THE MAESTER, a wizened old lady whose kind smile never left her lips, looked small and frail from so high up above. Volta could almost forget she had the ability to reshape reality itself according to her whims and wishes.

The lecture room she was in was typical for the building, but unique in its finer details. Each chair resembled a magical creature, the rich dark wood smooth to the touch from centuries of use. The maester was currently leaning back on a majestic flying wyrm, coiled on itself so as to provide a comfortable seat. Volta and Gali, all the way up on the last of the ascending rows of desks, sat on the bellies of two identical griffins. The ceiling was entirely covered by a round mirror surface, one that didn’t reflect the room below. By virtue of a very ancient charm, it showed instead the sky above the faculty itself.

Volta always found joy in noting the way a specific room was unique in having a certain theme, or in the way the runes carved in all the entrances and exits had their own peculiar handwriting. Each new discovery felt like another piece of the puzzle that was this incredibly ancient building. A place for learning, and yet at the same time one where there were more secrets buried than truths recorded.

Evening was starting to fall, and the sun was now almost past the line of blue mountains in the distance. A swarm of fireflies had slowly started to fill the upper part of the room, sneaking in through the spell that made the mirror work the way it did. Volta and her friend were sitting as high as they could be, so a few of the bugs were now slowly wandering around her ears. Their gentle glow illuminated her black hair, so dark it drank the light emanating from them.

Below, the poor student sitting in front of the maester was shuffling uncomfortably in his seat, his nervous voice carried by the perfect acoustics of the lecture room.

“The… the… erm… manifestations of magic are daemons… daemons that are made of magic. They are magical beings that can influence life in ways that… um…”

Maester Alistari was kind and soft spoken, but fifty years of experience in her field and an academic reputation that exceeded most of her colleagues’ made her into a fearsome figure.

Volta frowned. Her brain kept insisting that she could not do much better, despite having spent the better part of the last three years earning an impeccable academic record. The Alma University for the Study and Advancement of Theoretical Magic was the oldest place of learning in Hitala, and it was hard to feel like you could really earn a place within its famed history. She wasn’t looking forward to taking the place of the nervous student, who was currently being drilled on their knowledge of magical manifestations.

She looked over her notes once again. An answer to the maester’s questions had come to her quickly, but she was now doubting herself. A nervous smile broke over her lips as she quickly found the relevant card, the tension in her belly ever so slightly releasing.

“He won’t make it,” she started saying, turning to the friend sitting next to her. “Gosh, I hope I don’t embarrass myself like…” Volta paused for a moment, noticing what her friend was reading. “Is that the Numerology textbook? Gali, why are you revising the wrong subject?”

“The only subject that matters, Volta,” said Gali.

Her tall gangly friend had a way of enunciating words as if each of them had been given a very specific and precise time to hang in the air, as if the time it took to say a sentence mattered more than its content, its real meaning coming from some calculation he crafted before drawing breath. Despite also being there to take the exam for the Advanced Magical Phenomenology class he and Volta attended this semester, he was nose deep in an impressively thick volume full of numbers and formulas, scribbling on a notepad at the same time.

“We could ace this exam with a blindfold on and wax in our ears, Volta,” he added, without looking up.

Volta didn’t share his calm confidence, though it was undeniable that they had both prepared for this exam extensively, often pulling all-nighters in the faculty’s library, sifting through ponderous books that spanned across the various areas of magical knowledge. She had never dreamed of being able to study at Alma growing up, as her family was not wealthy enough to afford the tuition. When she was given the opportunity to join, she promised herself she would not squander it.

More an obligation than an opportunity, she thought, reflecting on how she had only been able to attend after being randomly selected as a ward of the royal family, one of many that were picked every year from across the nation to serve for life. Volta had asked herself many times whether she should be grateful for the life she now had in front of her, or bitter for having the choice taken away from her.

So far it’s mostly been a blessing, but the day may come when it will be a curse.

She turned her sight again to the sky outside. The familiar outline of the mountains in the far distance was barely visible, but she knew where to look. Beyond them lay the country of Ostayne, and most of her worries.

“You could at least revise something vaguely related to Magical Phenomenology, maybe Cosmognosy?” she said, trying to distract herself from her thoughts, “or Phytognosy… you are not as knowledgeable as you think you are on that subject, you know. The other day you confused aglaophotis with agapanthus.”

Gali only shrugged, and continued to scribble in his notebook.

Volta shook her head, but stayed silent. She decided to look down at the student, now apologetically shuffling out of his seat and trying not to look too downcast. The maester called the next one on the list.

“Garamond, Eco.”

Where was he? Volta scanned the room for the third member of their small friend group, unsurprised by his lateness, until she finally saw him sneaking in from a side entrance. Luckily for him, the maester was now distracted by some commotion happening outside, and didn’t seem to notice her friend until he sat opposite her, his head of curly brown hair in a particular state of disarray.

