Lake Domine was sleeping in the first room on the right on the first floor. She looked better than she had a month ago, but the woman was both simultaneously terrified of Declan and terrified of being left alone because, there might be someone looking to kill her.

  Declan had personally cleaned the room and then personally re-made the bed when Tegan came back with new sheets and blankets, and now he looked at a box she’d unceremoniously dumped in the commons room before racing out for an actual emergency.

  It came with instructions, unlike most things in Declan’s life, and the experience was both novel and frightening.

  A knock at the commons had him not startled, but surprised. Harris stood at the door, a rune-stone in one hand and a carving stylus in the other. “Housie, I have something to show you, and you’re possibly the only arcanist who would actually appreciate it.”

  Declan picked up his project box and carried it to the apartment. “Show me.”

  “This place is nice…er. Nicer,” Harris said. He still sat at the repurposed crate-table and dumped out a handful of arcite ore lumps. “Been practicing and I’m so damned close I can feel it. Then, this morning, inspiration hit. I made this.”

  He dumped a single nugget the size of Declan’s thumb on the table. Scratched across the surface was a line the length of a broken thumbnail. But the stone had weight, real weight, like it altered the mana around it. “You made a rune-stone?”

  “I tried. To do it, we have to enforce our will over the whole damned thing and that nugget’s larger than I can fully handle. But for once the awl did what I wanted. What do you think?” Harris looked at him pleadingly. “None of the Harris arcanists will go near it. They keep saying ‘It might explode.’”

  Declan took it in his hand, not a hard task and wrapped his hand over it. “Why would they say something like that?”

  “Because it might explode. So I thought, who do I know who really wants to be an arcanist and has no rin and no runes and wouldn’t mind a wound or two?”

  “And you thought of me?” Declan had already made up his mind. He began to force will into it. Unlike the mana bearing, it wasn’t solid. It was crumbly, like old paper, and rotten and weak, and while something pulled at his will, he forced in anyway. Then stopped. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I’m a veritable ball of mystery wrapped in enigmas, shrouded in secrecy and buried under a mound of conspiracies.”

  Declan retrieved his shard. “One of the thunpers wasn’t harvested. I found this. It feels like strike.”

  “Oh, shit. Can I?” Harris reached, turning the pie piece over. “They won’t let me work with real ones. I’ve destroyed five templates and the instructors say it’s normal but they also say ‘let me hide behind this before you start carving.’ Holding an actual rune makes it so much clearer.” He handed it back, and Declan returned it to his clothing drawer.

  Once again, Declan forced his will into the proto-rune. And to his shock, something clicked mentally. The ore chunk went from porous to complete, a sense he knew, an absolute. “I’ve got control of it.”

  Harris stared as the chunk of stone wobbled and rose from Declan’s hand. “It fucking works. Can you lock the rune?”

  Declan fumbled mentally, trying to get the ore to move. To rotate gracefully. It rotated, tumbling in place. Every mental touch sent it off kilter, and now the orb wouldn’t stop spinning, faster and faster. “Harris. Run.”

  Harris Harding was not what anyone would call brave and probably only a little what anyone would call stupid. He ran, while Declan fought to control the ore, which was now spinning so fast it was a blur, not rotating, just turning and crackling. Deep blue light surrounded it in a haze, and there, a definite line showed. It was real.

  Strike: Strike a blow. Mana cost: moderate, fixed

  Then the world exploded.

  Declan pushed, not so much with his hands as his will. One moment the ore was there and the next moment it was gone, just dust. In the silence, Declan began to breathe again. “You can come back.”

  Harris poked his head in. “Maybe I need a little more practice.”

  “Maybe.” Declan wiped the dust from his face. Then a drip from his forehead. He looked up, squinting. A quarter-rin spot of white showed. Then another drip. “There’s a hole. In the roof. Three floors up.”

  “Shit.” Harris said. “I’m in such deep shit. A little explosion? Normal. Losing a finger? Normal. Punching a damned hole through three stories of a house? I’m fucked.”

  “No.” Declan said. “You are going to leave. And I’m going back on the roof. This? This never happened. Understand?”

