And while it was maybe within the realm of possibility that Lee had contacted me… and then cut off the reflection… for entirely unrelated reasons, it didn’t seem likely.

“It’s whats-her-face,” Steff’s voice whispered in my… and probably everybody else’s… ear. “Regina Twatwaffle the Third.”

“Who?” I whispered.

“I don’t know her real name,” Steff said. “I don’t like her enough to remember it. You know… Roderick or whatever her name is.”

“Who?” I repeated.

“The head RA.”

“Gwen Rodrigues?” Amaranth said.

Instinctively, I looked all around the room… it was just what you did when an authority figure turned up outside your door. You tried to figure out what you were about to get in trouble for, and if you could do anything about it. But none of us smoked anything. Being Two’s roommate meant there would never be alcohol or other contraband in the room… at least, not openly.

I found my quick visual search of the room ending up at Steff.

“I’m clean,” she said. “Ish. I’m not carrying anything. I don’t even have my prescribed potions on me.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It’s cool,” Steff said. “There have been plenty of times everyone with me would have been completely and totally fucked with a red-hot poker if we’d been searched.”

“Miss Mackenzie,” Gwendolyn said. “I can hear you whispering in there. Please open the door.”

I looked at Amaranth and Ian for ideas. Obviously we had to open the door, but I wanted to know just what I was opening myself up to. Lee wouldn’t have tried to get me away from campus because of a visit from the head RA. Had he become privy to some plan to get me expelled on some trumped-up charge? That didn’t seem likely… if it were something so banal, it seemed more likely that he’d want to use it to build a case against the school than try to sneak me away from campus before it could happen.

“I’m afraid that Mackenzie is not available at the moment,” Two called out with a smoothness I wouldn’t have imagined her being to employ in the name of the truth, much less an obvious lie. “What is this regarding, please?”

“Who is that?” Gwendolyn said. “”Two? Is that Two? Is Mackenzie with you?”

“Mackenzie is not available at the moment,” Two repeated with the sort of automatic grace that only a really graceful automaton could muster. I realized she wasn’t lying, per se… she was just following a well-established bit of protocol for dealing with potentially unwanted solicitations and inquiries. “Is there a message I can give to her?”

“Two, open this door.”

“Would you like Ms. Mackenzie to contact you?” Two said.

“Two, you had better open this door.”

“If you want to inspect the room, you have to give twenty-four hours notice or have an immediate cause for suspicion,” Amaranth said. “And I don’t think you have that.”

“How about a bunch of fresher girls who won’t open the door when they’re told to?”

“That’s pretty circular, as reasons go,” Amaranth said. “We mean no offense or disrespect to you, Gwen. I’m sure you’ve been put in a difficult spot here, and we don’t want to make things harder for you but we have reason to be protective of our rights. Maybe we should find out what our lawyer thinks we should do?”

“What? Why are you talking about lawyers?” Gwendolyn said. “I just want Mackenzie to open the door so I can talk to her like a human being… um, talking to another being.”

“You’ve already been told more than once that she’s not available, so your insistence is kind of baffling,” Amaranth said. “And a little threatening. If you’re not going to take Two’s offer to leave a message, I really think we should be talking to our lawyer.”

“Two? You know that the matron of Hearts of Clay told me I can reflect her any time if I think you’re having a problem?” Gwendolyn said. “I’m concerned about you, Two. I think you need to open this door.”

“I’m fine,” Two said.

“We’re going to be contacting our attorney now,” Amaranth said, nodding towards the mirror that was still in my hand. “If you’d like to tell us what exactly you want from Mackenzie, of course, maybe we can avoid that.”

“Nice try, Miss Smarty-Pants…”

“I’m actually kind of offended by that epithet,” Amaranth said.

“I know Mackenzie’s in there,” Gwendolyn continued, “and I know your mirrors aren’t working, so stop stalling and open the door.”

Icy fingers wound themselves around my heart as I opened and closed the compact. I couldn’t raise anything but my own image inside the mirror.

I know your mirrors aren’t working. Plural mirrors. There was only one mirror in the room that was actually spelled up to anything, but whoever was blocking mine didn’t know that and wasn’t taking any chance. That meant it wasn’t Pendragon & Associates simply deactivating it for whatever reason… that wouldn’t have been good, but this was worse.

Scary worse.

“Who sent you?” I asked. It was the sort of question I should have felt ridiculous asking, but I didn’t. Things were way too fucking serious for that.

“Mackenzie, there are some men who’d like to talk to you downstairs, in my office,” she said.

