Fabrisse was relieved the first person of authority to reach the scene was Professor Langley.
Of all the professors at the Synod, Langley was the one most students actually liked. Calm, clever, dry-witted when he wanted to be. More importantly, he was close to Lorvan, and knew how to handle weird things without calling half the academy down on you.
Langley approached at a brisk pace, his Purple Synod coat reserved for Professors flaring behind him in weathered folds. A pair of slender scrying lenses glinted on the bridge of his nose, the glass etched faintly with tracking runes that gradually lit up as he scanned the surroundings. He looked mildly harried, as though he’d jogged the last stretch from his office, but his posture was still composed, hands folded behind his back like he was inspecting a sculpture and not a minor magical disaster.
“Good evening,” he said, voice perfectly civil. “I see we’re having . . . an educational mont.”
“Well.” Tommaso patted Fabrisse on the back. “You’ve seen the most. Talk to the Professor.”
Fabrisse walked forward, not knowing where to begin. If anyone could be trusted not to overreact to the Voidtouched Skitterwhit incident, it would be Professor Langley.
And yet . . .
Fabrisse felt his shoulders tighten as Langley stopped in front of the char-marked clearing, gaze flicking first to Liene—still bandaged and half-lounging in the grass—then to Tommaso, then to Ilya finishing the last of the containnt sigils. His eyes landed on him last.
“Kestovar, would you mind detailing on what happened?” Langley asked.
He opened his mouth, but let the words hovered. Voidtouched. This has to be related to the kidnapping incident. Rolen has told to not talk to anyone else.
Langley trusted Lorvan. They have probably worked with one another countless tis. But still, orders were orders.
“We encountered a variant Skitterwhit,” he said carefully. “Larger than standard. Aggressive. It absorbed most of Liene’s spells and didn’t match any field taxonomy I’ve seen. We managed to subdue it with coordinated effort. Tommaso delivered the finishing blow.” Don’t ntion Void. Don’t ntion Void at all cost.
Langley nodded slowly. “You didn’t record a specin?”
“It . . . exploded.”
“I see.” Langley glanced at the blackened ground. “And the ley disturbance?”
“It was triggered by chain detonations from the surrounding population after Tommaso’s flare. Ilya stabilized it.”
Langley studied him for a mont longer than Fabrisse liked. Then he turned to inspect the charred remains.
“Then it’s a good thing we arrived when we did,” the professor said, tone still mild. “I’ll file a provisional containnt note and have the arcane ecology departnt sweep the field at dusk. No need to make noise if this was just an anomaly.”
Good; good, Fabrisse told himself. This incident can pass quietly, and no one gets into trouble.
“Ardefiam!” A voice cracked across the field. “What in the Flamus were you thinking, bringing Kestovar off campus?”
Fabrisse turned around to see Lorvan practically loping over with a hexagonal containnt spell still forming on his hand.
Tommaso lifted his hand in instinctive defense. “He volunteered. The spell requirents were low-risk—”
“Who gave you the right to decide what is low-risk?” Lorvan barked. “You were given explicit instructions. That is not what a guardian should do.”
This tale has been pilfered from . If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A guardian? What does he an by that?
Tommaso’s brows furrowed. “I’m not his—” He stopped, glanced once at Fabrisse, then away.
That look told Fabrisse everything he needed to know.
Lorvan assigned him? So him being on vacation is a lie.
“I thought you just ca back to visit,” Fabrisse said quietly.
Tommaso scratched the back of his neck. “I an, I did. Just that I was also kind of . . . got asked to keep an eye on you. Temporarily. Y’know. For fun.” He winced at his own words.
Fabrisse looked at Tommaso. Then he looked down, crossed his arms over his chest, and stayed quiet.
Turns out I’m the useless one needing everyone to keep watch.
“How co it took you so long to assist Kestovar?” Lorvan asked in a harsher tone now.
“They attacked us too,” Tommaso’s voice dropped to a murmur. “They tried to keep us in place. You know, the . . .”
The what? The voidtouched skitterwhits? It couldn’t have been them, could it? Tommaso said he didn’t know how strong the skitterwhit was so he went full furnace on it. It must have been sothing else.
“Okay,” Liene pushed up on her elbows. “Let’s all just take a breath, yeah? Nobody died. The creature is ash, the leyfield is stable, and Fabrisse doesn’t need two people fighting over who gets to smother him first.”
Lorvan’s jaw clenched at Liene’s voice, but it wasn’t irritation this ti. “You . . . Are you hurt? Lie back down.”
She was pale. There was a tremble in her shoulders she hadn’t ant to show, and the hand bracing her side was stained with sothing darker than dirt. The bravado had been masking pain.
Lorvan dropped to one knee, the containnt glyph on his hand vanishing as he reached toward her with both hands. “How hurt are you?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Liene muttered, which of course ant she wasn’t. “Just cracked sothing a little.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He was already scanning her with his offhand, drawing in a thin field of diagnostic light. A pale coil of aether swept across her ribs and pulsed back once in warning.
Light blood.
A single glyph ford beneath his palm and tightened like a buckle pulling tension out of fabric. The bruising dulled in color, and Liene’s breath stopped hitching.
Fabrisse watched as the light threaded across Liene’s side, shocked by how quiet Lorvan had beco.
Liene looked up at him with a tired, crooked smile. “You’re doing the dad-voice again.”
“I’m not your father,” Lorvan replied.
“Good. You’d be bad at it.”
Tommaso lingered nearby, still crouched in the ash-swept grass. He shifted once, then again, finally glancing toward Fabrisse with sothing like guilt simring beneath the soot on his face.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, uh, dude.”
Fabrisse didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the space where the creature had disintegrated. There was barely a mark left now, only a few frayed sparks of mory and the echo of sothing that had almost killed Liene.
Tommaso tried again. “You okay? You’re usually, like, making rock puns by now.”
Still no answer.
Fabrisse’s thoughts weren’t in the field anymore. They were looping inside his own skull.
If I’d had even one iota more innate resonance—
He could’ve passed his second-year casting evaluations. With a decent enough score, he wouldn’t have needed the excuse of field rediation. He wouldn’t have started skipping lessons because what was the point of learning spells that never anchored, that fizzled on his fingertips like wet chalk?
He wouldn’t have needed to turn to Earth Thaumaturgy. To Stupenstone.
And if he hadn’t brought the Stupenstone, maybe the buried artifact wouldn’t have reacted. Maybe he wouldn’t have been stuck with a system he was in no capacity to master.
If I’d had just a sliver more talent, none of this would’ve happened.
“I . . . excuse ,” he said.
Fabrisse didn’t wait for anyone to answer. He turned and began walking sowhere. Anywhere else.
He just needed a minute. One single, quiet minute away from Liene’s shallow breathing and Lorvan’s stern silence and Tommaso’s half-guilty glances.
He took five steps.
“Mr. Kestovar,” Langley’s voice ca lightly from behind him, calm and unhurried.
Fabrisse froze.
Langley had moved without a sound. One of his hands rested gently on Fabrisse’s shoulder, not restraining, exactly, but undeniably present. His fingers were warm.
“Do you have ti,” Langley asked, “for a conversation?”
Fabrisse didn’t nod. He just stood there, breathing in the post-combat hush of the field, his pulse still loud in his ears.
“I suppose,” he said eventually, “I’ve got ti.”
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