Confessions of the Magpie Wizard Book 3: Dissolution (Chapters 7 & 8) (Patreon)

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Chapter 7

Being the early bird had its advantages, besides putting on a good show for Mr. Maki. It let me observe the comings and goings of the class. For example, Yukiko Sato, the heiress to the unfathomably wealthy Sato conglomerate, had historically beaten me to class as often as she hadn’t. Since she had cleared the air with Hiro Takehara, though? The short girl seemed to keep arriving later and later, and always with Hiro in tow. And did I detect a few hairs out of place? Oh my, what had those two been up to? 

I dismissed that idea out of hand. Those two? They had probably been holding hands. Why, a month on, they might have almost been up to hugging, or blowing each other kisses. I’m sure they would have been scandalized I was even thinking anything untoward about them. It made me glad she had rejected me. I’d have never gotten anywhere with her. 

A few other familiar faces turned up. Rafal Kowalski, who was most noteworthy for his disobedient affinity, which took on the form of a shadowy beast he simply called “Buddy.” Leo Hernandez, a frequent dueling partner during combat training. He was almost getting to the point where I had to struggle against him. Almost. Rose arrived too, chatting with some girls I didn’t know well. She gave me a wave, but didn’t interrupt the flow of her gossip. My time as Junko made me wonder how often I featured in her stories. It might explain why some of the other girls tittered behind my back. 

And of course, there was favorite familiar face of the bunch. I waved Kiyo over. 

“Hi Magpie!” She leaned in and hugged me around the shoulders. It was the most public display of affection that Mr. Maki would allow, and I could feel his eyes on us, daring us to try anything untoward. 

“My, aren’t you enthusiastic!” Such a pity. Kiyo was looking positively adorable, with her tied up, letting me get a really good look at her dark, soulful eyes. I wanted to get lost in them. Instead, I satisfied myself with squeezing her hand. “You’d think it had been a year since you’d seen me.”

“The minutes feel like years. Besides, I can’t quite talk when Rose is around.”

“Oh? Where did you get that idea? Seems to me you just about told her your SatoChat password, you were disclosing so much.”

She cocked her head. “Did I do something wrong?”

“I’m just saying, if I’m not telling her a story, there might be a reason.”

Her brows knit as she parsed my words. “Why wouldn’t you tell her about Roger?”

“The poor girl already has a lot of missing friends and loved ones from England,” I replied. “No sense burdening her with more if I don’t have to.”

“Oh!” Kiyo’s hand flew over her mouth. “See, this is why I need you, Magpie. I don’t think about these things.”

“It’s alright, my dear.” I didn’t feel a stab of guilt at the lie. Devils don’t feel guilt, after all. “Let your Magpie sweat the big stuff.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you about that,” she said. “When do I get my cute nickname?”

“Hm? Come again?”

“Well, I’ve been calling you Magpie for ages, right? But you haven’t come up with anything for me yet. Calling me ‘my dear’ all the time doesn’t count. You call all the girls that.”

I was grateful for the light topic. “Well, what should I call you?”

She shook her head, sending her tied hair bouncing. “Nope, doesn’t work like that. Boyfriend/girlfriend contract, you have to come up with something cute on your own.”

“I’m at a distinct disadvantage with that,” I said. “I didn’t exactly have an upbringing that encouraged such things.” The closest Mother came to a pet name for me was the time I broke her favorite vase playing with an old baseball I’d found. She’d been so beside herself that she kept calling me “Boy” over and over again. 

“Oh, because you’re a cutiemuffin. Gotcha.” She tousled my hair. “It’s okay, Magpie. I know you’ll come up with something good.

“I never agreed to that cuttiemuffin nonsense,” I griped. I was grinning too much to sell it, though.
 “Who’s a cutiemuffin now?” In my conversation with Kiyo, I’d missed Mariko approaching. We were assigned to sit together on the second row of the amphitheater style seating. Kiyo shifted aside to let her sit. “Kiyo, I don’t think a grown man would appreciate that kind of talk.” 

