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  “No, Valanil, I’m fine,” the new girl replied. A second later, she remembered her mentor telling her that not everyone had perception and decided to introduce herself. “I’m Valia Levor, the youngest student of Magistrate Vavon.”

  “You’re certainly far away from the academy,” the herbalist said in surprise. “How’s the old guy? Still puffing away at that pipe of his?”

  “You know him?” Valia perked up, the lix and the strange kid who didn’t appear to have a problem talking with it having gotten her all worked up.

  “Of course, I do. He taught me herbalism my first year. Forever ago… How is he?”

  “He’s gone,” Valia replied. She held on as long as she could, trying to hold back the tears. “They’re all gone. I’m the last one. The lixes killed them all…”

  “It’s okay, sweetie, tell me what happened.” The herbalist knew how to soothe like nobody else, and soon Valia was wondering how she ended up in the woman’s arms. Her feigned bravery gone, she gave in to bitter tears as she told the story.

  Magistrate Vavon was one of the academy’s ancient instructors and far from sedentary despite his advanced age. Already just about three hundred, he still led a couple long expeditions out every year looking for rare flowers. He was an incredible herbalist, able to sense flowers from kilometers away, and that particular expedition was for an amilio. The magistrate thought there were a few up in the western mountains. But instead of flowers, they found black lixes, there was a heated battle, and the humans lost despite their extensive preparation. There were just too many of the enemy, and they had magic, too. And while Valia had no idea where the beasts had come up with such powerful cards, she’d watched with her own two eyes as the magistrate was torn apart by a creature immune to all kinds of damage and glimmering with the gold color of a legendary card. She and three other students had been grabbed and delivered there through a portal. When the girls tried to make a break for it and attacked their kidnappers, all they were able to do was make them angry, and Valia was the only one left alive. The others had all fallen in the battle. And her punishment had been awaiting her in that room.

  “Tailyn, we need to keep moving. Get ready.” Ka-Do-Gir went over to the door and peered out. A spiral stone staircase led upward, and the lix took a few steps up before coming back. There was no sense moving without cover.

  “Mistress Valanil, it’s time to go,” Tailyn said, translating what the lix had just told him, and the relieved herbalist pulled herself away from the tearful child. She hated children and their tears, only forced in that moment to play the role of kindly older woman to give them a chance of making it out alive.

  “You three are in charge of the boy—you’ll be carrying him. Got it?” Valanil asked with a sharp look directed at the numericals. The latter nodded and rushed off to follow her instructions. “Valia, do your cards have any charges left?”

  “No,” the girl replied, sighing forlornly. “They’re all out.”

  “That’s no good. Tailyn, how about yours?”

  “Right now… No, not much. Eight charges for my electric strike, twenty fireballs, and two waves of fire.”

  Valanil exhaled. With that kind of weaponry, getting anywhere was going to be a challenge, though what Tailyn said next turned everything on its head.

  “But I have four hundred and twenty-two mana, so I’m thinking of spending half on my shield enhancement, the rest on electric strike. That’ll be twenty-two extra charges for each.”

  “Spend it on cards?” Valanil asked carefully. “You mean, you’re going to recharge your cards with mana?”

  “You can’t recharge your cards,” Valia said, not nearly as circumspect. “You aren’t an academy student!”

  “Sure, I can.” Tailyn had long since prepared an answer to that question. “My mentor is Forian Tarn, and he taught me quite a bit.”

  Valia knew exactly who Forian was as well as the department he worked for. But that didn’t change the fact that it was absolutely impossible for the boy to have a forbidden skill.

  “But that’s not possible! You’re only ten!”

  That took Tailyn aback—how did she know how old he was? Did she have perception, too? In that case, Valanil had been right about it being an important attribute for mages. Regardless, he appreciated the beautiful girl’s attention and got to working showing off what he could do.

  Electric Strike-I card recharged. Charges available: 30 of 50.

  Enhanced Shield-I card recharged. Charges available: 25 of 50.

  You spent 423 mana. Restoration speed: 3 mana per hour.

  Zero mana. Tailyn had never had that little. Still, he felt better, much closer to being a mage. Sadly, not an alchemist.

  “Think you could charge mine?” Valia asked, holding five cards in her hands. Tailyn’s stomach tightened. The girl was so beautiful that all he wanted to do was giggle and dance around her, though he quelled that urge, blushed, and turned away so nobody could see how embarrassed he was.

  “I’m out of mana,” he mumbled, “and I don’t have any elixirs. Sorry…”

  “So, buy yourself some elixirs,” Valanil said with a gesture toward the terminal. “You really don’t want to help the poor girl?”

  The herbalist could see right through Tailyn and wanted to seize the moment. First, she needed to figure out how many coins he had left—she knew exactly what the prices in the store were.

  “I don’t have many coins left,” Tailyn replied, blushing still deeper. “I…”

  “Spent them all on the lix?” Valanil said. “Sure, because that animal is so much more important than humans.”

  “He saved our lives!” Tailyn shot back fervently. “For the second time! The black lix would’ve torn us all to pieces.”