Eco was much more secure in his answers than the poor fellow that had preceded him, and Volta noticed that he was already steering what should have been a series of questions and answers into something that instead resembled a conversation between scholars, letting the maester talk more than he did.

“They all love the sound of their own voice,” he had put it once to Volta, “the secret is to let them use it. The more they talk, the less they can catch me with some weird bit I haven’t memorised.”

“So that you don’t have to study all the bits?” she had countered, with perhaps more sting in her voice than she had intended.

That had only made Eco chuckle. “I do study, you know? It’s only that there is so much in these books, and so little time… I merely focus on the important parts.”

Whether he did study the important parts for this exam or not, his strategy worked yet again as the maester was now droning on about the differences between magical manifestations and magical beings, seemingly all because of some clever observation Eco had made.

“Therefore, my young pupil, I rather agree with your observation on magical manifestations being affected by magical beings, such as daemons, as opposed to them being effects caused by them…”

The noise coming from the windows was getting louder, and it sounded as if a large crowd had gathered outside the building. Even Gali looked perturbed now, his gaze half lifted from the ponderous tome.

Is today going to be the day? She tried to make out if the voices coming from outside were excited or scared, but could not be sure.

The maester was now completely ignoring the noise though, and kept on rambling.

“…we should however strive for a better classification of daemons, which as I always proposed should start from their presumptive origin,” continued the maester. “Now, we do want to dismiss the baseless rumour that humans could, with appropriate effort, turn into daemons themselves. Enough fools have tried for sure—”

The door opened, and a visibly shaken messenger hurried through it. maester Alistari finally stopped her rambling, and listened attentively as the newcomer whispered a message in her ears.

“I… I understand…” The maester looked shaken for just a moment, before finding her composure again. “This is rather inconvenient I must say, and in the middle of an exam! Oh well, such is life. I should know, I’ve lived a longer one than most.”

She scribbled something on Eco’s exam records booklet, then got up and addressed the students waiting for their turns.

“I am afraid today’s exam session is at an end, if only for the moment. I do plan to resume it shortly, though my good friend and collaborator here informs me that it will unlikely be today or tomorrow. Not to worry, the time to test your knowledge will come, my pupils.”

She made to go, then stopped and addressed the audience once again. “I almost forgot. For your safety, please make your way to your room and stay there, at least for the time being. I imagine a spot of revision wouldn’t hurt either.” She lingered just a moment more, wearing a benevolent grandma smile, then she left the room without showing a particular hurry.

Volta did not know what to make of that. Since the talk of war had started a few months prior, she had often found herself worrying that the king would just show up and conscript her on the spot. When the messenger had barged in she had felt her heart skip a few beats, but the way the maester handled the situation calmed her somewhat. Still, even though she knew that her worries were somewhat exaggerated, the thought of leaving the school and this new life she loved for a battlefield was impossible to bear.

She hesitated in breaching the subject with Gali. They had talked about the possibility of war before and he had not reassured her in the slightest. Not that reassuring others was ever her friend’s priority.

She was being paranoid, she decided. Surely it would not happen so fast, if it was happening at all. She sighed and started picking her stuff up, her friend blessedly unaware of her worries.

No sooner had she and Gali finished packing up their books and notes that Eco reached them, grinning from ear to ear.

“Top marks! Told you Volta, works every time. Well, most of the time.” A mischievous smile appeared on his face. "You plan to actually go back to the dormitories?”

“What else?” countered Volta. “I could use a spot of revision too, I think.” She had decided that the best course of action was to just wait, learn what was happening, and take what would come.

“You most certainly don’t,” said Eco, “let’s go have a look at what is going on outside.”

Volta thought about arguing with him, but something in her friend’s confident smile made her change her mind.

He has a way of just getting people to follow along.

As it often happened, she found herself walking side by side with him, plotting their next move together. Suddenly his silly idea was now their little adventure.

Gali followed closely behind.

***

The complex of buildings that hosted the university had seen tens of thousands of students over the centuries, and yet nobody could really claim to know how to navigate its hallways and stairwells well. This was because, despite looking perfectly normal as you were walking them, they would very rarely lead to the same places. You could be standing in front of the classroom for your next lecture, and if you got distracted and looked away even for a moment the very floor you were standing on could decide to swap places with the broom closet, or more commonly with a different section of the school. Navigating such an environment required students to learn quickly how to read their surroundings for signs of magical interference, and keep a strong sense of self in places where reality was inherently softer.

The maesters insisted these were valuable skills to learn for a magic practitioner, though the tradition of commencing classes fifteen minutes late was rumoured to have been started because even they could not reliably make it in time for their scheduled start.

