For all that Wesley was abrasive, arrogant, and an annoyance, I had to hand it to him. He was good under pressure.

  Both of us whipped around to see the rot demon standing a few feet behind us. A foot behind the demon was the Erudite, who the demon didn’t seem to have noticed, which was at least somewhat of a relief.

  The demon was tall, roughly eight feet, and humanoid, but instead of skin, it seemed to have black mold covering every inch of its body. Its face was far and away the most humanlike of all the demons we’d fought, even looking oddly handsome, and even its limbs were almost perfect. The demon’s hands and feet ended in claws, and it had a tail of black mold as well, but if you took away the mold, claws, and tail, he could have fit right in as the son of a mayor from just about any small town.

  When the demon smiled, I saw its teeth looked to be made from petrified worms , which immediately destroyed whatever degree of almost-handsomeness that it had managed to cultivate.

  Wesley’s chant finished, and a missile shot out, but a necrotic bolt of power leapt from the demon’s fingers, crushing it in midair.

  “Now, now boys,” he said, stepping forward, tail snapping. “That’s not how one behaves. Besides, if I was here to kill you? I wouldn’t have broken the element of surprise.”

  Behind him, the Erudite raised an eyebrow, then checked the position of the sun, as if wondering how much time he had left. I focused back on the demon.

  “What do you want then?” I asked, while Wesley continued to speak words of power next to me.

  “A contract,” the demon said simply.

  “I haven’t learned to cast planar contract yet,” I said. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

  “Oh, but I’m not,” the demon smiled. “My own abilities allow me to establish a contract.”

  Wesley was continuing to mutter and flick his fingers about, and I had to wonder what sort of spell he was casting that it took this long.

  “I’m not opposed to working with a demon in theory,” I said carefully. “What terms were you thinking about? What do you even want?”

  The demon’s unnerving grin grew wider.

  “It’s simple. The half-orc summoner, a graduate of the citadel academy, known as Barnabus, son of Elijah. He summoned me some time ago, and bound me to his service. Seven mortal years I did serve, and I hated it. When I was finally freed of the enslaving magic, I fled back to Sharalyk, realm of my demon lord, and waited. When I felt a calling of an aberrant near this citadel academy I accepted.”

  He let out a low, angry growl.

  “But the aberrant had already fled the city. Now I am stuck in a wasteland! I will pretend to be your summoned demon when we meet with your mortal watchers. This will allow you to bring me into the city so I might slay Barnabus, son of Elijah. I will only stay in the city until I kill him. In exchange, I will shield you from the demons in this wasteland, aid your path back to your city, and even grant you each a minor favor.”

  He held out his hand, fingers spread, as if telling us to stop, and the wasteland behind him blew, empty.

  “Not much. You are smuggling me, yes, I do not deny that, but do not pretend this will require some vast sacrifice on your part, mortals. Besides, my rot bloodline and demon lord’s granted blessings are limited. I would suggest this: through the contract, I can apply a particular blessing that will allow you three times to infuse my rot magic into a strike, causing disease and rot to spread through the target.”

  He spread his hands and smiled.

  “What do you say, children?”

  I swallowed thickly. The demon did a great job of making his proposal sound so reasonable. It was easy to turn down an offer for your soul. It was easy to tell a demon was playing you when they offered you untold power and riches for a task.

  This was harder to deny. The words about how a cruel master had tortured professor Toadweather came to my mind.

  And nobody was here to stop me. It was just Wesley, me, and the demon out here. If Wesley agreed to keep silent, then nobody would know.

  Nobody at all.

  But there was one small thing in his phrasing. The demon said he’d only stay in the city until Barnabus was dead… Not that he’d only kill his old summoner. It was a small gap, and if I’d been in conversation with a person, I wouldn’t have thought it meant anything.

  But I was still dealing with a demon.

  “Let me be clear,” I said. “You’re going to just go into the city, take revenge on your old summoner, Barnabus, and then leave? Nothing else.”

  “I’ll only stay until Barnabus is dead,” the demon repeated. I let myself drop into a fighting stance.

  “That isn’t an answer.”

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  The demon snarled and launched itself at us, and Wesley’s chanting resolved itself. Throughout the entire time that I’d been talking to the demon, he’d been casting arcane missiles, holding them in place, invisible. It was a truly staggering feat of ether manipulation, one that I couldn’t have matched even if I was at my best.

  Now, nearly a dozen of the force spells ripped into the form of the demon, who staggered back. Instead of blood, the rot monster oozed out a blackish pus that hissed and steamed unnaturally in the air.

  But the demon was strong, old and canny. He flexed his hands out and streaks of necromantic energy erupted at us. In the middle of casting my spell, I leapt to the side, spinning out of the way of a pair that had been headed for my head and heart respectively. A pair of shield spells took the hit for Wesley, but even with his perfect casting, they cracked and shattered apart beneath the demonic rot.

  I flicked my hands out as the last syllable for arcane missile fell from my lips, and poured my fire into the spell. The ballista sized force bolt exploded across the distance in a second, and though the demon tried to whip itself out of the way, the missile still tore off one of his arms entirely.

  As the rot creature screamed in pain, Wesley completed his own spell. Fire gushed from his hands and over the demon. While the flame was nowhere as potent as Jackson’s affinity-infused were, it was still cast with exacting precision.

