The heavy leather Compendium of Basic Elemental Forms lay in the sand, abandoned and useless.

  Valerie stared at it longingly, like a child watching her favorite toy being thrown into a river. She had brushed the dirt from her clothes and wiped her face clean, but her green eyes were wide with apprehension.

  "Rule number one," I announced, pacing in a slow circle around her. "You are forbidden from doing math in my presence. If I hear you whisper the words 'drag coefficient' or 'mana density,' I will bury you in the sand again."

  Valerie crossed her arms, her jaw setting stubbornly. "Magic is a science, Demian. It has rules."

  "Human magic is a science," I corrected, stopping in front of her. "Because humans are inherently weak. You need wands, circles, and calculations to safely channel the ambient energy around you. But you, Valerie... you don't channel ambient energy. You are the source."

  I stepped closer, tapping a long, pale finger against her breastbone.

  "Your magic isn't in a book. It’s in here. It is raw, it is chaotic, and it responds to one thing only: Will."

  She swatted my hand away. "Fine. So how do I 'will' it?"

  "By feeling it," I said simply. "Demon magic is tied to survival. Fear. Desire. Rage. You survived the streets because of your instincts, not because you knew geometry. I need you to tap into the street rat, not the scholar."

  She glared at me, her pride bristling at the term 'street rat', but she didn't argue.

  "Stance," I ordered.

  She spread her feet shoulder-width apart and raised her hands in a textbook defensive posture. It was perfectly balanced, perfectly useless.

  "You look like a statue," I sighed. "Relax your shoulders. You are preparing to cast a spell, not take a portrait."

  I walked behind her, kicking the back of her left knee lightly with my boot. She buckled slightly with a yelp, losing her balance.

  "Hey!"

  "You were rigid," I pointed out. "Rigid things break. Fluid things adapt. Now, face me."

  She spun around, her eyes flashing with irritation. Good. Irritation was a stepping stone to anger.

  Part 2: The Provocation

  "We will start simple," I said, rolling up the sleeves of my black coat. "A basic kinetic push. The goal is to knock me off my feet."

  Valerie looked at my tall, athletic frame, and then down at her own hands. "Knock you off your feet. Right. Should I ask politely?"

  "I am going to attack you," I continued, ignoring her sarcasm. "I will not use lethal force, but it will sting. It will bruise. Your job is to stop me before I hit you. No incantations. Just push."

  "Wait, Demian, I don't think—"

  I flicked my wrist.

  A sphere of condensed shadow, the size of an apple, shot from my hand. It hit her squarely in the shoulder.

  Thwack.

  "Ow!" Valerie stumbled backward, clutching her arm. "What the hell?!"

  "Too slow," I said coldly. "You were thinking about the angle of the projectile. Don't think. React."

  I flicked my other wrist. A second shadow-ball struck her in the thigh.

  "Dammit, Demian!" she shouted, limping slightly.

  "Again," I demanded.

  For the next ten minutes, the Arena echoed with the sound of dull thuds and Valerie’s increasingly creative curses. She tried to cast. I could see her lips moving silently, trying to form the syllables of a shield spell. Every time she tried to use logic, I hit her with another shadow-sphere.

  She was covered in dust. She was panting. And she was furious.

  "Stop!" she yelled, holding her hands up as a shadow-ball grazed her cheek, leaving a faint red mark. "Just give me a second to focus!"

  "The enemy does not give you a second!" I barked, dropping the calm teacher persona. I let my demonic aura flare, dropping the temperature in the Arena by ten degrees. "The Minotaur in the basement didn't give you a second! If you pause to calculate, you die!"

  "I CAN'T DO IT!" she screamed, her voice breaking. Tears of frustration pricked the corners of her eyes. "I don't know what you want from me! I don't feel anything but pain and sand!"

  I stopped. I let the shadows dissipate from my hands.

  She stood there, shivering, defeated. The fire I was trying to stoke was drowning in her own self-doubt.

  She needs a real trigger, I realized. Physical pain isn't enough. She's used to getting beaten down by the world. I have to threaten something she actually cares about.

  I looked around the empty sand. I looked at the discarded Compendium.

  And then, I looked at her.

  "You're right," I said softly, my voice dripping with manufactured disappointment. "You can't do it."

  Valerie looked up, startled by my sudden shift in tone.

  I turned my back on her and started walking toward the exit.

