Valere refused to speak with me. I spent the rest of the day in classes trying to find some opportunity to approach him. Even if I was trapped in a winless situation, if I just somehow got into the guild, I could think of something. Doubtfully, but sabotaging our thesis project would get me far less.

Valere didn’t seem to agree. He arrived at class the very last moment before the professor opened their mouth to lecture, and vanished like a phantom as soon as the word ‘dismissed’ formed on the professor’s lips. With his abilities to disappear, he should have been in Le Chasseur’s Hunter’s Guild instead.

By the end of classes, I was out of hope and prayers, as much good they’d done for me in getting the right partner. I had to do something, now.

Blaise clapped me on the shoulder, shaking me awake. Our last class had finished, and as expected, Valere had vanished. Blaise indicated the door, and I followed him out of the Venetian language classroom and into the second floor corridor of what students (and those teachers in the guild) called the Useless Wing, which housed all the classes no proper sorcerer thought important, from non-theological history to languages to literature.

“Marcus says he learned a naughty tune in Tutelle, and it’s not even in Venetian, for once,” Blaise was saying. “And I found some rather exotic magazines to add to my collection. Happy first day of class, indeed, eh?”

Oh yes. Sitting around the pianoforte in the common room, listening to lyrics I didn’t understand and looking at girls in their underthings I didn’t covet. All while Blaise sighed about how I still hadn’t blossomed yet. How long before he realised I was already twenty, and the years for blossoming had already trickled by me?

A pair of fingers snapped in front of my face. “Daniel.”

I startled to Blaise’s delight. I ducked my head. “Sorry, I… It’s just I haven’t been able to speak with Valere at all about our project.”

“We have a whole three months.” Blaise rolled his eyes, shouldering his bag at the same time so he looked like a quivering jelly fish. “Marcus and I aren’t panicking.”

I wasn’t Marcus or Blaise, but it was kind enough of him not to point out this deficiency. “I really should find him.”

“Why-yyy? It’s the first day of class.”

No, it was Day Minus Ninety until our project was due. Valere wasn’t avoiding me because of the shower, was he? That was the last thing I needed. As I would rather lick acid than say that, I said, “Well, then, if you can tell me how to keep Valere in one place for two minutes, I’m all yours.”

“Who would want to?”

“Me!”

“Why?”

My hands rose to wring his neck, for the first time in our long friendship. I didn’t like it. I flexed my hands instead and took a deep breath. “The project?”

“What’s the rush?”

Now the itching was joined by a stabbing pain between my eyes. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

“I’m just looking out for you, friend,” he said. “The less time spent with Lord Ice King, the better.”

“Just because he quit the handball team?”

Blaise dropped his eyes. “He’s just so… ugh.”

We reached the corridor intersection, both paths equally empty as all the students had long fled for what Blaise called the First Day of Class Celebrations. The late afternoon sun glowed against the grey stone floors, the windows bursting with light.

“Prettier than you?” I joked, then immediately regretted it. That was something Marcus would say, but I couldn’t afford such statements.

Blaise’s theatrics darkened. “No one is prettier than me.”

“Then what?” I asked. “What is so wrong with Valere?”

Besides that he was unknowingly stealing my entire future away.

Blaise pursed his lips, but instead of answering, continued down the corridor on the way back to the dorms, and his naughty limericks and drawings of half-clad women.

Well, fine. I turned the other way down the corridor, toward the wing housing the theological, theoretical and Practicum classes.

But where on Le Savant’s green campus would I find Valere? And please let it not be in the common room, listening to Marcus’ off-key voice sing about melons.

I paused by a window, glancing down on the green-tipped lawns and the muddy courtyard below, the raised flowerbeds empty except for the husks of the previous summer, before needing to take a second look. “Thank you, Le Savant!”

I raced to the stairs and jumped down them two at a time, heedless that I was more likely to twist my ankle than actually catch Valere, and then burst through the door into the courtyard.

Valere still perched on a stone flowerbed wall, tie and jacket still done up, despite the fact classes were done.

“Oh great, the dunce.”

I bit back a groan as I turned to find Dominic, unseen from above, heaving his shoulders. The motion emphasised his too-short cuffs on his well-worn uniform jacket.

Dominic tipped his head back, as if to ask the slumbering gods why he was forced to suffer me. “What in Cain’s dream hell do you want? Shouldn’t you be scarpering off in the night like your pal?”

“It isn’t dark yet.” I pointed at the sun still well over the neighbouring forest.

His lip pulled back in a sneer. “You need all the head start you can get.”

“Finally, someone agrees.”

Dominic blubbered, caught off guard. Perhaps he hadn’t expected me capable of a reply, or he expected something about sodomy. No, I would never jest about that.

Wait, why was Dominic even here with Valere? I glanced at Valere, who didn’t seem to be watching us, but his shoulders were tense, the only sign anything was wrong. But tense about Dominic, or tense about me?

“Valere, may I speak with you?” I glanced at Dominic, who had overcome his fluster to scowl at me. “Alone?”

“No, you may not!” Dominic sent Valere a challenging look. “We’re heading into town.”

I blinked. “You’re going to town…” Were the two actually friends? After our Practicum exam, Dominic had come to speak to Valere, at least until Levi intervened. But if they were friends, why had Valere not defended him? And why would Marcus and Emeric suffer Valere? Dominic rolled his eyes at me, so I covered by continuing, “On a school night?”

“We’re seniors.”

Oh, right. I glanced at Valere, who didn’t disagree, if that meant anything at all. Neither did he offer to speak with me about the project at a later time.

“That sounds like fun.” No one was more surprised about that statement than me. Although, on further reflection, going with Dominic and Valere would prove enlightening. Vespasian hadn’t ordered me to work on the project with Valere — he’d ordered me to investigate him.

And perhaps, when Dominic was distracted, I could corral Valere to the side for a little chat.

Dominic opened his mouth, as if to say, “You’re not invited.” With his mouth still open like a Venus fly trap, he considered me, as if he expected me to be part of some nefarious plot by his two mortal enemies. To think, Dominic was only twenty, and he had two mortal enemies. He really was advanced.

I examined Valere again, who neither spoke nor appeared for or against my joining them, but waited upon Dominic’s decision.

Finally, the cantankerous boy closed his mouth and shrugged.

Well, that had worked out… Something. Now, if only I could gain a spare moment to actually speak with Valere on the project. And keep this from Blaise, preferably forever.