"It's pretty simple," I said, gesturing to parts of the spell diagram. "Its efficacy varies greatly depending on how finely you can attune the spell. It's just like a summoning spell in that regard, or like a lot of other magic, actually."

It was nearly a full month into the new semester, and there were only about three months left until I had my duel with Gerhard. I was doing what I could to squeeze out every advantage. Every night I practiced with all four of the ether manipulation techniques I could manage, and worked with my bloodline spellcraft to attempt to manipulate my bloodline and expand my power that way. I worked on my curse magic, weaving the most specific and powerful curses I could to use against him. But even still, I had to keep up my classes, and the combat against the ember-roc should be good practice against Gerhard.

Which was why my team for Applied Mage Combat was gathered around a table in the library's reading room. Even being in the reading room, it wasn't exactly comfortable to stay in the library, but it was a good spot to plan and work without interference from most other people. We'd just completed a delve during our class time, letting me pick up the greater mending spell, one of the spells that was on my list from professor Gemheart.

The spell was really little more than a beefed up version of the mending cantrip, with an increased ability to repair damage, increased radius of effect, and the ability to repair multiple things within the radius. Useful, but it wasn't exactly critical.

Instead, I was applying myself to teaching. In our delve, we had found spell guides for energy barrier, and all three of my teammates were working on learning it and copying it out of the spellbook. If each of us walked into the fight against the ember-roc with the spell tuned against their bloodlines specifically, we would have a pretty serious advantage.

The problem was that both Jackson and Yushin seemed to be having trouble with the spell.

"You say that a lot of other magic acts this way, but I do not know any other spell with this sense of false specificity," Yushin groused, flipping through the pages of her grimoire.

"Really?" I asked. "I would have thought illusions worked that way."

"No. Even the most freeform of illusions rely on your ability to visualize things. Others simply draw references from reality, such as mirror image, which replicates the caster."

I glanced at Jackson.

"Well, surely there are obliteration spells that you can change on the fly like this?"

"Somewhat," he said, his face twisted into a frown. "But they're much simpler. Take elemental orb. I only have to shift the chant to indicate if I'm firing an orb of fire, lightning, or frost."

Salem, who was looking through a book of his own, something about spooling his psychic threads to incorporate knots that expanded his cognition, looked up and gave a thumbs up, and a smug grin.

"For what it's worth, I dinnae have a problem gettin' it. Plenny'a divinations use the same basic principle."

That caused Yushin to shoot him an annoyed glance and cross her arms.

"I would like to see you properly visualize a complex weave of light dancing around a person while also moving shadows into a corporeal form."

Salem just laughed, and I sighed then delved back into trying to instruct them in the spell. I wasn't nearly as good as professor Caeruleum, but I did my best, and by the time we stopped working to go get dinner together, both had achieved a certain degree of competency.

Jackson had managed to attune the barrier to protect him from fire, but hadn't been able to manage to refine it to protect against ember-roc magic, and instead had fallen back onto his old strategy of absolutely flooding the defense with ether to stop it. Not exactly pretty, but it worked. Yushin seemed to be having the opposite problem – she was able to construct specific barriers against ember-roc flame or dragonfire, but hadn't managed to create a barrier to protect from general elements.

After we ate, we split off, Shé Rui picking Yushin up and guiding her home while Jackson, Salem, and myself headed back to our dorms. I lit up three tiny weirlights and started setting them to dance in a practice pattern.

"What are you practicing tonight?" I asked them, stretching as the tiny lights danced.

"I've got a bit'a essay work for mah enchantmen' class, then 'm plannin' tah actually sleep," Salem said, yawning and blinking. "Ah' jus' got the spell inlaid inta my pillow, stoppin' the beastie in me from torturin' me in my dreams."

"Inlaid into your pillow? Did you get an artificer to make you something?"

"Nah, it's an imbuemen' ritual."

That rang a bell in my head, and I remembered why a moment later – professor Toadweather had told me I could use the pixie dust I collected from her for a flyte imbuement ritual, so long as I wrote her a paper. I made a note to ask professor Silverbark about it, since Salem was obviously exhausted, and I didn't want to bug him.

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"I've got some math work for my obliteration class on the movement of heat in spells that use real heat versus spells that just blast things with arcane energy mimicking heat," Jackson responded. "What about you, Emrys?"

"Summoning a wadjetktt," I said. "I'm most of the way done with the spell, the trouble is fiddling around with the divine realms. Hey, that actually begs a question – does Effervesce employ wadjetktt?"

"He does!" Jackson boomed, his voice immediately dropping an octave while simultaneously doubling in volume. "When he was a human, he contracted work with…"

What followed was a bit of a tale, involving the young Effervesce conjuring up wadjetktt from the realm of a dead god in an attempt to overthrow the cult of a dark god that had taken over a small town in Endless Fields. I wondered how much of it was actually true – some of the spellcasting bits seemed a little suspect, but I wasn't actually sure he'd been using summoning with conjuration magic. Jackson's terms were vague, and it could easily have been magic from another source than spellcraft.

"Great," I said, when his story wound down. "How would he feel about me summoning them?"

