Rather than returning straight back to the house, Lissa asked Lucas to help her out for a quick trip to Helstrum’s market to help her grab some food for meals for the next couple days. Though he was happy to help, the teen’s mind was largely elsewhere as he thought about what Wren had taught him.

  The town didn't quite have a grocery store as much as it had a large, open-air market. A whole section of Helstrum’s second ring was dedicated to the markets, with people manning stalls and actual shops full of all sorts of fruits, vegetables, herbs, meats, and spices. There were some street vendors scattered about as well, but most of the space was dedicated to raw ingredients.

  Most of what Lucas saw were things he was familiar with, though there were differences. In a butcher’s shop, he spotted a whole, butchered chicken that was twice the size of a normal one from back home. And then there were the things that he didn’t recognize, strange leaves and herbs, and even some types of meats and fruits that he didn’t recognize the name of. He wanted to ask questions, but he knew if he started, he’d be at the market all day.

  To his relief, Lissa didn’t take too long to shop. She knew what she wanted and Lucas was soon helping carry one of the large bags full of raw beef that the woman had purchased.

  “Thank you for the help, Lucas,” The blonde said as they left the market.

  “Of course. You’re all letting me live with you for a month rent free. This is the least I could do to pay you back,” Lucas replied.

  When she heard that, Lissa stopped and turned to Lucas, and he was surprised to see her frowning at him.

  “Lucas, you don’t have to pay us back for anything,” Lissa scolded. “We happily offered to take you in. You’ve become a good friend to Fay, and you need help. Magnus and I aren’t going to just leave you on your own to deal with all this. So don’t worry about ‘paying us back’ for any of this. If you really want to worry about it, you can help me with a few more shopping trips while you’re here for the next month.”

  There wasn’t really much that Lucas could say to argue against the woman. Lissa had a point, and it seemed pretty unlikely that she would even accept any kind of payment from Lucas even if he did have money on him.

  “I can help with that, yeah.” Lucas replied after a minute. “But I want to hear more about some of those weird fruits I saw that one guy selling. The white ones with the red stems.”

  “Oh gods, you’ve never had a blood apple before, have you?” Lissa mumbled, glancing back towards the market. “Next time I’m going to the market, you’ll come with me and we’ll grab a few for you. I think you’ll absolutely love them.”

  Lucas had so many questions, but he settled on waiting and asking them the next time he and Lissa went shopping in the markets again.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “Thank you again for your help.”

  Lucas laughed a bit as he handed some of the meat over to the older blonde while she stored away all the food in the refrigerator. Much like many of the other appliances, magic had been used to pretty accurately recreate the appliance.

  “You said that already, Lissa,” He teased.

  “I know, but you did such a good job that I felt like you deserved to hear it again,” Lissa shot back playfully.

  The woman really was an incredibly sweet and kind person. The more time that Lucas spent with her and Magnus, the more at home he felt in their house. Though he badly wanted to go home, he found himself enjoying the time with the Stellas. It was like spending time with a fun aunt and uncle.

  A tug on the bag made Lucas look down to find his little familiar poking her head into the grocery bag. He jerked it away, laughing even more at the clear look of betrayal in Dusk’s eyes.

  “You can wait until dinner like everyone else,” He told the fox, laughing even harder as the familiar glared at him.

  “I’ll take that,” Lissa said as she snagged the bag. Though she did indulge dusk a bit, tossing a grape at the fox. “How about you take Dusk outside. There are still a few hours until dinner and Fay should be back home by now.”

  “I’ll get her out of your hair, Lissa,” Lucas laughed, picking up the fox as she enjoyed her snack. Tossing Dusk over his shoulder, he headed out to the backyard once again. Whether Fay was around or not, he had a chance to practice his Illusion magic.

  “I’ll call you when dinner is ready!” Lissa called after him as he stepped out the door.

  Surprisingly, Fay was nowhere to be seen when Lucas got outside. He was curious about where the blonde was, but he figured that she was bound to show up eventually. Without his friend around, Lucas decided to focus on trying to create his first illusion.