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  "Demian? What are you doing?"

  "I am leaving," I said over my shoulder. "I thought you had the potential to be a partner. But you are exactly what the Elves say you are. A weak, fragile little human who got lucky once."

  "Shut up," she whispered.

  I kept walking. "I'll tell Solon the truth. We will lock your channels permanently. You can spend the rest of your life in the library, writing essays while the real mages fight."

  "I said shut up!" Her voice was louder now.

  "I wasted my morning on a coward," I sneered, stopping at the edge of the stairs. "Go back to your room, Valerie. Make your own coffee from now on."

  Part 3: The Inferno

  That did it.

  The insult to her pride was the spark. The threat of abandonment was the tinder.

  I didn't even need to turn around to know it had worked. I felt it.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The air behind me suddenly crackled with static electricity, smelling sharply of ozone and burning ozone. The ambient temperature skyrocketed, melting the frost my aura had created.

  "Demian Nox!"

  Her voice didn't sound like the snarky girl from Dorm 13. It sounded layered, resonating with a power that vibrated in my teeth.

  I spun around.

  Valerie was no longer calculating. Her eyes were glowing—a blinding, toxic, neon green. Her red hair was floating around her face, defying gravity.

  She thrust both hands forward. She didn't speak a spell. She just screamed in pure, unadulterated rage.

  A shockwave of kinetic fire erupted from her palms.

  It wasn't a spark. It was a tidal wave of heat and force, tearing through the sand, turning the grains to glass as it roared toward me.

  My eyes widened. Oh, hell.

  I didn't have time to cast a proper ward. I threw my arms up in an "X" shape, summoning the thickest, densest shield of shadow magic I could muster in half a second.

  The blast hit me like a runaway carriage.

  BOOM.

  The impact shattered my shadow shield instantly. The sheer force lifted me entirely off my feet. I flew backward, soaring over the first few rows of the spectator stands, and crashed hard into the wooden benches.

  Wood splintered. Dust plumed into the air.

  For a moment, all I could hear was the ringing in my ears.

  I groaned, pushing pieces of broken wood off my chest. My pristine black coat was scorched, the sleeves smoking slightly. My ribs ached with a dull, throbbing pain that told me I would be bruised for a week.

  I sat up slowly and looked down into the Arena.

  Valerie was on her knees in the sand. The green glow had vanished from her eyes. She was staring at her hands, taking deep, ragged breaths, her chest heaving.

  She looked at the crater she had left in the sand, a long, glass-lined trench leading directly to the destroyed spectator stand where I sat.

  "Demian?!" she gasped, terror suddenly replacing her anger. She scrambled to her feet. "Demian! Oh my gods, did I kill you?!"

  I coughed, waving the smoke away from my face. I stood up, brushing the splinters from my ruined coat. I ignored the pain in my ribs and vaulted over the railing, landing softly back on the arena floor.

  I walked toward her.

  Valerie shrank back, holding her hands to her mouth. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to—you made me so mad, and I just—I didn't think!"

  I stopped two feet away from her. I looked at her trembling hands. I looked at the smoking trench.

  Then, I looked her in the eye and smiled. A real, dangerous, demon smile.

  "Exactly," I said, my voice hoarse but triumphant. "You didn't think. You felt."

  Valerie stared at me. "You... you're not mad?"

  "Mad?" I let out a low, raspy chuckle, though it hurt my ribs. "Valerie, you just threw the Prince of Darkness thirty feet through the air without speaking a single word of Latin."

  I reached out and gently tapped her forehead.

  "The block is gone," I whispered. "You found the door."

  Her eyes filled with a new kind of tears—not of frustration, but of overwhelming relief. The adrenaline left her body all at once, and her knees buckled.

  I caught her before she hit the sand.

  She slumped against my chest, her arms wrapping weakly around my waist. She smelled like sweat, smoke, and pure magic. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, holding her steady, my chin resting on the top of her head.

  We stood there in the middle of the ruined Arena, the morning sun finally rising over the high stone walls.

  "Lesson one is complete," I murmured into her hair.

  "Are you going to make me do that again?" she mumbled exhaustedly against my scorched coat.

  "Tomorrow," I promised softly. "But next time, try not to destroy my wardrobe. This coat was custom-made."

  She let out a weak, muffled laugh. "Jerk."

  "I know," I replied. "Come on. Let's go get breakfast. I believe you owe me a coffee."