Uniform fitti smoother than Natalie had feared they would, to her relief. A young woma about taking Natalie’s measurements, and while some of the adjustments involved tugging and iing that invaded her personal spaatalie never o be overly paranoid about her secret revealing itself. She was given a room to ge, when necessary.

  Te’s colors—and the uniform’s—were blue and gold. Uniforms were expected to be worn throughout the academic day, from eight in the m to five in the evening, but beyond those hours, students were permitted to wear what they wanted.

  The fabrics themselves were quality, a sistent theme when it came to Te and its supplies, buildings, and materials. The clothing was breathable, designed for fort and flexibility. They were, after all, inteo be used during bat training as well as the rest of their daily schedule.

  Equipment, like armor and ear—specifically, the magical sort collected from the dungeon, or made by artificers, that enhaats—were supposed to be worn on delves only, not on campus. Te disced relying on equipment, at least during training, which was another fortunate aspect to student life that evehe pying field, same as the token system.

  Because obviously Natalie had no powerful heirlooms to i, as some students here would. However disadvantaged Natalie, Sofia, and Jordan were when it came to es, they at least wouldn’t g in the more mundane ways. The pying grounds were even in many regards … though admittedly not all.

  ons, oher hand, were allowed—the exception to the equipment policy, because of how critical they were to general bat styles. However, following the theme of Te wanting students to prove themselves, only ons collected from the dungeon, or purchased through the token system, could be used.

  Natalie was sure some people cheated to get around that rule; obviously, it could be hard or impossible to prove a student hadn’t received a particur item from a dungeon run. So in sards, the well-ected ahy could find ways to excel using their money. But Natalie knew faculty were watg for that, and perhaps had ways of sussing out those sorts of infras. In the end, it didn’t matter. It was what it was.

  The Te uniform was yered: the first was the bat uniform, a tighter-fitting, more utilitarian yer, and the stuffier, showier jacket, and glossy bck shoes, were required to be worn while attending csses—the regur academic sort—as well as when out and about during school hours. Even the more plex outer yer wasn’t horrible, though. A fortable uniform all around, if a bit fshier than Natalie liked.

  But she’d admit she looked impressive in them, from the gnces she’d stolen in mirrors at the uniform-fitting building. Well-made uniforms teo have that effect, and Natalie’d never much cared for fashion, so it was even more noticeable in her case. She looked sharp. Professional.

  Natalie chose the skirt bottoms rather than the pants. The roomier, pleated article of clothing would make her secret easier to hide … though Sofia was sure to give her odd looks, because Natalie otherwise would have chosen the pants, and Sofia k—Natalie wasn’t a skirt girl. Just, the pants were too tight fitting. Natalie hadn’t had a choice.

  The day ed up quickly; it was a shorter schedule than most would be. Around 3:30, Natalie’s uniform fitting pleted, and, with nothing else pnned for the day, she was free to roam campus. Tomorrow would be the first real day of csses, starting at a strict 8:00 a.m.

  Finally released, Natalie dropped off her uniforms, hanging them in her locker, then sought out Jordan.

  Jordan’s barracks—barracks two—was identical to Natalie’s. Students were trig back, bit by bit, having fiheir fittings and likewise lugging back their sets of uniforms on thick coat hangers. Jordan had, in a simir mao she and Sofia, gotten a bed in one of the worse positions in the hall: directly in the middle. That probably grated at Jordan more than it had Natalie. She would have preferred to tuck herself in the er, where she could have some minor form of privacy.

  Natalie plopped down on Jordan’s bed. Jordan was sitting cross-legged, reading. She’d been waiting for Natalie to arrive; if Natalie had finished first, she’d have waited at her barracks for Jordan. They’d agreed on that during lunch.

  “So,” Natalie said. “Where do you wanna go?”

  Jordan ignored her for a few moments, finishing the st paragraph or two of whatever she’d been reading. Finally, she pced a bookmark between the pages and looked up.

  “Somewhere private,” she said. “I’m not sure. Where do you think?”

  ‘Somewhere private’. Because they had … busio handle.

  They’d discovered the cooldown to Natalie’s stra skill. Or, her sed stra skill, since ‘heavy onry’ took the title of most bizarre. But her other, ‘harvest’, which gave her a sedary adva resource for perf certaihan-appropriate acts on irls was a close sed.

  The cooldown was around a day, in truth a bit shorter, to allow for flexibility. Twenty-one hours, maybe. She and Jordan had been making good use of it. Natalie he energy. And it was time for their session—it couldn’t stop now that they’d arrived at Te. But it had bee trickier te the event, g privacy.

  Natalie had been trying not to think about how much she looked forward … and was scared of … each of their kissing sessions. They didn’t mean anything—beyond Jordan demonstrating how good of a friend she was—but they were severely promising, regardless that they shouldn’t be. But Natalie didn’t have much choice; she o energy to advance her skills. Having received a terribly unfitting css—at least in some aspeatalie o make good use of everything she had at her disposal.

  So, freque-ups with Jordan. And they couldn’t half-ass it, either. The skill gave different amounts of energy based on the passion behind the kisses. So they had to put effort in … had to really go at it. Couldn’t keep things chaste and quick, which would’ve been way too easy. No, Natalie needed give her best friend a good tongue fug, assuming she wao make maximal use of the skill.

  Totally not somethiating to Natalie’s resolve.

  Her fallback was simple: not thinking too hard about what the kisses did to her. Denial was an age-old tried and true tactid it was w great for Natalie.

  “I guess … the bathrooms?” Natalie wasn’t sure where else they could take care of things, where they wouldn’t be caught. They had no room, obviously, and maybe they could tuck themselves in the er of a library, or secluded in the park, but those weren’t guarao be private. Anyone could wander by.

  “The bathroom. Romantic,” Jordan said, rolling her eyes. But she didn’t fault the reasoning. She set her book aside and stood. “Well, let’s go, then.”

  Natalie’s heart hammered as she followed behind, even though, again, it shouldn’t have.

  Just friends, she firmly reminded herself.