  “Understood.”

  ###

  When Declan climbed back down, he had every intention of warming himself with a heat rune, after he patched the plaster. After he fixed the tile. After he made certain he hadn’t punched a hole through anyone by accident.

  He wasn’t angry, no the feeling was still with him. The feeling of completeness that he’d never sensed with a rune. Harris’s broken rune-stone had taught him something. You never know how much is enough until you know how much is too much. And he’d finally found that sense of enough.

  Declan also found a bundle at his apartment door, something that warmed him almost as much as heat runes. Fresh sheets and blankets courtesy of a friend at House Harding. Now, if he could figure out the cooking top, he’d be set.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He was still working in the commons when lunch came, and with it, his break. But before he left, he knocked on Lake’s door. “Lunch. Are you coming?”

  She answered, looking weary and unstable. “You’ll go with me?”

  “I did come knock on your door. Yours. Only yours.” Declan offered her his arm and began to walk her all the way up to the commons kitchen. “I hear you’re a deadly duelist.”

  Lake laughed, something that took way too much from her. “More like a half-dead one. All the way dead when Rocca’s brothers catch up with me. But I’d beat her ass-sucking face bloody again. She deserved it.”

  At the kitchen, he gathered two trays and then a third, and waited as Lake studied the stairs. Without warning, runes flared into existence, purple and rippling. One was the Force rune he’d seen the Sullivan Arcanist use, and Lake began to rise, smoothly sailing up to the second floor.

  Force Lift: Use a wall of force to push something toward or away. Mana cost, variable, constant

  She smiled at the shock on his face. “What, you think you beat a house heir with Strike or Claw?”

  Roland relaxed at the usual table, feet up. “Declan. How kind of you to think of me.”

  “I didn’t think—” it was a lie. He’d anticipated Roland gentle prodding. ‘Please, could you grab a plate?’ “Don’t do that to me.”

  “Sorry, can’t turn it off.” Roland’s gaze shifted to Lake. “You’re the one who beat Rocca Domine sensless at the dueling circle. And they must have returned the favor. I’ve got wet shirts that weigh more.”

  “He’s the one you said was clever?” Lake asked.

  “Children.” Declan seated her. “Lake is a guest of House Ariloch.”

  Roland shrugged. “You’re welcome to eat but it’s Housie talk. Might bore a grand duelist like yourself.”

  Moments later Eden arrived. “Declan. Roland, I brought you a tray.”

  “Thought you might,” he said, accepting it only for the desert. “Swarm is close, right? You’ve got the most developed arcsoul of all of us. How close?”

  “Soon,” Eden answered. “Soon. It should have already happened but there’s this sense like…it found another outlet and is still swelling. Declan, you should be worried. This is your first long swarm. Could be a week. Will be days.”

  “And?” He looked between them.

  “Your house avoids each other. They won’t be able to avoid each other. Instructor Sherman’s in charge of defense. She said she was having rations delivered to House Ariloch just like they always do, but you’ll have to keep order. People will come out to eat and they’ll be forced to interact with each other.” Eden looked to Lake. “She the murder-duelist?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” Lake said, slamming her tray down. “Rocca’s the one who went lethal and then refused to surrender. I was merciful.”

  Roland shrugged. “No reason to get worked up. And where’s Harris? Man never misses a meal.”

  “He had an accident at his Inscribing class,” Eden said. “Another one.” Then she reached into her bag, pulling out two viles of black liquid. “I should charge you for these. But it’s a trial.”

  “You should be on trial for making these,” Roland said, accepting the vial. “Wakey?”

  Eden nodded. Then looked to Declan. “Long swarms can be hard for us housies. Staying awake, keeping the peace, dealing with the emergencies. I call it ‘Wake Up!’ except what it will do is keep you from sleeping. It’s fine to use for two, three, four days. More than that and there could be side effects. More side effects. It will make you really, really itchy.”

  “She sells them to arcanists preparing for their exams. Or a few ArCore trying to keep up.” Roland pocketed his. “Say I knew someone with a few thousand rin. Not me—don’t look at me like that—how many of these could you make?”

