The yard smelled of iron and wet stone, and late sunlight pooled like a promise along the cobbles.
Kael kept his hands low, palms folded as if resting on some invisible ledge, and the Aether answered him in the small, efficient music he favoured.
He was not trying to impress, only to teach, to show children that magic could be tidy and clever, not always thunder and glare.
A circle of small faces ringed him, ragged sleeves, bright eyes, a loose dog that had adopted the assembly.
He coaxed a filament of Aether into being, a hair-thin thread that ran along the grass like a silver root.
With the slightest twist of his fingers, the thread lifted, unwinding into a row, floating specks, pinpricks of light that bobbed like a handful of captive stars.
A child reached out, a speck drifted to her palm and hovered, warm and impossibly delicate, as if reading the curiosity there.
"Make it do more," someone squealed, and Kael obliged with economy rather than show. He sketched a narrow braid that skimmed the surface of a puddle, the water parting into an arching bridge no wider than a fingertip, backlit with the pale sheen of his weave.
A little boy ran a toy horse along the water-bridge, whooped, and fell into delighted laughter when the arch collapsed in a soft ripple that left no wet on his shoes.
The courtyard filled with the small, unselfconscious noises of people surprised into joy, the children's laughter echoing in the air.
Kael watched them, quiet and pleased, in the way a man is delighted when a problem finds its clean solution.
Small things should be accounted for appropriately. That is where most of the world goes wrong, too much force where softness will do.
When at last the children dispersed, clutching specks like precious coins, a shadow moved at the edge of the yard.
The newcomer wore a mask that did not so much hide as perform, a painted grin whose expression shifted like oil on water, catching the last light and throwing it back in impossible faces.
He walked with a careful theatricality, and even his footsteps seemed to have been measured in staccato beats.
"You made them laugh," the man said as he stopped a pace away. His voice was practiced, dipped in honey and carnival dust. "That was a splendid little demonstration." The mask tipped, assuming a new expression, one of appraising amusement. "Most boys your age do fire and noise. You prefer steadiness." He inclined his head. "Marcellin Voss."
Clown Emissary, Whelm of Guildway
Kael's hand tightened once at his side. The name slid into the realm of things he had heard whispered in market alleys and at the edges of tavern gossip.
He had seen men who wore masks for coin before, he had also learned that the presentable ones asked the cleanest questions. "You're welcome to watch," Kael said. He kept his voice even.
Marcellin's painted smile quivered into something almost candid. "Were you approached by a veiled woman recently? In the river market, by the lantern stall?"
Something uncoiled at the back of Kael's mind: the veiled woman who had watched him the week before, whose silks had hidden more than features.
She was beautiful even when the veil covered her face, her essence exuding an allure that was both mysterious and magnetic.
He could hardly draw his gaze away as she walked towards him, seemingly gliding upon the surface of the water, the liquid parting gently around her, flowing like a living garment that embraced her grace.
She peered at his hands, stepped close, and murmured a single sentence.
"There is a neatness in your work. It will find footing."
He remembered the quiet certainty in her voice like a footprint in dust, echoing in his mind long after she had gone.
"Yes," Kael admitted.
Who was she, really? What power danced behind her mysterious facade?
The water whispered secrets he was yet to understand, calling him to the edge where their paths might intertwine once more.
The clown inclined his head as if the confirmation were a feather. "Good. I'm an associate of hers." He tapped the grin on his face once, theatrically. "She told me to look for you. I have looked."
Kael's throat went dry for an instant. "Why?" The question was simple, but it carried the weight of every offer he'd ever heard in the city, each one wrapped in promises and followed by hands that wanted to keep you in place.
Marcellin's mask shifted to something almost fond, then back again. "Because potential is profitable," he said plainly, the sentence bare of pretense. "Because the woman you saw has an eye for talent that makes the world sing. And because you make small work look inevitable, that's useful to those who prefer tidy returns." He paused, letting the last syllables hang. "In short, I wish to grant you a sponsorship. A seat at the Academy. Scholarship funded, professors up and ready, a name in the place that opens doors to life."
Kael looked at the man, trying to measure which part of the offer would be the price and which would be the gift.
A patron buys you a chair, and a patron also signs the chain.
He remembered lonely nights in a room, a small table with no one besides him, and people who had nothing, taking what they could. A scholarship was a dream.
"And why—why you? Why me?" His voice did not tremble, but the question carried everything behind it.
