Three weeks had passed since Declan came to the academy, not as the honored and powerful arcanist but as the invisible and unrespected House Arcanist. Three weeks of listening to Harris expound on the nature of inscribing runes. Three weeks of Roland telling him to convince someone else to fix Ariloch. Three weeks of Eden constantly harping on him about getting to know people who didn’t want to know him. But that time wasn’t wasted. It had yielded a hundred and fifty rin. Three months of his pop’s work. He’d inventoried every occupied room in House Ariloch and even reached a major milestone. Some of the residents would acknowledge him.

  The strange words appeared once a day, often with fragments of sentences to go with them. His careful questioning implied it wasn’t normal, so for now Declan read them, dealt with the headache and moved on.

  Every window was boarded, the leaking rooms emptied, the kitchen—well, it wasn’t clean but it no longer reeked. And today, Declan had begun a special project, clearing the second room in the house arcanist apartment. The jumble of furniture blocking it made entry near impossible until he destroyed the first piece. Then it was like unpacking a sad puzzle, where every piece told a story Declan didn’t quite understand.

  What he did understand was the pounding on his door.

  When he answered the door, the youngest student he’d seen yet stood there. His white leather cloak was spotless, his boots not even muddy and gods knew there was nothing but mud in the winter. “Declan Thorn, you’re ordered to report to Medical.”

  Declan counted fingers. Then toes. There had been no saw accidents. “I’m good. And I’m a house arcanist, you can take your orders and shove them deep in your arcsoul. Today I’m patching a roof.”

  The young arcanist stepped back at a loss. “But you have to come.”

  “I don’t.” Declan picked up his toolbox. “I promise you, I don’t. Maybe you do. Maybe your teachers will punish you. Maybe you’ll be forced to do fifty pushups or sprint around with a blazed-beast chasing you but I have one enemy today. It’s on the roof. It’s the rain.”

  With that, he headed out and up, all the way to the third floor. So many rooms no had no doors, but all the windows were all blocked. Not all of the bathtubs leaked, and that was progress. The third floor held the only entrance to the attic, and the attic would let him climb out onto the roof with a handful of planks he’d split for shingles and a bucket of tar he’d liberated from the trash heap outside a plumber’s shop.

  It was a shitty day.

  A cold, wet, miserable day, with sleet for rain and a wind that cut to the bone. An overswarm was overdue. This one would would be large. This would would last days, and Declan was determined to make House Ariloch a haven, though ‘home’ would be a stretch.

  Havens didn’t drip inside.

  Hours passed, and the shuffle of feet below told him second class had begun. People no longer sprinted through the house, though a new problem had arisen. Ariloch was primarily composed of exiles from the other houses. Some were permanent, some were temporary, and all of them held grudges. Against each other, against Declan, against the world, it was a wonder they could carry their books along with all the grudges.

  It hadn’t devolved into bloodshed but that was probably due to lack of opportunity. Only when he’d applied the last of the patches and sticky tar did he finally climb down, shivering, to slide down the ladder to the darkness of the third floor.

  “Took your sweet fucking time, didn’t you?” Tegan Domine shouted. She stood in the hallway, arms crossed. “Listen up, Thorn. I say you’re to come to Medical; you come immediately.”

  She advanced as she shouted, stopping an inch from him. “I’ve got a patient who needs to get the fuck out of Medical before she’s shanked by the bitch she crippled. She’s my problem and now you’re my problem.”

  “Back. Off.” He spat each word, rising to his full height above her as she took a step back. “I’ve been working my ass off to fix up this shithole and you could have said ‘Declan, it’s Tegan from evaluation. Could you come see me at Medical?’ That would have been a ‘Sure.’ Ordering me around like some of your ArCore buddies doesn’t work.”

  “Every arcanist at the academy is under ArCore protection and that means obeying us.”

  “House. Arcanist.” He dragged the words out into a thesis. “No powers. No rights. And far as I’m concerned, that means I do what I want.”

