It’s okay, Sery,” Veltyen said in his most soothing voice, holding an arm out in her direction. “Come at me.”

  Sery willed herself to move but nothing happened except trembling that became more pronounced the more she tried to make herself step forward and attack.

  Her lessons in self-defence had been going wonderfully up until this point, Veltyen an observant and patient teacher who always found a way to expin things in a way that made perfect sense to her. She had surprised herself by quickly picking up the many maneuvers that might allow her to escape someone’s grasp or disarm someone coming at her with a dagger – none that were likely to work against someone even half as well trained as Veltyen, but would do for untrained individuals who were not expecting any resistance on her part. She had even grown accustomed to holding the dagger Veltyen had custom created for her out of mana crystal, light and deadly sharp and perfectly fitted to her hand.

  Now they were supposed to be moving on to basic knife fighting. Neither of them had been expecting her to completely freeze at the idea of attacking Veltyen.

  It was absolutely ludicrous to be worried, she knew. Even without his defensive magic, it was ughable to imagine that she might even nd a scratch on him.

  The knowledge did nothing to help her white-knuckled grip on the dagger or the trembling that continued to run through her.

  Veltyen reached out and slowly grasped the bde of her dagger, his skin making an unusual rasping sound against the crystal and completely resisting even being indented by the razor-sharp edge. “See?” he said, opening his hand and showing her the intact skin on his palm. “I promise the magic is on.”

  Sery nodded jerkily and told herself to get a move on. Her trembling simply worsened.

  Rather than becoming impatient, Veltyen’s expression was full of concern for her. He reached for the dagger again, this time gently loosening her fingers’ death grip on the hilt. “This is the wrong approach. Let’s stop for today and I’ll think of something else.”

  Disarmed, she could breathe and think again. “I’m sorry,” she said, hanging her head in shame. She had wasted so much of his time over such an irrational fear.

  “Sery? No.” He nudged her chin until she met his gray eyes. “No apologies. You didn’t do anything wrong. Okay?”

  He held her gaze until she had to look away, a blush rising to her cheeks as she nodded agreement. There had been a subtle change in the way he treated her ever since her nightmares had settled down; she could not pinpoint exactly what, but it seemed like he no longer treated her as fragile.

  They headed into the dining room for breakfast, the low murmur of conversation amongst the dozen or so guild members scattered throughout the room washing away any residual tension from her aborted lesson.

  Foria waved at them with a hand holding a butter knife and they made their way over to join her. “How are things going?” she asked while applying some of Maurio’s handmade apple jam to a slice of toast.

  Sery was feeling down about her unsuccessful lesson, but not enough that it kept her from reaching eagerly for her own slice of toast and fruit spread. A burst of intense apple fvour spread across her tongue, tart and sweet.

  “We ran into some technical difficulties moving on to knife fighting,” Veltyen said in his diplomatic way. “I’ll figure something out.”

  Foria raised an eyebrow. “Does Sery need to learn hand-to-hand fighting to avoid being kidnapped? Sorry, Sery, but I think if you’re reaching the point where someone trained and ready for you to attack, you don’t really stand a chance.”

  Sery did not disagree and just nodded while continuing to eat. She was lighter and smaller than everyone except the children in Eterna and had not grown taller in the year since arriving.

  “I see your point,” said Veltyen, “but some basic familiarity with a weapon can’t hurt. Besides, what would you suggest instead? We’ve already gone over disarms and grab breaks.”

  Foria made a vague gesture with her butter knife. “You know, kidnapping stuff. Escaping from a locked room or getting free from being tied up. She should have hidden tools on her that would escape a basic search.”

  “Huh,” Veltyen said thoughtfully. “You’re right. That was actually helpful.”

  “What do you mean, ‘actually’? You want me to stab you?” Foria threatened.

  He chuckled. “Go ahead,” he invited, serenely unconcerned with coming to harm.

  “Insufferable,” she grumbled. “Sery, stab him while he’s sleeping. Same for kidnappers.”

  The two combined orders stymied Sery’s ability to answer with a nod and she paused, trying to think of an appropriate response.

  Veltyen patted her hand. “No need to respond to Foria’s nonsense.”

  “We’ll see who’s full of nonsense after I finish my spell to turn people inside out,” Foria threatened.

  Sery’s eyes widened. “Can you do that?”

  Foria’s eyes twinkled in humor. “It would be a bit challenging defining the levels that constitute ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ as well as the simultaneous vector directions along the surface of the target but I could probably do at least a fairly good approximation of it, which is more than enough to also reverse their state of living. You understand, it’s not something I’ve ever practiced given the ethical considerations.”

