“Ten Solars. Ten Solars is as low as I’ll go.”

  Jace groaned. “The guy over there is selling them for nine.” He glanced over his shoulder at a vendor across the way—a temporary market stall with a wooden counter, boasting shelves upon shelves of luxury pens required by the academy. Ten Solars, as he was learning, was a ridiculous price to pay for pens. You could get two decent meals for that price.

  “Ten,” said the vendor in front of Jace. He tapped his finger on the box in front of him, which contained only two pens in them. Supposedly (according to the lettering on the box) they had an exceptional repeller-glide technology, giving the tip perfect pressure and stopping it from biting into the page.

  Fastest note-writers in the galaxy, said a slogan near the bottom of the box. It was in a foreign script, and Jace had to stare at it for a few seconds to decipher it, but not for as long as he usually did.

  Some note-taker I’m going to be, he thought. But then again, nothing was stopping him from taking notes in English.

  “Fine, then,” Lessa said, leaning on the counter. “We’ll just go across the street. He said he’d even go down to seven.”

  Jace narrowed his eyes. “No, he—”

  Lessa kicked his ankle gently.

  Clearing his throat, Jace glanced back at the vendor. “Seven.”

  “Alright, alright. I’ll give them to you for eight Solars,” the vendor said. He was a middle-aged man with night-black skin and angular white markings over it. Instead of hair, a single mass of flesh ran down his back, almost forming a shark’s tail.

  Lessa reached into her satchel and produced eight brass coins, then clinked them down on the counter pointedly. Each one had a Starrealm crest in the center, marking it as official currency.

  The vendor pushed over a box of pens. It was about the size of a cell-phone, though significantly heavier. Jace picked it up and tucked it into his backpack, then said, “Thank you, sir,” even if he didn’t really mean it.

  “Will that be all?” the vendor asked.

  “That’s everything,” Jace said, glancing down at the list. They’d ticked off all the items they needed to get, and managed to save twenty Solars overall. Most of that was Lessa’s doing. She haggled people down much more effectively than Jace could.

  “Well, then be on your way! I’ve got more customers waiting,” the vendor snapped.

  Jace glanced over his shoulder, scanning the street. It was a thin aisle on an upper level of the Royal Market. A platform hung off the side of the glass dome, covered in temporary stalls that sold luxury goods. They all had single-colour tarps overtop, even if there was no need to block out the sun, and most of them boasted some sort of holographic sign with flourishing lettering.

  The bustle of the lower market seeped up from below, and columns of steam and smoke from cooking or from furnaces swirled, given volume by the hanging light fixtures. Incandescent bulbs shone all around the dome, lighting what the ambient light outside the dome couldn’t. Most of it was unnecessary.

  But, most importantly, there weren’t too many people lining up to buy fancy pens. He noticed earlier, of course, and when he’d mentioned it to Lessa, she’d explained that most people would already have finished their school shopping, or would do it closer to their academies.

  The Starrealm’s arcane academy, for one, wasn’t even on Kinath-Aertes. It was on the Sunset Moon, some system deep within Starrealm territory where hyperroutes overlapped, giving the best Aes flow to the most promising Wielders of the generation.

  The Sevencore Academy, then, had an even better location. Being in the core of the galaxy, there were so many star systems with overlapping hyperroutes. Though there weren’t many habitable planets near the galactic core (something to do with overwhelming cosmic radiation and a supermassive black hole that kept the galaxy together), the habitable planets were the best spots to harvest Aes.

  That is, for regular Wielders, who had to draw in Aes with cycling abilities. Jace wasn’t sure about himself. His main source of Aes came from his class ability, which shouldn’t have changed based on how strong the hyperroutes were.

  But he’d figure something out. He had to keep pace with his peers.

  As for Lessa, her exo-suit should be stronger. Or, at the very least, it wouldn’t need break periods if it could accumulate Aes much faster than normal.

  But he was getting distracted. They still had to get lunch. The sun was directly overhead, shining through the top of the dome. They’d been efficient in ticking off the shopping list, but it was time to find a meal.

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  “Do you know a place to eat?” Jace asked. “Or did you have something in mind?”

  “I think I saw something on the way up,” Lessa said. “Come on, it should be just this way.”

  They wove through the crowd, navigating back toward the stairs. Market-goers scurried about, most wearing formal clothing. But the market was not just for the most wealthy of the Starrealm’s citizens. Newspaper boys lingered in the corners, wearing pageboy hats and suspenders, hawking their holographic papers, and crowds of young boys and girls in greasy overalls stampeded along the edges of the aisles. The fashion of regular people, being simple dresses and tunics, was common enough.

  However, Jace couldn’t help but notice the number of women in black dresses and veils. Mourning attire. They kept their heads low and avoided the gazes of the soldiers stationed around the market.

