get, if we pay, let’s say, twenty thousand for the deposit?"

"What?!" Spruce looked at Yew, amazed at the possibility that his classmate would spend that much in one day.

"Linden, I don't have that much money!" Yew shouted out. "I only have four thousand from my parents."

"I know," Linden waved a hand, gesturing to his roommate to calm down. "You already told me that they didn’t know that money was so needed in Hecate, so you’re going to ask them for more."

"Yes, but…"

"I’ll pay today, and you’ll return it to me once you get more money from your parents."

Yew almost cried at the situation, "I don’t know how much I’ll get… "

"Oh, just shut up. You wanted the brooch, so stop talking about money." He directed his words at the cashier, "fifty hundred per month?"

The cashier rubbed his chin again, but he spent less time thinking than previously. "Hmmm… sounds possible. Okay, I’ll agree to this."

Linden took out his money card and handed it to the cashier, "twenty thousand only."

"Yes, I understand. Twenty thousand directly from your card," he charged Linden's card then returned it back to him. "And I'll set up a monthly charge of fifty hundred on your card," he looked at Yew, "until the count maxes out at fifteen thousand."

Yew hesitantly took out his money card. He didn't want to buy it anymore, but he was afraid of making a scene, especially since Spruce had already paid for his magical item.

"All done," the cashier said before he handed Yew's card back to him.

Linden thanked the cashier for his service, and the man thanked Linden for his patronage. They both wished each other a good day as they walked out of the storage room.

At the counter, a matriarch was serving the customers. She looked similar to the cashier, so most likely she was his mother, or another relative.

The cashier walked ahead, and opened the shop's entrance door for Linden. As the boys were stepping out, he bowed his head and blessed them, "may you have a great day, honorable guests."

All the customers inside the store directed their gazes at the boys. Linden didn't care, but the other three sped up their pace to get as far away and as quickly as possible.

"Um, should I carry it?" Yew asked, looking at the box with the brooch. Only he had nothing in his hands.

Aspen carried the salad, Spruce carried the box with his dagger, and Linden carried the box with Yew's brooch.

"No," Linden answered. "I’ll give it to you after we write the contract. I want my money back, eventually."

After returning back to their cottage, Linden wrote on a piece of paper: «Yew Chirabilva Araukaria Sky will return twenty thousand syfras to Linden Tamalini Gomat Cave within the next ten years.»

Then he signed and dated the short note, turning it into a legally binding contract. After Yew added his own signature and date, Linden took the original, but gave Yew a copy together with the brooch.

Yew felt the importance of the moment, because for him it was the first time he signed a document all by himself without any supervision. Although he had signed his application to the school of Hecate just a month ago, he didn't think much of that, because his parents had co-signed every page, and had guided him throughout the process.

This time, he did it all by himself.

City || Variable twenty-seven

"Where’s the train station?" Spruce asked while expectantly looking around the street.

"You mean a tram station?" Yew turned his face to look at Spruce.

"No, the train station," Spruce repeated himself, then clarified, "the station which we came from on the day of our orientation."

"Wanna go home?" Linden teased.

Spruce took a deep breath and decided to stay calm. "Are we really downtown? Because I was expecting to see the train station again, but we've been going on for so long, and I haven't seen it yet."

Linden jeered, "makes sense."

Seeing that Linden wouldn’t explain, Aspen decided to act more mature. "The train station in Sheepcrown isn't in downtown, like most train stations. It's located at the northern border of the city. Do you remember? We passed traintracks in front of the school gate."

“I saw the tracks, but I didn’t see the station,” Spruce said.

“The station was on the left,” Yew joined the conversation in order to help out his classmate. “It was really vast, and had a lot of buildings.”

“That was a station?” Spruce furrowed his eyebrows. “I thought they were just...”

"Watch out!" Linden pulled Yew by his arm and pushed Spruce, who fell on top of Aspen.

They all tumbled down between two columns. Less than a second later, a pegasus bolted through the main road, chased by a man on a flying rug.

"What the…?" Yew began but never finished.