Marcellin chuckled, a sound that was all mask without malice. "Because she saw something, and because I watched you. Because the woman with the veil believes in her eyes, and I believe in the returns when talents are tended. You could be molded, lad. Useful things are both used and protected."
The courtyard seemed momentarily thin, the late light flat and lifeless.
Molded…?
He had not thought of himself as clay for another's hands, he had thought of himself as someone who could learn the forms that served him.
The offer was tempting. The Academy, a new life, a chance. But temptation had its edges.
"What are the strings?" he asked, because strings were always there, even when people called them opportunity.
Marcellin's painted grin was suddenly almost sincere. "Names write themselves, and favors write other names. There will be expectations, progress, demonstrations, and deference when a patron asks. But those are small trades for a seat at Arcane. If you climb through the ranks, I'll have my name where such things are kept, publicly noted, of course. A patron deserves his credit."
He leaned a fraction closer, lowering his tone. "And if you succeed, everything else, comfort, shelter, a place to practice without scrambling, fame, wealth, and perhaps companionship follows. The veiled woman thinks you will succeed."
Kael stared at the mask for a long beat and then at the tiny space where the children had been, the faint rings in the grass where a speck had hovered and then left.
Protection without possession. Or possession sold as protection.
He could feel the sacrifice and rewards already forming in his head, what he could gain, what he might have to surrender.
He should refuse. He should fold the offer into the pocket of polite denials and walk away into his quiet training.
But the practical part of him, trained and accustomed to measuring risks, counted his options and found the gap to be wide.
Kael folded his hands and met the clown's painted eyes. "And if I fail?" he asked bluntly.
Marcellin's grin didn't waver. "You will not." His voice was cheerful in a way that hid certainty. "Didn't I explain that the Veiled One notices talent. She places bets on seedlings that will outgrow their pots." He tipped his head, as if that settled the matter.
"Let's make this clear," Kael began, his tone steady. "First, no binding. Second, no public claims that could force my hand. And finally, the Academy's rules must remain inviolate."
After a moment of silence, he added, "Agreed?"
At the last phrase, Marcellin's mask shifted, the painted grin stretched a fraction wider, "Splendid. I hold to my word."
With that, a sheet of paper unfurled between them as if pulled by an invisible hand.
Ribbons of confetti burst from the edges in a ridiculous, celebratory scatter, the sound made the nearby sparrows take wing.
Marcellin produced a slim, black pen from the inside of his sleeve and offered it with a flourish.
Kael took the pen, set his name with a steady hand, and the signature sank into the page like a quiet promise.
Marcellin clapped once, delighted in the sound. "Splendid. A neat signature, sensible, unpretentious. Exactly what one wants in a rising talent. A pleasure to be working with you!"
Kael watched the ink settle, the quill feather trembling the last breath of black across the contract.
For a second, the world narrowed to the thin, perfumed paper in his hand and the painted smile of the clown across from him.
Confetti still twirled in lazy arcs around the courtyard as if the world had decided this was worth celebration.
Marcellin tapped the folded contract with two gloved fingers. "We'll see you placed, recommended, sheltered."
He snapped his fingers. A thin slip of soot-black ribbon, woven through with silver thread, unfurled across the stone and lifted as if alive.
It coiled once around Kael's wrist and then vanished, sinking into the skin like a cool, deliberate nick.
Kael felt it more than heard it, a small, neat pressure, like a tendon pulled tight then eased.
The sensation left no mark to see, only a faint warmth beneath the surface and a taste of iron at the back of his tongue.
Contracts were not only ink and breath in this world, they took shape where ink could not reach.
Kael's jaw tightened, the faint warmth under his skin felt suddenly intrusive.
He glared at Marcellin, voice low and hard. "My first condition was no binding. I made that clear."
Marcellin's painted smile softened into something almost conspiratorial. He tapped the spot on Kael's wrist where the ribbon had vanished, as if demonstrating a point. "And so you did," he said. "This is not a binding in the crude sense, no chains, no brands, no leash that yanks your life when you breathe wrong. Think of it instead as a whisper. A mark of placement and promise, not of ownership."
He spread his hands, palms up, the motion theatrical but careful. "Patronage in Aramont is grammar, not iron. The ribbon records an understanding. I put coin, influence, shelter beneath you, you agree to be the thing I sponsored should opportunity demand it. It creates expectations, favors, and introductions, and makes calls when it requires a signature, but it does not force your hand in secret rites. You keep your choices. You keep your body."