“Magpie’s enjoying himself.” Kiyo scowled at Mariko from behind while she gathered her books from her shoulder bag. She didn’t care for Mariko talking down to her. She used the same tone when correcting naughty children at the Serving Wizard’s Home. Well, at least she had until a Holy Sister impersonating Rose had demolished it with a hurricane. Kiyo seemed to get the brunt of her repressed motherly instincts.

Mariko straightened up, giving me a clear look at her. My eyes drifted down for just a moment. It was unavoidable; the human boys could never keep their eyes off her, ah, “endowments” for long, so what chance did a half-devil like me stand? Frankly, I deserved some sort of endurance award for keeping eye contact with her as well as I did. 

That’s what let me notice she had added a black choker to her normal black and white girls’ uniform. She seemed a bit disheveled in general. Her braid was a little frayed around the edges. As if to compensate, she was wearing more makeup than normal, which really made her lips stand out. Though, there was a bit of smudging around the edges…

Oh my, that was delicious. “So, how was Paul this morning?”

Her eyes widened, and I knew that she knew that I knew. “H-he’s doing well. He’s in good health and spirits, as always.” 

“Yes, full of energy, I imagine.” 

“That’s the best thing about him. He’s always very cheerful.” She unconsciously scratched at the choker. I imagined it was there to cover up a hickey. So much for the superior attitude! She’d told me once she was worried Kiyo and I had moved too fast. Awfully hypocritical, from somebody who was spent her Sundays making out in the woods, then came back around for seconds the next morning!

I didn’t say anything, though. I’d be the bigger devil. I let my sly grin do the talking.

Mr. Maki’s affinity, Sonic Blade, let him manipulate sound in interesting ways. Or, so I’d heard. I’d seen bisected orcs and goblins left in his wake, but all he ever used it for in class was getting our attention by creating thunderclaps. No matter how often it happened, we always jumped at it. 

He needn’t have bothered; his booming voice was more than loud enough. “Good morning, class! Everyone, to your seats!”

“Later, Magpie,” whispered Kiyo as she shuffled back to her seat on the other side of the room.

“The school has asked me to pass along a few announcements. First off, after careful consideration, we will be extending the curfew by an additional month.” This was met by a chorus of groans, which were cut off by another snap of his fingers. “You’re all soldiers, act like it! Besides…” He held up a pile of papers in one, meaty hand. “It’s had a positive impact on your grades. Why, if I hadn’t known better, I wouldn’t have known these were from the Remedial Spellcrafting course. Hold your heads high.”

He asked for a volunteer to pass them back, which Yukiko immediately jumped at. She always was a teacher’s pet. 

While Yukiko made her rounds, Mr. Maki continued. “Secondly, we will be reinstating the quarterly War Games again. They’ll be held on September 1st. I’ll expect you all to put in a good showing. For those of you who aren’t transfers, this will be capstone of your first year at the academy, and a chance to move up in the world!” He glanced at Rose and I. “Even the transfer students have a chance to graduate to the second year, if you can demonstrate that you’re up to snuff.” 

“Wait, what?” Leo Hernandez shot his hand up belatedly when Mr. Maki shot him a glare. “S-sorry, sir. I meant, I thought we were still a few months behind. We started last September, but you always told us we have been lagging.”

“You were and, in some ways, still are.” He let out an annoyed grunt and sat back on his desk. “You’ve made some amazing progress, but I still think you aren’t quite ready for your second year. However, the word from is from on high. The world needs you all as soon as possible. It just means that we need step things up.”

Mariko raised her hand. “Does that mean they figured out how to keep everyone safe?”

I perked up at that. Kiyo and I had nearly been killed during my first (and to that point, only) War Game. The safety measures the school had devised were designed to let us wail on each other at something like full strength, using a magical forcefield and a pressure sensitive suit to restrict our movement to simulate wounds. Kiyo’s had paralyzed her and I’d thrown myself down a mountain to save her. I still wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking. 