  “Tailyn, don’t start that again,” Valanil said. The boy was tougher than she’d been expecting, and it was apparently going to take more than one little trick to hook him. But she had time.

  There was quite a bit more Tailyn wanted to say, but he was interrupted by a new party in the conversation. Dort, who had been lying unconscious, did them the honor of waking up. Sitting up on the table and looking around with bleary eyes, he caught a glimpse of Valia and whistled. The beauty was going to be his. Then, there was Valanil, the three numericals that were only good for serving, and…

  “Tailyn?!” Dort exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here? They caught you, too… Ah, a lix! Save yourselves!”

  Finally, Dort saw Ka-Do-Gir and, with no idea of what had taken place, threw himself off the table and hid behind the numericals. The lix snarled and growled something. Dort decided he was about to attack, shoving one of the girls toward the monster.

  “Eat her! Leave me alone!”

  A heavy silence hung in the room. Nobody had been expecting that. A whole minute went by, and Dort finally worked up the nerve to peer out from behind the girl with the numerical name. The lix wasn’t attacking. In fact, it wasn’t paying any attention to the humans, as it was too busy talking with… No, that was impossible. The lix was talking with Tailyn? And the latter was even growling something back. Tailyn? The freeloader, as Dort’s dad called him? Since when did he know how to talk with lixes?

  “Tailyn, tell him not to eat me!” Dort yelled.

  “Relax, nobody’s going to eat you. The lix is on our side,” the numerical girl replied, though Dort just pushed her roughly to the side.

  “Shut up! Nobody asked you.”

  Feeling more confident, he stepped over toward Valanil, even beginning to act like himself as soon as the lix walked out of the room. He was back to being the city elder’s son. Staring at Tailyn, Dort whistled again when he saw what the boy was wearing. As forward as ever, he did his best to sound as aggressive and arrogant as he could.

  “Nice little outfit. Looks great. Take it off! I think it’ll be perfect for me.”

  Tailyn looked at Dort as if seeing him for the first time. A week before, he would have done exactly as he was told, happy to
be getting off that easy. But the old Tailyn had died the moment he’d made the deal with the lix. And the new Tailyn just laughed, especially given the information he was looking at.

  Dort Barka (human). Designer. Age 11. Level 2.

  “Did you not hear me?” Dort exploded. “Been a while since you took one to the teeth, huh? Well, we can fix that. Take the clothes off, parasite!”

  Tailyn’s cards appeared in his hands, and it took an effort not to activate one of them. His chest burned as Dort reminded him of the many unpleasant episodes he’d been forced to live through. But while he wanted revenge for everything he’d suffered at the hands of Dort and his bullies, he stayed calm. He couldn’t fail the mission the god had given him, especially not like that.

  “Dort, I’m so happy you’re alright!” Valanil said, stepping between the boys, though the elder’s son just barked back at her rudely.

  “Stay out of this! Otherwise, I’ll have my father kick you right out of the city.”

  The herbalist was taken aback for a moment—the kid had lost his mind if he was even coming after her. But Dort interpreted her hesitation differently, assumed she was no longer a problem, and just stepped around her. Regardless of the fact that Tailyn was a year younger, he wasn’t any shorter. In fact, he was half a head taller, though that didn’t bother the Culmart elder’s son in the least. He was used to having two sixteen-year-old blockheads to back him up.

  Coming right over to Tailyn, Dort reared back and was about to swing when he found himself unable to land the blow. At least, his fist flew forward only to find itself arrested halfway to its target. The world spun around the boy, and his head slammed painfully against the wall. Rage exploded in his eyes. All he wanted to do was jump up and tear them all to pieces, the fear and anger he’d gone through the previous few days leaving him completely bereft of self-control. But it didn’t work. Pain shot through his twisted arm as soon as he made a move. For a while, he snarled and spat threats, though that gradually gave way to grunts and ultimately to tears.

  It was only then that Valia threw his arm away with an expression of disgust, turned toward Tailyn, and nodded. She’d grown up with two older brothers who were both inveterate bullies regardless of their mana and constant training. One way or another, she’d had to learn how to stand up for herself. And that skill had come in handy right then.

  Tailyn nodded back and took a deep breath. But before he could get out what he wanted to say to Valanil, he was sharply interrupted. The lix’s head appeared in the doorway.

  “Tailyn, you need to see this. I know how we’re all going to get home.”

  Chapter 14

  TAILYN HAD NEVER seen such a long staircase. It felt like they had to be close to the surface, but they didn’t get there. Instead, it was several dozen flights leading to an open door. The boy peered out carefully only to earn himself a jab in the ribs that forced him over, and Valia followed him out. She wanted a glimpse of the city, as well.

