[Lorelei]

  My hands were still trembling slightly from the strain as I tried to patch up Mia’s wounds. The elf had gotten the worst of it — she’d thrown herself in front of Polly to shield her from the flying droplets of kernal venom when they broke through the protective dome.

  Polly had managed to hurl her throwing knives with the antidote charms into the kernals’ mouths, so thankfully Mia wasn’t completely paralyzed. But she’d gotten hit with a lot of venom, and all her muscles ached, and her arms and legs weren’t cooperating. On top of everything, she had deep gashes on her thigh from a kernal’s claws — one of them had managed to swipe her.

  “Can you walk?” I asked.

  Mia nodded.

  With my help, she struggled to her feet and winced, but didn’t start whining about how much it hurt or how she couldn’t go anywhere. None of us were in any position to whine right now — the battle with the kernals had even shut up the perpetually grumbling Kes.

  Using a couple of dark magic spells, I patched up the elf as best I could, cursing myself the whole time for never bothering to learn any serious healing spells from dark magic during my entire time at the academy.

  I just never saw the point — why bother when there were hundreds of perfectly good white magic spells? The entire academy curriculum was built around white magic, with only a careful introduction to dark magic. And we’d never had any real need to dive deep into dark magic for ourselves. Why would we, when our whole job was fighting dark creatures? Which white magic handled perfectly.

  But now I was seriously regretting that approach. Or rather, I was kicking myself for being so helpless in this situation. And judging by my classmates’ faces, their thoughts were just as grim. Though none of them could cast anything at all — dark magic was only responding to me and Calypso right now. Well, sort of responding…

  I glanced at my warden, who was currently bent over Professor Ditro along with the other classmates. Honestly, I still didn’t understand what Calypso had done, how we’d managed to hit those dark creatures with such a powerful wave of fire that they weren’t just knocked out — they turned to ash. We hadn’t even been aiming for that kind of power.

  How did we pull it off? I had no idea.

  “What were you two doing behind that protective dome for so long?” Kes asked Calypso while they examined Professor Ditro.

  “You took forever. A little longer and the five-year-old kernal would’ve broken through. Patricia and I barely fought off one of the smaller ones; it got way too close.”

  “Merging our auras for a focused fire vortex, you saw it yourself,” Calypso said evenly.

  “Yeah, I get that,” Kes waved dismissively.

  “But how exactly did you merge them?”

  “Through complex magical manipulations.”

  “Yeah, that’s obvious too,” Kes grimaced.

  “Can you be more specific about what exactly you were doing?”

  “We were making out, okay?!” I snapped without thinking.

  “What else could we have been doing to merge auras, huh? What kind of stupid questions are you asking?”

  Everyone cracked up, taking my outburst as a good joke. Kes huffed indignantly, waved his hand, and finally dropped the interrogation.

  Calypso didn’t say anything, just gave me a long look and that signature enigmatic smile of his.

  My ‘snapped and confessed’ approach clearly amused him — he appreciated the provocative move. And why not? They say the best defense is a good offense.

  Want to distract everyone from a touchy subject? State it outright and go on the attack, loud enough that they’ll stop thinking in that direction entirely.

  Which was exactly what I needed.

  My lips were still burning from kissing Calypso. And not just my lips — I was burning inside. That kiss couldn’t be written off as just a technique to help me focus. That’s not how you kiss someone when you’re just trying to help them concentrate.

  What it meant, I wasn’t quite sure yet, and I wasn’t ready to confront Calypso about it right now.

  I had a bad feeling he’d either remembered me, or never forgot in the first place and had just been playing dumb this whole time…

  But he wasn’t showing any signs, acting completely normal, and I couldn’t imagine Calypso keeping quiet in a situation like this. Maybe I was just being paranoid…

  “What if there’s no more magic in the entire world?” Polly said quietly, nervously crumpling the edge of her cloak.

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  I exchanged glances with Patricia and Mia, looked at the others. From their expressions, I could tell Polly had just voiced the fear hanging over all of us. A fear so intense we were scared to even say it out loud.

  And really, what if this was it? What if the world had simply run out of magic? Could that even happen? And what would we do then?…

  “I don’t think that’s the case,” Calypso shook his head.

  “Otherwise no magic would work at all. But I can still cast.”

  “Shadow magic has a different nature,” Kes objected.

  “It draws power not from the energy around us, but from the flip side of reality.”

  “Lori and I weren’t using shadow magic,” Calypso shook his head.

  “Well, I was, but Lori was using a very powerful concentrate of regular dark magic. Hers is so strong you probably can’t concentrate your dark magic like that. And Lori can’t ‘dilute’ hers with white magic, let’s put it that way. So I think any concentrated dark magic works fine for everyone the problem is only with white magic. And that’s actually very bad news. If white magic is compromised while the terrifying darkness is running wild, that’s a huge blow to the inquisitors at General Staff, to Armarillis… To all of us. Our entire approach is built around white magic first and foremost…”

  “What does that mean for us?” Polly whispered, looking at Calypso with frightened eyes.