  So far, no one had pestered Jace about the draft, and there were still plenty of young men around his age. Some were private security officers, some were police, and others were working in the stalls. He still kept his exemption with him, just in case.

  When they reached the stairs, they descended back down to the lower levels of the market. People travelled up and down in orderly lines, making travel much more pleasant than Jace anticipated.

  Halfway down to the “amenities platform,” they passed a broad landing, where a stage had been set up. A boisterous man in a pinstriped suit gave a demonstration of a new lever-action plasma rifle to an awestruck crowd of civilians. More interestingly, a pair of Watchmen in their brown cloaks and woven leather garb stood at the stage’s side, hands on the hilts of their Whistling Blades as they looked out over the crowd. According to the Split, one was [Level 15] and the other was [Level 43]. A master and an apprentice, likely.

  Jace picked up the pace when he saw them.

  Halfway down the next flight of stairs, he asked Lessa, “How strong are most of the Wielders at the academy?”

  “The requirement to get into the Sunset Moon Academy is level fifteen, Foundation Two,” Lessa said. “I think it’s probably higher for the Sevencore Academy. Probably more like being in Soul-Circle Blending.”

  “But then, if there’s a requirement, how would you get in?”

  She shrugged. “I guess it’s not a requirement, but more like an expectation. If you aren’t at Soul-Circle Blending, or stronger than level forty-five, you won’t pass the test, so no point in trying.”

  “You’re still going to try, though, right?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I can’t not try. But I’m not as optimistic about my odds as Lady Fairynor is.”

  Jace sighed. “Don’t sell yourself short, after all we’ve been through.”

  “Just being realistic. Besides…do I really have much to gain from the Academy? It’s not like I can use elixirs.”

  “But they’ll teach crafting techniques too, right? I think that was on the schedule that Lady Fairynor gave. You’ll learn about ways to improve your gear, and you’ll keep getting stronger.”

  Lessa chuckled. “Man, your attitude is infectious. I do…I do kinda wonder how high I could climb now.”

  “And you’re supposed to be the chipper, hopeful one.”

  “Maybe not the suicidally ambitious one, though.” She grabbed his hand when they reached the bottom of the stairs, then pulled to the side. He held on, and followed her through the crowd.

  They’d arrived at a platform suspended maybe ten storeys above the main floor. It was a round platform. Maybe once, it was a landing pad, but now, a ring of food-court-style restaurants surrounded the edge. Glowing signs beckoned. There was a pastry shop that had an almost French-looking name that Jace didn’t dare try to pronounce (his high-school level French had atrophied in the past few years), a Phélese noodle shop, an Oikos flatbread and falafel (or something like it), Megg’s (a sandwich chain native to the Starrealm), a Praxon schnitzel chain, and untold others that he couldn’t immediately identify. The smells blended together into a blur of grease, salt, and fried stuff.

  Jace’s stomach growled, but he said, “Your choice.”

  “Alright, but what if I was curious about what you would choose, now that we’re here?”

  “You didn’t actually have something in mind, did you?” Jace smiled.

  “Uh…no. But I remembered where the food court was!”

  “Very well,” he said with mock seriousness. “You know, I really haven’t had Chinese takeout in a while.”

  “Huh?”

  “Uh…” He scratched the back of his head. “Sorry. Something from back home. We’d get Chinese takeout on the rare occasion that we did actually go to the city. It looks almost like those Phélese noodles.” He began walking toward the vendor, a black and red shop that felt more like a pastiche of Orientalism than anything else, but it wasn’t like takeout was authentic, either. It was its own thing, and it had its own charm.

  “Well, I haven’t tried it yet,” Lessa said, walking along with him. “I’d like to, though.”

  They approached the stall, then fell in line behind a few other customers. A holographic menu board hovered above the row of glass-covered food. There were a few items blocked off due to import shortages, and only about half the items in the trays remained.

  It seemed like a combination between Vietnamese food and Chinese takeout, the more Jace looked at it, but crispy noodles, spring rolls, braised, shredded meat, and crispy buns? It looked tasty enough. He placed an order for both of them (Lessa let him choose for her as well) and paid.

  For that, it was only two Solars.

  While they waited for the workers to serve up their portions into a cardboard takeout box, he leaned back on the stanchion.

  This was probably going to be the last bout of calm they’d have in a while, and he had to make the best use of it he could. He took in his surroundings, just watching, listening, and enjoying.

  But the universe, it seemed, didn’t want him to have any calm at all.

  After a few seconds, a crash erupted through the back rooms of the noodle shop, and someone shouted something. He bolted upright, then leaned to the side. Someone shouted something in a foreign language, a kyborg clanked in Mekanik, and there were a few more thuds.

  Jace probably wasn’t getting a calm meal, after all.