There was something about the way she said men that really hammered it home. These weren’t just people who happened to be male. They weren’t boys who’d grown up. They were men, as in what one sent round or issued forth. Troops or agents or officers.

“IBF, or Law?” I asked her.

“I was trying to have this conversation in a way that would respect your privacy, but since you won’t be helped… I don’t think anybody wants to arrest you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.

“No,” Ian called. “If they were going to arrest her, they’d let her talk to her lawyer.”

“Dee’s downstairs,” Two whispered, her eyes wider than usual. I really hoped Gwendolyn couldn’t hear her through the door, as she was better at the theory of whispering than the practice. “She says there are men in the dorm office. They’ve cleared out the basement. She also tells me to be more quiet. I am being quiet, Dee. I’m whispering! She apologizes that she can’t reach Steff…”

“Please tell them I’ll be down in a few minutes, when I’m done changing,” I yelled towards the door.

“I don’t think it’s wise to keep these gentlemen waiting, Mackenzie,” Gwendolyn said.

“So go tell them!” Ian said.

“She’s heading towards the stairs,” Steff said. “Shuffling, kind of slow. Like she’s afraid of missing something interesting.”

“Two, can you find out from Dee what the men look like?” Amaranth asked.

“She says she cannot see them at the moment from her vantage point, but she saw a pair of colorful black robes.”

“Colorful… black?” I said, trying to picture it. All I could come up with was black with rainbow trim or something.

“Dee doesn’t see things like we do,” Steff said. “Just take it to mean black with black and shades of black.”

“Diabolists?” Amaranth guessed.

“Maybe in a secondary way,” I said. “But they’ve got to be Imperial agents… I really doubt I’d be important enough for someone to make this kind of move without official backing.”

“Dee says there are also men in suits who do look like Imperial agents,” Two said. “She apologizes that the robes stuck out more to her.”

“Things can’t be too serious,” Steff said. “Dee’s only apologized twice… let’s not take anything for granted, though. These guys could be working for the Shifter royals and Regina’s going along because she wants to believe you’re in deep shit with the actual authorities.”

“Yeah, no fucking way should you go down to them,” Ian said. “Make them come up and get you. Whatever they want, you should make them do it in front of witnesses.”

“Like anyone on this floor who isn’t in this room is going to care,” I said.

“We’ll make a fuss that goes up and down all four floors,” Ian said.

“Because the building’s full of people who’ll care?” I asked.

“If they don’t care about you in particular, they’ll care about Imperial goons storming in and dragging someone away,” Steff said. “Remember when you got yourself labyrinthed and everyone rallied together?”

“Yeah, that made a nice break from being a total pariah,” I said. “How long did it last, again?”

“You were totally still a pariah,” Steff said. “See, the thing is, people weren’t rallying for you so much as they were rallying against the school… the big, faceless institution that had been so arbitrarily shitty to you… and could, by extension, be shitty to them. Even people who perpetuate injustices don’t actually like injustice in general.”

“That’s a little cynical, but I think Steff’s right, in essence,” Amaranth said. “They’ll have a hard time bringing you out of the building against your will without involving the rest of Harlowe.”

“That’s probably why they want you to go downstairs,” Ian said. “They can get you that much closer to an exit before there’s any chance of a disturbance.”

I could see it happening… Shiel and Celia and others taking exception to Imperial aggression in the dorm and deciding to make an issue of it. I could also see it going very, very badly for them.

There were other students in the dorm who could be more of a threat. There was a gorgon and a gargoyle, half-ogres and at least one minotaur. The more students were being trampled in the fray, the more likely that they’d be drawn into the fight or would jump in to protect someone they cared about.

Someone like that could do a lot of damage before they themselves were taken down… and they would be taken down, because we were talking about the highly trained agents of a particularly powerful arm of a vast imperial power. Even if all of Harlowe came together and devised a plan to take all the agents downstairs by surprise and were able to defeat them completely, we wouldn’t win.

It would be like the goblins trying to deal with the armies of the old empire. We couldn’t do more than trim the metaphorical fingernails of the hand holding a sword to our throats.

“I have to go down,” I said.

“Baby, you can’t,” Amaranth said.

“If I make them come up here… if I make it into a fight, we’d never win it,” I said. “And if we did, it would be worse. I’m not going to pull Harlowe into a war when we don’t even know what we’d be fighting, or why.”

“There is more than one way out of the building,” Ian said.

