Chapter 4: The First Practical

The corridors leading to Workshop Three were surprisingly crowded. Killian had expected a trickle of students, but instead he found a small crowd milling around the heavy double doors, talking in the low, tense murmurs people used before a test they weren’t sure about. The air smelled like ozone and something else, a sharp, clean scent like after a lightning strike.

He spotted Elian immediately. His roommate was standing off to one side, his back nearly pressed against the stone wall as if trying to merge with it. He wasn’t looking at the other students. His eyes were fixed on the floor a few feet ahead of him, but they kept darting up to scan the crowd, then dropping back down. He had his arms crossed tightly over his chest, one hand worrying at the fabric of his robe sleeve. He looked like someone waiting for bad news to arrive.

Killian made his way over, weaving through clusters of first-years who were comparing notes on somatic gestures or nervously adjusting their focus crystals.

Elian’s head snapped up the moment Killian was within ten feet. His eyes widened slightly, a flash of relief quickly buried under a fresh wave of anxiety. He uncrossed his arms and took half a step forward.

“You’re here,” Elian said. The words came out in a rush. “Good. I was starting to think—never mind. Did you get it? The schedule?”

He didn’t specify which schedule. He didn’t need to. His gaze was already dropping to Killian’s hands, searching for a slate, a scroll, any official-looking parchment.

Killian didn’t answer right away. He just pulled the small, cool slate from inside his robe. The glowing letters on its surface had dimmed to a faint, persistent pulse, like a slow heartbeat. He held it out.

Elian took it, his fingers closing around the edges with a careful precision that suggested he thought it might bite him. He angled it toward the light from a nearby floating orb and read the inscription.

For a second, nothing happened. Then the color drained from Elian’s face all at once, leaving his skin a sickly parchment shade. His lips parted slightly, but no sound came out. He just stared at the slate, his eyes moving back and forth over the same line of text as if hoping it would change on a second reading.

“Observatory,” he finally whispered. The word was flat and hollow. “North Peak.” He looked up at Killian, his expression a perfect mask of academic horror. “Instructor Morvath.”

“That’s what it says,” Killian confirmed, keeping his voice low.

“You don’t understand.” Elian’s whisper gained a strained, urgent quality. He leaned in closer, his knuckles white where they gripped the slate. “Morvath isn’t just any instructor. He teaches Advanced Thaumaturgical Diagnostics and Applied Mana-Topography. Third-year courses, mostly. He only does remedial sessions when Valerius personally orders it.”

Elian swallowed hard, his eyes darting around as if Morvath himself might be listening from the shadows. “They say he can feel a mana fluctuation from three corridors away. That he can tell your elemental affinity just by watching you breathe. His sessions… they’re legendary. He doesn’t just test you. He dissects your magical profile layer by layer until he finds every flaw, every inconsistency.”

He looked back down at the slate as if it were a death warrant. “Dawn bell tomorrow. Of course it’s dawn bell. He likes to ‘assess students in the pure light of morning, before the day’s ambient energies create interference.’” Elian recited the quote with a grim familiarity.

Killian listened, absorbing the information without letting any reaction show on his face. Another layer of scrutiny. A more precise one. It was a problem, obviously, but problems were just things you had to work around. The immediate problem was the workshop door right in front of them.

“So he’s thorough,” Killian said quietly, taking the slate back from Elian’s limp hand and tucking it away again. “We’ll figure it out later. Right now we have this.”

He nodded toward the closed doors of Workshop Three.

Elian took a shaky breath, visibly trying to pull himself together. He gave a tight, jerky nod. “Right. Yes. The plan is still solid. I’ve reviewed the basic telekinetic cantrip seventeen times since last night. The gestures are minimal, the verbal component is a single sustained syllable. I can cast it from my station if I keep my hands low and use misdirection. The anti-cheating wards monitor for overt spell theft or direct magical interference between stations, but a subtle external nudge on the target object… it should register as background energy if I do it right.”

He was talking faster again, retreating into theory as a defense mechanism. “The key is synchronization. You need to mimic the gestures at your station exactly when I cast. Even if your aura doesn’t produce an effect, the visual correlation will sell the illusion. And for stars’ sake, look like you’re concentrating.”

“I can look concentrated,” Killian said.

Before Elian could launch into another round of detailed instructions, a deep thunk echoed from the workshop doors. The murmur of the crowd died instantly.

The doors swung inward without anyone touching them, moving smoothly on silent hinges.

A man stood framed in the doorway.

