One of the first things Lexie noticed, after the haze of war had cleared from her brain, was that Torin appeared pissed.

Or as pissed as his deadpan expression would allow anyway.

He looked at Lexie, then at the food and the people sprawled on the ground. His jaw dropped a little, and his eyebrows furrowed as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. When he glanced back up at her, his gaze spoke of retribution.

Oh yeah. I'm definitely in trouble. '

The mess on the floor was very colorful, courtesy of the variety of food they were having for lunch today. Victoire's dining was spectacular, and for the lunch buffet, they always tried to pick food from different cultures around the world. The meal remained fresh thanks to the magic warming trays that automatically refilled when empty or when they sensed that the food inside had been compromised.

The trays weren't refilled now, because they were on the floor along with the food. A few of them were broken.

Did that mean that the rest of the students wouldn't get food? Lexie was horrified as she looked at the crowd that was continuously filling the hall. Her hand went over her mouth as guilt crept in. She hadn't even thought about that and hadn't meant to cause this much damage. Would she have to pay for it? Would the bill be sent to her dad or Monty?

"It's not her fault," Xena announced loudly, coming to stand in front of Lexie and crossing her arms while bravely staring down Torin. "Those two have been picking on her since she got here. They even snuck into her room and tried to drown her on night one. They deserved it."

Torin didn't answer her. Instead, he waited as the group got off the floor shakily and addressed his question to them. "Do you want to explain what happened here and why you've chosen to spend your time doing this instead of training or preparing for simulations?"

"That Villain's daughter started it," Ink girl snarled.

"No, I didn't, and you know it," Lexie said from behind Xena because she wasn't about to take all the blame here.

When Torin turned back to her, she told him, "I was getting lunch and minding my business, and she used her powers against me first."

"What did she do?" Torin asked.

"She covered my hands with her sticky thing." When put like that, it sounded too minor, so Lexie explained more. "She wanted to make it impossible for me to draw my cards when she attacked."

"No," the girl said. "I was just playing around with her. I didn't know she would go psycho on me. I would have stopped if she said so."

"I did say so!"

"Maybe you didn't say it loud enough."

"Well, I bet you heard it loud and clear with that pie in your face."

"Oh, you little-"

"Okay, that's enough," Torin said, his voice quiet but booming with power. "I don't care who started it, both of you responded in a very disappointing way. Just look at this mess. Who do you expect to clean this up?"

"The robot," Rufina stepped out of the crowd and gave him an amused look. "Don't exaggerate, Torin. It will take like five minutes."

"Well, since it's so simple, I guess your mentee can take care of the cleaning," he says. "Without the robot."

Rufina narrowed her eyes at him. "You can't punish my mentee. That's not your jurisdiction. Instead, you should worry about that little psycho of yours. Did you see how crazy she looked at the end when she was hurting people? She was smiling."

"No, I wasn't," Lexie squeaked, although to be honest, she wasn't sure at that point. Had she been smiling? God, she hoped not.

Torin turned his attention to Lexie, but before he could say anything, Mr. Xander walked into the hall.

One look at the mess and his frown turned frownier. "Oh, for the love of–you have got to be kidding me. How many times have I told you kids to take this mess outdoors?!"

"It was the five of them fighting," Torin said, pointing out everyone involved. "Timmy and Leilani were trying to stop it and got dragged into the mix. Jo admits that she started it by using her powers against my mentee, so, in my opinion, her punishment should be higher."

Rufina frowned at that. But rather than address that or her mentee, who looked to her for help, she glared at Lexie instead.

"You think you have everyone fooled," Rufina spat. "I know you had something to do with that incident in Hartville. We all do. You're pretending that you're some hero, but I'll show everyone what you really are, and you're going to pay for what you did to Sorraya."

"Mr. Xander," Torin said.

"What?" he said tiredly.

"That was an unfounded accusation and a hurtful insult. Consider it when doling out your punishment."

Lexie stared at Rufina, anger boiling in her heart.

"Follow me," he told Lexie and started toward the entrance. A path cleared through the crowd for him, and it grew wider when Lexie got there. It seemed more than a few people were scared of her now. Great. Hopefully, it meant no one would mess with her again.

But she was upset at herself because she'd thought she had everything under control back there. Did she actually smile when she was fighting them? Why? She wasn't happy, at least she didn't think she was.

Lexie stared at Torin's back as he walked away. Had he seen her smile? Would he tell someone, like his mother, or Journeyman?

Torin clearly had a lot of power at this school because it felt like Mr. Xander had pretty much let him dictate the situation back there. It made sense since he was a Firebringer, but Rufina wasn't a nobody either, and even she had trouble standing up to him.

