Even without the general’s order, warning, or display, it wasn’t like Det would’ve had a chance to discuss what had happened on Ironsalt with anybody on the mistship. Mainly because he’d been confined to his quarters for the remainder of the trip to Mount Avalon. It only made him feel a little better to know the same rules had been applied to Calisco, and that she was handling it far worse than he was.

  How did he even know that? Captain Simmons and his perfect curl had come by a few times each day to deliver his meals. Also, to chat. The man was an absolute gossip.

  In this case, Det found himself appreciating it, as he got updates on how Nancine, Meliza, and Ruffal were doing. The captain had even brought the mother and daughter to his room because Meliza had been heartbroken when Deathmaw had dissolved upon returning to the mistship. The alpha of the Pack had stayed long beyond when Det had though he would be able to, but the girl had missed him horribly.

  While Det couldn’t permanently summon the wolf to stay with Meliza, he did come up with another solution. After getting her mother’s permission. With that granted, Det had painted an image of Deathmaw on the inside of Meliza’s forearm. A permanent image. Well, at least until Det used a hint of his magic to dissolve the ‘tattoo’.

  It was also his magic which made it so the drawing wouldn’t fade or get washed off. It wasn’t quite as good as having the full-size ink-wolf physically at her side, but it clearly made her feel better as soon as it was completed. The trauma of what she’d been through wouldn’t fade any time soon, though some of the fear in her eyes lessened when she looked at the intricate image on her arm.

  Nancine had thanked him as soon as she’d seen some of the weight lift from her daughter’s shoulders, and she promised she and Meliza would try to track Det down on Avalon at some point in the future. Captain Simmons hadn’t commented on how likely that would be, and the three of them just each added it to an internal wish list. It would be nice for Det to see how the pair was doing, but it wasn’t necessary. As cold as it was, seeing them wouldn’t help get him home. That was his priority.

  After that, for the three days Det was locked in his room, he did what he could to pass the time. Hundreds—thousands?—of push-ups, sit-ups, and any other exercise he could think of. Hours vanished as he sweated and worked his ReSouled body. He hadn’t been given any ink, leaving him with roughly half a bottle, and a full cannister on his gauntlet, which he kept in case of emergencies. Or emergences.

  So, when somebody came along to lay an unscheduled pounding on his door—inconveniently after he’d just gotten out of the shower on his fourth day—his heart beat a little bit faster. Was it finally time for them to arrive at Mount Avalon, the heart of the Mistguard.

  “Took you long enough,” Captain Simmons said as Det opened the door with one towel wrapped around his waist, and one rubbing some of the water out of his hair. “And, you’ll want to put on pants for this.”

  “I bet you say that to all the boys, Captain,” Det said, turning and heading for his wardrobe.

  “What does that even mean?” Simmons asked from where he’d stayed at the door.

  “I don’t know,” Det admitted. “It sounded better in my head.”

  “Really?”

  “No, okay? Can I put on my pants now?”

  “You’re the one who opened the door,” Simmons said with a good-natured laugh. “But, yeah, hurry up and get changed. You’re going to want to see this view.”

  “I’ll be right out,” Det said, and Captain Simmons gave him a nod, before generously closing the door. That done, it didn’t take Det long to get dressed—he only lingered for an extra few seconds to appreciate the wonderful fabric—into the full uniform. He still didn’t grab the cap, and wouldn’t until somebody told him it was necessary.

  It was less than a minute later when he opened the door again, to find the captain leaning against the wall, his finger and thumb twirling that perfect curl.

  “Not bad,” Simmons said. “They’ll get you dressing in thirty seconds at the academy. In the middle of the night after waking up, a lot of the time. Ah, memories of the drills, somehow much fonder than they should be.”

  “This is another one of your jokes, isn’t it,” Det said. It wasn’t a question.

  “You’ll just have to find out for yourself,” Simmons said. “Still, word of advice. Don’t sleep commando. Takes a few extra seconds you can’t spare.”

  “This academy, it’s not going to be one of those fun ones we see in the movies or read about in books, is it?” Det said while he and Simmons headed toward the door leading out to the deck.

  “Parts of it will be,” Simmons said. “Most of the first year is literal hell, though. Torture. And I’m not saying that figuratively. The best way to get your ReSouled body to learn about what it can do—not what you think it should do—is to push it well beyond what you think your normal limits are.”

