Zorian nodded, appreciating Ilsa’s discretion. Kael still didn’t know about the full extent of his mental abilities and Zorian didn’t believe this was the time to reveal them. He was kind of disappointed that Imaya had told Ilsa about his ‘condition’ without asking for his permission. It was by no means unexpected, but still disappointing.
«I’m curious,» Kael said. «If your teacher wouldn’t hurt a fly, what does she eat? I’m pretty sure all spiders are strict carnivores.»
«Mostly rats and stray dogs,» Zorian said.
«Rats?» Kirielle asked in disgust.
«I’m told rats can get pretty big in Cyoria,» Zorian said.
«Ho boy, can they ever,» Taiven confirmed. «I swear I once saw one of them stalking a cat instead of the other way around…»
«She’s just telling fisherman’s tales,» Imaya quickly assured the disturbed-looking Kirielle. «I’ve lived here my whole life and have never seen anything like it.»
«How do you know that stray humans aren’t also on their diet?» asked Ilsa.
«According to Novelty, the idea is about as likely as a group of humans hunting an occasional dragon in order to put some meat on the table — that is to say, not very. There is almost always easier prey around,» answered Zorian. «Not that aranea are harmless, far from it, but if they kill me it’s not going to be because they want to eat me.»
«Novelty?» Kael asked.
«That’s the name of the aranea tutoring me,» Zorian shrugged. «Well, technically her name is Enthusiastic Seeker of Novelty, but that’s unwieldy and she doesn’t mind if I shorten it.»
«That name sounds stupid,» Kirielle said.
Zorian opened his mouth to tell her that ‘Kirielle’ was also a stupid name when he thought better of it. For one thing, it was best to reserve immature bickering with her when they were alone. For another he had just thought up a much more amusing and diabolical idea.
«Want to meet her?» Zorian asked.
«What?» Kirielle asked.
«Novelty. Want to meet her?»
Kirielle stayed silent, mulling it over. «I don’t know. I don’t like spiders. They’re disgusting.»
«Well okay,» Zorian shrugged. «I just figured you’d jump at the chance to meet with a member of a reclusive race of magical creatures that very few humans can boast speaking to. Once in a lifetime opportunity and all that. But I guess I understand—»
«Umm, well…» Kirielle fumbled. «Actually, I changed my mind. She’s not going to try to touch me, is she?»
Of course she was going to try and touch her. Novelty wanted to touch everything. By her own admission she once stuck one of her legs into an open flame in order to see what would happen.
«I’m sure she’ll keep her distance if you ask politely,» Zorian told her.
How he kept a straight face after telling her that he’d never know. Sometimes he surprised even himself.
The conversation continued for a while after that, but eventually began to peter out. Ilsa and Taiven excused themselves and left, while Kirielle amused herself with trying to teach Kana how to draw. Of course, unlike Kirielle, Kana was a typical child with age-appropriate (that is to say, appalling) drawing aptitude, but neither Kirielle nor Kana seemed discouraged by that. Zorian excused himself and went to his room to see if he could get some work done before Kirielle came looking for him.
It was not to be, though — barely a minute after he had sat on his bed Kael showed up and knocked on the doorframe to get his attention.
«Am I interrupting something?» he asked.
«No, I was just considering what to do with myself. Did you need something?» asked Zorian.
«Sort of,» said Kael. «I just came to tell you that you don’t have to dance around the issue of your mind magic any more. I already figured out you’re not just an empath.»
«Kirielle told you, didn’t she?» Zorian sighed.
«Not so much told me as gave me enough clues to figure it out. She’s a chatty kid. But there is no need to be angry at her, it’s not like I’m going to turn on you just because you’re learning how to read people’s thoughts.»
«Thanks,» Zorian said. «Although quite frankly, it would be kind of hypocritical of you to shun me for dabbling in forbidden magics, mister junior necromancer.»
Kael immediately flinched back in shock and gave him a wide-eyed look. «W-What!? There is no way…»
Zorian gestured him to quiet down and Kael immediately shut up and peered down the corridor to make sure no one had been listening. Zorian knew they hadn’t been, he could feel that all of the other residents were still back in the kitchen. His scrutiny done, Kael quickly stepped into the room and closed the door, leaning heavily on it.
«How?» he asked. He sounded more panicked than menacing at the moment, but Zorian knew that could change at any moment if he didn’t get a satisfactory answer.
«Do you know the ‘arcane lock’ spell?» Zorian asked.
«I… yes,» Kael said, still sounding rather dazed.
«Lock the door, then, and I’ll make sure we’re safe from any stray divinations,» Zorian said, and immediately started casting a temporary divination ward at the room. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it would ward off simple scrying attempts and hopefully notify him if anything more complex targeted them. Not that he really thought they would need it, but it was good practice and you could never be careful enough.
5 minutes later the room was as secure as Zorian could make it on such quick notice and Kael looked increasingly impatient. Zorian decided to get on with it. He opened his mouth and began to speak.
«Let me tell you a story of lost time and a month that refuses to end…»
Unpaid teenage labor was an age-old tradition among mages. While the ancient apprentice system had largely been replaced with specialized magical academies, and the quality of young mages had improved drastically as a consequence, there were some things that simply couldn’t be learned in the classroom. For things like that, a mage needed a mentor — someone to show them the tricks of the trade, teach them unique skills and spells they had developed and did not share lightly with others, or just plain connect them with the right people. Said mentors usually had plenty of work they considered beneath them, ideally of a sort that took advantage of their student’s magical ability and prepared them for their future vocation.
Ideally.
As Zorian trudged towards his classroom, half an hour before any of his fellow classmates, he reflected on the fact that life was rarely ideal. In practice, a lot of work given to apprentices consisted of chores that their mentor thought beneath them or various busywork. The duties of the class representative, for instance, were largely one giant waste of time. In the previous restarts, this fact didn’t bother him all that much — the job was fairly easy so long as you didn’t take it as seriously as Akoja did — but this time he had so many things vying for his attention that he resented this additional duty being piled up on top of it all. Maybe he shouldn’t have talked Ilsa into taking him as her apprentice this restart but, well, what’s done is done.
He yawned. He supposed he was just cranky today since he had gotten very little sleep last night. His conversation with Kael literally took hours since the other boy wanted to know absolutely everything and kept asking for details. While Zorian didn’t begrudge the other boy for wanting answers and considered the time well spent, he kind of planned to use that time to read through the research assignments he had collected from his classmates on behalf of Ilsa. Assignments he had to give to Ilsa today, complete with corrections and grade recommendations. He had thought his knowledge from previous restarts would make the task a child’s game, but apparently something about their massive changes to this restart caused Ilsa to give out completely different topics for research and he had to actually read everything from scratch. He ended up spending most of the night dealing with those stupid things and then had to get up half an hour earlier than usual too because he was class representative to boot.