But Lexie doubted her association with Torin would help her much. She'd seen the look in Rufina's eyes as she walked away, and the other girl had been fuming. Lexie may have just made things worse for herself, which meant that she now had to watch her back constantly.

On the bright side, she'd unlocked a new skill she'd never even considered before, activating a card with another card. She wondered if she could achieve different, more unique combinations with that. The problem with that, though, was that it took too much mana, so she didn't want to have to use it a lot.

"You'll have to go and see your staff mentor after this," Torin said. "I'm pretty sure Mr. Xander will report the incident and enforce some kind of punishment."

Lexie nodded. She wondered if that meant she was getting double punishment both from Torin and Professor Stein. She supposed that she deserved it. She'd gone a little overboard back there.

Torin began muttering numbers to himself at some point during their journey, and Lexie stewed on her own. She felt a mix of satisfaction and disappointment. Satisfaction because she'd managed to defeat her opponents without using any of her Eldritch cards, and she'd only tapped into her Eldritch mana a little. But she was disappointed because she did think she'd had it under control for a second there until she didn't. It was hard to tell when the switch-up even happened.

Was that what the stranger on the Undernet had meant by telling her to make sure she was always in charge because the Eldritch were good servants but terrible masters? Yeah, it made sense, but she didn't know how to make sure she was in charge. It wasn't as easy and clear-cut as she thought it would be, differentiating her will from the Eldritch part of her.

Lexie was so deep in thought that she didn't know where they were going until Torin opened the door to the empty combat gym.

"Why are we here?" Lexie finally asked as they walked onto the mat, and Torin finally turned to face her. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his expression was severe.

"Your punch was terrible," he said.

"Excuse me?" Lexie was more confused than offended.

"Have you never punched anyone before?" he asked, with his arched eyebrow. "I assumed that you had, given your participation in the AFC, but it seems Conrad wasn't as strict as I thought."

"It's not his fault. I mostly don't fight with my fists," Lexie pointed out. "I have magic for a reason."

"Yes, but you're a C-Rank mage, meaning that your mana reserves are very low," he said. "You will eventually need to physically fight someone, and you need to know how to do that. You have no physical ranking, which is tragic, so you will need a lot of extra training to build the skill."

More training. Amazing.

Lexie sighed. "Okay, but can it be taken out of my running time?"

"No." He didn't smile and continued lecturing her. "This school is a dangerous place, and it would be remiss of me to deny that danger. I'm sure you already noticed how things work here. It can be very cutthroat, and the professors usually won't step in unless it gets close to death."

"Yeah, I get that. But then I'm also getting punished for defending myself now, aren't I?"

"No," he said. "You're not getting punished for defending yourself, you're getting punished for not doing it well. There was too much collateral damage. Did you not see how much food you spilled on the floor? That took them hours to make, and you created a ton of waste, enough to feed about a hundred and ten more people. Plus, you broke the trays."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

A hundred and ten was a very specific number. "Wait, did you calculate that?" Lexie asked. "Was that what you were muttering on the way here?"

Torin was silent for a second, then cleared his throat. "Maybe."

Lexie shook her head in surprise. "You're a real weirdo. Has anyone ever told you that?"

His eyes flared open. He seemed surprised by that statement and almost amused. His lip quirked a little.

"Get in a fighter stance."

"A what?"

He sighed, then spread his legs, one leg back, and put up his hands to guard his face. "Like this."

She did the same thing, and he shook his head.

"Again, you're tucking your thumb in. Your right leg is a millimeter off." He moved around her, and using a single finger, he pushed her shoulder, making her stumble. "And you're off balance. "

"I'm not off balance," she complained. "You just have the strength of a gorilla."

He cocked his head. "You know, I don't remember you being such a smart mouth before."

"Duh. I was an infant. My smart mouth came with age."

He directed her to get in the stance again. She did so, and once again, he shoved her. This time, it was hard enough to send her on her ass.

"Get up," he said.

Lexie grumbled as she got back to her feet.

"How do they know when we're dying?" she asked.

"What?"

"You said that teachers would only step in if they thought we were dying. How would they know?"

"They didn't tell you?" he asked. "During your physical assessments, there's a tag placed on you that constantly measures your vitals and also your position. If you're on the verge of death anywhere at or close to campus, it will alert me, your staff manager, and any other staff who are close by about your location. We'll then intervene if we can."

"Are you serious?" Lexie gaped. She was now freaked out. "So I'm being watched all the time?"

"Not really. It simply detects where you are if you're in trouble. It can also sometimes activate when you break some of the major rules, so I suggest you follow them."

