The weekend flew by, and before I knew it, summer courses had started, and I left my room dressed in some of the school's clothes that I'd cast improve quality. While it certainly wasn't the most powerful spell in existence, the ability to consistently upgrade the quality of the rather mediocre coats, shirts, and pants that the school provided made the spell worth it, especially with my ability to pump more power into the spell.

I paused for a moment as I realized just what I'd thought. When I'd arrived at the school, the uniforms that were provided as a part of tuition were easily the nicest clothes that I'd owned in years. Now I considered them mediocre?

I was so distracted that I didn't even catch the scent of deep, powerful shadows until they flickered out of the corner of my eye, forming into a hand that burst up and grabbed my ankle. Drawing on instincts honed through the library and Applied Mage Combat, I whipped my wand out and spat the short incantation to cast abjure shadows. A wave of white light erupted from the tip and the surging shadows that had been surrounding me were shoved back.

I spun around, but the scent of deep shadows was still around, leaking from the shadows nearby – every tree, each blade of grass, and even pooling under my own feet. I took a deep breath, trying to identify exactly what was going on, but the magic had some sort of potent obscuring component. All I got was that it clearly wasn't wizardry, but that didn't help much.

I shifted my staff into my other hand and began to chant out a curse. I wished that I'd gotten to the point where I could seal with curses, as being able to seal someone within their own shadows for attacking me felt like a rather nice bit of poetic justice. As it was, I instead layered a curse of misfortune in the area, targeting anyone who attempted to attack someone else from hiding. It would only last a minute, but that would probably be enough.

Before I could finish the spell, someone erupted from the shadows behind a tree and their hand moved for my throat. I drew on my fire as I lunged out of the way. The figure from the shadows followed, and my curse crashed down on them. It started to slide aside, some sort of esoteric defense, but it bought me time. I kicked, hard, and shot backwards, but they slipped through the shadows. No matter how fast I could move, they seemed to be able to teleport.

That was a pain, but I had a few tricks of my own. For an instant, I considered teleporting as well, using the arcane passage spell to shoot myself hundreds of feet away, but I dismissed it. The entire area seemed to be soaked with the power of shadows, so I wasn't certain I'd be able to teleport out of their range.

So instead, I shoved my hand into my pocket and drew out a feather. I spat out the incantation, then dropped my staff and wand into my locker as I began to shrink. Within a few moments, I'd taken on the form of a raven and winged up into the sky.

The shadows beneath me began to flow together like water, pooling into a single central form, and the shadowy figure re-emerged. This time, I got a good look at him – young, but with the subtle cues of age around the eyes and mouth that suggested he was artificially young, rather than truly my age. He had tanned skin closer to Yushin's or Jackson's than my own, with straight black hair, and eyes that were like endless pools of ink, and they seemed to be shedding an aura of bleakness and darkness around him.

Though I was in the form of a raven, I could feel my throat dry. I recognized what the man was – he was a half Yaksha, a type of demonblood, and a shadow cultivator. The two merged to make him impossibly slippery. The Divine King of Shen-Long employed them as assassins, thieves, and spies. If he was revealing his form in full, it likely meant he was here to kill or capture me. They didn't let people who saw their face live, according to the legends at least.

Sure enough, he drew a bow from nowhere, smoothly notching it and aiming at my form. The arrow shot through the air, and I dropped my spell immediately. Minor injuries might not carry over, but if I died in the shape of a raven, I'd just be dead. With my sudden loss of lift and spread feathers, I plummeted like a stone, and the arrow whizzed past my shoulder.

I slammed onto the ground and leapt at him, drawing my wand and casting aquatic torrent, aiming it at his head, but he calmly made his bow vanish. A shadow surged from nowhere, catching the blast of water on it, and then we were on each other.

I was actually slightly stronger, but our speed was roughly matched, and he was more trained in hand to hand combat than I was. We continued to trade blows, and he slipped aside from more of my attacks with every exchange. I saw a smile start to spread across his face as he realized he was going to win.

Then I completed multiple spells at once.

I wasn't a warrior, I was a wizard, and I'd been using my bloodline to buy me the time to shape together several spells. I poured the last dregs of my flame into a handful of my spells as I spat out the command words.

I materialized a layer of greater arcane armor, wrapped in an energy barrier tuned to defend against Yaksha bloodline magic, as well as a second barrier meant to protect me from shadow life enforcement. I didn't know enough about his path to specifically defend against it, but the barrier should still help.