  “Ash and bone, you’ve grown a pair, haven’t you?” Tegan said, stepping back further. “What’s wrong with the lights?”

  “Arc circuits are burnt and I’m shit for fixing them.” He was still shivering. “Come on, I removed the bird’s nest from the fireplace. I want to warm up.”

  She followed him down the stairs. “Use the heat rune like everyone else. They’re built into the floor for a reason. You did know that, right?”

  “I like fires,” he lied, not meeting her eyes. “But if I didn’t want to build a fire, how would I turn it on? Show me.”

  Tegan crossed her arms. “You think there’s one for the great room? Your apartment. Any of the rooms. All of them have heat runes. And the kitchens. You didn’t try to build a fire in it, did you? Did you?”

  “Not yet. What do you want?” Declan asked, frustrated. “You know what, first, how do I activate the damned runes?” He opened the door and looked inside. There was no rune. “Please?”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Asking me into your apartment already? Smooth, Thorn. Smooth.” She pushed him aside and stepped through. “No, not any better than the rest of it. Here. See the controls?”

  The decorative panel next to the light controls held three faint engravings. Declan put his hand on it and felt the shift. Pushing mana into it caused a flame rune to glow dimly, and warmth suffused the room. “Jen had one like this in her house at the foundry. But it was a separate sphere and it cost arcite to run.”

  “Mana’s thick here. Converting it to heating or cooling is easy,” Tegan answered. “Your girlfriend chose a shitty place to live. Weak mana, no blazed beasts, so no runes. Few arcanists. Weather might be better but otherwise, a shit-hole.”

  If she was trying tease him, it wouldn’t work. “Jen was more like a sister. What do you need, Tegan? Shouldn’t you be off waging war on the blazed-beasts or lurking near the world wound just in case? Isn’t that what the ArCore do?”

  “Healing is the hardest rune to master. Tier one is harder than a tier five of anything else, according to my instructors. It takes knowledge, practice and mastery and it’s what I want to do. So I serve a six hour shift in Medical. That’s what I’m here for. Lake Domine. You met her, almost starved to death about right here?” Tegan pointed to the floor. “Maybe over there, it’s hard to picture what this place looked like. Anyway, she can’t come back to House Domine and I’ll be damned if I leave her to rot here in Ariloch. I need you to swear before the advisors she can’t recover here safely.”

  “That would be a lie.” Declan said. “I know what this place was. It’s worlds better. We have doors. Doors that shut. Many of the toilets work and it turns out we have heat runes. Your friend will be fine. What did she do?”

  “Beat the second heir of Domine in a duel. Beat her so viciously Roca ruptured her arcsoul trying to fight back. Lake’s only got a year left at the Academy and we can force House Perth to take her in under a treaty. She’ll be an outcast but safe. Just say she can’t recover here.”

  It was a lie. “Maybe that was true three weeks ago. It’s not now. I’ll show you her room. I know which one it should be. I hung the door myself.”

  “It’s not safe,” Tegan said, swearing. “Just lie about it, please? Tell them you won’t accept her.”

  “Absolutely not. House Ariloch is open. It’s a little broken. It smells a little bad. It could definitely use arc-circuit repairs but it’s safe. I will make it safe.”

  She practically snarled at him. “The same way you will be an arcanist?”

  “You’re damned right it is,” He pointed to the door. “You can leave. Your friend will be just fine.”

  Tegan was in his face in an instant, her nose an inch from his, but the fire in her eyes said this wasn’t romance. This was near murder. “You let her get so much as a scratch? I’ll personally carve it out of you. The ArCore have emergency permissions to open most mana locks. Letting my friend get hurt will constitute an emergency for me, which will make it an emergency for you.”

  “Says the big bad healer with the scary devouring rune. That’s what it was, right? Your soul-rune? Devour? Dessicate?” Declan wasn’t sure. The words hadn’t appeared but his gut said it felt right.