  Unfortunately, the spell had a short range, and the demon had been close. The monster leapt through the fire, even as it burnt through his flesh, his single good hand extended for Wesley’s throat.

  I snapped my fingers out again and released a second dragonfire strengthened bolt at the thing’s chest. It struck and tore a massive hole through the thing’s torso, giving Wesley just enough time to dodge out of the way of the gripping hands.

  But I wasn’t dumb enough to think that this was over. The blackish ooze leaked out of the demon rapidly, and I smell its bloodline power rushing through it.

  “Grahhh!” the demon bellowed as a new arm erupted and the hole in its chest healed in seconds.

  Wesley and I were both chanting, but the demon launched itself at me in an explosively fast motion. I spun out of the way, letting him slide past me, and Wesley snapped out another spell, the arcane missile drilling into the base of the rot demon’s neck.

  I saw my chance then. My fire was guttering at just over half, so I had to make this count…

  I kicked the demon’s back, throwing all of my weight into the blow. I was heavier than I looked – while mass wasn’t conserved between dragon and human form, our human forms were still a lot more dense than a normal person – and my strength was enough to pin the demon down on the ground.

  Just long enough for me to finish another arcane missile, this one tearing through its neck.

  I had hoped that this would leave the head, so I could potentially use it as a component for the rite of centered mind, but no such luck. The demon turned to an oily black smoke as its essence was pulled back to… where had it said it was from? Sharalyk, or something of that sort.

  The Erudite let out a soft clap, and I jumped back at the sound. I felt spells peeling off of my mind, as memories returned.

  I hadn’t been out here with only Wesley. The Erudite had been here all along. I’d noticed in the very beginning how the demon hadn’t seemed to see the Erudite, and he must have pushed that magic into my mind as I’d bartered with the demon.

  That felt… incredibly gross and invasive, and I wiped my arms off.

  “Well done,” the Erudite said. “Apologies for altering your mind, but I needed to see how you’d react without me in the mix.”

  His lips twitched.

  “Alright, I’ve seen enough, we can end the test now. You both pass. Barely. Emrys, Toadweather will be glad to hear you bartered without falling into a trap. Both of your spells were well done, and your tag-team approach to combat worked well. Wesley, your ether manipulation was beyond perfect. ”

  “I was considering letting him take his revenge,” I said, a little shell shocked.

  “Yes,” the Erudite said. “It’s a risky move. Summoned beings can at times want assistance in dealing with cruel previous summoners. Had you agreed to his deal, we would be having a different conversation.”

  “What if he had agreed to kill only Barnabus?”

  “It depends,” the Erudite said. “If there is evidence of abuse of power over summoned creatures, or a fully signed out contract turned in to authorities bound in such a manner as to prove Barnabus’ crimes then it would have been considered aiding and abetting a suicide, and thus would have netted you a hefty fine. If he was innocent… you would have aided and abetted a murder.”

  I felt a chill rush over me.

  “Not the worst thing in the world,” he continued. “Professor Toadweather can attest to that. But it’s something to only do with much more caution than you had now. Oh, and you should make more use of your affinity. It’s a strong one, and while catching demons off guard with glimmersands is good, you could have also improved it with a curse. The pair would combo excellently to keep someone off their guard.”

  “With all due respect? I couldn’t. The ether cost is too high,” I said.

  “Then get skilled enough to design supporting spells on the fly,” the Erudite said. “Casting a spell that works alongside glimmersands specifically would likely restrict much of the power.”

  I shut my mouth and nodded. The Erudite turned to Wesley.

  “Your spellwork was good, but you haven’t got nearly strong enough armor to get up close and personal with a demon of that caliber. If Emrys hadn’t been here, or if he’d been less nice of a person, you’d have been dead. Or well, you’d have triggered the contingency spell.”

  “I understand,” Wesley said, though he sounded pissed.

  “Do you?” the Erudite asked. “Because if so, I hope you can show a little more cooperative spirit in the future.”

  “What?”

  “You’re intelligent Wesley, so learn to not be a fool,” the Erudite said, his eyes turning crystal blue again. “If Emrys had been an average mercenary you had hired to protect you, and you had treated him with the rudeness you showed, he would have let you die, killed the demon, and gone through your coin purse. It would have been labeled as an unfortunate accident.”

  The Erudite’s staff appeared in his hand, and blue light swallowed us all again. As we teleported back to the school, he continued to speak.

  “Both of you have a lot of work to do. But you have a decent start.”

  We appeared in the lobby of the brass tower where the dorms were, and the Erudite vanished. I rolled my neck, popped my left shoulder, then was pushed into a wall.

  Wait, what?

  Wesley had pushed me into a wall and was leaning in close. His silver hair hung between us like a curtain, and he stared at me with a burning intensity. One of my hands was pinned beneath his own, pressed against the wall above my head.

  My fight or flight response rushed through me, and I stared at Wesley.

  “Don’t think that just because you saved me that I owe you,” he snapped.

  I shoved him off me, and put more power into it than I’d intended, as Wesley was lifted into the air and thrown back more than four feet.

  “Don’t push me into a wall, prick,” I snapped. “And I don’t. I expect you to do the same thing if we have to work together again.”

  “Fine,” Wesley said, scrambling to his feet. “As long as it’s clear I’m not going to serve you or anyone else.”

  “Crystal.”

  I turned and walked away, out onto the campus greens.

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