“I’d expect our resident pacifist to ask that question,” said Mr. Maki. 

Mariko shrank back, but remembered the permission he had given her to verbally spar with him after she had saved his life with healing magic. “Well, sir, since I have to put the fighters back together afterwards, I think I should get some say.”

He smirked in response. “Well, to answer you, not exactly. We are delaying as long as the Wizard Corps will allow us to try and come up with a solution.”

“I imagine the Headmaster is dragging his heels?”

“Raise your hand first, Soren!” Yukiko had arrived to give Mariko and I our tests. I couldn’t see her score, but mine was in the high eighties. Not bad for somebody who hadn’t been able to read human runes at all a few months prior. “I swear, you’re always running your mouth.”

“Why are you surprised at this point,” asked Mariko.

Before Yukiko could respond, Mr. Maki spoke up. “Took the words right out of my mouth, Ms. Sato. As for Mr. Marlowe’s question, I can’t confirm one way or the other.” The wink told me everything I needed to know, and some of the students tittered at the Divine Blade’s antics. “You’ll all be fine, even if we can’t fix the old safety measures in time. Other schools get by just fine without the Peace Bond spells. It just means you have to show restraint, or use proxy spells. Which is a fine introduction to today’s lesson.” He tapped a button on a remote he held, and the enormous touchscreen that dominated the front wall of the room came to life. It was covered in runic symbols, arranged in spellcasting stanzas. “Who can tell me what raw spell this represents? How about Mr. Takehara?”

Hiro had been diligently copying from the board, but his head snapped up. He always seemed so surprised when he was called on. His face seemed to say, “aw shucks, me?” His false modesty act was always so obnoxious, if only because I had the growing suspicion it wasn’t false. People like him couldn’t be real.

“It starts off like a Fireball spell, but it’s missing the parts about generating heat?” He squinted and leaned forward in his chair. “It would make something looked like fire, but it would be cool to the touch.”

“Very good! You got it in one, Mr. Takehara.” He chuckled to himself. “I almost feel like dressing someone down, but you all have progressed so far, I don’t have an excuse.”

Leo, who sat a couple of rows to my left, raised his hand. “Sir, what’s the point of learning this spell? When would we ever use it?”

“Besides in a War Game so you didn’t burn another cadet to death,” asked Mr. Maki drolly. 

The mustachioed cadet folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, I mean, we should be learning more combat spells, right? We’re still behind.”

“Well, let’s see if anybody else has a bit more creativity. Anyone?” Yukiko had gotten back to her seat behind Hiro and her hand shot up. “Besides Ms. Sato, who I’m sure already knows the official answers.”

While Yukiko pouted, I thought over the riddle. I was with Leo. I didn’t see any point in it. It certainly wasn’t anything that we devils had wasted our efforts on.

“It’d be faster to learn,” offered one pudgy girl in the back row. “Less runes to memorize before you can visualize the True Spell.”

“There is that, but think about why you would want to use it at all.” Nobody ventured another guess. “Well, if I won’t get any volunteers, we can have victims instead. Mr. Kowalski?”

The hapless blond boy scratched his head. “Um, it doesn’t use as much magical energy? I guess you could fake someone out with it.”

“Very good, Mr. Kowalski! That’s a major reason,” agreed Mr. Maki. Kowalski’s jaw dropped, and a few of the other students couldn’t help but stare at him. We couldn’t think of the last time he’d gotten an answer right either. “For those of you without much in the way of energy reserves, it’s a good way to help your allies maneuver. Devils will flinch from a fake flames or magical constructs just as well as the real thing.”

“Hogwash,” I said. Any son of the Horde who would fall for such trickery deserved their fate. Though, I could see an orc falling for it. They aren’t the cleverest bunch. “No demon would be fooled by that.”

“Fireball!” Mr. Maki cast with the hurried cadence of a hardened combat wizard and hurled the spell at me without warning. My reflexes had the me casting before I even knew what I was doing. “Slavinn’s Mercy!” The barrier did nothing against the phantom flames and it looked for all the world like I was in the center of an inferno. 