  “We’re going to be running until we puke?”

  Simmons belted out a full-belly laugh. “Det, my friend, that is going to the easiest, most pleasant push you are going to experience in the next year. Believe me, it’s going to be much worse.”

  “If it’s so bad, why do people go through with it?”

  “Because they don’t have a choice,” Simmons said. “This is what it takes to become a ReSouled member of the Mistguard.”

  “You don’t have dropouts?”

  “Oddly enough, not many,” Simmons said. “Like I said before, everybody has a reason for being reborn—a drive—and whatever reason that is, it means we all have what it takes to get through this. Whether it’s a goal, resolve, pure stubbornness, or a need to prove ourselves better than everybody else. We all have something. You’ll get through it. Calisco will get through it. It’ll suck. A lot. But you’ll both come out the other side, stronger than when you started. By a large margin.”

  “How large?” Det said.

  “Ask your instructor,” Simmons said, exiting the tunnel out into the mid-deck of the airship. As soon as Det followed him out, he spotted Calisco standing at the railing, Jeckles a few steps away from her. “C’mon, you should be able to see it now.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “By it, I assume you mean Mount Avalon?” Det said.

  “Aren’t you a regular genius,” Simmons joked, and the two of them walked over to the railing to join Calisco and Jeckles.

  “Get enough beauty sleep?” Calisco said without looking over at Det, her eyes clearly locked on something else.

  It didn’t take him long to figure out what, with the gigantic mountain emerging from the mist off to the side of the ship.

  “We always take a long, circling path around for the new cadets,” Simmons said. “Though, we’re a little behind schedule because of the Ironsalt adventure, so you won’t get the full picture. Enjoy it while you can.”

  Honestly, Det was hardly listening. The whole pillars in a sea of mist thing had been one hell of a sight when they’d left Radiant. So different from Earth. The extra sun in the sky, plus the moons, it had been quite the view. Something about it had also been a bit empty, since pillars tended to be dozens of miles apart, if not hundreds, in a lot of cases. Yes, the different stratums were interesting and all, but they couldn’t quite compare to the view now.

  Mount Avalon… lived up to its name. It wasn’t a pillar emerging from the mist, but instead, as the title suggested, an actual mountain. An absolutely massive mountain. The thing had to be thirty or forty miles wide where the mist crawled along its edges. It made Mount Fuji look small, and that wasn’t the only difference between two monstrous land masses.

  While Fuji looked like a gradual incline from the distance, Mount Avalon looked more like Everest. There were no gentle slopes, with its tallest peak having to be a dozen miles tall. The sheer presence of the thing was enough to steal the words from Det’s lungs before he could even consider what to say. And, if the natural majesty of the mountain wasn’t enough, the made-made constructions on it sure added to its air.

  Widest near the base of the mountain, there were numerous flat lands, perfect grazing territory for what Det was pretty sure were herds of animals. Especially on the left side from where he looked. Even with his ReSouled vision though, it was hard to be sure from the distance, but those had to be livestock. They had to be. Small homes dotted the land further from the gently floating mist along the edges, about a mile further in.

  Beyond them, there was more grazing territory, before a large community of low buildings. Nothing was taller than three stories, but the style of the buildings and town reminded him a lot of towns he’d seen when he’d visited Norway with Yumiko. There was just something peaceful about the colorful homes and buildings, with curving streets between them. There were even windmills.

  Past the town, that’s where the real mountain started, with sheer cliffs, and roads carved into them. There looked to be tunnels hewn into the stone, along with the occasional small collection of buildings, like way points or small communities along the way.

  Along the way to what? That would have to be the collection of castle towns dotting the mountain. Imposing, laws-of-physics-questionable, and towering structures. That one over there, just the castle had to be a mile tall, and several miles wide. It had its own mistship docks—with several ships currently parked there—and heavy cannons on the walls.

  Further to the right from there, a tremendous stadium capped the flat top of one of Mount Avalon’s lower peaks. This, a coliseum, or maybe an amphitheatre, big enough to seat the tens of thousands who suddenly rose with a thunderous cheer Det could hear over the distance, stood basking in the light of the twin suns.

