Lucan glanced toward the doorway before answering.
"I gave it to Perrin. He was going past the residence desk."
"The friend who noticed I had two pages?"
"Yes."
"Did he see me open it?"
"He said you were carrying them this morning."
"With Tomas and Clara?"
"I assume so." Lucan's impatience returned. "Are you going to tell me what it said?"
Before I could answer, Instructor Bell called from across the hall, asking whether we intended to spend the afternoon blocking his practice lane. I stepped aside and told Lucan the extra page concerned the quarry. That was enough to change his expression.
"I didn't write anything about the quarry."
"Then tell Harlowe who handled your envelope."
He looked as though he might object. Instead, he pressed his lips together and nodded once. When Perrin called him again, Lucan left without another remark. I watched them go, wondering whether he would ask questions before speaking to Harlowe. Probably. Fifteen-year-old pride rarely improved the speed of an investigation.
By the following afternoon, the assessment circle had acquired a modest audience. Apparently, "no audience beyond students already assigned to the hall" was a flexible limitation when several students suddenly discovered a passionate interest in practice. Bell sent the most obvious offenders away, then stationed the rest behind the outer line.
Clara had secured a place beside Tomas. Milo stood with them, having arranged his afternoon work so he could attend. Seeing all three waiting should have made me nervous. Instead, I felt an eager little lift beneath my ribs.
A magical academy duel. Approved weapons. A rival with an unpleasant attitude and genuinely troublesome abilities. My younger self would have considered this excellent value for reincarnation.
Then Bell called me forward, and I let the excitement settle. Wanting a fight was one thing. Conducting one properly required a different part of my head.
Lucan waited across the circle, rolling his shoulders. Three pale blades appeared above his hands before he dismissed them again. His eyes kept moving toward the spectators.
I checked the floor instead. Smooth stone, a few old marks, no loose grit. Eight paces across the circle. Enough room to move, not enough to retreat indefinitely. Bell fastened the protective harness across my chest and tested its response with a wooden rod. A translucent shimmer covered my torso and head, then faded.
"Registered decisive strike, surrender, or ring-out," he reminded us. "I stop it, you stop."
We both agreed. I formed the carbine, keeping its muzzle down. Across from me, Lucan raised his hands.
The first blade came before Bell's hand had fully dropped.
I moved left, bringing the carbine up as the light passed where my chest had been. Lucan's second blade followed lower. I shortened the step rather than completing it, letting the point cross in front of my thigh.
Fast. Faster than yesterday's demonstration.
I fired once.
Lucan threw himself sideways. The shot struck the floor beyond his boot, and he answered with another blade while still moving.
That was better than I had expected.
I shifted again, keeping the weapon close enough that he couldn't easily read the muzzle's direction. Years of old training returned in small, unremarkable decisions: not crossing my feet, not straightening after a dodge, keeping my shoulders loose while my eyes stayed on his center.
His hands made the magic. His body told me when he intended to use it.
Another blade appeared near his wrist. His elbow rose, and I was moving before he released it.
Behind the boundary, Clara shouted something encouraging and entirely unhelpful. I ignored it.
Lucan had prepared for a shooting contest. He kept moving across my line, presenting a narrow target and sending blades whenever I tried to settle my aim. Sensible. Someone had coached him.
I gave ground for two exchanges, firing only once more. That missed too, deliberately close enough to make him move but not worth a desperate correction. A rushed shot spent the same mana as a useful one.
His next blade passed my shoulder, curved, and came back toward my right side.
I dropped.
Light hissed above my head. I rolled onto one knee and brought the carbine around, but Lucan was already retreating behind another hovering blade.
A few students cheered.
I heard Tomas call, "It stayed up!"
Useful information. Lucan could maintain a released blade long enough to redirect it.
I rose without hurrying. My knee complained about the stone, a small reminder that understanding how to move didn't make the floor softer.
Lucan smiled. "Having trouble?"
"Some."
The honesty unsettled him more than a clever answer would have.
I needed him to repeat himself.
At a distance, his blades gave him several ways to reach me. Up close, those same options required him to choose quickly while also keeping a weapon between us. I had spent much longer than he had dealing with people who wanted to hurt me at arm's length.
The difficulty was getting there without proving the harness worked.
I raised the carbine toward his chest. Lucan shifted right, lifting his left hand. I followed him with the muzzle but delayed the shot. His shoulders tightened.
There.
I fired at the space he was about to leave.
He checked his movement sharply, saving himself from the strike. His returning blade straightened instead of curving.
Concentration.
I stepped forward.
