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.

“Here is how it shall be,” Zirzahael continued. “Before each student now floats a large bubble—it is a trapped sigh, a breath of precious air. Each student may take one breath now. Once they exhale, my winds will not allow them another breath, but they can catch their bubble. If their next breath is not from a bubble, they lose.”

Izzi realised immediately—this was not about winning or losing, it was about not being deceived. She studied the object in front of her. It looked harmless, like a big soap bubble. Too easy.

She took her one allowed breath, but something nagged at her. The air in the bubble was right there—visible, perfect—but unattainable. Catching bubbles never worked. They always popped. The others were figuring that out too—Beena and Nele were frozen, red-faced. Further along, some boys were chasing their own bobbing orbs in vain, while Ravina stood stiffly, her bubble already popped, her lips pressing blue. She was about to pass out.

Zakra’s clouds were already lost. 

A whisper slithered through her mind: Pay attention.

Not now, she snapped inwardly. This was no time for distractions. Focus Izzi, what is special about these bubbles?

Her lungs began to burn. Instinct screamed at her to exhale. She whistled out the barest puff of air—but held. Pay attention? To what?

Then it struck her. The wind wile was devious. The bubble was a distraction!

She flicked her gaze to the wile. Smug. Coiled like a snake atop a whole nest of floating bubbles, enough air for all. A trickster always keeps the real prize close.

Izzi bolted. As she ran, she exhaled, letting her stale breath go free, and plunged headfirst into the cluster of bubbles. She inhaled deeply as they burst around her, releasing their sighs. 

Zirzahael spun away. “Always has to be a show-off, spoiling my fun.”

Beena, Nele, and most others caught on, racing after her. They too dove into the mass, breathing in lungfuls of freed sighs.

Unfortunately for any chance of rain, two students had collapsed.

“I win! I win!” Zirzahael crowed, hovering over them, poking Ravina with fingers formed from his fabric.

“Yes, yes,” Kalu said dryly. “But a little help with these two, if you will.”

The wind wile let out a thousand almost-synchronised sighs. “Very well, but all your clouds are mine!”

“Only for a year,” Kalu corrected.

With an exaggerated flourish, Zirzahael expanded into a grotesque bulge and exhaled a flurry of air into each student’s lungs. They ballooned for a moment—then coughed violently, sputtering back to life. Sick. Exhausted. Defeated.

Kalu folded his arms. “One day, I’ll win that rain from you.”

Zirzahael’s silk face somehow formed a smirk. “I wager you won’t—too tangled in your own foolish rules and scruples—they won’t save you from drowning in the end.” With a mirthless laugh, he twisted into the sky, scattering into the wind like a flock of birds.

Izzi had hoped she’d won some sort of points with Kalu, but he only glared at her and shook his head. “It had to be you,” he muttered, as if confirming some unwanted truth.

The turning storm had slowed, the seas calmed.

“What is this place, really?” she asked.

Kalu exhaled sharply. “The realm of the wiles, as I have told you,” he said, clearly exasperated, as he dealt out a set of tokens like cards from a deck—one for each student. 

Izzi grabbed one, and the air ripped her apart—thread by thread, thought by thought—before stitching her back together in the training room.

She stood there, breathless.

But what is it, exactly?

✨

The two who had failed—Ravina and a boy named Nabil—sat on the edge of the sparring platform, still catching their breath. Their faces were pale, eyes downcast. The wind-wile’s forced breath had revived them, but nothing could bring back their standing.

Nabil squared his jaw and looked up. The newest of the novices, he had often looked to Izzi for direction. He caught her eyes for a moment now, looking apologetic. She nodded an acknowledgement. She liked him, but his fierce determination had outmatched his abilities. 

Ravina had been even fiercer, quick with both wit and action, one of the few who had dared challenge Kalu’s logic aloud. Izzi was surprised—something about this task had defeated Ravina when she’d normally be among the first to triumph. She looked up too, her whitened face half hidden by the fall of her black hair, but Izzi could see her teeth pressing into her bottom lip. 

Their hands were limp in their laps, their silence expectant. They didn’t need Kalu’s verdict to know what came next. His withering glance was fleeting, and he turned away quickly to other matters, the flick of his robes as dismissive as a breeze scattering dust. They had lost. They must go.

Each remaining novice lined up to pat them on the back as they left, the usual ritual.

“Keep heart,” Beena said, her voice gentler than usual. “You’ll make noviciate again soon. You’ve shown you have what it takes.”

Ravina’s mouth was stretched into a smile, but her eyes hid behind her hair. Nabil only nodded, eyes steely. They both knew the truth. Few ever clawed their way back. Beena had, but it had taken her a year of relentless effort. Most who were cast down never rose again.

Izzi exhaled, watching them go, a rock hardening in her chest. She knew what that walk felt like. She had been an acolyte for four years, longer than anyone. At first, Kalu had claimed she was too young. Then, when she could no longer be called a child, the excuses had shifted. Her form was too wild. Her reasoning too unorthodox. Her instincts too reckless. Always, he found a reason to keep her down.

She had beaten every test he set before her. Yet Kalu didn’t measure success by results alone. To him, the lesson was in obedience—obedience to form, obedience to the rigid logic of magian magic. Izzi had never fit into that mould. She was quick to see another way, a shortcut, a shift in the rules he claimed were immutable. It was only when she’d finally understood that, and started to play his game with more care, hiding her own reckless ideas and everything she’d learned from her mother’s journals, that his excuses had run out, and he had grudgingly accepted her into the hall of novices.

Izzi felt Beena shift beside her, and when their eyes met, no words were needed. Kalu would begin remedial sessions for those who needed them, and that often meant other students demonstrated. They had no intention of being used as cautionary examples again.

Kalu caught their silent exchange and sighed. He shook his head, his hair failing to keep up with the motion. “Haven’t you two got studying to do?”

“Of course,” Izzi said smoothly. “We’ll get out of your way.”

As they turned to leave, she caught Nele watching her, eyes wide, missing nothing.