  His first impulse was to do what Wren had done and make a copy of himself. He imagined how funny it would be for Fay to come back, only to see two of him standing there. But his teacher had suggested that he start small, and Lucas was pretty sure he did not have the skill needed to pull off the trick that Wren had done with her illusory duplicate.

  Instead, Lucas focused on something he was painfully familiar with. Holding out his hand, he focused on his palm, trying to manifest the image of a simple, yellow number two pencil in his hand.

  Of course, it was easier said than done. Lucas knew how to access his mana, and Wren had given him a general idea of how to use it, but making his mana do what he wanted was harder than he expected.

  He smiled as Dusk nuzzled her snout against his neck, reaching up to pet the fox with a free hand. Then, he closed his eyes and tried to focus. It only took a second to feel for that deep pool of darkness in his core. He grabbed at it as best as he could, trying to push and shape it outside of his body and into his hand. All the while he tried to focus on the image of a pencil.

  He felt his mana slowly trickle out of his body as he tried. He felt the slight drain, but when he opened his eyes he didn’t see any sort of pencil sitting in his hand.

  So, he closed his eyes and tried again. And again. And again.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “So, that’s him?”

  Lucas was so focused that the sound of another person’s voice made him jolt slightly as he came out of his deep, focused state. On his shoulder, Dusk clung to his body to keep herself steady as he jumped.

  His eyes shot open and he looked to see Fay standing at the back door of the house with another girl at her side. In contrast to Fay’s height, the new brunette was pretty short, just over five feet tall, he assumed. Though, Lucas only got a quick look at the new girl before she suddenly was standing mere inches away from him.

  “Holy shit!”

  Lucas flinched back from the girl, his eyes locked onto the bright, amethyst like purple eyes as the girl looked him over.

  There wasn’t any blur or burst of speed like Lucas was used to with Fay, the girl had simply appeared right in front of Lucas after having been at the back door an instant before.

  “He is kinda cute,” The girl said, looking back towards Fay and giving Lucas a moment to take stock.

  With her standing only a few inches away from him, Lucas had an easy time noticing her purple eyes. The more time he’d spent in the magical side of the world, the more he’d realized that strange hair and eye colors seemed to be fairly common and natural. Unlike her eyes, though, the girl’s hair was a pretty normal, honey-like shade of brown that fell just past her ears.

  “Who the hell are you?” Lucas asked, finally getting bearings as the brunette turned back to him. On his shoulder, he could hear Dusk quietly growling at the girl, likely annoyed that she’d made Lucas jostle her so much.

  The girl just cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “I’m Sasha, Fay’s best friend. I can’t believe that she hasn’t told you about me yet. She’s been telling me about you all day.”

  Before Sasha could talk any more, Fay grabbed the shorter girl’s shoulders and pulled her back.

  “Sasha, shut up! And give Lucas some space, you’re freaking him out.”

  Amusingly, Lucas could see a hint of a blush on Fay’s cheeks that he just couldn’t help but exploit.

  “She was talking about me all day? I’m sure it was all good things,” He teased.

  Sasha’s eyes gleamed with amusement as she understood what Lucas was up to while Fay’s went wide with horror.

  “Oh, only the nicest of things. She just couldn’t stop talking about-“

  Lucas laughed as Fay, now red in the face, slapped a hand over Sasha’s mouth to keep her from talking.

  “Shut up! It was not like that!”

  Even Dusk was snickering as she watched the show, and Lucas could see Sasha’s shoulders shaking as she held back her own laughter.

  When it was clear that Sasha wasn’t going to continue teasing her, Fay finally let the brunette go, turning her attention back towards Lucas.

  “So,” She said quickly. “How did it go with Granny Wren?”

  Still trying to shake off the last bits of laughter, Lucas grinned at his friend. “It went great. She agreed to take me as her student and I’m going to learn from her.”

  “Granny Wren is teaching you? Cool,” Sasha replied while Fay beamed at Lucas.

  “That’s great! Now you have someone else to help you learn your magic.”

  “He’s still gotta learn how to fight, though, He’s pretty useless until then.” Sasha cut in. “His magic won’t do much to help if he doesn’t know how to fight or use a weapon.”

  Predictably, Lucas was a bit offended by that, even if it was the truth. “I’m learning. Magnus is teaching me just fine.”

