Declan had remained awake long enough to get Lake home and see her barred in her room, long enough to force himself to check the back doors and every window. Through sheer force of will, he kept himself awake until the notice went out.

  The Academy is now under swarm protocol. Shelter in place. Do not open doors for any reason. ArCore are the only permitted hunters during this time. Thank you for your cooperation.

  Then he stumbled to his apartment, collapsed in the bed, and surrendered to sleep.

  He woke with a pounding headache and a persistent sense of nausea. The mana didn’t have the honey-thick quality of the last swarm, but the way Harris explained, the swarm would grow more and more intense before cutting off like a faucet when the swarm-heart spawned and was killed.

  First order of business was puking in the toilet, followed by a check of House Ariloch. He carried his pack with all three bearings in it, holding it by a strap. One bearing alone would wreck a man, all three would crush a beast. Maybe.

  The front doors held firm, and though he heard scrabbling by the planked windows, they weren’t broken. Room by room, he checked and cleared. In the kitchen, a quartet of men and women ate in near silence that became actual silence as Declan passed through, their hushed whispers resuming only when he passed. The library held three different students studying on their own, arclights held close to their books.

  Then he returned to the first floor and knocked on Lake’s door until she answered. “Sorry to wake you. But I have something of yours.” He’d woken due to the pain of laying on a stack of rune fragments, which he put in her hand.

  “No ‘tax’?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “No ‘shelter from the swarm’ fee?”

  “I want runes. But I want to take them myself, from beasts I kill myself. I don’t want to steal them. Though two of the beasts were already harvested.”

  “Scavenging is inevitable. I can’t identify runes but I know these monsters and what they give. These will all be Gnawing Bite, and they’re all tier one. The one I got from the oozer was a tier two Ooze. Now you know why they’re named that,” Lake said. She shuffled back over to sit down. “Fuck, I’ll never recover from trying to get back what Wormy stole.”

  “Why did it hurt when you cast those circle rune?” Declan still wasn’t right. “Felt like my guts were being knotted up.”

  “Ash and shit, I’m an idiot.” She scrunched her eyes, shaking her head. “You failed. You failed the test as an arcanist, didn’t you? Tegan didn’t say so but what she didn’t say tells me more. You tested as an arcanist and failed. Means you probably have an arcsoul, it’s just not open. That? Tiny sample of what it’s like to have your arcsoul opened the first time.”

  This was possibility. Declan considered it. “Wait. What if you—”

  “Not the first person to think of it. I can reliably lock tier four runes if I’m only using one. I usually stick to tier three because they’re second nature, and even with my arcsoul, I’m one thousandth of what you’d need, all at once. When House Domine paid for my unlocking, they had me so high on vapor I couldn’t think.” Lake shuddered. “I still feel the pain. But it’s worth it. Worth every rin, worth the oath, worth the pain. Fucking worth it. You get the chance to swear an oath, you do it. Then mana won’t ram your arcsoul like a teen boy trying to hump a thigh.” She shook her head. “I need to rest, but I’m grateful. Seriously. Not so grateful I’d climb into your bed or give you a rune, but grateful.”

  “I wasn’t asking for either of those.” He saw himself out and locked her door. That was standard, all doors to be locked. Blazed beasts could appear anywhere, at any time, and leaving one’s door open was asking to be ambushed.

  The worst part is the waiting, Harris had said. There’s nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Get a book, sit back, take a bath, take a nap. If you’re not ArCore, you’ve got no business outside.

  Declan went to work.

  ###

  True to promise, the academy had delivered an entire pallet of ‘rations,’ dried meals that even rats wouldn’t eat, but Declan’s plan was to utilize a different kind of magic. He’d assembled what Tegan called a ‘modern cooktop’ and now washed and cut, laying out the largest pan he’d bought and dicing vegetables. Thick mountain tubers colored purple, carrots that were a white-green, and a slab of meat large enough to feed a foundry, he cut and salted and set to boil.

  Declan was no cook, but working in Foundrytown, he’d learned a truth. If you boiled something brown until it turned gray and salted it like the sea, men would eat it. He added some of everything from the spice tray and at last, set it to boil and then simmer.

  Tavern tales spoke of rituals that required days. This would take a few hours, but while he waited, Declan set his mana bearing in his lap. His, the original. The others were also his but felt soft. Even worse, they hurt slightly to touch, and when he tried to push mana into them, the same force fought him, pulling it back. Everywhere else, gathering mana had been a matter of patience. Push it out, wait for it to seep back in. At Ariloch, pushing mana out was like mopping the ocean.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He’d lied to Lake.

  The desire to keep a rune-shard had been terrible and giving them to her was less an act of morality and more the action of a man desperate to not make the wrong choice. The bearing was still hot to the touch and still made of metal and still unyielding in every aspect, but the worst of the swarm was yet to come.

  So Declan cleaned, washing and scrubbing the kitchen. It was clear of rotting food but not ‘clean’ and Tegan had pronounced it archaic before delivering the new cooktop, all assembly required. As the hours passed, the stew began to smell, rich and dark, the scent of beef and the red wine he’d added.