Instructor Morvath was not what Killian had expected based on Elian’s terrified description. He wasn’t tall or imposing. He was of average height and build, dressed in simple, unadorned robes of a dark charcoal grey that seemed to swallow the light from the corridor. His hair was black, shot through with strands of silver at the temples, and cut short in a no-nonsense style. His face was unremarkable—neither young nor old, handsome nor ugly. It was just a face.

But his eyes were different.

They were a pale, washed-out blue, almost grey, and they moved over the gathered students with a slow, methodical sweep that missed nothing. There was no curiosity in that look, no warmth, no impatience. It was purely analytical, like a scribe taking inventory. When his gaze passed over Killian, it didn’t linger any longer than on anyone else, but it left a strange sensation behind—a cool pinpoint of attention that felt like being measured by calipers.

Morvath didn’t speak or gesture for them to enter. He simply turned and walked back into the workshop, expecting them to follow.

The students began to file in after him, their earlier chatter replaced by a tense quiet.

The inside of Workshop Three was a large, rectangular space with a high ceiling crisscrossed by heavy wooden beams. Long worktables made of smooth, pale stone ran in two rows down the length of the room, each table divided into individual stations by low partitions. At each station sat a single wooden stool and two small pedestals made of polished brass, about a foot apart. One pedestal held a smooth orb about the size of an apple. The orb glowed with a soft, steady amber light.

The walls were lined with shelves holding an array of mundane-looking objects: blocks of wood, metal rods, clay pots, glass spheres. Everything was clean and orderly to an almost obsessive degree. There were no floating diagrams here, no enchanted tools hovering in the air. The only light came from large crystal panels set into the ceiling, filling the room with a bright, shadowless illumination.

Morvath had walked to the front of the room and now stood behind a lectern that was just as bare as everything else.

“Find your assigned station,” he said. His voice matched his eyes—calm, even-toned, and utterly devoid of inflection. It wasn’t loud, but it carried to every corner of the silent workshop with perfect clarity. “The designations are etched on the table edge. You have thirty seconds.”

A soft rustle filled the room as students hurried to find their places, checking the small engraved numbers on the stone tables.

Killian found his station about halfway down the row on the left side. Elian’s station was directly across from him on the right-side row, separated by about fifteen feet of open floor space and the other students at their own stations between them. Not ideal for subtle collaboration, but workable.

He sat on the stool and looked at the two brass pedestals in front of him. The amber orb sat perfectly still on the left one. The right pedestal was empty.

From his position, he could see Morvath at the front of the room, still standing motionless behind the lectern, watching them all settle with those pale, calculating eyes.

The exam was about to begin

When the last student had found their stool, the silence in the workshop became absolute. The only sound was the faint, almost inaudible hum coming from the glowing orbs on their pedestals.

Instructor Morvath placed his hands flat on the surface of the lectern. He didn’t lean on it. He just rested them there, a simple, deliberate gesture.

“Today’s practical assessment is elementary,” he began, his even voice cutting through the quiet. “You will each perform a basic telekinetic transfer. The object is the orb at your station. The goal is to move it from the left pedestal to the right one using only the prescribed cantrip.”

He paused, letting the simplicity of the task sink in. Around the room, some students relaxed slightly. A telekinetic nudge was first-week material, something they’d all practiced in preparatory tutoring. It was supposed to be easy.

Morvath’s next words wiped that confidence away.

“The orb is enchanted with a dampening field,” he continued, his tone unchanged. “It resists crude force. It will not respond to a simple shove of kinetic energy. You must achieve a resonant lift. This requires precise modulation of your output to match the orb’s resonant frequency. Too little force, and it will not move. Too much, or poorly tuned, and the dampening field will reject the attempt entirely.”

He looked out at them, his pale eyes moving from face to face. “This is not a test of strength. It is a test of control. And of perception. You must listen to the object. Then you must persuade it.”

A few students exchanged nervous glances. This was not the simple float-and-drop exercise they’d anticipated.

“You may begin when you are ready,” Morvath said. “You have ten minutes.” He didn’t ring a bell or give a signal. He simply stopped talking and began to walk.

He stepped out from behind the lectern and started down the central aisle between the two rows of tables, moving with a slow, measured pace. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back. He wasn’t looking at any student in particular, but his presence was a tangible pressure in the room. The weight of his gaze felt like a physical thing as he passed each station, a cool, assessing touch that lingered for just a second before moving on.

Killian kept his eyes on his own orb. He could see Morvath’s reflection distorted in the polished brass of the empty right pedestal—a grey smudge moving steadily closer down the row.