Angry pedestrians, who were startled by the sudden event, were shouting at the owner.

"Keep a better eye on your horse!"

"How irresponsible!"

"What an asshole!"

"Don't buy a pet if you cannot control it!"

Whereas others were quietly shaking their heads in disapproval. Although they weren't angry, they were genuinely appalled.

"Just a daily life in a big city," Linden offered his hands to help Spruce and Aspen get up. "You can never tell what’s coming, so it’s best to stay vigilant."

Several moments later, two officers came riding chimeras. Their roles were apparent from their attire - long navy blue coats accented with golden buttons and hats decorated with a golden eagle.

Their chimeras were larger than lions and had more muscular bodies. Their tails were long, and ended with what looked like a snake. However, nothing was weirder than their heads. In the front the chimeras had faces like lions, but on the back of their heads, there were faces of goats.

The officers didn't have to ask for directions, because the more angry members of the public loudly instructed them to "catch that bastard" while pointing their fingers toward the street taken by the pegasus and its owner.

"Let’s go," Linden gestured at the boys.

Aspen shook the dirt off his clothes, while Yew and Spruce were watching the officers take a turn around the street corner.

"Hey, I’ll leave you behind," Linden, who was already quite a distance away, called out to his classmates.

Aspen, Spruce, and Yew, rushed to catch up with him, before he carried out his threat.

The boys reached the end of the street, and arrived at the outdoor marketplace. They stood by the columns, watching the plaza filled with countless booths and more people than tiles on the pavement. It was hard to squeeze in, and even harder to squeeze through.

Linden, who didn't want them to get separated, gave the command. "I’ll get us something to eat, meanwhile don’t you dare move from here." The tone he used in the second half of the sentence scared the boys, but they couldn't understand why it sounded so scary.

Aspen, Spruce and Yew, sat on a bench between two columns, while Linden braved into the crowd. Not even ten minutes had passed, when he came back with three fully-loaded bags of food.

"Wow, that was fast," Spruce couldn’t hide his amazement.

"How did you do it so fast?" Aspen sounded skeptical.

Yew curiously looked into the first bag.

"Those are salads," Linden announced the content of the bag, which Yew was checking. Then he took out three boxes from the second bag and laid them on the bench, "this is fried stuff. We’re sharing," he warned, before the boys could eat anything. He put the last bag in the far corner of the bench, out of the way.

Spruce opened the first box, and cheerfully yelled out "Eggrolls!"

"Fried rice," Aspen declared nonchalantly as he looked into the second box.

Yew carefully opened the third box, but he didn't speak out.

"And ravioli," Linden spoke instead, then he took out wooden chopsticks from the bottom of the second bag.

"I don’t know how to use those," Spruce vetoed the utensils.

"Then you don’t get to eat," Linden smirked, but then he gave Spruce a wooden spoon. "Anyone else needs baby tools?"

Yew and Aspen accepted the chopsticks. Each boy ate a quarter of each dish, before passing it on. After the meal, Aspen reached for the salads, but Linden grabbed the third bag.

"Hold on. You'll like this better," he took out two boxes and gave one to Aspen.

Spruce grabbed the other one and opened it first, "pineapple cake?!" His eyes shone with euphoria at the dessert.

Aspen opened the box, which was placed in his hand. "Kartoshki," he announced the sweet cocoa desserts.

"Amazing," Spruce said, and looked at Linden with a great amount of admiration.

"Can I have one?" Yew pointed at the kartoshki.

Aspen took one and passed the other twenty-or-so crumbly balls to Yew.

"How do we divide them?"

"Exclude me," Aspen stated firmly and went for the top box in the first bag, which contained a celery salad with cooked lamb.

"I intended that to be an extra, if you’re still hungry," Linden informed him. For some reason, he sounded unhappy that his classmate wasn't delighted by the desserts.

Aspen began quietly eating the salad.

Linden grinned at the sight. "Are you on a diet?" he mocked his classmate.

Yew and Spruce looked at Linden, wondering why he was so aggravated over the food preferred by Aspen.

Not caring to look at Linden, Aspen responded with a tiny hint of irritation in his voice, "I'm not fat."