“Not without going downstairs,” I said. “I can’t imagine they don’t have the nexus door covered, even if I don’t have to go all the way down to the basement to reach it.”

“Well, actually, I meant there’s more than one way out of the room,” Ian said, looking towards the curtain covering the window. “Even if it wouldn’t be much of an exit for anyone else…”

“Maybe too much of an exit for anyone else,” Steff said.

“So I jump out of the window,” I said. “Then what?”

“Then we get in touch with Lee Jenkins and figure out how to hide you until he’s worked out what’s what,” Ian said.

“Except that I wouldn’t last five minutes out there,” I said. “They know what room I’m in. They know a fall won’t hurt me. There’s no way they won’t be watching… that, and it’s freaking cold out there, and I don’t deal well with cold.”

“You can’t just walk down and hand yourself over to them,” Amaranth said. “Baby, I want to believe they have good intentions, but their conduct isn’t really supporting that. And Lee wouldn’t have tried to spirit you away… especially when it’s so obvious he wasn’t supposed to be contacting you… if they just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“There isn’t really another choice,” I said.

“What if I forbid you to?” Amaranth asked.

“If you order me not to… then I can’t keep being yours,” I said. “Because I can’t stay up here and let the building be torn apart to get to me. I mean, even if they just launched an assault on the room… you’d be okay, Amaranth, no matter what happens, but Two and Ian and Steff are mortal.”

“I wouldn’t be okay if I lost you!” Amaranth said. I realized that while she had the least to fear directly, she was the most afraid. Steff and Ian were determined that we should be defiant and fight somehow. Two was surprisingly calm, considering all the authority-resisting that was going on.

I… speaking in public frightened me. Being hungry frightened me. Losing control frightened me.

The powers that be wishing me harm? That was life. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Law could do anything to me, because when push came to shove I was pretty sure they’d shove hard… but I’d grown up thinking of the gods themselves as enemies. I was actually sort of used to the idea that someone had both the desire and power to just reach out and end me.

That’s how I ended up being the one to reassure Amaranth rather than the other way around.

“You won’t lose me,” I said as something vaguely resembling a plan began to take shape. “Look, I don’t really have a choice here, but we can be smart about this… they obviously don’t know Dee’s down there…”

“They know she’s there,” Two reported. “They don’t know where she is, though. It bothers them. They’ve decided she’s not important, she can’t interfere with them without revealing herself and when she does they will ‘nail’ her.”

“Okay, well that’s one ace halfway in the hole,” I said. “And you’re the other one. We’ll go down together. You’re my witness. They can’t do anything to you… they can’t lock you up, they can’t even mistreat you. The Department of Law might not have to worry about legal niceties, but they’ll respect the power behind the legal protections nymphs have… especially since they know you’re one of Mother Khaele’s favorites.”

“I don’t know if I’m…”

“She went on TV to bitch about you to million of strangers,” Steff said. “You’re her favorite, babe. No worldly power could stand up to the shitfit she’ll throw if they don’t treat you right.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Amaranth said. I only hoped that they believed it. It seemed very likely that they were eavesdropping on us, though there was a chance that they wouldn’t be able to… the quickest and most effective ways of shutting off all ethereal communications from the room would also be the least selective. In cutting us off, they might have closed their own windows into the room.

The thing that was bothering me, though, was that it didn’t seem very likely that they would’ve forgotten that my girlfriend was a nymph, and they wouldn’t have taken into account her divine mother when they’d planned this operation, whatever it was. It seemed like they’d been counting on the idea that I would have opened the door to Gwendolyn and followed her downstairs without too many questions… which I really might have done if not for Lee’s warning.

But they weren’t abandoning their plan, which meant it couldn’t be something that relied entirely on surprise.

“Where’s Gwendolyn?” I asked Steff.

“She went into the stairwell,” Steff said. “I can’t really sort out sounds past that. I don’t think there’s anyone on the floor who’s not supposed to be.”

“Let’s do it, then,” I said. “Dee, if you can get in touch with Amaranth when we get closer, that’ll be great, but stay in contact with Two. And if you can do anything like a scream that’ll carry to everyone around you, be ready to do that if you have to.”

“She says she believes she could reach most of all three adjoining buildings if she needed to,” Two said.

“That’s good,” I said. “If it’s not just Harlowe involved, I think it’ll be better for everyone.”

“And I’m supposed to just sit on my hands, I suppose,” Ian said. “I should get used to that… strike that. I hope I have a chance to get used to it.”

