With the school year, and the arrival of the Prospectives, fast approaching, my sort of boss, Maestro Amadeus Glas, helped find me a place within the Magisterium’s funding limits. Amadeus is the Maestro who was assigned as my “other half”. See, I’m splitting my time between the Villa and my internship. Which means I’m only going to be teaching a single class each semester. Probably physics, so Amanda can shift over to teaching the more fun things. But I’m going to have advisees and the Villa wants to give them a choice of education. Which means Maestro Glas’s classes are also going to count as mine, for the purpose of education requirements. Before letting me fend for myself in the small city, he does warn me that the apartment’s not going to be the nicest place and I’m more than allowed to go beyond their general funding limits, but I’m not going to. Not this year, in any case. If this apartment turns out truly terrible, then I might move next year, but the location is pretty much perfect. Halfway between my part time internship and the Villa I’ll be a Magister for. Am a Magister for, I got to remember that.
I check the area out after parking my overflowing car in the lot. I’m on the third floor and they don’t have any elevators in this building, so I have the time while I work up the effort to actually move my stuff. There are a couple bars in the area, but none within my price range to make it a consistent watering hole. Maybe once a month. I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing. I drank so much in college, and loved having a local watering hole, but at the same time, a solid seventy percent of my bad decisions can be traced back to those two facts. Who I feel real sorry for is the Apprentices at the Villa. The only place within reasonable walking distance, much less bar, is one of the local vineyards. Which, if I’m entirely honest, I did enjoy very much last year when I was here for the summer. But still, getting fancy drunk on a regular basis just hits different, especially when you’re just a kid. And once the novelty wears off, you just’ll kinda realize you’ve been spending all your time with middle-aged strangers and tourists sipping on local wine. I did, and it only took me two months. Of going there every other day, but still.
I begin lugging my few belongings inside and up that narrow stairwell to my door. The apartment itself is unfurnished, outside of the functional kitchen area. Which is fine by me. I don’t actually need much. I’m going to need to buy a bed and mattress before the school year starts in earnest, but that’s another week or so. Beyond that, I really only need what I lug around everywhere. I put this load of boxes down in the central living slash dining area and head back to the car for the next load.
It’s ten trips in total to get all of my boxes up the stairs. Uncountably many sets of strange notes, my collection of books, the computers, my portable desk, a fancy rolling chair, several different sets of ritualist instruments, my folding card table, several sets of clothes. And of course my sleeping bag, because I knew going in there was going to be a day at least without a bed. But, with it all up in my apartment, I finally have a chance to walk around it, vibe out the space.
The kitchen is wholly its own separate entity, a room unto itself connected to the entry hall. I’d prefer if it had a door directly to the main area, but not so much it’ll bother me that there isn’t one. Besides, so long as I’m still mostly eating alone (which after the whole Sierra everything, I really hope is the case for at least the rest of this year) I may well be eating a lot of my meals just in the kitchen leaning on the counter. Which does remind me, I’ll need to head out and pick up some cheap food to prepare.
The bathroom is actually two rooms. I don’t know if this is a generally common thing over on this side of the ocean, or just a cheap apartment thing, but for some reason they separated out the toilet from the rest of the bathroom. There’s probably some weird plumbing or heath and safety thing that I don’t know about. Or maybe Europeans are just secretly terrified of their significant others seeing them poop. Not that it’ll make much of a difference for me. Like the kitchen, no one but me is in the apartment. So I’ll likely keep the doors open at all times.
The main room and the side room seem pretty much the same, save the main room being a bit bigger and currently filled with boxes and piles of unsorted, partially organized stuff. Both, interestingly, open up to a balcony. And, while I don’t love that they also both have full wall windows looking out to that balcony, having the balcony is awesome. Especially since it just overlooks the parking lot. Well, the parking lot, a nearby grassy field, and a bunch of buildings. Which means that it’s mostly just good for fresh air and most people aren’t going to be hanging out on their balconies.
