"As you see, our amenities are really quite good. You're located a scant two hour flight from the school…"

As the balding, far too skinny older woman who was showing me around the flat continued to extoll the virtues of her property, I started to tune her out.

I'd had two full weeks of relaxation. Two weeks of time without having to worry about hiding my bloodline, or about the impending duel with a much older and stronger member of my family, or even about having to cram before an exam.

It was lovely, at least at first. I spent time with my friends, especially Salem. We went out to get lunch, dinner, or coffee. Sometimes Yushin, Jackson, or both would join us, but not always. I wasn't sure exactly what or where Salem and I were in terms of a relationship – right now, we were just testing the waters. Last year, I hadn't had the time for romance or even deep friendship.

More recently, however, I had started looking into something new. Since I had fifty thousand silver of seed money, I'd decided that I needed to do something with it.

I could easily shovel it into components, since fifth circle components tended to run for about ten thousand silver, give or take a couple thousand on either end, depending on how desirable their traits were.

And that was just for my tools, it wasn't even discussing things like rituals. The amplify bloodline ritual, for example, required almost five thousand silver in ether crystal, a stone from the body of a greater stone elemental, the ashes of an adult phoenix's rebirth pyre, the blood of an elder sea serpent, a feather from of a king of gryphons, and the shed horn of a unicorn over a century old. Buying all of those would have drained the fifty thousand silver dry, and even then, it might not have been enough – ethically sourced unicorn horn prices fluctuated radically.

But while buying some expensive components would be useful, it wasn't what I was really looking for. I would be in the dorms for two more years, but after that, I'd be homeless again.

While, thanks to my considerably higher prowess as a mage, I was confident that I'd rarely need to go hungry again, I also didn't need to stick to backwater hamlets, away from the rest of the world in order to avoid my family anymore.

That same change was also why I was able to look at properties, as banking institutions suddenly were happy to throw their doors open to me. From small institutions like Spires Credit, to international banking coalitions, I'd moved from being not worth the risk of even letting in the door to being a valued member of society. I'd opened an account with a medium sized bank that serviced Cendel, but wasn't too focused on international politics, and they'd offered to let me put up thirty thousand silver as a down payment for a six hundred thousand silver home loan.

I'd initially thought the offer was great, and on a technical level, it was – the interest rate they'd offered was only five and a half percent, and there weren't many additional accounting, originator, or lending fees. Some, of course, but nothing crazy.

But now I'd looked at a few different places around the Citadel and the surrounding four spires, and I wasn't impressed. Property values in the middle of the second largest city in Cendel, right next to the third most prestigious school of magic globally, were absurdly over-inflated. There was a small part of me that had been hoping I'd find some sort of run down, dirty, ramshackle wreck, score it for a fraction of the original price, fix it up with magic, and move in.

Unfortunately, even the most dilapidated flats for sale in the middle of the city were too small for me to build a reasonable ritual room inside of, usually barely bigger than two or three hundred square feet. I didn't think of myself as a particularly needy person, but I also didn't want to have to rent out a ritual room every time I cast one of my rituals, so I thought it was probably too small for me.

There were, of course, dozens of townhomes, apartments, and flats that were less than six hundred thousand due to needing a bit of repairs, and that were also large enough to meet my needs. The problem was, every one of them that I'd seen was just located too far away from the school.

Like the current one. I didn't want to spend four hours a day stuck on a broom, flying to and from a home. Once I could cast the teleport spell, I would be able to look at places like this, but that was a fifth circle spell, beyond my current abilities. I might have enough ether to power a fifth circle spell, but it would leave me fairly drained, and in no shape to practice spells during classes.

Even as the woman led me into the community center, talking about how they had a communal pool inset with heating enchantments for the winter, I made up my mind. I'd stay in the dorms for at least the summer and school year, and maybe for the next one as well. If I put the thirty thousand into a two-year bond, I could probably generate an extra two thousand or so. How much of that would go to taxes…?

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My brain whirred with thoughts, dusting off the old, worn cogs of the Dreki investment training even as I thanked the woman for showing me around, went through the platitudes of complimenting the condos, and then left.

I spent most of the rest of the day working to arrange things with the bank, then headed back to campus, which was slowly beginning to put things up for the summer solstice. The solstice was still about a month away, and the solstice games would take place during the midterms of the summer courses, but people were starting to get prepared for them all the same.

Right now, the main thing that people seemed to be putting up were recruitment posters for assorted games. There was going to be something of a festival thrown throughout the city, and plenty of groups were setting up their own games, but the ones that had the official seal of the Citadel of Ether were the ones that caught my eye.