Kael looked down at his wrist, feeling the echo of the ribbon like a subcutaneous memory. "And if I refuse those calls?" he asked.
Marcellin's smile thinned to a line that was almost businesslike. "Then the ladder retracts, and you climb on your own. Favors are comfortable ropes, refuse them, and the world will call you proud or ungrateful, and the paths I clear will be tended to someone else. That is the blunt version."
He tilted his head, amusement glittering in his tone. "But you asked for safety from ritual binds. You have it. You asked that the Academy's rules remain inviolate. They will. And you asked for no claims upon your flesh, no veins carved into law. Consider this ribbon a courtesy, visible to those who know to read it, invisible to those who judge only by title."
"All right," Kael said finally, "But understand this, if the partnership tips into possession, I will burn that ladder down."
"Splendid," Marcellin said softly, "Not all patrons offer such careful terms. You'll find most ask more. I invest. You ascend. Later, you owe a hand. A word. A courtesy. When you reach, you will remember the hand that steadied the ladder."
"Will the Veiled One be—" Kael began, and then halted. He'd asked too much and not enough at once. Marcellin only laughed, a small, knowingly bright sound.
"In time," the clown said. "She prefers distance when watching seedlings. Patience, Mr. Arden. Everything blooms when it is ready to. Consider the arrangement set." He spun on his heel with the practiced grace of a stage player and left as quickly as he had come, the yard returning to its ordinary quiet almost at once.
As Kael stepped back, he felt the small tether under his skin, a reminder and a promise both.
He had bought an opportunity with a signature and accepted the trade. Some bargains were the only road forward.
The confetti drifted down, gentle and useless, and somewhere in the shadows a veiled figure watched with eyes that had already begun to measure.
The world will now look at me differently. It has started already. I, a commoner.
He folded his hands and let the Aether settle about him like a familiar coat, precise, measured, and waiting for whatever might be written next.
———
Moonlight sank in slow, blue wedges through the high dormitory window, painting the floor in pale ribbons.
Kael lay on his back, the mattress creaking softly beneath him, eyes fixed on the slatted shadow of the ceiling.
The room smelled faintly of strawberry from Aurelia's potions.
Never thought she could make strawberry-flavored potions. I was concerned when she asked me to taste test it, but it was actually done.
She slept across the room on the other bed, limbs loose, hair messy, her face calm and relaxed.
Was it worth it?
The question had lodged in him like a small stone and had rolled in his mouth all afternoon.
He had agreed to a patron before he'd had a chance to measure precisely how tidy the strings would be, the veiled woman's promise, Marcellin's polished grin, the deal that would follow.
Because if I don't catch up, everything up until now would be for nothing.
There were comforts to be bought with a signature. Professors, a steady place at the Academy, time not stolen by the sort of hunger that gnawed people into corners. But comfort had a price tag even when wrapped in silk.
He turned his head and watched Aurelia breathe. Her face, freed of the performance she wore by day, was unguarded, a line in her brow eased, lashes splayed, lips slack with sleep's surrender.
She made that happen. I was supposed to be indifferent, she was an obstacle, an example, an annoyance. She was to be beaten and catalogued. Instead…
Memories drifted through him, the beautiful smile she held, the dry little laugh when she'd accepted his hand after a spar, the way she had folded her thoughts so expertly into only what needed.
Small stuff. Quiet acts that did not ask for applause but rearranged the room anyway.
He thought of Marcellin's mask, the painted grin that had shifted with light, the voice that could sell certainty like a remedy, "Potential is profitable", the clown had said.
The expectations circled his mind. Public demonstrations, ticked progress, and favors owed.
He imagined his name written in neat ink, a string tied to an entry that some hand would tug to see what he did next.
And yet, the neat lines were blurred by what lay on the other side.
If I had refused, would I have found this…her?
The thought was not quite guilt, but it tugged at him in a way that made his jaw tighten. There was a selfishness to the admission.
He had taken a path that eased his hunger and, by doing so, stepped into a life that permitted small joys, like the absurd ease of being allowed to teach children how to make water part politely.
Aurelia shifted in her sleep, and something like a smile appeared. Kael found himself returning the smile in the dark, as if by reflex. Then he closed his eyes and let the night pull him at last toward sleep.
Outside, the Academy breathed on, candles guttering, distant laughter thinning, and in the hush of the dorm, Kael listened to the soft, even rhythm of Aurelia's breath.
It wasn't all bad