Today, the school was funneling the students towards the elevated walkway that connected the lecture building with the dormitories, something that Volta had never seen happen before. Instead of the usual maze of sharp turns and random doors leading to yet more hallways, the way forward was straight and clear, and they could see the end of it far in the distance. The students walking past the three of them looked puzzled, for once not having to actively navigate the hallways and instead just seeing an obvious path to follow.

Fortunately, the three of them were by now experienced in bending the hallways to their wills, having spent a considerable amount of time exploring them in the last three years.

“I say we go wait this out in the old specimen room,” said Eco.

“They may check for stragglers,” said Gali.

“Sure, but nobody ever goes there anymore,” said Eco. “They moved all the specimens to the new wing a century ago or so.”

“That may be,” said Gali, “and yet, I have not seen such a clear intention from the school before. The maesters might have had a hand in this, and if they want us in the dormitories, they will check.”

Volta agreed with Gali. There was something odd about the intense nervousness displayed by the school staff as they tried to shepherd the students towards the entrance to the dormitories. This was not a simple case of someone setting fire to a jar of phoenix feathers or going overboard with the strength of a spell during one of the rare practical exams.

“We could go to the loft,” she said, “where the doves are kept. From there we can get out through a window and onto the roof.”

Eco smiled at her with pride. “A good viewpoint and a way to get to the dormitories later without someone noticing us, I like that. You do come up with the best plans Volta. That’s why I keep you around.”

“That and the notes?” she countered, but Eco ignored her answer and started looking around the hallway instead.

“Now where is the… ah there you go, found one!” he said, pointing at a glyph inscribed on the wall.

Volta did not need to be told what she was supposed to do. As soon as she could see that nobody was looking at the three of them, she sprung to action.

Despite studying at one of the best universities there was, students at the Alma University were still predominantly taught the theory behind magic, and very little of the practice of it. Theoretical knowledge in magic, however, still revolved around how the world could be changed according to one’s will, so the maesters really should not have been surprised if some of them would use it to have a bit of fun.

And Volta and her friends had more than just a bit of fun with it over the last three years.

She quickly took a pouch from her satchel, untying the knot with deft fingers whilst mentally revising the incantation she had selected, trying the words in her mind a couple times with nervous anticipation.

With precise movements, she traced a semicircle around them with a handful of silky white sand she took from the pouch, whispering the incantation at the same time. The semicircle started and ended at the wall they were next to, and Volta knew that people on the other side of it would now see just the wall itself, as if the area they were standing in had disappeared.

“Hopefully this will keep people from wandering too close for a while,” she whispered to her friends. “Someone may notice it’s not the real wall though. Getting illusions to be this precise is hard!”

“Hard is not impossible. Hard means it can be done,” answered Eco, matter-of-factly. He then turned to the third member of the group. “You got it, Gali?”

Gali had spent the last few minutes tracing complex diagrams around the glyph with a stick of chalk, but it looked now as if he was indeed finished. He nodded, and moved aside to let Eco step in.

Volta stole a glance at her two friends. Gali was tall and fair, with ghostly white skin and blonde hair, always dressed in impeccably clean and ironed clothes. Eco was shorter and stockier, with a mop of wavy brown hair that refused to be ruled into a defined shape. Today he was wearing a woolly poncho over his linen shirt.

Where did he even find a woolly poncho? You would think that of the three of us, he would be the one coming from a poor family.

They were perhaps an oddly matched group if looked at by a stranger. They had spent so much time together in the past few years, however, that they could work magic without exchanging many words.

Eco was now reciting the incantation under his breath, keeping a perfect rhythm despite having to do so at such low volume. He was tapping the wall around the glyph, a small idiosyncrasy of his that he swore helped, and Volta soon heard the familiar warbling sound of the spell activating.

With one final word from Eco, the world around them shimmered and waved, then went completely dark. A few moments later, the light came back from one side of the room, and quickly made its way to the other end. Only it was now another room they were standing in.

“You startled the doves, Eco,” said Gali, as composed as ever even with dove feathers all over his vest and hair.

“They are always startled, the important thing is that we didn’t startle anyone else,” said Eco, looking around the empty room. Empty except for the doves in their cages, more than slightly perturbed by the sudden apparition of the three.

“Nobody saw us leave,” said Eco, “and nobody is here to see us arriving. Let’s get out quickly before that changes.”

Volta was the one nearest to the window, so she opened it quickly and made her way outside, followed by the other two. The evening was clear but windy, and her cape started fluttering as soon as she stepped onto the roof. Under it she was wearing a simple shirt and trousers, as she had always favoured comfort over the traditional student robes they had been forced to wear in their first year.

It hadn’t rained in weeks, so even though the roof was steep their footing was sure as they walked carefully towards its highest point. From there they could already see some movement in the streets below, but only when they reached a small balcony that overlooked the plaza at the front did the situation become clearer.

The king had apparently come to town.

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