"Yeah, I can see," Linden grinned even wider.

Aspen kept eating calmly as if Linden had never said anything. If not for his tone of voice it would be impossible to tell that he wasn't bothered by Linden's comments.

"Did you buy anything to drink?" Spruce asked out of blue, breaking the tension.

Yew wondered whether Spruce said that intentionally to redirect the conversation, but Linden, who was the recipient of his question, was certain that the boy was too stupid for a tactical change of topic.

Spruce put on an innocent face as best as he could. He didn't want to look as if he intentionally interrupted them, even though that was exactly what he did. He didn't understand the specifics, but he could tell that Linden was being nasty again, and he wanted him to stop.

"There’s free water," Linden pointed at a small water fountain between two columns across from their bench.

The fountains with drinkable water were located on the main street every fifty to hundred meters apart. They were used by locals when shopping downtown, so most stores and stands in the area weren't even selling bottled water.

"Okay," Spruce acknowledged Linden's answer, and went back to eating kartoshki.

Yew finished one third of the pineapple cake and gave the box to Linden. Once they had finished eating, they stacked all the boxes together into one bag.

"One box is left," Spruce pointed at the box in the first bag.

"That’s a cucumber-radish salad," Linden named the content.

"I can carry it," Aspen grabbed the bag.

"Sure, if you want to," Linden shrugged.

He threw away the trash into the nearest trashcan, before washing his hands under the fountain water then drinking some of it out of his cupped hands.

Linden shook the water off his hands, before he declared, "and now, let’s go to the store."

After everyone had quenched their thirst, he led them into a narrow alley barricaded on left and right by tall apartment buildings, which appeared as if they were touching the sky above.

Each apartment wall had hundreds of windows - some of which were closed, but most of them weren't. It wasn't unusual for most cities to keep windows ajar, half-open, or fully spread out, when the weather was pleasant, so the boys didn't find it odd. Although the residents leaning out of some of the windows gave them a bizarre feeling of unwanted scrutiny.

Some of those residents were merely getting fresh air. Others were having conversations with their neighbors. Nevertheless all of them were staring with interest at the boys passing by down below.

"Don’t they have anything else to do?" Spruce whispered to Yew. He felt creeped out by so many eyes observing him from above.

"Antique security cameras," Linden spoke with the tone of an advertiser. "Tested and proven to be the most effective surveillance system over many centuries. Nothing can ever escape the keen eye of a bored milady."

"What?" Spruce didn’t get the sarcasm.

"Ignore them," Linden mumbled out.

After making several turns, crossing tramtracks, and going down a not-so-busy but very wide street, Linden stopped right in front of a store with a big banner: «Always the Latest, Always the Best!»

"It’s here," he walked up and opened the door.

Inside the store, a long queue of customers of all ages lined up at the counter, waiting for their turn to be served. Meanwhile others were walking around the store and eyeing up the goods for sale.

Ignoring the queue, Linden went straight toward the counter and waved at the cashier, who looked at him inquiringly.

"It’s me, Linden," he pointed at himself.

The cashier almost jumped at the realization. He looked at the boy as if a VIP had just walked into his store. He smiled very welcomingly, put his hands together and started rubbing them, instantly forgetting about the other customers.

"What a pleasure to see you again. How can I help you today?"

"Can I?" Linden pointed at the door behind the cashier.

"Of course, with pleasure," the man responded and gestured to Linden to come to the other side of the counter.

Linden beckoned the boys to follow him, and they did. He walked up to the backdoor, and entered the storage area. The cashier didn't follow them, instead opting to return to his work.

"Was that necessary?" Spruce asked after Linden closed the door. "Everybody was staring at us."

"If you want the best magical items he has to offer, then yes, it was necessary." Linden ignored the packages on the shelfcases and went straight for the huge safe made of rock in the corner of the room. "He always keeps the most awesome items right in here." He knocked on the door.

"The password?" instead of a mouth, the words came from a tiny moving crack in the rock.

"Password? What password?"