  Veltyen shuddered. “Please don’t come up with any more terrifying ways to kill people.”

  “Oh, I don’t need to come up with any more when there are so many already. There’s the cssic ‘half teleportation’, its cousin ‘half direction reversal’, blood flow reversal, throwing them into a random alternate dimension, time stopping the air…”

  Veltyen grabbed the stack of toast Sery intended to eat and the jar of apple jam. “Let’s escape before I lose my appetite,” he whispered with a mischievous look, handing Sery the jar and gripping her free hand. They fled outside to finish breakfast with Magewhisper and Mindseye.

  ***

  “Sery, could you try this on?”

  Sery held her hand out and he slid on the mana crystal bracelet he had crafted. He had mastered creating the crystal in any shape he chose and could program it for the standard kinds of spells popur for mana crystal devices, but he had yet to create a modified crystal structure that could absorb Sery’s magic without melting down or exploding.

  Still, there were plenty of devices that relied on touch activation and this was one of them.

  He pressed the hinged section closed and the bracelet hugged Sery’s delicate wrist with no gap, made to fit her exactly and be impossible to remove without opening the hinged section. A touch to a spell activation node and the illusion of translucent green jade washed over its surface, making it look indistinguishable from the bangles commonly worn in the eastern nds made from a single piece of stone. The hope was that anyone trying to disarm her would consider the bracelet impossible to remove without breaking it open and completely harmless, therefore not worth the trouble.

  “Is it too tight?” he asked, turning her wrist over to see if it would interfere with her movements. He would have to make a new one entirely from scratch should it need to be enrged but the time and effort was not even a consideration when weighed against the risk of injuring her skin.

  Sery shook her head.

  “And it doesn’t bother you otherwise?” he asked worriedly. He knew she was wordlessly terrified of neckces after her experiences in captivity; bracelets were not as bad but she still never wore them voluntarily, her only day-to-day jewelry being the delicate earrings that she preferred.

  She shook her head. “It feels like your magic,” she said with a soft smile.

  The boundless trust she had in him still made him catch his breath from time to time. He pulled her close for a hug, stealing a dose of her soft warmth before returning to business. “Feel these bumps?” he said, guiding the fingers of her opposite hand over the barely perceptible protuberances along the band on the inside of her wrist. “Just tap them one, three, two, three, three, three to get the hinge to pop open.”

  Sery followed his directions and the bracelet opened as designed, the jade illusion hiding the break in the stone and making it appear it had been carved in that configuration.

  “Be careful,” he cautioned. “The end of the hinged section is very sharp. If you’re ever tied up, it should be able to cut through even metal shackles with enough time.”

  “Can I try it?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He had a bit of leather cord and wrapped it around her wrists, using his magic to fuse the ends together seamlessly rather than bothering with a knot.

  Sery carefully wriggled her thumb around to reach the bracelet and methodically tapped out the activation sequence. The hinge popped open, the open edge sharp enough that the cord broke without any additional action.

  Sery looked quite pleased at the result. “Can we try with a real rope?” she asked.

  “Uh, sure,” Veltyen agreed, a vague sense of unease spreading over him as his mind caught up with his mouth. While the leather cord was thin enough to snap just by flexing the wrists, he had now agreed to truly restrain her.

  Still, it made sense to test the bracelet against a more realistic kidnapping scenario and he went into his gear room to find a length of rope.

  Sery readily held up her hands to be bound together, not a hint of discomfort in her eyes nor awareness of what it might mean to be so helpless in front of a man.

  Swallowing against a suddenly dry mouth, he wordlessly looped the rope around and tied a simple but effective knot.

  With more bulk impeding her movements than the thin cord, it took Sery longer to activate the bracelet’s opening mechanism. All her focus was on her hands and he tried to focus there as well.

  A few minutes ter, Sery broke free with a victorious smile, her cheeks flushed in excitement.

  He cleared his throat. “It works. Excellent. Let’s just put away the—”

  Sery apparently was not done. “Can you tie my hands behind my back?” she asked, moving her arms accordingly. “How about my feet as well—”

  “Sery,” Veltyen interrupted, guiding her hands back to her front. “I can’t. I’m sorry. We’ll get someone else – like, um, Foria – actually, Evodie would be a good choice. Evodie. Yes, she’s good with knots. We’ll ask her. It’s probably time to go get your summer wardrobe updated anyway. Yeah. We’ll take a trip to Nottagan.”

  Sery stared up at him, likely unused to hearing him bumble his words so much. He resolutely coiled up the rope and put it away, not just on a shelf, but into a saddlebag so it would be out of sight.