  The first thing Tailyn saw was another long staircase, that one leading down. And from his new vantage point inside the city, the whole thing didn’t actually seem so big. It must have been the buildings—they were so tall they created a bit of an optical illusion. Three identical towers sprang up at the other ends of the city. To get to them, you had to climb staircases that looked just like the one in front of the boy. That presumably meant there was another tower soaring directly above the group, though it was hard to tell how to get into it without any doors or staircases. Between the towers, there were buildings that were smaller if still much bigger than the ones Tailyn was used to seeing. They were five or ten stories tall with no light coming from the windows, almost as if nobody lived in them. And in the central area, there was an enormous palace with a courtyard spreading out in front of it. The palace immediately caught Tailyn’s attention—that was the only spot where he noticed living creatures. One’s white minions could be seen through open doors as they carried things to and fro. There were no black lixes anywhere.

  A broad avenue led away from the courtyard, and the lix pointed over to where it ended. A large iron gate framed two curved posts jutting out of the earth with something shimmering between them. And while Tailyn would have assumed it was a portal, there wasn’t anyone nearby to keep it active. That meant it had to be some kind of optical illusion. But where had his partner seen the way out?

  “What is that, a stationary portal?” Valia gasped as she stared over at the posts. Tailyn felt his ignorance keenly—there was so much he didn’t know. For whatever reason, he didn’t want Valia to see how foolish he was. Anyone but her. Instead, the boy just translated her question for the lix, and the latter nodded.

  “Yes, an open portal. No guards, no minions. We can use it to get home.”

  “Well, you can,” Tailyn replied. “Or at least, you can use it to go home to the black lixes. And while they won’t hurt you, what about us humans?”

  “The blacks won’t touch you so long as you’re with me. And I couldn’t care less about the rest, mage.”

  “But they’ll die!” Tailyn said, shocked by the lix’s heartlessness. He’d already begun to consider Ka-Do-Gir part of the team. It was unexpected to see the lix turn down the role, as he apparently had his own plans.

  “We all die sooner or later,” the lix replied. “All I’m supposed to do is get home and make sure you get home, too. That’s it.”

  “You promised to help me find the copy of the book,” Tailyn replied, unwilling to let the lix go that easily. “I can’t do it without you.”

  “And that’s why I’m still here, why I didn’t leave through the portal,” Ka-Do-Gir said calmly. “Your book might be in the central building. Can you sense it?”

  Tailyn stared at the lix in surprise. Of course, he didn’t sense it—that wasn’t something humans could do. But something was definitely eating at him. Drawing him in. And it was in the central building. In fact, his gaze kept falling on the opposite end of the city. The tower? No, it wasn’t that. But what?

  “So, what did he say? Is it a portal?” Valia’s immense patience finally ran out, and she gave the motionless boy a shove. He was an odd one, always freezing up. And while the girl was used to all the boys her age, and even older ones, doing everything they could to make her happy, that one spent more time talking with the lix than he did with her. He barely paid her any attention at all, in fact.

  “Yes, it is,” Tailyn replied as he pulled himself away from the city and turned toward the girl. Once again, his chest tightened—he’d never been that close to her. One of Valia’s hands rested on his shoulder, and Tailyn could barely breathe for fear of scaring her away. “The lix thinks it leads to… Oh, that’s what was bothering me!”

  Finally, it hit Tailyn what had seemed so strange. It wasn’t the tower; it was what was on the other side of it. The sphere the city was inside wasn’t quite even—directly across from where the group was standing, it bulged out slightly. On the other side of the shimmering film that served as a barrier, water bubbled. Nimble River ran through the city of the dead, streaming down from a spring somewhere up in the mountains, and that was apparently part of it. Valia followed the boy’s gaze.

  “If that bursts, this whole area will be flooded.”

  “It won’t. The city’s been here for thousands of years.”

  “See that beam shining on the barrier? That’s an ancient supply circuit, and it’s coming out of a concentrator, that spire on the other side of the palace. If the energy stops flowing through it, the barrier will drop, and the river will flood the city.”

  Tailyn actually could see a few shimmering lines of what looked like air concentrated by the will of the god. Turning, he shot an admiring look at the girl.

  “You’re right! Did they teach you that at the academy?”

  “What? No, I haven’t started studying there, yet,” Valia replied in embarrassment. The boy’s surprised looked genuine to her. “I’m only twelve years old. No, I just read all that in
a book called The Mage’s Encyclopedia that my parents gave me after I was initiated. The capital is protected by a circuit like that.”

  “That’s amazing… Hey, do you happen to know why the city has such a strange name? City of the Dead… Where are the dead?”

  But the girl didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Let’s go!” came the order, and the lix bounded down the stairs. Tailyn leaped up and hurried after him, hoping the minions wouldn’t notice them. Apparently, they were in the clear—their status hadn’t switched to combat by the time they got to the bottom. And since the streets below were fairly narrow, they were able to get over to the nearest building and hide up against its high wall without much of a problem.

  “What’s she doing here?” Ka-Do-Gir growled as he jabbed a paw in Valia’s direction. Tailyn turned and stared in surprise at the girl, who’d come running down after them. While Mistress Valanil and the rest had climbed to the door, they’d stayed up there waiting for a signal. And though Valia couldn’t understand what the lix was saying, she could tell he was talking about her.