  “Let’s not jump to worst-case scenarios right now,” I suggested, worried about panic spreading through our group.

  “We’ll deal with problems as they come.”

  Calypso nodded in agreement.

  “First we need to figure out how large the area of this anti-magic effect is. It might turn out that the problem only covers this forest, and everything’s fine beyond it. Then we’re worrying for nothing.”

  “You know, you and Calypso looked so beautiful casting that spell,” little Po said quietly to me while the others discussed what to do next.

  “You both have such long hair, and yours is black as night while Calypso’s is white as the moon… When the energy vortex rose around you and you became visible, I have to admit I just froze, watching your hair intertwine, and how you both seemed to glow from within, so focused, so serious… It was so beautiful!”

  Polly said it with genuine admiration, and I smiled awkwardly, feeling embarrassed and not knowing what to say.

  Focused and serious, right… If only Polly knew that literally a second before that, Calypso and I had been kissing like our lives depended on it, she probably wouldn’t be gushing about us with such admiration. More like dripping with sarcasm, yeah.

  “…and that spiral rune on you was so beautiful too…”

  “Spiral?” I asked, snapping back to reality from my emotions.

  “What rune?”

  “How would I know,” Polly shrugged, blowing her long red bangs out of her face.

  “Ask Calypso, he probably knows. A really bright golden spiral lit up on both your foreheads when your auras merged. Just for a few seconds, but damn, it looked so cool from the outside!! I want to be able to do that too!”

  I just hummed but didn’t say anything, frowning as I thought about Polly’s words. I had no clue what this spiral was or what it meant. And judging by Calypso’s thoughtful expression — he’d heard Polly — he didn’t quite understand what rune she was talking about either. Hm, interesting…

  So what was that mysterious thing glowing on our foreheads?

  We decided to carry Professor Ditro to the nearest village on a stretcher made from cut spruce branches.

  “Hey, why make it so complicated?” Kes complained when Calypso was giving out instructions.

  “Just conjure up a stretcher, why go through all the trouble?”

  “How am I supposed to conjure a stretcher if regular magic doesn’t work?” Calypso snapped.

  “Oh, right,” Kes smacked his forehead.

  We had to build the ‘stretcher’ from spruce branches cut with swords and tied together with strips of fabric. That’s when I finally understood why we had this uniform with the mandatory cloak — black with gold trim.

  It wasn’t just to protect against dirt and rain, being water-resistant and all, but it also tore easily into strips that were handy for tying things together, like spruce branches in our case, or bandaging wounds. The Mentor had mentioned this in class, but I’d never paid attention because I was used to relying on magic for everything and solving all problems with it. But now… What a disaster.

  Everyone else was thinking the same thing, none of us were used to be completely without magic. Sure, Fortemins sometimes had to go into anti-magic zones as part of the job, but it’s one thing when you know you’re walking into one, or at least see it coming. It’s completely different when you’re just training with a professor and absolutely certain everything is safe.

  Yes, practical classes at Armarillis Academy often involved risk — but risk controlled by professors, and that’s a huge difference.

  Kes complained the loudest, griping about having to cut spruce branches without using magic. The problem was that all the spruces in this part of the forest were really tall, and reaching even the lowest branches was a challenge. The guys had to work hard to climb up the straight tree trunks.

  “Why are you whining like a little girl?” Grey finally snapped.

  “Look, even our girls aren’t whining! They’re quietly getting the job done and helping out, pulling their weight. So what’s your problem? Just work with your hands, you won’t break.”

  Kes scowled but didn’t argue and kept silently helping cut branches.

  “I can’t heal the professor without white magic,” Calypso said when we finished with the stretcher.

  “We need to get him to the healers as fast as possible…”

  He watched grimly as Grey, Kes, and Iranor transferred the professor onto the stretcher. Iranor, the biggest and strongest among us, carried the front of the stretcher, while Grey and Kes walked behind. Calypso walked ahead of everyone, holding one of his artifact swords. He gave the second sword to the elf.

  “Holy shit, he’s heavy…”

  “Hey, Lavaz! Don’t forget that Professor Ditro is only paralyzed!” Calypso cut him off.

  “He can’t move, but he’s conscious, he can hear everything and understands perfectly.”

  “Sorry, Professor Ditro,” Grey mumbled guiltily.

  “Sorry and all that, but without ‘holy shit’ it’s really hard for me to stay sane right now. Especially since you really are heavy, and I’m already tired as…”

  His comparison was so creative and profane that I actually stopped to listen. Patricia facepalmed, and Calypso just waved Grey off, because we really didn’t have time for proper manners right now. And honestly, the swearing was helping us hold onto our shaky grip on reality.

  I would’ve loved to curse out loud myself, but for now I was doing it silently. Swearing is such a strange, seemingly low thing that can not only offend someone but also inspire — in certain chaotic situations, of course. Like right now.