  The two settled into business discussions while Declan inhaled his meal. There was so much to do. But one thing he absolutely wanted. “Where can I buy groceries?”

  ###

  Lake sat in a rolling chair that had been repurposed as a grocery wagon while Declan pushed her through the market. She held onto the ever growing stack of supplies he’d ordered, but insisted he have the pans delivered, which was fine by Declan. Meat, vegetables, salt and pepper, even a tray of fancy spices.

  Spending rin felt like a crime, but it was his rin and for the first time, he wanted to be prepared, not reacting. After two hours, Lake had fallen asleep in her rolling chair and Declan couldn’t reasonably carry anymore, so he paid a runner five rin to take everything ahead and began the journey home.

  The screams were the first sign something had gone terribly wrong.

  The second was the giant bat that swooped down through the market.

  Declan made the fastest decision possible, pushing Lake’s chair up against a market building as people scattered. Everywhere, bats wider than a man was tall swooped. When they caught a victim, they latched on, sinking teeth deep and then ripping loose chunks of flesh.

  Gnawing Bite: Take a bite out of something. Mana Cost: dependent on target, fixed.

  “Help me up!” Lake ordered. He put an arm around her and lifted her to her feet.

  Two feet away, a rune blazed into existence, and then another and another. The first was the force rune she’d used to sail through. The next was a dot that hurt to look at, a stabbing pain in Declan’s gut. The third was two sideways ‘V’ shapes, points to each other that gave off the feeling of motion.

  The dot rune locked into place and lanced outward. Pierce, he thought, as it speared a bat and left the man it had attacked also screaming. It could have been from the bite wound on his chest but the quarter-rin-sized hole cleanly punched through his forearm probably didn’t help.

  Force Lift activated next, slamming a bat into the stone floor, and then the V rune, which he approximated as Rip, because it tore the wing off a bat in mid-air. With his help, Lake advanced through the market, killing anything that came.

  The attack stopped as quickly as it began. “Hurry. Go harvest them and bring the runes or shards. They’re in the mouth,” Lake said. “Please. If I don’t someone else will steal them.”

  Declan sprinted from monster to monster, ignoring the blood and spit as he ripped stone shards from them. He’d taken five and found two more already harvested when a sickness in his stomach made him turn.

  Lake, too, looked uneasily about. She’d sat on the ground, but kept three runes in orbit. “We should go.”

  Declan agreed and ran to pick her up. Instinct made him throw them both to the side as a bat covered in boils slammed into the street where he’d been seconds ago. All three runes lanced out, ripping through the newcomer’s body. It had no fur. Its skin was inflamed red and it dripped sickness, but unlike the others, this one held a glimpse of intelligence, scanning the crowd and then focusing on Lake.

  She wasn’t afraid. “My aim is off when I’m not standing.”

  He had them up in an instant, backing away, as she fumbled at her side. Three different runes took flight, all of them a simple O. The world began to twist around Declan. No, it stayed perfectly still, it was his insides that were twisting, burning as power gushed inward. She was channeling mana and he was unfortunately caught in her circle.

  And it burned. It seared him inside. Magic wasn’t supposed to feel like this, at least not according to the tavern tales, but the tavern tales never talked about how glint travel felt, either. “What are you doing?”

  “Just a moment longer,” Lake said, teeth gritted.

  She didn’t have a moment. The diseased bat had sensed her magic and gathered itself to leap on them both. As it flew through the air, the round runes clattered to the ground and new ones blazed into existence. An array of burning, piercing dots that lanced out, back, up, down. Bolts of mana so thin Declan could barely see them.

  The mana cut off and the diseased bat slammed into Decklan’s side, blood spurting from a dozen wounds at once. If the blood bothered Lake, she didn’t show it. She kicked it off and then bent, thrusting her fist into the fanged mouth and withdrawing a rune-stone with a complex series of images. “Fuck. That’s not a runner. That’s a big boy for this first wave. Declan?”

  He was dizzy. He was two steps from vomitting. “I’ll get your chair.”

  “Good, because we need to get back and lock up. That was a baby spawn. The real deal is starting.”