A snap of his fingers dissipated the effect. “Well, maybe devil would be fooled, but it seems to be enough for you. If you’d been a devil, you’d have just wasted valuable energy, and my squad mates could have flanked you and run you through with their swords. Do you still object to these lessons, Cadet?”

“No-no sir.” I felt something click in the back of mind and I cursed at my absentmindedness. My Mimic affinity had just copied the phantom spell, and it would be lodged in my short-term memory for a day or two. Mariko usually helped me learn spells a few days in advance to avoid just that, but we hadn’t been informed of the change in curriculum. 

Mariko’s hand raised before I could. “Oh, Mr. Maki? Soren’s Mimic, remember?”

He stopped himself before he could cast it again. “Darn, it’s too late, isn’t it?” He pulled out a dogeared manual from his desk. “You’re still tutoring him, right? Would you be willing to work on something so close to a combat spell?”

Mariko gave the teacher a relieved grin. After months of trying to force the pacifist to learn combat magic, he was finally letting her be. “If he already knows the True Spell, I suppose I don’t see the harm.”

“Very well. You two are excused. Go work on page fifty-eight out in the hallway.” He tossed her the book, which slipped through her fingers. The older girl half-stifled a curse.

Kowalski’s Buddy emerged from his shadow, much to everyone’s surprise, especially Kowalski. The black, formless being formed a crablike claw and handed it to her.

“Why, thank you, Buddy,” said Mariko. The soulless white eyes of Buddy almost softened before it vanished from whence it came. “Well, come along, Soren.”
 

Chapter 8

“So, can I ask what’s up with you lately?” Mariko was learning against a row of lockers, her arms crossed under her chest. 

I was sitting opposite to her sitting crisscross on the floor, busily copying down the runes for the harmless version of Magic Bolt from the book. I knew the real spell, so the trick was in figuring out what to exclude. “Come again?”

“You always like teasing me, but you seem to be awfully nosy about how things are going with Paul and I. That’s a private matter.”

“Well, considering I was your matchmaker, of course I’d want to know the details! If you don’t want to get into specifics, are you two getting along?”

She strode behind me and peeked over my shoulder. “You wrote that le down as a lu. That would make it more of a wave than a solid shape.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said. “And you avoided the question.”

“So, I did,” she replied. 

“It isn’t that bad, is it?” I had worried a little, since Paul’s interest had been a bit more in Mariko’s physical gifts than her personality. However, I’d decided that it would be a fine rebound for Mariko after she had realized that Hiro didn’t see her in a romantic light.

“Oh, no. Paul is a wonderful man.” She crouched down and tapped the page. “That one should be a ku. Yes, much better. Let’s focus on that, shall we?”

I agreed to the detente. Learning a new spell isn’t the simplest process, anyhow. My Mimic was more a curse than a blessing in that regard. Sure, I could copy demonstrated spells instantly, but once they faded from my memory, I was no better off than before. The devils back home hadn’t the patience to really run me through spells properly. General Girdan and my other superiors tended to demonstrate spells they needed me to know for the day’s battle, and not bother really teaching me. I’d been fifteen before I had realized how dependent that made me, which I was sure was on purpose. It made me appreciate the openness of the school. The fools were training one of their sworn enemies better than my own people had. 

“Hm? What are you smirking about?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear. Just thinking of a funny story from back home.”

“Hm? You never really talk about England. Would you like to share?”

Blast it. They were always interested in my false homeland for some reason. It wasn’t like I was constantly asking them about Hokaido or wherever they were from. Why did humans have to be so nosy? “How about a trade, then? A secret for a secret. I’ll tell you my story if you tell me what’s under that choker.”

She let out a startled gasp and her hand flew up to the right side of her neck. “You’re playing for keeps! You know, you hate being called Magpie, but then you go in and go peck, peck, peck, like a nosy bird.”