  Tegan stepped back, her eyes wide, then narrow. “What the fuck? Who opened their fucking mouth? Tell me! You know what? Destroy, you piece of shit. Get it right. And if you let Lake get hurt? I’ll demonstrate it.”

  Her rune flared into existence, three interlocking circles with hooks that caught.

  Destroy: Rip and Tear, my Domine brethren. Once the destruction begins, let it end only in death. Mana cost: moderate, continual.

  She turned and stomped her way out.

  Declan replayed the conversation in his brain. There were probably better ways to handle it. Not ones he wanted to take but still, probably better ones. He went back to sorting broken furniture, a problem he could actually solve.

  “Sir?”

  Declan looked up.

  The same young arcanist stood at his door. Maybe it was raining again. Maybe the boy was sweating. “You’re…kindly requested to report to Instructor Skinner. He said please,” the man stammered. “I’m saying please, too. Please.”

  ###

  Declan waited in the hallway of an actual class building, while Instructor Skinner continued droning on to a class full of artificers. At long last, they let out, and judging from how quickly the students fled, he was either unpopular or wherever they were heading was really important. Declan stepped inside. “You asked to see me?”

  “Yes.” Instructor Skinner pointed to a chair near his desk. “You’re nearing a month. I’m checking to see how you’re finding Ariloch, both the academy and the house.”

  Over the course of an hour, Declan explained. “It’s getting better. The next swarm shouldn’t be a disaster. But the academy, I’m getting nothing from. Less than nothing. Fifty rin a week doesn’t cover anything like the classes here.”

  “Nothing?” Skinner said it with disdain. “You’re getting nothing?”

  “Rich mana,” Declan admited.

  Skinner let the conversation rot. “I thought you were going to be an arcanist. What are the three things an arcanist trains?”

  “Arcsoul. Runes. Magic?” He spoke each with lowering hope.

  “Magic is one skill of an arcanist. One aspect. The other two are their knowledge and their body. Haven’t you noticed the ArCore assembling for morning workout? Haven’t you seen students carrying books from the library?” Skinner leaned back, watching.

  “I’m not allowed to join the classes—”

  “You’re not allowed to watch from a window and follow along?” Skinner asked. “You can’t remove books from the library, but last I checked, they don’t make you leave your brain at the door. Will you be staying at Ariloch the rest of the agreed time?”

  “Absolutely.” Declan stood, mentally revising his schedules. There weren’t enough hours in the day. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Of course. You can come by and borrow a rune to work with on any day.”

  Delan shook his head “I tried that. Why did you let the academy get like this? Why did you let the houses expell people? Why let House Ariloch fall into such disrepair?”

  “You think I let this happen?” Instructor Skinner leaned over his desk. “You think I personally set up the seven houses? You think I chose eighteen lesser families to compete? You think I…I don’t know, made up a set of rules by which people could be shitty to each other? Inventing ways to be terrible to each other is humanity’s favorite pastime. I’m sixty two, Declan Thorn. This world has been broken for centuries longer than I’ve been alive. And I do my part to make it better. You have a part to do, too.”

  Declan stood and walked away. “Where is Medical?”

  ###

  He walked through the halls of Medical, out of place and out of sorts, frustrated and angry at the world and no one at the same time. Then he spotted the arcanist. “Tegan!”

  She spun and glared at him. “What do you want?”

  “I’m here to take Lake Domine home. I can do it myself or we can do it together, but if she’s barred from Domine, she belongs at House Ariloch, that’s where she’s going.”

  “I meant what I said. Don’t let her get hurt.” Tegan turned and headed down the hall to the end room. Lake Domine no longer looked like a skeleton. Her skin was still pale, her body too thin, but she stood, almost steady. “Lake? Meet my friend Declan. Declan’s the new house arcanist for House Ariloch. We’re going to get you out of here.”