The first one I spotted was for the great treasure hunt, where a list of one hundred random assorted items would be scattered across the campus. Teams would compete in order to find and collect the items, using whatever magic they had at their disposal, so long as they didn't directly attack the other teams.

I tapped my chin as I studied the poster. Salem had taken a course in divination magic. His affinity might not be perfectly suited for it, but nor was it a poor choice, and he'd mentioned on one of our probably-dates that he'd been working on a way to split the mental feedback from arcane eyes to let him use more than one at once.

Besides, it just sounded fun, and I hadn't been able to do something just for fun for a while.

The other two major events that the school was putting on were also quite fun sounding, though neither one was a group event.

The first was a faerie fire fight, where students would be granted temporary enchanted rods of fae flame, and would then be sent to hunt one another down across campus. While the fire was entirely harmless, it glowed in a rainbow of colors and stuck to just about anything it hit. The last one standing without any faerie flame touching them would be the winner.

The second was a spell control exhibition, where students would be given increasingly difficult obstacle courses through which they guided their spells. The poster was light on details, but it bragged about being an exhibition of absolute ether shaping mastery.

All three of the events had prizes listed for coming in the top three, ranging from the shed scale of the Erudite's dragon familiar for winning the exhibition, to enchanted cloaks that bent the wind around a person to let them fly faster for placing third in the treasure hunt.

Honestly, I didn't think I stood a chance in any of them. All of them could be signed up for by anyone doing their degree, which meant I'd be competing against full fifth circle mages.

Honestly, though, that wasn't really the point of all of this. They weren't combat tournaments, they were games.

I signed up for the two solo events, then took one of the spare handouts back to the dorm. As I entered, I spotted Jackson staring intently at a piece of paper.

"What are you doing?"

The moment I spoke, the paper flashed with light, bursting into flame before curling into a pile of white and gray ash. Jackson let out a groan and leaned back in his chair.

"Ugghhh," Jackson responded, rubbing his forehead. "I was talking to Emir yesterday, and he suggested this as a method for training flame control, but it's really hard."

"Ohh," I said, walking over and picking up one of the slips of paper from a pile he had on the desk next to him. "I think I get it. You create a spark and light the paper in its center, then use your magic as the fuel to keep it burning without letting it eat the rest of the paper?"

"Yeah, exactly," Jackson said. "How did you know?"

"You can sense flame through your affinity, right?" I asked, and when Jackson nodded, I continued. "Watch."

I exhaled, releasing a single spark of my dragonfire from my mouth. It landed in the center of the paper, and I immediately started running power through two of my bloodline features. First, I released my flame through the spark, continuing to maintain the flame with my own, as if I were releasing a continual stream of flame from my mouth. Second, I began consuming the flame before it could spread further than it already had.

The magic wasn't quite the same as what Jackson was doing, as it was predicated more on our ability to release and consume flame at the same time, but there were certainly similarities. I was well out of practice – this was an exercise we were instructed to master at age five – but I had enough command over my bloodline that it came back to me quickly.

I cut it off a moment later, letting the whole paper burst to life and sucking it back in.

"It's a common training technique, at least in one variety or another," I said. "Gives you a good sense for your bloodline. Here, see if Seren can help."

It had been a little expensive to redo my familiar bonds with Seren and Orla, but it had been well worth it. I scooped the small fire elemental from my shoulder and murmured to him in flametongue, explaining the idea. Seren's fire was actually closer to what Jackson's affinity would be, and the small spirit spat out a spark, then focused on it with single minded determination.

The spark continued to glow, but didn't spread any further at all, and Jackson watched intently, nodding along.

"I think I got an idea of how to try it next time," he said. "Thank you. I've gotta learn how to bind one of you little guys. You're too cute."

"I can show you the familiar ritual and do the summoning," I offered, scooping Seren back onto my shoulder as I did.

"That would be great!" Jackson agreed. "Another day. I'm gonna try and work on this some more. Oh, by the way, you got a thick envelope with your name on it from the school. I pushed it through the slot into your room."

"Oh?" I said, then felt my eyes widen as I realized what it was. "Thank you! Got to go!"

I turned and rushed to my room, pulling my dagger from my Etherius locker and slicing the package open, allowing the contents to spill out onto the floor. Inside there were a bunch of papers related to my summer courses, some papers related to the scholarship, and the signet ring identifying me as a member of the coven of the twilight grotto.

"Finally…"

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