Jackson stroked his well-groomed beard for a moment. Once upon a time, I'd been quite envious of people's ability to grow beards, but after spending six months working on adapting my body to grow them, I'd immediately shifted back to not having them. As it turned out, beards were itchy, and I also looked ridiculous with one.

"Well, some of the priests of my home temple used to summon them, so it's certainly not heretical. It could potentially be blasphemous, though. It really depends on what exactly you used its power to do, and how you treated the wadjetktt. Don't directly and grossly violate the creed, and you'll be fine."

I quickly flicked through the basic rules of Effervesce's creed. How was it that the god had phrased it? It had been something along the lines of standing up for what's right, protecting innocents, and working to redeem others.

I could work with that. The redemption might be a little bit of a problem, depending on how far it had to be taken, but Jackson was able to weave soulfire into his attacks against the hydra, so it had to be flexible enough when fighting demons and monsters. And while I would kill someone if it came to either their life or mine, it wasn't something I would relish.

"Was' the difference between blasphemy an' heresy? I thought they were basically the same thin'," Salem asked.

"No, no," Jackson responded, shaking his head. "Heresy is beliefs that go against a religious creed. I'm a heretic of most of the religions of assorted dark deities, as are both of you. Blasphemy is actions that show disrespect to a deity. I blaspheme Kriv the Bloody by saying he is undeserving of being worshiped because his creed is awful."

"Huh. For a' holy man, you seem mighty casual 'bout being a heretic an' a blasphemer, even if it isn't your god."

"Quite the opposite, actually," Jackson said. "I'm casual about it because of my faith. There are a thousand dark gods worshiped only by demons, demonic cults, and people who enjoy doing terrible things. I'm a heretic to them by my very existence, and to not blaspheme them is to lie."

"How do you figure?" I asked. We were getting off track again, but I was curious.

"If I'm unwilling to even speak out against dark deities on the off chance that they might be upset with me because of it, how can I stand here and say that I'm truly firm in my beliefs of what's right?"

"Huh," I said. It was simpler than I had expected, but I could see the logic. Sort of.

"An' the fact tha' most dark gods don' have a solid foothold in civilization is naught but coincidence," Salem teased. "An' if I understan' right, most can't jus' smite blasphemers, but hav'ta work through us mere mortals?"

I expected Jackson to take offense to being poked fun at, but instead he just laughed and shrugged like it was no matter.

"It certainly doesn't hurt!"

I opened the door to the dorms as we arrived, and then I glanced around.

"I might work in the common area, if you all don't mind," I said. "I'll be trying to summon a wadjetktt from Effervesce's celestial realm."

"By all means!"

"Go for it," Salem shrugged. "I'll take the big chair."

He began making his way to the plush leather loveseat, while Jackson took some papers from his room and took a seat at one of the tables before he started working on his assignments. Salem also grabbed paper and ink from his room, before working on the essay he had to write.

I pushed a chair out of the way to make a little bit of clear space, then fetched my staff from my room. With it in hand, I began the slow, steady intonations of the summoning spell, the rolling chant as quiet as I could make it. I swept my hands in broad gestures, spinning the ether out into complex shapes.

I failed the first several attempts at the spell, but each time, I got a little bit better. Before long, I'd gotten back to the place where I'd been stuck in class – reaching to the divine realms. It had never been a problem with summoning gadhar, and I thought professor Toadweather's method was actually slightly to blame. I'd treated summon gadhar as a whole spell, but looking at the constituent parts of it had me overthinking it.

This time, though, I had a little bit more focus, and I called out for Effervesce's realm, reaching out for the god's power. I might never be able to be a member of his clergy, but in the meeting I'd had with him, he'd certainly made an impression. I respected the young god of light for his honesty, and for the earnestness that Jackson held. He was a god I could work with.

The power reached out across the planes, and with a soft flicker of light, the smell of cleansing venom touched my nose. The wadjetktt that sprung into existence from my summon was much smaller than the massive cobra serpent that professor Toadweather had summoned, but it was still impressive, about twenty-six inches from nose to tail, with brightly colored red hawk wings.

I bowed my head to it, then spoke in the bloodline tongue of the celestials.

"Thank you for heeding my call, venerable wadjetktt. I am Emrys of White Sands. Might I know your name?"

The voice of the snake's hiss wasn't as deep and regal as the one that had been in the class, but it also wasn't as haughty. Rather, his hissed words were a cheerful tenor.

"I am Amos, son of Femi! What have you summoned me for, Emrys of White Sands?"

"Right now, practice," I said. "I'm a student…"

I explained my situation briefly – the conjuration class that I was taking, the reason I'd sought to call to Effervesce's realm, and even a bit of the situation with Gerhard.

"Well, that's not right," the serpent said, sounding quite cross. "I would be happy to help you in your fight."

"Thank you," I said, bowing my head. "I take it that I have your permission to request you in further summonings?"

"Yeah!" Amos agreed. "But if that's all, can I go back? It's really cold here."

"Of course. And here, have a gift of ether," I said, pouring more ether into the spell for him to take as I dismissed him. Even as he faded back to Effervesce's realm, I couldn't help but grin.

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