"Huh." So that might be another reason why Rufina had tried what she'd tried on the first night only. Because she'd known after that point, Lexie would have the tag.

So in a way, the surveillance was protecting her. She still didn't like it. "Do all [Heroes] have tags?"

"Of a sort, although not as extensive, and it's hard to monitor them all at once. Most people also find a way around theirs, so it's typically meaningless," he said. "They're working on developing that, though, and making it more rigid. You can thank your dad for that."

"What do you mean?" Lexie instantly got defensive.

"His defection didn't just affect him. There was a ripple effect that led to increased surveillance at hero academies and institutions. And because of that, they're attempting to institute systems that constantly watch heroes."

"Oh." Lexie felt uncomfortable and shrugged. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "It's not your fault." He gestured for her to get into the stance. "Now, try and hit me. Hard."

Lexie tried, failed, and ended up on her ass once more.

After being shoved to the floor about fifty more times, her butt was sore. But that wasn't enough torture for Torin because he made her run laps on the field too, not to mention that for her punishment, she had to help in the kitchen to make dinner.

That wasn't so bad. The kitchen staff was a pretty nice variety of humans and a few other species, and it was all run by a food genius head chef called Gertrude, who reminded Lexie of a tougher, unsmiling Emma. Though they were initially all annoyed about the food fight, Lexie won them over eventually by just being polite and hardworking, and sincerely apologizing and taking their ribbing on the chin. Also, by agreeing to try all the little food experiments they put in front of her.

Lexie suspected that it was mostly her high charisma at work.

It's a good thing I'm cute, she thought.

A few of them also knew her dad, and he was well-liked too, so that probably helped.

Lexie had to go see her staff mentor the next morning, and she arrived early to do so. This was the first time she was actually meeting Professor Stein. She knew what he looked like because she'd seen him around campus, and her class schedule was nice enough to put his picture up for her perusal. However, she didn't know much about him except that, according to Dewie, he was the busiest teacher in the entire school.

As the Unbound Studies professor, he was responsible for helping the most magically powerful students figure out the kinks of their powers, unlock more skills, and level up faster. He was great at it, with everyone except Dewie.

Lexie wasn't sure why he'd been assigned to her as a mentor, though. Her powers were bound and acted in a significantly different way than the unbound users' did. It was why she'd never sought him out before now.

She figured she would ask him at the meeting, but she didn't get a chance.

It turned out Dewie wasn't kidding about Stein being a really busy professor. She got to his office early, but it was already crowded, with students standing outside his door. She heard like five people speaking at once, all vying for his attention.

"Professor Stein, please, can you just take a look again at my–"

"Hey, I was here first! Professor, I need you to check out my–"

"One at a time." Lexie couldn't see the professor over the backs of the other students, but he sounded irritated.

They all continued talking over each other, and Lexie decided to just wait at the side until they finished with him. About fifteen minutes after she arrived, though, the professor stepped out of his office, a tall man with floppy brunette hair trailed by eager students.

He glanced at Lexie on his way out and paused.

"Um," she said. "Sorry, I'm just here because I'm supposed to meet with you about what happened yesterday..."

He was confused at first, but eventually, realization dawned.

"Oh, you mean the food fight," he said. "Don't worry about it."

That was all he said before he continued walking, but one of the students lingered behind. She was a third year, judging by her robe, and she didn't look openly hostile as she regarded Lexie.

"I heard about that," she said. "I didn't think you would win, honestly. I should have put money on it."

Lexie didn't know how to answer that, so she shrugged.

"Nice work," the girl said and dashed off to follow Professor Stein.

Though the visit with her mentor was a little underwhelming, Lexie breathed a sigh of relief because she'd avoided an additional punishment.

As she walked away, she came across something that got her attention. The door of the office next to Stein's was cracked open, and there was an unnatural glow emanating from inside. She thought she heard whispers, and as she approached the doorway, she saw a boy hunched over with his head in his hands.

"I can't do this anymore," he moaned, sounding miserable. "Make it stop."

Lexie frowned and took a few steps closer. She recognized him, mostly by the bands around his neck that were now glowing. It was the kid from her Herbology class, the boy with the Tilling bands.

"Are you okay?" Lexie asked, and he looked up sharply, jolting back.

"Can I help you?" someone said behind her, and it was Lexie's turn to be startled. She jumped and then spun around to see a pale, slender, green-haired man with a smile on his face.