“No, as soon as we’re gone, start trying to get a hold of Lee… try taking the mirror out of the room, try using the one in the hall, try borrowing a mirror or ball, whatever,” I said. “And Steff… if things go badly, you need to be ready to run.”

“What, like… away from the bad things?” Steff said. “Pull the middle one, Mack… it has bells on.”

“If they’ve got a cordon or perimeter or whatever set up, you have a better chance than anyone except maybe Dee of actually getting away,” I said. “You can spread the word on campus, then try to meet up with Lee or alert the media or something. I’d tell you to try to get away from here now but there’s nothing distracting them and they might just zap you on principle.”

“It’s not like we’re fugitives or this is a crime scene,” Amaranth said.

“No, but they’ll know her as a friend of mine and if they see her fleeing they’ll blast first and ask questions of her spirit,” I said. “Law doesn’t exist to uphold the laws, it exists to fight chaos. If we’re opposing them, that’s us. That’s why we don’t oppose them… we go along, but we do what we can to protect ourselves. It’s the only way.”

“Are you sure about this, baby?” Amaranth asked.

I was about to say that no, of course I wasn’t, but Ian stopped me by stepping around behind me and putting his hands on my shoulders.

“Look at her,” he said. “Do you think she’s ever been more sure of anything?”

“Not counting things she was completely wrong about,” Steff said. “Obviously.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just hope I’m not completely wrong about this,” I said.

Soon: …

A word from the author:

Hey, all! For those of you who only come when there’s a new chapter up, we’re in the midst of the Onliest Annual Tales of MU Roommate Fundraising Derby! As outlined in the post preceding this one, I’m letting readers vote with their dollars about who will fill out a four person suite with Amaranth and Mackenzie on one side and Two on the other: Dee (current favorite), Steff, or Hazel (the underdog). As a further incentive, I’ll be writing more stories about Mackenzie’s lost/estranged family as fundraising benchmarks are hit.

See here for all the details!

Sunday, Astera 20th 222

Dear Diary,

On Sunday I have breakfast with Mack and Amaranth.
Steff is not there because she is sleeping in.
When I go to get my food, I notice that there are labels on the doors on the side of the end of the dessert island.
One of them says “bubble gum”.

I do not think that bubble gum is actually a food but I think that I could be mistaken.
I open the doors and find tubs of ice cream, including bubble gum ice cream.
I had thought that ice cream is not for breakfast, but the food services people only leave the breakfast things out in the morning so I must have been mistaken.
I get a bowl of bubble gum ice cream.
I put an extra scoop in because I have been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

When I get back to the table, Mack starts to say something and I am afraid that I will be told that bubble gum ice cream is not for breakfast.
Amaranth stops her and she is told to get some ice cream.
She gets a very small amount of butter pecan.
It is not my place to tell her that she isn’t very good at following orders.

Our friend Celia arrives.
She asks Mack what the fuck happened to her.
I do not think anything the fuck happened to Mack.

I finish eating.
I tell the others that I am finished and say goodbye to them.
I am asked what the fuck happened this weekend.
I tell Celia that we went to town and I was good and got taffy.
I am asked what I’m doing now.
I tell Mack that I am going to my room.

I am asked if I would like to come to the library with Mack and Amaranth.

I would.

I am told to come to the library with Mack and Amaranth.

I am asked if I would be comfortable with an order to do what I like.

I would not.

I wait for Amaranth and Mack to finish eating since we are going to the library.
I start to have to pee but Amaranth and Mack are going to the library and I have been told to go with them.
It isn’t very far to the library and the library has bathrooms so this isn’t a problem.

We walk slowly because Amaranth beat all the self-loathing out of Mack’s bottom.
I hold hands with Amaranth and Amaranth holds hands with Mack.
It feels nice.

I still have to pee, though.

Amaranth says that Mack is an intelligent person.
I say that I think she is very smart and she is the smartest person that I know.
I am told to keep an open mind to the possibility that somebody could be smarter than Mack.

I do so.

Mack is still the smartest.

She stops walking and Amaranth almost trips.

Amaranth asks her if she is okay, honey.
She is.

They talk about intelligence.
I still have to pee and we aren’t moving.

Mack says that Amaranth is very smart and she is the smartest person that she knows.
Amaranth and Mack both laugh at this.
I start to cry because I think they are making fun of me.
Amaranth says that Mack was making fun of her, not me.

I was mistaken.