  The final, and most unusual part of the structures Det could see from their mistship was the crowning building on the tallest peak of the mountain. Again, literally. The summit of Avalon protruded almost like a single-edged sword blade, three miles tall, and hundreds of feet wide. Around it, A dozen pillars of metal stood equidistant, horizontal bars—halls?—connecting each of them to the central spike of stone. It probably wasn’t Det’s imagination those were windows of some kind in both the metal pillars and the spike of stone.

  Somebody had carved out the summit to make it livable, then put a metal-crown-fortress thing around it.

  “It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Simmons said some amount of time later, through which Det and—miraculously—Calisco had remained silent. “Not all of that is the academy, though I’m sure you’ll visit many of those places over the next year, one way or another.”

  “Where is the academy?” Det said. “Is it something we can see?”

  “It should just be coming into view right about… now,” Simmons said, lifting an arm to point at yet another imposing structure. Dominated by three curved buildings—towers?—looking like something carved out of the side of the mountain, instead of built on it, the white compound was streaked with black, like obsidian veining ran naturally through Avalon. Smaller, square structures had been added to the vast courtyard which had been cleared within a ring of other peaks.

  From the angle Det got to look from, vast training fields came into view, some looking like they were for sports—like soccer or something like that—while others held complicated obstacle courses, or running tracks. Smoke rose from several of the buildings, and those ones over there, they had the unmistakable look of dormitories.

  “No, you two won’t be staying in those dorm rooms,” Simmons said, like he could predict where their eyes would land. “Your accelerated class is going to be kept separate from the main group for a while.”

  “You’re going to isolate us from the rest of the new ReSouled?” Det said. “Isn’t that going to cause us problems?”

  “You won’t be isolated,” Simmons said. “Just not in the same dorms. You’ll still be taking most of the same classes and exams with the others, not to mention the opening… festivities.”

  “The way you said that makes me sure I shouldn’t be looking forward to those.”

  “Meh, you may not be, but I know I am,” Simmons said.

  “What do you mean by most classes?” Det said, trying his best to ignore the outright predatory look on Simmons’ face.

  “You’ll get most of the details during the opening ceremony tomorrow,” Simmons said. “But, just so you don’t worry about things, there are a couple different kinds of classes. Individual, archetype, and specific party training. For that third one, you’ll be taking different classes—with your party—that have been specially chosen to build your strengths and counter your weaknesses.

  “Those are where your accelerated class activities will be the most obvious.”

  “Any hints what those are?”

  “Nah,” Simmons said. “Mainly because I don’t know the details of them. You weren’t supposed to be part of the accelerated group, but we called ahead after what happened on Ironsalt. Having you two added is changing the curriculum up.”

  “How many other people are in the awesome class?” Calisco said, without taking her eyes off Mount Avalon.

  Is she even blinking?

  “With you two, it’s very conveniently at six now, I think. Unless there were any other late additions,” Simmons said.

  “Why’s that convenient?” Calisco said.

  “It’s a second-year topic,” Simmons said, meaning it was connected to emergences and the Wordless. It also meant it was something the captain wasn’t going to discuss more of on the open deck of the mistship.

  “Any other clues to what we can expect next?” Det said.

  “Should be normal for the rest of today, after all that excitement,” Simmons said. “We’ll take another twenty minutes or so to approach Avalon—we’re running behind schedule, or it would be more than twice that—then you’ll be shown to your new homes. They aren’t quite as luxurious as the quarters you’ve had here, and they’ll be a shared space with your group. Individual bedrooms and bathrooms, but shared common space, I mean.”

  “I have to live with Det?” Calisco said, voice as flat as the surface of the Mistsea.

  “Don’t you mean I have to live with you?” Det said.

  “I’m awesome to live with, no idea what you’re talking about,” Calisco said.

  “Yes, you two are officially roommates,” Simmons said. “Please don’t kill each other.”

  “We would have to care more about each other to bother with that,” Calisco said.

  “That I can actually agree with,” Det grumbled.

  “See, your friendship is already blooming!” Simmons laughed. “What do they call it? The springtime of youth or something.”

  “What happens after we get settled in our new quarters?” Det said, really, really wanting to move on.

  “Welcome ceremony is tomorrow for the new class of ReSouled,” Simmons said. “You’ll get introduced to some of the instructors, professors, sadists, or whatever else you want to call them. After that are some of the festivities I mentioned, which will take most of the day. Classes will officially start the next day.”

  “That quick?” Calisco said.

  “That quick,” Simmons confirmed. “Welcome back to school, kids.”