"Sorry," she said. She'd seen him around. She knew he was a professor, but she didn't know what he taught. In any case, he gave her an instantly bad feeling, like ice sliding down her spine. "I was just–"

"Snooping into my office?" he said. "It's okay, I like to snoop too. But it's not necessary in this case. You're welcome inside any time you want, Lexie Sparrowfoot."

Yeah, absolutely not. "No, it's fine. I have to go now." She hurried away without looking over her shoulder once, but she still felt like she was being watched.

Luckily, the rest of the day passed as normal as always. Lexie answered a text message from Abernathy, letting him know how school was going and also asking how he was doing working for her dad. They chatted way into the afternoon, and even on her way to Ta-Ron-No's office during his open office hours.

She wanted to continue her conversation with the Fae male, and now that he had time, he was happy enough to answer the question about how Fae Ambassadors simplify intent.

"Oh, well, as you know, every species perceives intent slightly differently," he said. "It's difficult to appreciate the difference unless you're of that species itself. So, in order to help humans create their own magic using human intent, ambassadors are needed to bridge the gap. Humans have difficulty recognizing intent because the species had never had anything like that before and weren't used to the Fae system of magic. The Fae also faced difficulties introducing intent to humans because it was initially hard to understand how human brains and language worked. But since Ambassadors are part human and part Fae, they can often detect both human intent and Fae intent and can appreciably aid in integrating the magic system onto earth."

"So there is a human intent, separate from the Fae intent?" Lexie hadn't been sure before.

"Of course," he said.

"How do we perceive human intent then?"

He pursed his lips. "That's where it gets tricky. When the system was being set up by the Great Developers, a man whom humans called the First Mage was primarily responsible for working with the Ambassadors and discovering human intent. He was responsible for translating most of the magic we have today."

Lexie nodded. She knew about the First Mage, having learned about him in school.

"He worked hand in hand with the Fae but ultimately concluded that the human methods of identifying intent were all inferior to the Fae's. He said the Fae's magic-making was superior, so the idea of using human intent kind of died off from there."

"I see." Lexie was disappointed. "Do you know why he said that?"

"No, but he seemed very sure about his conclusion. I suppose something went wrong somewhere."

Lexie nodded, but she was still so curious about it.

After she was done, Lexie went back to work on cards. She finally managed to find an alarm card and tweaked it so it would alert her if someone entered her room even via portal.

That night, she planned to sleep in her bed for the first time in over a week.

Dewie had been super busy for most of the day due to his extra classes, and she barely saw him. When she did see him, later in the joint living area of their room, he seemed sad. He was sitting on the couch, staring into space, when she arrived.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He bit his lip in frustration. "I'm just not getting it. I don't know why."

"Getting what?"

"Anything." He threw up his hands. "I've tried so many different magic specialties, and I'm not good at any of them. I always mess up whatever I'm supposed to do, or it doesn't work, and it's frustrating. I have zero affinity for anything!"

"Aw, Dewie." Lexie went over to sit by him, putting her arm around his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll get it, it's just these things take time."

"I don't know." He sighed. "Journeyman says I might be a late bloomer, but I think that's his nice way of saying I might just be stupid. I'm so tired of being stupid, Lexie."

"You're not stupid." Lexie squeezed him tight. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He shook his head and shrugged her off. He got up and went to his room. Lexie felt terrible for him, and she also understood how he felt. She was struggling with a sense of inadequacy, too, when it came to discovering intent.

Dewie didn't come out of his room for the rest of the evening, and she got him dinner, like he did for her that first night.

By bedtime, she was hoping that Naem would come into her dream again, so she could ask him more questions about leveling up, and so they could finally start controlling her Eldritch.

Naem was one of the reasons she went back to her room tonight. She'd thought maybe he wasn't showing up because she was at Xena's and the Lightlark presence was driving him away.

Lexie hurried to go to sleep, hoping she would dream of him. However, she wasn't quite there when she was shaken and awakened by an earth tremor.

She was instantly out of her bed, ready for anything. She stared out her window and saw something glassy covering it, like a forcefield. She ran out of her room and saw a similar thing through the living area windows, too.

Had someone put a forcefield over the building?

"What's going on?" Jace asked, yawning as both he and Dewie came out of their rooms. Clara came out of hers too, quietly. All four of them looked at each other and out the window, wondering what was happening.

"What the heck is that?" Jace asked as the forcefield turned black, dimming the moonlight.

Suddenly, their front door burst open and they screamed. Four masked men with guns walked in.

The one in front had a familiar gaze that zeroed in on Lexie as he spoke,

"Well, we meet again."

Lexie's breath caught. She stepped back, pinched herself once, and did it again, hoping she was dreaming.

However, she wasn't. She was wide awake.

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