He didn’t need to look across at Elian to know his roommate would be starting now. The plan required Elian to cast first, providing the magical muscle, while Killian provided the convincing pantomime.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elian shift on his stool. Elian kept his hands below the level of the table, hidden from direct view by the low partition and his own body. His lips moved almost imperceptibly, forming the sustained syllable of the cantrip. His shoulders were tense, his focus absolute.

Killian raised his own hands, mimicking the starting gesture Elian had drilled him on last night—fingers spread, palms facing each other as if holding an invisible ball. He stared at the amber orb with what he hoped looked like intense concentration, trying to broadcast ‘listening to the object’ with his whole body.

Across the room, Elian’s spell coalesced.

It wasn’t a visible beam of light or a shimmer in the air. To anyone not specifically looking for it, it would have been nothing at all—just a slight thickening of the space between Elian’s station and Killian’s, a minor ripple in the workshop’s background magical hum. Elian was good. The effect was subtle, a gentle push of telekinetic energy meant to slide under the orb’s dampening field and coax it into motion.

Killian saw the amber orb twitch.

It was a tiny movement, a slight rocking on its pedestal as if nudged by a faint breeze. It was working.

Then the air around Killian’s station changed.

It didn’t crackle or flash. Instead, it suddenly felt dense, like wading through cold syrup. A low thrum vibrated up through the stone table into his elbows, a frequency that set his teeth on edge.

From somewhere in the ceiling beams above each workstation, a network of faint silver lines lit up—previously invisible runes etched into the wood. They pulsed once with a harsh, clinical light.

The anti-cheating wards.

They hadn’t detected spell theft; Elian wasn’t trying to copy someone else’s work. They had detected an unauthorized external magical force making contact with an examination object that was not its caster’s own.

The wards reacted not with an alarm, but with a brutal, efficient correction.

The subtle stream of energy Elian was directing across the room didn’t just fizzle out. It was violently scrambled. The wards seized the coherent telekinetic push and twisted it, shredding its precise modulation into chaotic, discordant energy before shunting it away from Killian’s orb.

The misdirected energy had to go somewhere.

It lanced sideways like a snapped cable, a jagged pulse of invisible force that struck the adjacent workstation to Killian’s left.

At that station, a girl with long braids had been carefully weaving her own spell, her hands moving in slow circles as she whispered to her orb. Her orb was already hovering an inch above its pedestal, wobbling slightly as she fought to maintain the resonant frequency.

The scrambled burst of energy from Elian’s spell hit her orb dead center.

There was no dramatic explosion. The dampening field around her orb flared a bright, angry white for a split second as it overloaded. Then it failed.

The orb shot off its pedestal as if launched from a sling. It streaked across the short gap to the stone wall behind the worktables and shattered with a sharp, crystalline pop. Shards of glass-like material and extinguished amber light pattered onto the floor.

The girl yelped, jerking her hands back as if burned. Every other student in the room flinched or gasped, their concentration broken. Heads swiveled toward the source of the noise.

Instructor Morvath, who had been two stations past Killian, stopped walking.

He turned his head slowly toward the sound. Then he turned his whole body. His pale eyes moved from the shattered remnants on the floor, to the stunned girl at her station, and then—with a slow, deliberate pivot—across the room to where Elian sat frozen, one hand still half-raised beneath his table.

Morvath’s gaze held no anger. It held only a deep, analytical interest.

He began walking again, not toward the girl with the broken orb, but back up the aisle toward the front of the room, his steps unhurried. The silence he left behind was thicker than before, choked with panic and confusion.

At his station, Killian looked down at his own orb. It sat motionless on its pedestal, glowing softly as if nothing had happened.

Elian’s help was now completely blocked. The wards were awake and actively monitoring.

He was on his own

The silence after the orb shattered was brittle enough to crack. All eyes were on the mess of glittering fragments by the wall, then on the girl whose exam had just disintegrated, and finally, with a growing sense of dread, on Instructor Morvath.

Morvath reached the front of the room and turned to face them again. He didn’t look at the broken orb. He looked at Elian.

“A containment failure,” Morvath stated, his voice still that same flat, analytical tone. “Caused by external interference with another student’s examination object.” He didn’t phrase it as an accusation. He phrased it as a diagnostic result. “The wards have logged the event. The source of the interference has been isolated.”

Elian went very still. His face was bloodless.

“Proctor Len will be notified,” Morvath continued, shifting his gaze to include the whole room. “The incident will be reviewed. For now, the practical continues.” His eyes settled back on the girl with the braids. “You will have a replacement object. After class.”

He didn’t offer sympathy or reassurance. It was just a procedural update.