He sent another blade directly at me. I moved diagonally, letting it pass, and fired again. This time he had to retreat toward the circle's edge.
The audience grew louder. Lucan glanced sideways at the boundary, then back at me.
I kept coming, not running, each step placed before the next began.
He adapted.
Two blades appeared together, one high and one low. I couldn't clear both by ducking, and he had angled them to punish another sidestep.
I stopped.
The high blade passed in front of my face. The low one struck the toe of my boot hard enough to sting through the leather before breaking into pale sparks. Not decisive, but a fair reminder.
Bell said nothing.
Lucan pressed immediately, sending a third blade toward my ribs.
I turned my body and felt the edge catch the harness's outer shimmer. Light flashed along my side.
"Glancing contact," Bell called. "Continue."
Clara swore.
Lucan's confidence surged. I could see it in the way he advanced, chin lifting, shoulders opening as he prepared another pair.
He thought he had found the pace.
I let him take one more step.
Then I moved toward him.
Not where his blades were pointing. Toward the space beside his leading shoulder, before the new pair had properly separated.
His eyes widened. He tried to bring one across, but his own arm obstructed the angle.
I lowered the carbine rather than attempting a shot with him almost on top of it. My left hand caught his wrist. I turned outside the elbow and drove my shoulder into his upper chest.
No spectacular technique. No impossible burst of speed.
Just timing, leverage, and a boy standing with his weight in the wrong place.
Lucan stumbled backward. I released him before the joint tightened and followed, carbine held close against my ribs.
He recovered better than I expected. Instead of fighting my grip after it was gone, he pivoted and sent a blade from his free hand.
I knocked his forearm outward.
The blade struck the empty air beyond my shoulder.
His heel reached the boundary.
I could have shoved him.
Instead, I stopped my advance, brought the muzzle level with the center of his harness, and fired once.
The protective shimmer flared white.
Bell's voice cut through the hall.
"Stop."
I lowered the weapon immediately. Lucan's remaining blade dissolved above his shoulder.
For a second, neither of us moved. He looked down at the fading light across his chest, then at the boundary beneath his heel.
"Decisive strike," Bell announced. "Lewis."
Clara cheered. Tomas joined her, less loudly but with considerably more enthusiasm than dignity. I allowed myself one glance toward them before dismissing the carbine.
My hands were steady. My breathing wasn't. The harness had stopped anything serious, but that hadn't made his blades imaginary.
Lucan rubbed his wrist.
I offered my hand.
He stared at it long enough that I began to regret the gesture, then took it.
"You weren't shooting properly at the start."
"I was trying."
"You missed."
"You moved."
His expression suggested he couldn't decide whether I was mocking him. I wasn't. He had earned those misses.
Bell approached before Lucan could answer.
The review was less flattering than the result.
I had yielded too much ground early, underestimated the returning blade, and nearly stepped into a second attack while recovering from the first. Lucan had controlled his weapons well but allowed my advance to dictate his decisions.
"You kept trying to regain distance with your hands," Bell told him. "You have feet."
A few spectators laughed. Bell looked toward them, and silence returned.
Then he turned to me. "Close work is permitted. Joint injuries are not."
"I released him."
"You did. Continue to remember."
I nodded.
Lucan glanced at me again, this time with something more complicated than dislike.
Clara reached us first when Bell dismissed the gathering.
"You could have warned us you were going to do that!"
"Which part?"
"The grabbing him part!"
"I hadn't written a schedule."
She shoved my uninjured shoulder, grinning. Tomas asked about my boot, having noticed the low strike. Milo quietly handed me my water.
I was drinking when Harlowe entered the hall.
She spoke to Bell, then looked toward Lucan.
Perrin, standing near the doorway, started to leave.
"Perrin," Harlowe called. "Wait."
He stopped so suddenly another student nearly walked into him.
The satisfaction of the duel thinned.
Harlowe brought Lucan and me aside while Bell kept the others moving. She held a small notebook but didn't open it.
"I've traced the envelope as far as the residence desk," she said. "Vale, Perrin confirms delivering it. The messenger collected it with several others."
Lucan frowned. "Then why do you need him?"
"Because I am still establishing who handled it beforehand."
I waited.
Harlowe looked at me. "The copied schedule contains a detail that was not posted for students."
The hall seemed quieter.
"Then it's genuine?" I asked.
"One detail is accurate. That is all I am confirming."
Across the room, Perrin stood beside Bell, picking at the seam of his cuff. Lucan followed my gaze, and for once there was no sneer waiting when he looked back.
Someone had placed that page where they knew I would find it.
The duel had settled what happened inside the circle.
Outside it, I still didn't know whom I was facing.