“Think of it as a game.”
Tahl’s attention snapped to the instructor at the head of the classroom. The woman drew a line across the wide slate beneath a bold headline: Magic as a Detection Force filled the board from end to end.
Her hand hovered closer to eye level for a moment before she began a simple drawing. “The winner will be excused from testing next week. In fact, the winner won’t be required to attend class at all. Sound appealing?”
Few things the instructors offered had ever sounded more appealing. Tahl’s eyes slid across the room. Colbin was already looking his way. The other student raised a brow as if to ask.
Tahl had already returned his gaze to the slate on the wall. His interest in watching the illustration emerge should have said everything.
“What you’re looking for is a simple ring. Plain gold, no inscriptions, but it contains a flickering light and may feel warm to the touch. It looks something like this.” The drawing was so bland it provided nothing useful, but the instructor still waved a hand beneath it as if to emphasize how important it was they look. “However, you’re unlikely to see it with your eyes. Your challenge is to find it using your Gift.”
Tahl resisted the urge to slump. It was no secret his power was lacking. It was a wonder he’d made it this far. If magic was required to find the ring, they may as well rule him out already.
And yet, he found himself thinking. He cocked his head to the side, studying the boring shape of the ring in the drawing. Something about it struck him as familiar, though he supposed anyone who’d ever seen a ring had seen a dozen just like it.
“The ring is hidden somewhere inside the academy’s main hall,” the instructor continued. “While I am sure you’d enjoy rooting around in the private offices and quarters belonging to faculty, I must inform you they are off limits. Their private spaces will be closed off, and you will not find it behind a locked door. I will give no further hints as to its location, so let’s go over a few rules.”
Colbin made a gesture that Tahl caught out of the corner of his eye. He ignored it.
To the side of the drawing, the instructor scrawled her orders. “Number one: You will not try to gain access to any locked areas under a pretense of searching. I’ve already told you, there’s no point. Number two: Once the ring is in someone’s hand, the game is over. Anyone who tries to seize the ring by force after it’s been claimed will be disqualified.”
“What about using force to keep someone from claiming it?” another student asked. A few laughs rose, but the instructor seemed unimpressed. Still, she turned to face them, her chalk pinned lengthwise between her index fingers.
“You may use this time to practice your magecraft however you see fit. But anyone who causes damage to the academy or its furnishings will be disqualified, as will anyone who causes injury to your classmates.”
Dismayingly, a handful of students signed or mumbled in disappointment. Tahl, for one, appreciated the rule. He could hold his own in a scuffle, but only if the fight was fair. He’d been ganged up on enough to know his classmates didn’t appreciate his tricksome ways.
He hadn’t planned to change just for a game.
“There are no other rules. Should you somehow stumble across the ring’s location without use of your Gift, you will not be penalized, but the odds of that are practically nonexistent. Whoever finds the ring, you’ll be expected back in this classroom for a week. The rest of you are due back tomorrow. Good luck.” She dismissed them with a wave of her hand and turned to put down the chalk.
Most of the students flew from their seats and ran for the door. Tahl lingered, scratching a few hasty notes on a scrap of paper left from the day’s studies.
“You are dismissed,” the instructor said firmly, her eyes fixed on him.
“I know. I’m sensing.” He tore his notes from the corner of the paper and stuffed them into his pocket. “I mean, you never said it wasn’t in here.” He scanned the classroom with a thoughtful frown. The space was all but empty; there was an unfamiliar girl at the back, still taking notes, and Colbin hovered near the door. Wanting to speak to him, no doubt.
Tahl pushed himself from his desk and trudged toward the door.
As expected, Colbin rounded the doorframe to walk alongside him. “Hey,” he said, breathless from whatever nerves he’d worked up by waiting. “Should we team up?”
“Team up?” Tahl fought to keep his face from scrunching. “What’s the point of teaming up? There’s only one prize.”
“Yeah, and I thought… I mean, with your Gift and all, maybe…” Colbin stumbled over his words and gave an exasperated sigh. “I’m trying to help you, okay?”
“Ah, because my Gift is lacking and inferior,” Tahl replied flatly.
Colbin opened his mouth a few times, then shut it with a frown.
They’d been over it all before. Tahl’s power was lacking. It was a miracle he’d been accepted into the academy at all. Well, a miracle and nepotism. He responded with a grim smile. “The ring is a fire element.” And while Tahl’s Gift wasn’t strong, it was based in fire.
“So you’re going to do it?”
“Do what, try?” Tahl snorted. “For a week out of that stuffy classroom, I’d try a lot of things.” And he already had a plan, besides.