Then his attention swept over the rest of them, that cool, measuring look stripping away any pretense of calm. “You have approximately seven minutes remaining.”

He clasped his hands behind his back once more and resumed his slow patrol along the central aisle, as if a minor magical accident were no more disruptive than a dropped quill.

The other students hurriedly turned back to their own orbs, their movements stiff with renewed anxiety. No one wanted to be the next thing Morvath noticed. The girl with the broken orb sat perfectly rigid, staring at her empty pedestal with wide, shocked eyes.

Killian looked down at his own untouched orb. The plan was in ashes. Elian was paralyzed, clearly terrified of triggering the wards again. The silver runes in the beams above still glowed with a faint, vigilant light. Any external magic aimed at his station would be scrambled instantly.

He had seven minutes. And two pedestals.

Morvath was walking back down the row on the opposite side from Killian now, his gaze passing over each student like a scanning lens. He would loop back around eventually.

Physical force was out. The orb resisted “crude force,” according to Morvath. A direct push wouldn’t work, even if he could do it without being seen. He needed it to look like magic.

He studied the setup. The brass pedestals were solid, fixed directly to the stone tabletop. The table itself was a single heavy slab, but it wasn’t bolted to the floor. It stood on four sturdy legs. He shifted his weight slightly on the wooden stool, testing its stability. It was solid too.

Morvath was three stations away on the other row, his back partially turned as he observed a student whose orb was vibrating in place but not lifting.

Killian let his hands hover near the orb again, resuming his pantomime of concentration. At the same time, he slowly shifted his right leg under the table. He positioned his knee against one of the table legs, right where it joined the underside of the slab.

He took a quiet breath, watching Morvath’s reflection in the brass.

Then he knocked his knee sharply against the leg.

It wasn’t a kick. It was a short, firm impact from close range, delivered with the muscle he’d built hauling scrap metal and shifting crates in the docks. The force traveled up through the leg into the tabletop.

The entire workstation shuddered. Not much—just a quick, jarring wobble that made the brass pedestals ring with a faint, high ting. It was the kind of vibration that might happen if someone bumped the table.

On the left pedestal, the amber orb wobbled with the motion. Its rounded bottom lost purchase on the polished brass for an instant. It rolled an inch to the right, reached the edge of the pedestal, and dropped.

Killian’s left hand was already moving. It had been hovering near the table surface, seemingly part of his casting gesture. As the orb fell, his hand shot out, palm up. He caught it cleanly an inch below the pedestal’s rim, the smooth glass-like sphere landing in his grasp without a sound.

He didn’t pause. In one continuous motion, he swung his hand across the twelve-inch gap to the empty right pedestal and placed the orb down in its center. He set it down gently, with deliberate care, as if guiding it through the air with invisible threads.

He pulled his hands back immediately, resting them on his knees. He let out a slow breath, keeping his expression one of focused effort now giving way to satisfaction.

The whole sequence had taken less than three seconds.

On the right pedestal, the amber orb glowed serenely, perfectly still.

Across the room, Elian was watching from behind his partition, his mouth slightly agape. He quickly looked down at his own station when he saw Killian glance his way.

Morvath had finished his observation of the other student and was turning to continue down the row. His pale eyes passed over Killian’s station. They lingered for a fraction of a second on the orb sitting correctly on its target pedestal. They flicked to Killian’s face, then moved on without comment.

He hadn’t seen it. Or if he had seen the wobble, he’d dismissed it as incidental vibration from a nervous student. The catch-and-place had been too fast, too masked by the natural movement of Killian’s “casting” gesture.

Around the room, other students were having mixed success. A few had their orbs hovering shakily in transit. Several more had orbs that stubbornly refused to move, or that shuddered and settled back down after a failed lift. The girl with the shattered orb just sat there, waiting for time to run out.

A soft chime resonated through the workshop, clear and final.

“Time,” Morvath announced from the front. He didn’t raise his voice.

The students slumped in various states of relief or despair. Those who had succeeded allowed themselves small smiles or quiet sighs. Those who had failed stared dejectedly at their unmoved orbs.

“Remain at your stations,” Morvath instructed. He walked down each row now with purpose, stopping briefly at each workstation. He didn’t touch anything. He simply looked at the final position of each orb and made a small notation on a slender slate he produced from his robe.

When he reached Killian’s station, he stopped. His eyes went from the orb on the right pedestal to Killian’s face and back again.

“A resonant transfer,” Morvath stated quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Killian met his gaze and gave a single nod. Morvath looked at him for another second longer than necessary, those pale eyes unreadable. Then he made a mark on his slate and moved on without another word.