I tell Amaranth that I do not think I like people making fun of me.
I am asked if people make fun of me often.
I tell Mack that they do not often but sometimes.
I am told to ask people to stop making fun of me, if it’s safe to do so.
I am asked who would make fun of me.

I tell Mack that Maliko would.

I am told to tell Maliko that she’s hurting my feelings the next time that she says something that makes me feel bad, and to ask her to stop.
I look for clarification from Mack but she doesn’t have any.

I really have to pee.

I tell Amaranth I need clarification about if we are still going to the library.
She tells me that we are.
I am asked why I asked, with the clarification that Mack means why I needed clarification.
I tell her that I would need to find another bathroom somewhere else if we weren’t, soon.

We go to the library.

Amaranth runs with me up to the second floor.
It’s okay to run because it’s an emergency.
Mack still can’t run.
Amaranth comes into the bathroom with me to make sure I am okay.
She says she has never been in the girls’ bathroom in the library before.
I am told to never, ever go into the boys’ room in the library basement ever, especially after dark.
I am not supposed to be in any boys’ bathroom, any time, unless I’m cleaning it and nobody else is in it.

I am not supposed to describe when I go to the bathroom.

I feel better afterwards.

I am told to wash my hands with more soap.
I thought I had used enough soap but I was mistaken.
I am told to wash my hands again just to be sure they are clean.
I am already sure that they are clean but I am not any less sure after I finish washing.

I don’t think I like going to the bathroom with Amaranth.

We go back downstairs and into the entranceway.
Mack is upset about something and she has posters.
She is asked what happened.
Mack tells Amaranth that she either mugged the social committee or she volunteered to put up posters.
I think it’s more likely she volunteered.

Amaranth says that bingo night could be fun.
She shows me the poster.
I am told to come to bingo night every Wednesday during fall term.

I am asked if I would like to go to bingo night, ignoring any commands.
I tell Mack I would like to.
I ask her if she would like to go with me.
I am asked if I would like her to go with me.
I clarify that I wouldn’t like her to go if she wouldn’t like to go.
I am told that she wouldn’t mind going if it made me happy.
I tell her that I wouldn’t be happy if she wouldn’t be happy being there.

We are told that we are adorable and we are both going.

Amaranth is going, too.

Amaranth says that it is date but Mack says it is a plan.
She says that she would not date me because I am like her sister.

I
I
I had thought that I was like her friend but I was mistaken.

I am asked if I am okay.
I try to tell Amaranth that I am but I am still figuring out my mistake so I only nod.
I am asked if I can walk.
I nod.
Amaranth takes my hand.
I am taken back inside the library and sat down.
Mack is asked if she’s sure I’m okay.
She isn’t.

I tell Amaranth and Mack that I am okay.

They both go away.
I do not mind because I am like Mack’s sister and I know they will be back.

Mack comes back with some books which she starts to read.

She says my name.
I respond.

She says she never noticed that my runes look like my name.
She says that it is interesting.
I had thought that there was nothing interesting about me but I was mistaken.
I see that her books are all about golems.

I ask for clarification about why she is reading about golems.
She says that it is interesting to her because she wants to understand me and my situation, because she wants to help me and that means she has to know about golems.

That makes sense because if I am like her sister then she is like my sister.

I go to find books about demons so that I can understand and help her.
I find a book that looks like it will be the most helpful because it is the biggest and bring it back to the table.
It doesn’t have a title.
I start to read.
I may have been mistaken about the helpfulness. The book is very large and in old script that is in a code and there are pages that are nothing but illustrations.

I am asked what I am doing with the book.
I tell Mack that I am reading about demons because I W_A^NT to help her and I ask her if I am doing it wrong.
I don’t know much about being like a sister.

Mack takes the book away and closes it.
I am told that I don’t need to know about demons and I can’t help her and demons are evil.

I tell her that I think she is mistaken.

I am told that she is not mistaken and she could hurt somebody, or me.

I tell her that she is mistaken and she couldn’t.

I am told that she could.

I tell her that she couldn’t.

I tell her that I would like the book back, please.

She gives it to me.

I work on reading the book until we leave.

When we get to Harlowe we help Mack put up the posters.
Senior Resident Assistant Gwendolyn Rodrigues asks Amaranth and Mack if it’s really right for them to make me carry posters.
I tell her that I like to help Mack.
We put up posters in the downstairs lounge and the hallway and the stairwells.

When all the posters are done I hold Mack’s hand.

I spend the afternoon hanging out with Mack.
I would like to decipher the book but I like hanging out with Mack more.
She watches TV and I watch her so that I know how to act like her sister.
I don’t really see anything different.
I decide that I will have to think about this some more.