  It was a different kind of magic.

  At the foundry commons, the cook would add fresh meat and vegetables for days, serving the same continual stew, and Declan planed to do exactly that. Probably less well, but salt rarely killed arcanists. There was probably a rune that fired crystals of salt and that would kill them but eating it normally would be ok, he hoped.

  It was only a few hours before the first group arrived, three men who had the look of first-year arcanists. The simple runes orbiting them were also a giveaway. Protect and Strike. He recognized them.

  “Is that food?” one asked.

  Declan pointed to the dried rations. “Your choice. That’s free. For stew, I’m going to need your name, your original house, how long you’re here for, and what room you’re in. I’m Declan Thorn, house arcanist for Ariloch.”

  They were from House Perth, kicked out for a party that apparently ‘got out of hand.’ Declan considered that. “How bad did it have to be for Roland to kick you out?”

  “Roland?” They exchanged glances. “What makes you think Roland is in charge of anything? He’s the house arcanist. Master Perth only made it short because the fire got put out quickly.”

  The next was a young man who didn’t even move. He ate his bowl of stew and then waited for another, drinking most of it standing. “Chen Rivers. I was born Sanswa and tolerated by Perth and now, fuck ‘em both. My Dad refused one of their ladies and I refused to be collateral.”

  Declan spent some time listening to him opine on the nature of enchantment runes and recombination theory, then kindly but firmly asked him to move. Because the four waiting weren’t ones he’d seen before. Two grown men with battle armor and active runes flanking a pair of children who couldn’t have been fourteen. One stayed with the children, the other approached. “We don’t need anything from you, this your warning we’re claiming shelter under the common truce laws of the academy. Go near the Sullivan heirs and you’ll be dead before you know we’re activating. Leave us alone and we’ll ride it out in peace.”

  That wasn’t ideal but it was tolerable. “Which rooms did you claim?”

  “We kicked the screaming couple out of third floor, top left and second. Told them if they didn’t leave they’d be screaming for different reasons. They’ve got the only secondary mana locks in the building.”

  “You stay to yourself, I’ll stay to myself. I can open any mana lock in this house but if I don’t have reason to, I won’t.” He’d been meaning to meet the two lovers and see if he could settle their quarrel or at least convince them to live in different rooms.

  As the hours filtered on, the kitchen grew more populated, and this was his moment. “Attention!” Declan shouted. “Attention! I don’t have many rules for House Ariloch. The rule I do have is this—whatever war you have going outside stays outside. Act in violence and you will be met in violence. I am the judge, I am the arbiter, there are no appeals. I’m not an arcanist but I do have command of the mana locks so decide if you want to pass this overswarm in comfort or locked in your room. I know from experience you won’t starve to death during it.”

  From the shadows of the kitchen, he watched Lake Domine watching everyone else. He had no power, he had little strength, but what he had a good sense of her, a gut feeling that said she needed safety and peace as much as anyone else.

  She didn’t emerge until almost everyone else had left, and when she did, it was to take a seat at a table where he served her. “Why do I feel like you’re relying on me as the enforcer?”

  “Because you’re the best duelist in the house,” he answered, taking a seat across from her. “Can you explain ‘duelist’? You seemed perfectly capable of killing those bats.”

  Lake’s eyes brightened as she sat up a bit more. “The only solution to a bad man with a rune is a better woman with a rune. Most of the time, houses don’t come to open war. They send a duelist to take on another arcanist who either surrenders or is made compliant and the houses negotiate. Occasionally, there’ll be an arcanist so feared they’re just straight out killed, usually by teams of duelists.”

  So that much aligned with Declan’s understanding. “My dad was an arcanist. Killed in an attack, not a duel.”

  “Do you mind asking me what his rune was?” She asked like it was sensitive.

  “Insight,” according to my mom.

  Lake thought for a moment, frowning, and studied her stew for an answer it wasn’t going to have. “Insight is useful, yes, but it’s not kill-on-sight useful. The way I see it—no. No. You’ve been more than kind.” She shook her head. “No idea.”

  That was ash mixed with shit there. “It’s just a name to me. I never knew him. Raleigh Thorn.”

  “No idea either,” Lake said. She hesitated, then bit her lip. “It’s just, if your mom wasn’t an arcanist, the most likely reason is that he lied about his soul-rune. Lots of people with a soul-rune like Strike lie about it. Hell, I know a guy with a tier five Claw. Don’t look like that, it’s a really big Claw that will fuck you up if you don’t have, say, a tier zero Protect.”

  “The arcanist hall’s records say it was Insight, too.” Declan shrugged.

  “There’s another possibility. Insight tells you about strengths and weaknesses, and it’s possible he found out a weakness someone didn’t want known. Ever. Or some strength that was being hidden so it could be used. All I can say is every duelist chooses their code. If I’m ever sent for you? Surrender. I won’t kill.”

  “I’m a house arcanist,” he said. “Nothing more.” But in his mind, he added, yet.