The Aeromancy class would be held, it seemed, in the Hall of Air, in a rounded, columnaded room with open windows and doorframes. The domed roof was also windowed, and droplets flicked through the openings, falling in a narrow arc on the gleaming tile floor. Dalliance stared, confused, but glancing around saw that it was being ignored by everybody else, though nobody sat in the wet: the sweeping, rounded benches encircling the presentation floor in the center of the round space were crowded by students sitting shoulder to shoulder except where it was wet.

  There was nowhere dry left.

  Dalliance didn't have any books for this class, though, so with a bit of irritation and the application of [Gust], he found himself sitting in the damp but mostly cleared stone spot closest to the dry. A curly, black-haired, slender girl who made Dalliance think of nothing so much as a mushroom sat beside him, everything she wore slim-fitting and pink, her hair trimmed off even to her shoulders all the way around her head, fluffed with the humidity.

  She seemed friendly enough, at least, tipping her umbrella to cover him too, though she didn't speak to him.

  As for him, he was too distracted to speak up by the identity of the boy on the other side of her, sitting with about a foot of space on either side of him.

  Sterling Worth. When you had a sword, Dalliance supposed, and an arming jacket of velvet, you could have as much extra space as you wanted.

  "You're not a mage!"

  Dalliance couldn't help it; the interjection spurted past his lips without his conscious decision to say anything at all having gelled yet.

  "I can see how that might be confusing."

  The other boy's voice was calm, more controlled than Daliance's own. He immediately realized that he'd made a mistake and cast [Prediction]. Walking to class surrounded by the foreshadows of dozens of pedestrians took a surprising amount of extra concentration, so while Dalliance would never say he hated his skill, it wasn't pleasant to leave it running at all times. Then again, perhaps he would need to get used to it anyway.

  "I'm sure we shan't be seeing very much of one another," continued Sterling, "except that I have a 'Survey of Magics' class. One credit. Then we shall go back to only seeing one another at a distance on the walltop, if that is your preference." The smile wasn't really there in his eyes, but his words were friendly enough.

  He leaned in.

  "I wasn't in a state to comment at the time, but I—"

  '—forgive you for poisoning me' would be the next line. Dalliance interrupted him rudely. "You're leaning practically in this poor g—lady's lap!"

  The girl in question looked awkward, as well she should. Sterling's sword pommel had been on the cusp of introducing itself to her pancreas.

  Sterling immediately pulled back, stepping entirely off the bench and pulling his sword into a more upright stance, into alignment with his leg and torso with one hand even as he bowed, gesturing with the other. "My apologies, miss. I meant no impropriety; I simply sought a private word with my acquaintance. Hunting pals, you know. Perhaps another time would be more circumspect."

  Dalliance met his eyes for an instant, and the Knight's son held the glance for his part before pivoting smoothly back to a seated position, sword no longer intruding upon the girl's space.

  "No harm done," she said, though she rearranged her skirts nervously, and seemed to edge slightly into the rainy side. "Thank you?"

  Sterling almost followed up on that, but Dalliance beat him to the punch.

  "I'm sorry," Dalliance said, "I never asked your name."

  "Oh. Well, that not im--"

  "Practically climbed into your lap, without even an introduction," Dalliance continued.

  "My name is—That isn't—" She paused distractedly. "Flounce Petite."

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Dalliance's shit-eating grin wasn't entirely faked.

  "Go ahead and get it out of your system, then!" she snapped. "My parents were hicks from the sticks who thought everyone needed to be named after the latest knobbly fashion, as if they'd ever get within spitting distance of high society."

  Heh. Said the commoner to the scion of nobility, like he was one of them. Dalliance found himself warming to her immediately. There was something refreshingly honest about someone who led with their own embarrassment.

  "Dalliance," he said. "And this is Sterling Worth. Son of Sir Vigilance Worth."

  "Oh," she said, and she blushed. "Oh no. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say anything about your names. Or," she said, turning to Sterling, with somewhat more alarm, "station!"

  "My name is pretty awful," agreed Dalliance, as if the snub towards Sterling had been of no importance. For his part, Sterling acted like her calling him one of the commons happened all the time.