All around them, students ran. Some lingered outside doors or in the middle of hallways, squinting and concentrating. Tahl envisioned what it might feel like to have magic strong enough to believe you could find something so small. He could sense every mage around him, but their power signatures were bold, beacons of strength that hung in his senses at any given time. They helped him navigate the hallways now, veering from one side to the other as young mages scurried about, narrowly avoiding collision.
Colbin stayed right on his heels. “You don’t really think you stand a chance on your own, though?”
“I do, and the fact you’re still following me means you do, too.” And the longer Colbin followed him, the harder it would be for Tahl to do what he needed. He clenched his fists at his sides and started up the stairway to the students’ rooms.
“What? No! I’m just trying to—would you slow down?” Colbin’s hand closed on Tahl’s training robe and pulled him off balance.
Tahl spat something his mother would have chastised him for and curled to land on his shoulder. Colbin followed with a yelp of his own, but Tahl kicked off the wall and tumbled down the rest of the stairs to land on his feet as his companion crashed to the floor.
“You’re on your own,” Tahl snapped as he sprinted up the stairs.
Behind him, Colbin rolled onto his back and groaned.
More than a few mages turned toward him, their eyes harsh and judging in the wake of the noise. Tahl ignored them and lit down the hallway, darting between his classmates as they searched inside vases and behind wall hangings. His room was just ahead, and what he needed was inside.
His assigned roommate was gone. Good. He breathed a sigh of relief, shut the door, and crossed the room. The far wall hosted a decorative sconce between beds. It was near the ceiling, just out of reach, and he leaped onto the desk to reach it.
The first tug yielded no results. Tahl gritted his teeth, braced a foot against the wall, and pulled hard.
The sconce creaked.
“Come on,” he growled.
“Tahl—” Colbin started as he opened the door.
The sconce broke and Tahl fell backwards as it flew out of his hands and crashed into the wall beside the door.
Colbin shrieked as the sconce hit the wall and shattered.
Instead of hitting the floor hard, Tahl tucked into a backwards roll and came up on his feet.
“You tried to kill me!” Colbin cried.
Tahl snorted. “You just came into my room without knocking, I don’t think anyone would blame me.” The sconce being in pieces was a benefit; he knelt beside it to dig through the bits of metal and broken glass. It wasn’t hard to find what he wanted.
“But you could have seriously wounded me! You could have gotten disqualified, and then—”
“I got it!” Tahl jumped to his feet and held a fist aloft.
Colbin gawked. “What?” His brow furrowed with concentration and Tahl assumed it meant he was probing with his magic.
In response, Tahl lowered his hand and displayed the gold ring in his palm. Light flickered as if it hovered just underneath the metal’s surface, and a thin curl of smoke wafted upward.
“You—what did—how—” Colbin sputtered.
Tahl clasped his hand around the ring again and pushed past him into the hall. A half-dozen mages turned toward him, frozen in place with their faces in various states of dismay.
Colbin trailed along at his heels as he descended the stairs and wound his way back to the classroom they’d only just abandoned. Inside, their instructor stood wiping chalk from the wall slate.
“Ma’am,” Tahl said as he stepped inside. “I believe this is what you’re looking for?”
Her eyebrows climbed and she started to protest, but he presented the ring between his fingers and brought her up short. Instead of a protest, her mouth fell open with silence.
He strode forward and reached for her hand to present the ring. Students clustered outside the door to stare as he cradled her hand in his and pressed the ring into her palm.
A storm flitted through the instructor’s eyes, but it halted when she looked down at the ring in her hand. Whatever objection she’d thought to give, she reconsidered when she tilted her fingers and the ring slid across her skin.
“A week, you said.” Tahl flashed her a smirk and jammed his hands into the pockets of his robe. “So I’ll see you then.”
“Yes,” the instructor said slowly, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she evaluated the shifting light on the ring’s surface.
The students at the door scattered when Tahl pushed through, but he was unsurprised when Colbin jogged to catch up with him.
“All right, Tahl. How’d you do it? How’d you know the ring was in your room, of all places?”
“It wasn’t.” That was the best part. Tahl smirked. He’d have to clean up the shattered sconce later, but he’d do that a dozen times for a week off from studies he hated.
Colbin’s step faltered.
“What do you mean?”
“It was just a bit of metal the right shape. A smoke trick and some mage-light set in a cycle to hold itself.”
“And she fell for that?”
Tahl chuckled. She hadn’t. Not at first. Not until he’d slid the real ring from her finger while handing it over, leaving her confused but unable to argue. “Sometimes,” he said with a sigh of satisfaction, “the best way to win is to cheat.” He snapped his fingers, spawning a plume of smoke before he tucked his hands back into his pockets.
The real ring rolled against his fingertips.