Heading back inside, I pull out my old ritual box. There is one final thing I’ve got to do before this apartment will feel like home. I remove the blade. We were told not to do much magic, because the protections don’t extend out of the woods. But that’s just the Magisterium’s protections. This ritual is different. With practiced precision, I slide the blade through each of my palms, leaving a half-inch opening on the front and back of the hands. I let the blood flow lightly, pressing my palms on each of the four corners of the apartment, one in the bathroom, the kitchen, the entryway, and the secondary room. In each corner, at the exact same height, a thin line of blood is left behind. Grasping the knife firmly, I begin the next incantation. My hands, as well as the knife within them, burst into flames. Carefully and slowly, I slide the flaming blade into my neck. Directly through my vocal cords. I push through the pain. For a few moments, I can’t breathe, but that doesn’t stop me. It is intense, but after a few times, the mind can get used to a lot. I keep pushing and soon my hands slide into my neck as the blade forces its way out the other side. Without air, thinking becomes hard. I push on. I feel light-headed, like I’m on the verge of fainting. I keep pushing. Eventually and with great effort, I manage to force both of my flaming hands out through the back of my neck. I pull the blade back through. Finally, I take a breath, then as I breathe out I slam the knife, still aflame, into the floor. A circle of fire, bright but cold, bursts out from the tip of the blade. It flows across the room. It glides around and through the doors. It rushes up all the walls. It dances across the ceiling. And yet, it does not pass the square marked in blood. Then it fades, leaving only the faintest echo bouncing about the apartment, across the walls from one marked corner to the next. I did this ritual before, outside of protection. The Magisterium’s wards exist because there are things in the world drawn to consume living magic. My particular family, as a kid, got around this by using old ritual practices like this ritual’s False Sacrifice. The things that go bump in the night like living magic, and so the ritual makes it feel dead, like self-sacrificial magic. A dead ritualist isn’t going to draw any supernatural attention, so long as there isn’t something scary very nearby, which means it’s mostly safe. With my fires in place, I head back down to my car to buy groceries.
It’s a fun time, the trip to the market. And by fun time, I mean irritating as all get out, because everything is so goddamn expensive. But I get back with a bunch of vegetables, eggs, and beer. Not sure what my meals’ll end up looking like, but at least they’ll have protein, greens, and grains with those three elements I now know where to find cheap.
Heading back inside the apartment complex, I check my mailbox. Sure enough, the Magisterium has a packet for me. Probably my list of advisees and whatever notes the previous magister had on them. Hopefully also which of my classes they accepted, because I’d really like to get started on my lesson plans. There’s also a letter from Nashville. I know what it is. I already hate it. Taking both, I head upstairs to my apartment. First, I toss the groceries into the fridge. I’m sure I don’t need to according to the locals, but force of habit’s hard to break. Then I put the letter from Nashville aside. I don’t need to see or deal with Ter’s overly detailed, and undoubtedly strangely prescient, evaluation of what I need to do this year. Not yet. I’d love to say not ever, but if I want to actually be able to achieve what I’m trying to do, it’ll be important to at least think about her thoughts on the matter. Still, it’s not the urgent piece of mail. I take the packet from the Villa and head to the main room, where sitting in the middle on its side lies my fancy chair. Standing the chair up on its wheels, I collapse myself into it. Then, sliding my pinky under the flap and across the top of the envelope, I open their package.
Sure enough, it’s both pieces of information. The first pages are about my classes. Fall semester, I’m stuck with Physics 1. It does make sense, it’s a class they have to teach and as a new magister we’re probably mostly stuck with those kinds of classes unless we get our options in like the moment we’re accepted. Spring Semester I get to teach my actual focus, which is nice. Or at least, the sciencey half of it. Quantum Theory. I might even work my internship to get a field trip for that class, if all goes well. Next is a form for officially determining my panel, alongside a very polite notification that funding isn’t indefinite and I really need to start thinking about my focus topic sooner, rather than later. I ignore it for the moment and turn to the last page. My advisees.
I thought I knew what to expect. After all, I talked to Sierra about it enough last year when we were. Well, doesn’t matter, I just thought I knew. A list of about ten names, along with notes from whatever magister just left about all the things right and wrong for each apprentice. Some grades and such tacked on too, but she didn’t look much at those, so I didn’t get much detail there. I don’t know if it’s because I’m only part time, or because this Villa is slowly dying and already too top-heavy, but my list only has three names. All three are still technically Prospectives, at least for a few days still. Isaline Droz, a sort of local from Satigny village, the town on the other side of the Villa from me and my work. Demi James, a girl from London who seems to mostly be interested in physics, like me. And Josh Calderon, a kid from Florida who likely was assigned to me because we’re both Americans and all Americans are the same. Great. I’m not sure any of the three look like trouble, but given their transcripts from prior schools, I also don’t think they’ve got much potential, either.
Shaking my head at the bunch, I head back over to the kitchen, where I left Ter’s letter. Sighing, I pick it up. If there isn’t much to prep for with my advisees, I guess it’s time to get to work in earnest. Heading back to my chair, I set up my portable desk and set my laptop up on top of it. Then, holding up the letter to the light pouring in through the massive window, I sigh. “What do you have for me, Ter?” I mutter to myself as I open the letter.
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