Upon Linden's response, the door unlocked and opened by itself, revealing a small room with several shelves.

"That was a stupid password," Spruce commented after Linden walked inside.

Linden snickered, "if you think so, try it next time."

"I would assume that the password requires more than just the right words," Aspen joined the topic. "Things like intonation, accent, breathing, pauses between words, and also I saw you sliding your hand down over the door, when you were saying it."

Linden looked at him with awe, "no wonder you saw colors on those ancient scrolls. You really do pay attention to details. Next time, I’ll remember to be more careful around you."

Homework || Variable twenty-six

After making sure that her students were calm again, she decided to continue her clarification. It was important to her, that her students weren't misguided in their understanding of magic, and weren't foolish enough to think that witches could use magic.

"Witchcraft was very similar to possession," she said in a clear voice, "with the exception that witches had a material body, so they didn’t possess other beings, but instead they marked them as their belongings."

She tapped the chair, which she was sitting on.

"If a witch wanted to move this chair, first she would have to leave a mark on it - some symbol, which would make it hers. Then the rest was pretty much the same as with the possession. The witch would hold an absolute power over the marked object or over the marked creature. And the longer the mark remained, the stronger the bond grew, which would slowly destroy the victim of witchcraft."

Sorrel carefully scanned the faces of her students, some of whom appeared worried but still more intrigued than scared. She shook her head disbelieving herself for going offtopic that much. "Maybe I have said too much," she wondered aloud.

"Oh no," the boy, who asked about witches, responded right away. "No, not at all. I always wondered why witches are always bad characters in stories, and now it all makes sense. I’m so glad they no longer exist."

"Yeah, me too," several other students agreed openly, while others only nodded their heads.

"Well, I’m glad I made it clear for you," Sorrel said, then stood up from her chair. "Anyway, don’t forget about four types of magic: spells, charms, blessings and curses; and don't mix up magic with incantations and chants. Because I’ll test you on that," she smiled toward the students. "That will be all for today. Goodbye, students. God bless you."

The students stood up and responded with "Goodbye, professor." Aspen was the only one, who followed up with "God bless you, too."

Sorrel Cave was the first one to leave the classroom, but all the students stepped out right behind her.

Once the boys were outside, Spruce asked his roommate, "why did you respond with that «God bless you, too»? You made me feel like I’m in a temple."

"It is the Highest Blessing," Aspen responded. "The most powerful blessing in the world."

"What? Really? God bless you! God bless you! God bless you!" Spruce said toward each of his friends.

Aspen looked annoyed.

Linden remarked with a sneer, "the power of a blessing comes from your true feelings. Unless you mean it, it doesn’t work."

"Oh right," Spruce recalled, what Sorrel had taught them less than an hour ago.

"Anyway, let’s go," Linden commanded and moved on.

The boys followed him, even though they didn't know where he was leading them. They assumed it would be something related to food as it was almost lunchtime. His authoritative voice, which sounded confident and assuring, prevented them from asking any questions or confirming their presumptions.

Yew, who was almost certain that they were heading for lunch, spoke out when Linden had missed the turn. "Hey, the cafeteria is that way," he pointed at the road, which they had just passed.

"We’re going to Sheepcrown to buy magical items for you two," Linden finally explained his intentions. "Unless you somehow became magic-talented in the last five minutes."

Yew ignored his sarcastic comment, and asked instead, "what about lunch?"

"We’ll eat at the marketplace. They have plenty of good street food downtown. Also it’s cheaper."

"Won’t we get sick?" Spruce was concerned.

"If you’re unlucky," Linden shrugged. "Never happened to me before."

"Will we make it back to the afternoon class?" Aspen had a completely different worry on his mind.

Linden spun around on his heel, "you want to attend THAT?!"

Aspen said no words, as he recalled the class from yesterday.

Seconds later, Linden turned and moved forward, gesturing to the other boys to follow him.

After passing through the Hecate gate, which marked the boundaries of the schoolground, the boys crossed the traintracks. In front of them lay the beautiful city of Sheepcrown.

