I spent the weekend working, despite Jackson’s attempts to get me to go to some party with him that was being hosted by the levitating disc team. Between my actual job tending the Charm and Fable, my extra work on learning the spells that professor Gemheart had instructed me to, reading the books on the theory behind transmutation he’d assigned, practicing with my ether manipulation skills, working to develop their bloodline equivalents, studying my affinity within my grimoire, studying for my classes, and desperately trying to master spellglyph, I had more than enough on my plate, and no time for nonsense like that.

  But my ceaseless work did begin to show some results.

  I held up the sheet of paper that my very first spellglyph had been written on, and took a deep breath, examining it.

  I wasn’t sure if it was some minor side effect of the bloodmark spell that I hadn’t known when casting it, or if the use of personalized symbols was common in spellcraft, but the glyph was shaped in the same crest that formed when I was using the bloodmark spell, only instead of being made of blood, it was made of lines of faintly glowing blue ether. It was pretty obvious to the naked eye, and when I cast Ethersight, it glowed brighter still, an obvious abjuration spell cast onto the parchment. It was possible that with more precise control of the ether shaping, I might be able to get it to not shed light, but I wasn't entirely sure.

  The symbol was also larger than I’d hoped, about the size of my palm, or the diameter of a tangerine. The spell couldn’t overlap itself, so there wouldn’t be any nonsense with layering dozens of spells onto a single sheet of paper. I’d kind of hoped I could, but even with the spell’s current size, I could still put one or two on each side of a standard piece of paper.

  Now for the real test.

  I drew a small knife from my pocket and pricked my finger, allowing blood to drip out of the wound as I moved my hands and incanted out the blood price spell. The moment the blood formed into the psuedo-ether crystal that was needed to store another spell inside the spellglyph, I began the chant for the shield spell. Perhaps it wasn’t the most inspired use of spellcraft, but for a test, it should do just fine.

  I dropped the blood crystals onto the mark as I made the last flourish of my hands, and felt the ether rush out of me. Instead of forming into a shield of force, the power flowed into the spellglyph. A moment later, the trickle shut down, and I drew my hand back, conjuring a bit of flame at the tips of my fingers to cauterize the prick where I was leaking blood.

  I watched the glyph for any changes, patiently letting the duration of the blood magic pass by. Laying another spell inside of spellglyph should completely consume the component, rather than locking it in stasis or anything of the sort, so my blood should have also been consumed, but I wanted to be extra sure.

  Once I’d waited more than three the time it took for the blood price spell to fade and the glyph was still sitting there, glowing the same blue as before, I slapped my hand on it and spoke the command word.

  There were a lot of different potential ways that the spellglyph could be set to go off, and I wasn’t anywhere near the level of skill needed to layer in extremely complex triggers, but I’d settled on combining two of the easiest: touch and verbal.

  The touch was self explanatory. When someone touched the rune, it would release the spell that it had stored onto the person, or into the area if it was a larger spell like fireball. Not that I knew the fireball spell, but it was a prescient example.

  Verbal commands were similar, but instead of working based off of who touched it, it was based off when someone’s voice reached the glyph. It wasn’t able to remotely apply magic to them, though there were apparently some higher circle spells capable of doing that, but it would still cause the magic to discharge in the area.

  I didn’t want to risk someone setting it off based on a random word, so I’d layered the two together.

  “Release!” I commanded.

  Magic flowed out of the rune and into my skin, and a shield sparked to life around me. The glyph faded away, leaving a sheet of blank paper.

  I let out a sigh of relief as I felt it connect to my ether pool. I could still move and pivot the shield with ether manipulation, and it was of a very normal thickness. All in all, if I hadn’t realized that I’d gained it from a spellglyph, then I’d have thought that I’d just cast the spell the normal way.

  I let the magic fade and couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face, then began frantically working on Xander’s massage to restore my ether. I needed to do some testing.

  Testing revealed that I could fit dragonfire enhanced spells into the spellglyph, but I could only do it if I also poured dragonfire into the creation of the glyph itself. Thankfully, I didn’t also need to pour it into the blood price spell, but even as things stood, I would likely skip out on using dragonfire for any of the summoning spells I stored.

  Paying extra power to my summons was great, and I’d love to do it, but the cost of enhancing two spells back to back drained my fire quickly, and the third circle spell was already expensive on ether.

  I could store my affinity magic in the spell, which was fantastic. The book hadn’t been entirely clear on that, which was probably due to the fact that each affinity worked differently. My curses had to be tailored into specific forms in order to be held, like my minute long combat curse, and they couldn’t be changed after being held, but that was still infinitely better than being unable to hold it at all.

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  After that, I broke out a dip pen and started doing math. Factoring in the blood and ether costs of the spell, I could reasonably produce five a week, which wasn’t that bad. As my ether pool grew, I might be able to squeeze out more, but blood would still eventually become the limiting factor there. Maybe if I got Jackson to heal me? It was worth considering, but right now, my ether pool was still fairly small.

  There were thirty-six weeks until the duel, which meant I could prepare…

  My eyes widened.

  A hundred and eighty spells, give or take.

  I allowed myself to indulge in a fantasy of Gerhard being buried in a storm of a hundred and eighty gadhar hounds. Could he survive that?

  I didn’t know. The hounds were strong, but if Gerhard was taking the fight seriously, he could tear through each one in a single strike. The question was if he could strike them all down in the time it took for them to bite him to bits.

