Once the token was in her grasp the world lurched, the stone hall twisting like smoke, its pillars stretching, melting, reshaping into coiling ribbons of light. The air flashed with impossible reflections of the training hall and other students being wrenched into the realm of the wiles. Beena coalesced beside her, her thin acolyte robe whipping and snapping in the wind, and Nele appeared as well, still in her defensive position, her fine leather training kit much better suited for this. Izzi’s own blue dress was stretched tight, pulling her, so she had to lean into the gale and brace her slippered feet so she wouldn’t be be dragged away. 

As far as she could tell, most of the other dozen students had made it through as well, their faces taut with concentration and the effort of holding against the wind.

They stood on an island of wet sand in the heart of a storm that Izzi guessed their appearance had seeded, and which was already drawing a host of wiles toward them. A vast ocean stretched in all directions, more water than Izzi had ever seen, and in the maelstrom it was whipped up into a frothy frenzy. In the waves teeth and fins appeared and disappeared.

At the centre of the vortex Mogh Kalu rose, his dark robes barely affected by the wind, his white hair spiking out and drifting. 

“Still standing?” He shouted over the fury. Deep in his craggy face his pinprick eyes twinkled in amusement, or perhaps satisfaction at this achievement. “Come close.” He beckoned them in.

When Izzi moved toward him with the others, the wind lessened, a calm in the eye of the twirling air. 

“Better. I thought I might need to pull some of you out of the waves. But we are not here to talk about failures. Your assessments are tomorrow, so you had all better be ready. I’ve let no one get this far that I don’t think has a real chance, but nothing is certain when the ramifications are real. Today, it is real as training gets.”

His voice was all but drowned out as a gust of wind rushed around and between them. It became an elongated thing seemingly formed of torn silks. It coiled and flapped, its tattered edges forming a crude and ever-changing face.

The wile snickered, circling above Kalu like a vulture, but there was a clear familiarity here. “Another lesson, Magian? Or a game? A wager? We love a wager.” Its voice seemed constructed of hundreds of whispers, each slightly out of time.

Kalu inclined his head slightly. “Zirzahael, chief and cleverest of the wiles of the ocean’s winds, I bet you all the rain clouds over the sky of Zakra for a year that you cannot deceive a single one of my clever students.”

Izzi knew already the shifting rules of this place, where words were traps, bargains were binding, and power belonged not just to the strongest, but to the cleverest. Kalu’s trick was already obvious; no rain had fallen on Zakra for longer than she could remember, there was nothing for him to lose.

“And if they all see through your deception, then you will make it rain on Zakra for five days.” Kalu touched the fingertips of his hands together, and nodded, signalling completion of his terms.

She mentally ticked off what she’d already learned about wiles: clever sorcerers and tricksters in their own right, with the ability to grant boons, but their weaknesses were pride, susceptibility to flattery, and a willingness to take on preposterous bets or wagers, even if the odds were not in their favour. 

“Acceptable terms,” the wind wile breathed. 

The game was about to begin.