I have been told to apply to work at the food court when I have time but I am busy hanging out until dinner.
At dinner Celia asks Amaranth if she will move in with Mack now that Puddy is moving out.
I think that I would like to move in with Mack but I am not asked.
Celia says that Barley moved out of her room and isn’t coming back.
Amaranth is sad, I think because Barley is like her sister.

After dinner Amaranth has to go to work.
I go back to the food court but it’s closed.

I study the book until it’s time to go to bed.

I want to help Mack.

I stared around blankly, hoping for a sign of where I was supposed to be. Luckily, somebody spotted me and took pity on me.

“Hey, frosh!” a sharp, but not hostile, voice said. I spun around and saw a preppy-looking guy without any baggage. “What you looking for?”

“Uh… Harlowe?” I said.

I caught a look that was a mixture of surprise, disgust, and fear, but he hid it pretty fast. He pointed to a set of double-doors leading to one of the hallways.

“Thanks,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as I could. He had helped me, after all.

I lugged my suitcase, backpack, and duffel bag down the hall. The staircase was easy to find, and it took me down to a big glass-fronted common room that was positively packed with people.

Surprisingly little sunlight reached in through the windows. Most of the people there were sitting around in the second-hand sofas and chairs, or just milling around. It looked like most of them had already checked in. There were three lines of people leading up to the long reception desk, but the longest one only had four students in it and they were all moving quickly.

Fragments of conversation reached me over the general murmur and buzz as I got in line.

“I’m actually taking nineteen hours of classes this semester. That seems like a lot. Does that seem like a lot to you?”

“You know, this was my safety school.”

“Can you believe they don’t even let us have candles in our dorm? How are we supposed to…”

“Did you see the weapon policy? They’re pretty strict.”

“Name?” the woman asked me when I got up to the counter. She had a name tag that read “Gwendolyn Rodrigues – Resident Advisor.”

“Mackenzie Blaise,” I said.

“Is Mackenzie your first name or your last?” she asked me, turning away from me to a table against the back wall, covered with large envelopes.

“First,” I said, adding unnecessarily, “Blaise is my last name.” What can I say? It was my first day at college, and I’d already made what felt like one giant blunder, even if nobody knew about it. I was the tiniest bit nervous.

She found the packet labeled “Blaise, Mackenzie” and handed it to me.

“This is a copy of your class schedule, a calendar of events, coupons for the student union, and emergency listings,” she said. “Now, you’ll need to read and sign this statement about compliance with the university’s weapons policy.” Even though she was obviously a student and only a few years older than me, she already had the voice and facial expression of an officious bureaucrat. I could tell that being an R.A. was only one step in what would doubtless be a very fulfilling career for her in the field of interfering with others’ lives.

“Of course,” I said, barely glancing at the slip of paper before signing it.

“And, of course, I have to see the weapon you’ll be using.”

I reached into my coat and pulled out the knife, the twisted bronze hilt protruding from a lambskin sheath, and laid it down on the counter.

“That’s your main weapon?” she asked me, eyebrows raised.

“It’s the only one I’ve got,” I said, with a silly grin.

“Only it’s not very big, is it?”

“I’ve never been much impressed with size,” I told her.

“It’s barely enchanted,” she observed. I wondered if she could tell that at a glance, or if there was something under the counter telling her that.

“The policy I read just said a magical weapon, it didn’t specify how magical it had to be,” I pointed out. I’d been expecting this reaction, but it didn’t make it any less irksome.

“It’s just… life on campus can get dangerous…”

“I’ve never needed anything bigger,” I said testily.

For a few moments, she looked at me like she wanted to say something… like she was going to invoke some little-known rule to throw me out until I came back with one of those absurdly huge broadswords or big spiky maces, but finally she just said, “All right. But there’s a nice little weapon store in town, if you change your mind.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said.

She held out a small manila envelope slightly larger than a business card.

“Here’s your room key and a pass card to get in and out of the building after dark,” she said. “Though it’s best not to wander around campus too much at night. Stick to the lighted paths, and travel with a friend as much as possible. It’s all in your campus security pamphlet.”

“Yes, thank you, I’ve read it,” I said, reaching for the packet. She still looked doubtful, but she finally handed it to me.

“You’ll be needing this back, too,” she said, handing me my knife, hilt-first.

“I’m actually hoping I won’t.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said. “Welcome to Magisterius University, Ms. Blaise.”