  Some nefarious deity was definitely trying to send him to hell. Or maybe he was already there.

  ***

  “Are you dies heading out?”

  Sery looked up to see Galen lounging in the entrance to the guild headquarters as she, Marielle, and Tasielle were exiting.

  “Duh,” said Marielle, rolling her eyes. “Did you think we were going to walk to the door and then turn around and head back inside?”

  Tasielle proved herself the more diplomatic twin as she answered more helpfully. “We’re going shopping.”

  This was the first time Sery had spent any significant time with the twins since departing for the Mage Games. In the flurry of activity surrounding her kidnapping and its aftermath, the guild members who had not been directly involved had only been given basic information on how an incident had occurred involving Inheritance Guild where Sery had been injured and a mage had died. Sery had been so preoccupied between her healing sessions with Taine, her poor sleep, and her new self-defence lessons that she never noticed that she had gone from doing activities with the twins a few times a week to not seeing them at all. It was only when they had hesitantly reached out a month after her return that she realized what a neglectful friend she had been.

  The twins were not upset with her; on the contrary, they had been concerned that they might be pressuring her to resume a routine she was not ready for.

  Sery had realized then what it meant to have a friendship of peers. Veltyen and Foria meant the world to her but they were intrinsically her seniors in experience and knowledge. Their care and support were priceless, but the experience of growing and learning together with Mari and Tasi was simirly invaluable.

  “Mind if I join you?” Galen asked.

  Sery was anxious for her first outing back with the twins to go well so unease washed over her when she saw nearly identical expressions of distaste on their faces at the proposal.

  Galen’s expression darkened as the wordless refusal. “What, am I not good enough for you dies?” he asked, turning the st word into a sarcastic insult.

  The twins stiffened, their postures taking on a regal bearing. “Galen, I find you extremely rude,” said Tasielle with uncharacteristic coldness.

  “Don’t pretend we’re the ones with a problem,” Marielle added. “You have an inferiority complex about the nobility rger than the entire town. Get over yourself.”

  Sery looked back and forth between Galen and the twins, unsure of how to resolve the situation or even if she should intervene.

  Marielle took her hand. “Let’s go, Sery. Clearly there are no gentlemen around to escort us,” she said as they swept through the doors.

  “Sorry for that unpleasantness, Sery,” Tasielle apologized when they were outside. “Galen has always been quite standoffish with us, and I’m told it’s simir with anyone with any retion to nobility.”

  “He’s such a hypocrite, though,” Marielle compined. “Always dressing up in fancy mage robes and fussing over cutlery and all the most archaic noble traditions. You’d think he’d try to be nicer to nobles if he wants to py at being one of them.”

  Sery remembered Galen’s hostile behaviour towards Asher at his birthday induction into Eterna and wondered how he could be so kind to her while treating others like that. Still, she was hesitant to criticize him and remained quiet.

  “Either way, he needs to give up,” said Tasielle firmly. “He has no chance.”

  “Chance of what?” Sery asked.

  “Chance with you,” Marielle answered. “You’re way out of his league. Plus, next to Veltyen, he looks like a mange-ridden dog.”

  Tasielle choked, trying to contain a shocked ugh. “Mari!”

  Marielle was unrepentant. “You know it’s true. Veltyen is just dreamy, and so much nicer,” she sighed. Looking at Sery, she added, “Not that either of us like like him, of course. Veltyen is definitely your man.”

  Sery’s eyes went enormously wide and stayed that way. “I…”

  “Shush, Mari,” Tasielle admonished. “Veltyen would never act that way towards a minor in his care.”

  “Well, no, but Sery’s about to turn seventeen. Another year after that, and poof, no longer a minor.”

  It had never occurred to Sery to think about the future in such terms. Did Veltyen expect their retionship to change once she was a legal adult? What if he expected her to leave his care and make her own way in the world?

  “Sery? Sery, don’t listen to Mari’s nonsense. Your retionship with Veltyen is none of our business,” said Tasielle, pulling Sery out of her anxious thoughts.

  “Though if you want to talk about it, we’re always here,” Marielle said with an unrepentant wink.

  Sery smiled, her nerves settling. She knew that whatever changes came in her life, there were people she could count on to help navigate them. “I’m really gd to have you as friends,” she said softly.

  Marielle grabbed her in a hug. “Ah, you’re so cute I can’t stand it!” she excimed.

  Tasielle shook her head. “I swear Mari, your manners get worse every year.”

  Laughing and chatting, they made their way to the shopping district.