6th of Inandyl - 1st Ivora

  Today starts our last week for instruction before our mock exams which mark the end of our first Term at the Midnight Court. Collectively, everyone is feeling the pressure and I am no different. The usually light-hearted, jovial air of the scribes that I have become accustomed to here has been replaced by an intense, nearly overwhelming gloom of anxiety, frustration, and an eerie sense of waiting. A calm before the storm and it bodes to be a rough one, at that. It is as if the entire Court were holding its breath, waiting for some inevitable folly or misfortune.

  Being the foremost name in unfortunate events, at least in rumors anyway, I am also on edge, waiting for the next mishap to reveal itself. I am used to this looming dread, though, and suppose I handle it better than most other scribes. There isn’t a trick to it really, I just know from experience that it is best to take one day at a time. What had Calas called it the other day? “Reactive survival”?

  It is apparent in Alchemy with Cira’s obsessive focus on our essay questions that she is most definitely not used to this kind of pressure. We work diligently, side-by-side, but there is a sense of reticent anxiety from her that I can almost taste. She knows this subject better than I do, so why is she so on edge? I try to give her soothing nudges and haphazard smiles all morning through class and this seems to bring her momentarily out of her study haze.

  After class is over, I am feeling confident on my way to lunch about my essay skills for my Alchemy exam. However, toward the end of my meal, I realize I still have Magic Studies today and all the confidence I felt before flies right out the window. Magic Studies is still the consistent damage to my calm on an otherwise good day.

  When I get into class, I find my classmates practicing and memorizing incantations and I am instantly feeling the dread of trying this method again. Class hasn’t even started and yet everyone is already reviewing for the exam. Even my desk-mates have taken a reprieve from their usual pre-class snogging to practice with Arcanum. I take a deep breath as I take my seat and join the rest of my fellow scribes, reviewing the incantations chapter again before class starts.

  When Professor Moonshadow arrives, she picks up the mood of the room immediately. “Ah, good, I see you are already at it.” She strides easily to the podium at the front of the room. “Let’s continue, shall we?”

  For the next several hours, she leads us in a rigorous practice, reviewing all the previous incantations from the beginning of the term. I try to keep up, having some minor success in the early, one-word section by using some of the imagery I have learned since the first time around. Unfortunately, several of the later ones, the phrase-based ones, are much too complex for me to even attempt.

  I, of course, learn this the hard way by nearly setting my desk on fire, almost drowning myself, and accidentally knocking over Zhenya with a wayward wind spell. I apologize profusely to both her and Mazron. Had I not done this, I would have had to endure Professor Moonshadow’s disapproving, snide comments about the use of combat spells in her class, which strangely, I have become quite good at. I sigh at the thought as this gives Calas way too much credit for my success.

  I will be practicing this more before the exam. With Cira.

  7th of Inandyl - 1st Emder

  The mood of the Relics class is much the same as yesterday’s classes. Scribes file in early to the workshop and immediately grab materials and notes, diving straight into their work. I do the same as I grab my beetle and a new “blank” material in the shape of a butterfly on my way to my workstation.

  I had the little, blue butterfly commissioned last week after class and I am extremely impressed with the detail that was put into it. This will all be worth it, I think to myself as I recall the hassle it was to commission it with Wen, Professor Lighthammer’s student staffer. After explaining all the working pieces that would be needed, I had to answer a plethora of minute, defining questions about size, scale, material composition, and any moving parts. It was more painstaking in the beginning as it was still nigh impossible to understand her thick accent.

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  By the end of it, though, I can almost grasp most of what she says and based on the finished product, Wen more than understood the assignment. I hold up the little butterfly to the lamp light, admiring the thick, blue glass panes of the wings with thin veins of silver running through them. The body and head are a sturdy metal but hollow for the mechanisms and empty core inside. She even included six spindly, moving legs and the antenna on the head move too. The whole thing fits neatly in the palm of my hand, which is where it sits as I marvel at it.

  Taking Professor Lighthammer’s advice, I am determined to fly before I walk with this project—literally. My plan is simple. Memorize the entire lattice and recreate the weave to place at the core of the butterfly. Easy! Or it would be if I did not feel like I was missing some key elements of the weave. I have poured so much effort into mapping this intricate knot, that I am more than a bit nervous to fail at this point.

  Even so, I think to myself glancing up to where Vesa works with a determined and uncharacteristically serious expression, everyone is doing their best right now and there is no path but forward for all of us.

  I review my notes one last time, laying out specific pieces of the knot that I have actually taken the time to draw and diagram rather than just providing notation. These are the spots where, if it were to fail, would be the failure points. Unfortunately for me, there are five such pages that I have filled with these problem areas. After I feel that I have procrastinated long enough, I take a deep breath and begin the most complicated weave I have ever attempted.

  It takes more than an hour of intense concentration and thread manipulation. More than once, a section nearly buckled in on itself, or an edge threatened to fray, but despite all of that, somehow, at last, the lattice of complex aetheric threads is completed. I wipe the seat from my brow and take a few labored breaths. It feels like I have run the length of the Court campus except my lungs aren’t burning. All that is left to do is to shrink the netting down to encase the empty core of the butterfly and I refocus my efforts despite the exertion I feel.

  Very carefully, I loop the net around the butterfly and start to cinch the correct edges in such a way as to condense the threads without losing their original shape. Little by little, the netting shrinks in size and scale. When it is just larger than the main body of the butterfly, I start to pull and tie the ends together, weaving them in to form a seamless spherical knot of elemental threads. When the final end is woven in, a flash of light marks the core’s completion and the sphere of knots begins to spin around the butterfly’s body.

  My brow and face are drenched in sweat, my breath comes in heaves as if I have been running all morning. I pause only for a moment, though, as the final and hardest part is still left. Using a spindle of pure mana, I create a pressure barrier around the spinning core. I push it all down, condensing and compacting the weave further and further into the empty gem at the center of the butterfly’s body. Throughout this shrinking process, small flashes of light emit in pulsing waves from the weave as a subtle protest with each decrease of volume.

  Finally though, the weave is placed firmly inside the confines of the gem, filling it with a brilliant, swirling light. I feel, more than see, it lock into place with a final pulse that is encapsulated by the gem and radiates through it into the entire frame of the butterfly; right down to its silvery veined wings.

  I let my arms fall, huffing softly in exhaustion as I watch the butterfly illuminate softly as the new mana-shaped core takes root, connecting to all the extremities of its new shell. I wait for this painstakingly, unable to hold my breath as my heart pounds, reverberating in my ears in exertion and anticipation.

  My breath hitches when a wing twitches and then the other. I am forced to breathe in staggered gasps as it convulses choppily for a few moments, trying to flutter. After brief, excruciating moments, the rhythm and tandem of the wings finally sync and they begin to beat with increasing speed. Finally, it leaves the confines of the table, hovering and fluttering lazily above it.

  I give a haunted kind of laugh. I did it? I am in awe as it makes a slow lap around my workstation and comes to rest on the back of my hand, moving its wings in a lazy pattern as if to stretch. I smile at it appreciatively. I did it!

  “What should I call you, I wonder.” I muse as my breathing finally coming back to normal enough to speak.

  As I reach to touch its small metal body, I stop in startled surprise when a soft sound reverberates from it. “Ch-Chou.”

  My eyes grow wide and I look up at Professor Lighthammer, who had, at some point, joined me at my work station. His normally stoic, neutral expression has turned just as wide eyed and stunned as mine. After a few long moments of silence he only mutters “Well, I was not expecting that.”

  I turn my attention back to…Chou with a bemused expression as I examine her glowing, blue-jeweled eyes. “You an me both, Professor.”