Just like the Hecate schoolground, the city was mostly built from white stones, which were abundant in the region. The buildings usually had three or four floors, although occasionally they were taller. The roofs and walls were covered with moss and ivy. The balconies were decorated with flower pots, and from each flower pot, a different flowering plant hung down above the street.

The most impressive part of the city were its bridges, which linked the buildings together. These bridges at the same time acted like pathways and like rooftops, protecting the residents from hot sun, rain, hail, and snow.

Yew recognized the area as the place, which he had already seen several days ago, when he first arrived in the city. He was walking on the same road, but this time instead of heading north, he was heading south. A moment later, he passed the vast train station on his left - the very same station, where he disembarked several days ago.

Afterward, Linden led them to a small station next to tramtracks, where a one-car tram was about to stop. Following his lead, the boys got onboard as soon as the tram doors opened. There was no place to sit, so they stood holding onto the vertical bars.

"Is it free?" Aspen asked after he stepped inside.

"Yeah," Linden pointed at the badge on his arm. "It's free as long as we're students of Hecate," he said but he knew that his answer wasn't exactly correct. After all, nothing in the world could ever be free. Even animals and plants had to pay with their labor in order to eat.

Yet among humans, kids were exempt from this reality. They were allowed to live supported by their parents and whatever their parents paid for was classified as free. For this reason, kids understood the word "free", even though they never understood the true meaning behind this label.

Linden could have explained to the boys, that a part of school fees were used to pay taxes to the city of Sheepcrown, which in turn were used to cover the cost of annual tram travel authorization for all the students, but he concluded that it was not a topic worth wasting his breath on, especially not with his classmates, who most likely would require a lengthy lecture to thoroughly understand it.

Moreover, they might even ask him stupid questions about other vehicles, and he'd have to explain that the city of Sheepcrown had banned all vehicles other than trams many centuries ago, and had turned every road into a tramtrack, creating a robust and convenient way to travel around the city, with trams active even at nighttime.

Once Linden mentally reviewed what he knew about the trams in the city of Sheepcrown, he congratulated himself for not getting into this complex topic with his fellow first year students. Instead, he and the other boys observed their surroundings in silence.

The inside of the tram had a walkway through the middle, with seats at each wall. Most seats were in pairs of two, but some were facing each other in groups of four. Vertical and horizontal bars were present along the walkway, with most of the passengers using them due to limited seating.

The tram travelled at a speed of no more than thirty kilometers per hour, which was so slow that the boys could see people crossing the tracks without even waiting for the tram to stop at the next station.

The sidewalks alongside the tramtracks were often wider than the road, and not all the streets had tramtracks. Some of the streets were too narrow to fit a tram inside, but even they were filled with pedestrians and cyclists.

While Yew, Aspen and Spruce were immersed in observing the city and its inhabitants through the tram windows, Linden announced, "it's the next stop."

The tram arrived at the next station, and the boys disembarked. Linden stood in place, waiting for the tram to move out of the way. Then he and the other boys walked across the tracks to the other side, where they entered a street with an immensely wide sidewalk and no tramtracks.

It was the entrance to the main street of the downtown.

The ten meter wide sidewalk had a walkway in the center, which was six meters wide. Then, at each side of the walkway, there were rows of statues.

The boys began walking down the walkway, with their heads facing the sky as they tried to see the statues, which were elevated high enough to be out of the way of all usual traffic, which was happening at the ground level.

Each statue was placed on a square flat rock. And each rock was supported by a set of four columns. And each column was four meters tall, and covered by ivy, which grew in a pit between the four columns. As such, the statues couldn't be seen directly from below, but they were clearly visible from a distance, and from the bridges, which ran alongside the main street.

The boys saw a group of tourists gathered on a balcony of a hotel, while their tourguide was recounting his knowledge in a clear loud voice.

"... the most famous graduates of Hecate. There are currently a total of two hundred sixty three statues along the main street. The oldest statue is more than twenty five hundred yrold, and has been renovated more than twenty times. That over here is the statue of..."

As the boys moved on, the tourguide's voice became more and more distant, and soon it was lost among the chatter of the people closer to them.