  I contemplated that for a bit before shrugging and going back to using the massage. I wouldn’t just be trying to summon gadhar. I could use a mix of gadhar, air, water, and earth elementals, and maybe a few other spells.

  I didn’t think it would be enough to guarantee me a win. The last time I’d fought him, he’d walked through Salem’s mental assault, Yushin’s best assassin spell, Jackson’s divine flames, my own personal power, and a perpetual core stage life enforcer, only to emerge with a broken nose and low on fire. He doubtless would have other tricks I hadn’t seen, and wouldn’t just collapse at the first sign of being overwhelmed.

  But by the heavens and the hells, it gave me a shot.

  I was buzzing with excitement throughout the rest of the weekend, and even as I worked through my core classes on Monday. Charm actually noticed it when he came into the Charm and Fable.

  “What’s got you looking like you just got kicked from a casino?” he asked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Happy. Cheerful. Like you just won so much money at a casino that they kicked you out,” Fable explained from beside me.

  I jerked, having not heard him approach. Had he teleported? I knew he’d said his affinity was related to teleportation, and Charm had mentioned that Fable could create portals from place to place, and even to other realms.

  “I figured out how to cast spellglyph, and if I make five a week with my blood price spell, I can bury Gerhard in enough spells to actually stand a chance,” I explained. “It’s actually made me feel hopeful.”

  “You little ripper,” Charm laughed, stroking his beard.

  “The talisman master approach is a good one for fighting above your weight class. I think it’s a reasonable approach for you to take in this fight, but it’s not something you should rely on,” Fable said. ‘If you had a rune or artificer affinity, and could make self-recharging spellglyphs, this might be a different conversation, but as things are…”

  “Definitely not,” I agreed. “I won’t always be given months to prepare spells and counters. But I need to punch hard for this fight.”

  Charm and Fable exchanged a look with one another, one that I wasn’t able to read. I didn’t know what sort of relationship the two had, but they’d clearly worked together for years, if not decades, and they seemed to hold an entire conversation with just a few glances.

  “Well, reckon we should be working,” Charm said. “Fable, you ready to open the way there?”

  “Mostly,” Fable agreed, then patted my shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do excellently, Emrys. We’re going to be busy today, restocking some of the components, but I expect another busy day. The first years at the Citadel of Ether are learning to construct mage tools this week, if I recall correctly, so a lot of people will be coming in for those materials. Do you have anything?”

  “I have the whisker of a foo lion,” I said, and Fable raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, now, that’s an excellent start. How did you stumble into that?”

  I gave them a basic rundown of fighting a loup garou were-raven to defend my fellow students, though I kept Salem’s actual identity concealed, and Charm laughed.

  “Least you got paid! Can’t tell you how many monsters I’ve fought and never got a payday for.”

  Fable’s response was a little more measured, though.

  “Interesting. You’re an abjuration focused mage, then?”

  “Abjuration and conjuration are my electives, but I’m also going to try and challenge the exam for transmutation. I’ve picked up several spells with it, and I’ve been getting used to them.”

  “I see. Good choices for your situation,” Fable agreed. “Though, I am biased. Conjuration is something I’m rather prone to using myself. Well, we’ll be back by the end of the shift.”

  I thanked them, then headed behind the counter to start working, while they went into the back room, and into a room that I’d never seen before. The moment they closed the door, it vanished, and I squinted, wondering if it was an illusion, or if Fable had conjured the doorway.

  I didn’t have long to think about it, as I was quickly swamped with people looking to by all sorts of random things for their staves, wands, or amulets. This time, I recognized a lot of the students who came in, and most of them were using the coupon that had been in the school’s greeting packet.

  When Charm and Fable returned, Fable was holding a large, dark, gnarly tree branch. It hadn’t been processed, but the bark had fallen away in some spots, revealing a rich, ruddy colored wood underneath. He handed it to me.

  “This is a naturally shed limb of a dappled-radiant hawthorn tree. It’s not quite as powerful of a material as a foo lion whisker, but this should make a good body component for a staff for this year and most of next.”

  “How much?” I asked, not wanting to take something too expensive.

  “This much wood usually sells for about three thousand silver, but I’m not charging you,” Fable said, waving his hand. “I mentioned that you get a yearly bonus. This is early, and a bit much for your first year, but I don’t especially like the Dreki family. It would be good to see their pride get stung by a mage.”

  Charm grinned at me.

  “And hey, if you lose, and get forced to go back to your family, and can’t work for us the money won’t exactly be a problem. You can send us twice what the branch costs and it’ll still be a rounding error in the family’s income.”

  I gave the pair a wan smile, but nodded. It was true enough. Even as a disgraced member of the family, sending out a few thousand silver wouldn’t be beyond my means.

  “Bloody oath,” Charm agreed, and Fable extended the branch a second time. This time, I took it, and looked between the two of them.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Really. This is too much, but… Thank you both.

  Fable clasped my shoulder.

  “Hopefully it helps. Though, you should also remember that your campus is covered in all sorts of magical places.”

  “Alright,” I agreed, though I was confused why he was bringing it up.

  “Good. Now go. Do you need a hand transporting the branch to your room?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, before thanking them a few more times, and heading back to my room. The branch was too big to hide, so I just rested it in a corner of the closet, before getting some more practice in and going to bed.

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