The inspection took only a few minutes. When he was finished, Morvath returned to the lectern. “Dismissed,” he said. “Collect your personal effects and depart in an orderly fashion. Student Nyssa,” he added, looking at the girl with the broken orb. “You will remain.”

The scrape of stools and rustle of robes filled the room as students stood, gathering their bags and talking in hushed, exhausted voices about their performances and about Nyssa’s spectacular failure.

Killian stood up slowly, not making any sudden moves. He gave Elian a brief glance across the room—a look that said move normally—and then fell into line with the other students shuffling toward the door.

The hallway outside Workshop Three was chaos compared to the tense quiet inside. Students spilled out, their conversations rising in volume now that they were free of Morvath’s presence.

“Did you see Nyssa’s orb just go?” “My modulation was off by half a hertz, I could feel it…” “He didn’t even check my somatic form, just looked at where it landed…”

Killian moved with the flow of bodies, aiming to put some distance between himself and the workshop door before finding Elian to regroup.

He had just turned into a slightly less crowded side corridor leading back toward the central atrium when a hand fell on his shoulder.

The grip wasn’t rough, but it was firm and purposeful, stopping him in his tracks.

Killian turned.

The student holding his shoulder was tall and lean, with hair the color of pale wheat swept back from a sharp-featured face that held an expression of mild amusement. His robes were a deeper shade of blue than standard first-year issue, trimmed with subtle silver thread at the cuffs and collar—expensive tailoring that spoke of money without shouting it. A single emerald hung from a fine chain around his neck, pulsing softly with an inner light.

Lysander Thorne-Kaelin. Killian had seen him in the Hall of Echoes that morning, surrounded by a cluster of other well-dressed students who all seemed to orbit him like minor planets around a sun.

“Killian Thorne,” Lysander said smoothly, releasing his shoulder but not stepping back. He smiled—a thin curve of lips that didn’t reach his cool grey eyes. “Quite an interesting performance in there.”

Killian kept his face blank. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, I think you do.” Lysander glanced back down the corridor toward Workshop Three, then took a half-step closer, lowering his voice so only Killian could hear over the general chatter around them. “Most people were watching Nyssa’s little disaster. I happened to be looking elsewhere when it happened. At your station.”

He paused, letting that hang in the air between them. His gaze was intelligent and predatory, like a cat that has seen a mouse try a new trick. “I saw the table wobble. A most unusual resonant frequency to find success. Almost… physical.”

Killian said nothing. He just watched Lysander, measuring the distance between them and counting the exits in this stretch of hallway. Two. One ahead, one behind, both clogged with passing students.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Lysander continued, his smile turning knowing. “In fact, it’s better if you don’t. This is a delicate sort of situation. Morvath missed it. The wards didn’t log it. But I saw it.” He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “And what I see, I can choose to keep to myself. For now.”

He straightened up, adjusting the cuff of his perfect sleeve. “A student with your… unique background… might find the halls of Arcanum rather treacherous. All sorts of accidents can happen. Unfortunate scrutiny can arise.” His grey eyes locked onto Killian’s. “It would be a shame if something were to compromise your continued enrollment.”

He let that threat settle, his expression still pleasant. “I, on the other hand, am well-connected. I have resources. And I am always on the lookout for… interesting people. People who can do unexpected things.” He spread his hands slightly, a gesture of magnanimity. “Consider this an offer of protection. My patronage, in exchange for… future considerations. A favor, when I have need of someone who can solve problems in unconventional ways.”

He wasn’t asking. He was presenting terms. His gaze was steady, confident that he held all the leverage here, a noble’s son cornering a gutter-rat fraud with nowhere to run.

“Think it over,” Lysander said softly. He reached out again, this time just to tap the fabric of Killian’s robe over his chest, right where the slate with Morvath’s schedule was tucked away inside. “You have enough problems, Thorne. Dawn bell tomorrow, wasn’t it? You don’t need me to become another one.”

With one last cryptic smile, Lysander turned and melted back into the stream of students, disappearing around a corner without looking back.

Killian stood alone in the side corridor as students flowed past him in both directions, oblivious to the quiet extortion that had just taken place.

He had passed Morvath’s exam by cheating with his hands instead of magic. Now he had a noble’s attention, and a debt waiting to be called in. He had survived one scrutiny only to step directly into another, more complicated one.

Somewhere in this maze of stone and enchantment, Elian would be waiting for him, desperate to know what happened next. But for a long moment, Killian didn’t move. He just stood there, feeling the weight of Lysander’s words settle onto his shoulders, another kind of burden entirely, and wondering when exactly that first favor would come due