“I don’t hate it the way Kiyo says it,” I countered. “You, Rose and Maggie like to use it to reproach me. Who could enjoy that that? Besides masochists, I suppose.”

She ignored the bait and gave me a quizzical look. “Maggie?” 

“I suppose I’m being a bit too familiar. Ms. Edwards. We used to call her that all the time back at the Merlin Academy. That’s what my story was about, actually.” I was always parsimonious about my made-up details from back home. They thought my parents were farmers, and that’s all I let them know. However, they all “knew” that Maggie was my former teacher at the doomed school. 

“Mag… Ms. Edwards has always been a bit scatterbrained.”

“Really? She’s always struck me as very put together.”

“Oh, on the surface. But, one time she showed up at school without her glasses. She’s far sighted, not near sighted, you see, so she had been able to drive over without any trouble. Couldn’t read a word from the textbooks once she arrived, though. Cadet Whitmore had to be her seeing eye gobl… dog all day. He even had to take a phone call from her mother in the middle of lunch.”

“Seeing eye what now?” 

“Never mind that.” Sometimes, it was hard not to slip into old habits of speech when I got too comfortable. We employed the four fingered lesser race for many of the thankless tasks you humans inflict on dogs. “I misspoke. Anyhow, Mariko, it’s time for you to live up to your side of the bargain!”

She stuck out her tongue at me. “I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

“I… hang it all, you’re right.”

Mariko had the most musical laughter. It’s part of why I liked needling her. “You need to work on your negotiating skills.”

“Well, you’re a pacifist, right? That means you inherently believe in not doing violence.”

“And?”

“Well, if I gave you my story for no payment, then that’s slavery, and what greater violence is there than that? Therefore, you’re morally obligated to tell me.”

That earned me nothing but more giggles. “This isn’t productive at all..”

“We’re just going to cover it when you tutor Rose and I later,” I replied. “If Mr. Maki wants to accidentally teach me the whole lesson in one go, and you refuse to learn it yourself, then where’s the harm?”

“You’re completely ridiculous.” She stood and brushed off her long skirt. Most of the girls preferred to keep it above the knees, but Mariko’s red and black plaid skirt barely showed her ankles. “Copy it down a few more times. You’ll need to memorize the raw spell, and then we can help you shorten it down to the True Spell.”

“And what will you be doing?”

“I might just catch up on my knitting.” She pulled the beginnings of a green sweater from her purse and went to work with the needles.

“Yes, you should work ahead on that. Considering you’re the president of the knitting club, you’ve fallen a bit behind your charges.”

That instantly killed her good humor. “Yes, well, knitting is like art. It isn’t a race. Unlike spellcasting, since we were just told your due date. September 1st.”

“Yes, yes,” I grumbled as I went back to work. After copying the stanzas over and over again for a few minutes, I grew weary of the silence. “What are they going to do with you after that, if we move up to the next grade?”

“How do you mean?’

“You won’t participate in the War Games, so I don’t see how you’ll advance. You’re older than us. Just how long have they held you back? Judging by your demeanor and mannerisms, I’d guess… forty-five?”

She puffed her cheeks out in a pout that only rewarded my teasing. “You know it’s twenty-one, you jerk. And they didn’t hold me back. I just joined late.”

“How does that work out, anyhow? They’re rather stringent about entering the Wizard Corps when you turn nineteen. They nearly threw Rose in prison for a few weeks of truancy.”

“Soren?”

“Yes?”

“Even if I had agreed, a little story about Ms. Edwards is not enough to pay that secret. Trust me, you don’t want to know. Now get back to work.” Her tone brooked no argument and her expression told me the time for nonsense was over. She was going to make a fantastic mother someday.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

That killed the conversation for the rest of our study time. By the time the bell rang and Mr. Maki bade us back in the room, I’d nearly memorized the new raw spell. 

In retrospect, she really ought to have been a bit less secretive. It might have made life simpler for us all in the long run. 

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