  The grin that Lucas watched grow on Sasha’s face was near predatory in nature. “Then how about you show me what you’ve learned? Fay said you’re doing so good, so let’s see how well you can fight, big guy.”

  He knew she was baiting him, that she wanted him to fight her. It was giving her what she wanted, but the way she was acting just rubbed Lucas the wrong way and he wanted to try and wipe that grin off of her face.

  “No, stop that,” Fay interjected, trying to pull Sasha away. “He doesn’t have to fight you Sash-“

  “I’ll do it.”

  Fay froze up and Sasha’s grin grew even wider.

  “Lucas, you really don’t have to fight her. Sasha knows how to fight and you’re still learning,” Fay pleaded.

  “I need all the practice I can get, Fay.”

  It was a weak excuse and Lucas knew it. He just wanted to try and beat Sasha after she’d challenged him. He knew his chances were slim, but he wanted to try.

  “… Fine. But I’m getting dad so he can make some training weapons,” Fay reluctantly said.

  As the blonde dashed back into the house, it left Lucas and Dusk alone with Sasha, who was joined a moment later by a brown and black furred german shepherd that sat at her side. The two sides stared at one another, as Sasha reached down to pet the dog’s head and Lucas reached up to scratch under Dusk’s chin.

  The atmosphere wasn’t exactly hostile, but it was a bit tense. They were about to fight, after all.

  “No hard feelings,” Sasha spoke up. “But I gotta make sure my best friend’s new friend can keep up.”

  “So, no hard feelings when I kick your ass, then?” Lucas shot back, bluffing quite a bit.

  Sasha just laughed and scratched behind her familiar’s ear. “I’ll give you half the pay from my last job if you can actually beat me.”

  Thankfully, before things could get any more tense, Fay ran back out of the house with Magnus following behind her at a much more reasonable pace.

  “What’s going on out here? Why is Fay telling me you two want to fight?” The man asked as he looked between the two teens.

  “It’s exactly that, Mr. Stella,” Sasha said. “I want to see how good he is at fighting and he agreed. We just need some sparring weapons.”

  It was as she was talking to Magnus that Lucas noted something in particular about Sasha. The brunette was wearing a pair of brown cargo pants and a black leather jacket. As she turned towards Magnus, Lucas spotted a bandolier across her chest with multiple daggers sheathed.

  Suddenly, he was glad that Fay had gotten her father to make training weapons.

  “You’re both old enough to do stuff like this, so I’ll let this happen. But if either of you two start to go too far,” Lucas didn’t really like the way that he focused on Sasha when he said that. “Then I’m going to step in and stop the fight. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good,” The man sighed and held his hands out, creating those same blunted metal weapons that Lucas had grown increasingly familiar with. In his right hand he made the same xiphos that Lucas was practicing with. But in his left, Magnus created a curved blade that Lucas recognized, a scimitar. It was one of the many weapons that Lucas had tested, but he hadn’t felt the curved blade was right.

  “Still remember how to use this, Sasha? Or want me to make some knives?” Magnus asked as he tossed the blunted weapons to the two teens.

  Sasha caught hers easily with one hand while Lucas nearly fumbled the blade before catching it.

  “I still remember. This’ll do just fine, thanks Mr. Stella.”

  “Alright. Remember, this is a spar, not a deathmatch or anything,” Magnus spoke up as he backed off. “And you two, over here,” He added, looking towards the two familiars still standing by their partners.

  The dog walked over to Magnus without issue, but Dusk hesitated. She nuzzled against Lucas’ cheek and whined quietly.

  “Just head over, Dusk,” Lucas consoled the fox. “I don’t want you to get knocked off. I’ll be fine.”

  Reluctantly, the familiar hopped off his shoulders and Lucas watched the small fox move to sit beside Magnus and Fay. Then, it was just him and Sasha.

  “Ready?” Magnus called out.

  Lucas shifted into the stance that Magnus had started to teach him, holding the blade in his right hand and angling it towards Sasha. The brunette, on the other hand, didn’t take any real stance as she stared him down.

  Both of them nodded their heads.

  “Fight!”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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