  Dalliance resented his being reasonable for all of a second before realizing that was ridiculous.

  "Could be worse," she suggested, still with a weather eye on Sterling.

  "It could be worse. It could be 'Flounce'," Sterling commented drolly. He seemed to have decided to distance himself from the awkward moment through a complete ambivalent agnosticism toward the curious stares trained on him and a careful examination of the chalkboard, where the name 'Professor Drains' was written in careful, neat letters.

  Flounce looked mortified.

  The professor swooped in through the open doorway, feet curiously light on the floor, and whipped his wand in a circular motion, silencing the room.

  "Good day, students!" he said cheerfully. "My apologies for the lateness of the class's beginning, but I have other duties I perform for the college, and was delayed. Now then, I have met . . . most of you. Young master, your name, please?"

  He was looking at Sterling, like a mantis poised to strike.

  The young noble looked uncomfortable for a brief moment before standing to address the professor. "Instructor," said Sterling, "as part of my 'Survey of Magics, Theoretical,' I am to audit one class per week. Knowing nothing about aeromancy. . ."—here he gave a little humble smile—". . .and likely having never seen it properly performed. . . ."

  That was a dig at Dalliance.

  "I had hoped to take the general course for my audit."

  The instructor nodded. "On the whole, an understandable mistake," he said. "This is the Applications of Aeromancy class, in which we study the effects of Aeromancy and their causation, manipulation, etcetera. You would be looking for the Practicals class, where students pit spell against spell, in order to glean what the needs and limitations of spellcasters might be--that being the purpose of the survey class. You have missed today's, however. Better luck on Firthsday."

  As he spoke, Sterling's face went from confident to confused, then colored to a dull, embarrassed red.

  He gathered his things with deliberate movements, gave a short, stiff nod to the professor, then turned and made his way across the open room towards the hall, towards the exit.

  Dalliance found himself glaring at the columned doorway even after Sterling had passed beyond it.

  "History between you two?" said the instructor.

  Dalliance realized he was scowling. He really needed to work on his facial expressions.

  "Same hometown," he said shortly, and the instructor didn't press the matter.

  Thank the gods for small mercies.

  "Now then," said the professor. "as we have managed the irregular matters, back to aeromancy. You'll only have me once a week, so we'd best make the most of our time. Aeromancy is a fractious discipline. There are many, many ways to go about utilizing your aeromancy, whether it be through divination, the different movement and concealment spells, sonomancy, or cryomancy. There have even been notable pyromancers among our ranks."

  At the confused looks he received, the professor explained, "Your innate nature governs what you yourself can source. For an [Aeromancer], this is air. However, there is nothing preventing you from learning spells that contain some fire, for example, that also contain some air, and sourcing that fire through means of a focus, or the mundane expedient of building one, and then maintaining that fire with an airflow to feed it. Because, as you will all remember, fire requires air, or it is snuffed out."

  Dalliance leaned forward slightly, his frustrations with Sterling beginning to fade from the foreground.

  "Similarly, one may kick up droplets of water from a surface. The spray will bring with it some water mana, as of course, water contains . . . ." He gestured to the class.

  "Water aspect," said several students, though certainly not enough to be considered a chorus.

  "Just so. Water and fire do not cancel out air. They are, in fact, sister elements, one step removed from it. Similarly, the elements that contain air may be expressed with even more ease and greater facility. Light contains air and fire, because Light is Revelation and Fire, and Revelation is Air and Fire. One need only think of it as two fires and an air. You can source that air, and your class will allow you to select spells from that type. You're not limited to what your class selects for you," he chuckled.

  That was not what Dalliance was expecting to hear.

  "The truly wise," the professor said, "use workarounds for all sorts of things that the System did not, in its wisdom, see fit to grant us. Through rites, and potions, and foci, a wizard can do most of what the other classes can do, save those who pull directly on divinity."

  "Yes," he said, answering a question no one had asked. "I only except divinity. We can be strong like fighters. We can be as fast as scouts, and as indomitable as ogres. Even we Aeromancers. What the System doesn't give you, you'll have to take for yourself."