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The man's hand slammed into my chest, where it was stopped by the defensive layers. He only had an instant to look confused when Amos, Orla, and another set of wadjetktt and gadhar appeared. The gadhars barked, their magic mingling with my defenses to ward me, while knocking some of the shadows away. Amos and the other wadjetktt both shot streams of white hot sunvenom at the man, and I raised my wand and began to spit another short set of words.

Arcane missiles flowed from the tip of my wand, hammering into him, and he melted into the shadows beneath his feet, leaping out from underneath me and thrusting a hand in a sharp jab, the shadows making his fingers like sharp claws.

Once again, the energy barriers caused the magic to flicker, and they stuck my armor, giving my summons time to turn and begin attacking again. I began to spin together a curse, this one designed to drain the reserves of power that he had while attacking me, then launched it at him. It struck, and his eyes widened as he dragged backwards, putting space between him. I tracked him with my eyes, then drew my staff out and began to chant the aquatic torrent spell.

He flickered, and suddenly the other Gadhar vanished, sent back to its home plane. He whipped his hand down at the wadjetktt, and Seren leapt from my shoulder, spitting out a stream of fire right at the assassin. It threw the man off guard for just long enough to let the winged serpent fly backwards, and both he and Amos spat more sunfire venom at him.

He conjured a shield of shadows to block it, but I finished my own chant, and a pressurized blast of water slammed into the side of his head. His shadows flickered and vanished as he stumbled, and he turned, raising his hand. I only had a moment to see that he was holding what looked like some sort of rune covered bit of white jade, pulsing with darkness, before he broke it.

There was an explosion of life energy from the slip, more than I'd ever sensed from anyone in my life – it had to have been crafted by an immortal cultivator of some sort. It wasn't even close to the aberrant version of my mother, but it was still substantially stronger than Gerhard, my first generation siblings, or Shé Rui.

The world around me went black. Not just like night, or even like an unlit warm. I couldn't see at all, and when I waved my staff in front of my face, I couldn't see it. I conjured a wierlight, and it appeared, but shed no light. It was clearly there, floating next to my face, but I couldn't see anything. I flicked my wand and cast abjure shadows, but the technique had so much power that my spell was simply swallowed up, as if it had never been cast at all.

A pressure started to build on my mind, crushing down on the rite of centered mind, cracking it, and I started to feed ether into the construct it had formed in my pool, reinforcing it as the pressure bore down on me.

Before I could even process what was going on, I could see the form of the assassin. The world around us was still shadow and nothing but, and yet much like the weirlight, he was clear. The instant he appeared, I began performing Xander's massage, as well as the similar technique I'd created for my dragonfire.

"You are already trapped here," the man said. His voice was calm and exacting, almost artificial, like he didn't actually know what he was saying, and just reading off a script. "I was not sent to kill you. If you answer my questions, you will be released."

"And if I kill you here?" I asked, responding in Hua-Long.

"Then I will simply re-appear. I am not truly here. As a summoner, you should be familiar with a similar technique."

I grunted and nodded, gesturing for him to ask his questions.

"Where is the spawn of the Traitor Wyrm?"

The pressure slammed back down on my head again, and I increased the flow of ether to my mental shield. This was an extra effect tacked onto a complex and powerful enchantment, not the direct attack of an immortal. I wasn't anywhere near powerful enough to stand up to that, but I was just barely able to stop the mind warping powers.

It was hard enough that it actually took me a moment to feel confused by the man's question.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "Isn't the Traitor Wyrm dead?"

The man stared at me impassively, then shifted his question.

"Do you know anyone with an unusually powerful demonic bloodline who is from Shen-Long?"

"This is a school of magic that's world renowned. That's like asking if a member of a great sect has ever met someone from Cendel with a powerful angelus bloodline."

"The local head of the Shé clan personally attended your duel. They are known for supporting the cultists of the Traitor Wyrm. Which of his nieces have you befriended?"

I tried to remain silent, but the pressure on my mind shield began to intensify, slowly at first, then more and more quickly. I cast my mind about trying to find a way to answer without revealing Yushin's name.

I couldn't think of anything.

What would professor Toadweather do? She was an ancient and powerful faerie, and she'd slithered out of binding magic before.

"His wife is a wizard, and well versed in ether manipulation!" I said. "I would assume she was interested in watching."

The assassin's face shifted, seemingly into a mix of anger and confusion, and he shook his head.

"That does not explain why she was in your box."

Once again, I channeled my Toadweather, searching for words that were true, but would lead him down the wrong path.

"She had helped me – she gave recommendations for stores to buy components from. The owners of the Charm and Fable were also there. Please let me go!"

"You really don't know who I am speaking of?"

"I thought that the Divine King had killed the Traitor Wyrm. I didn't even know he had any children alive!"

"You have seen my face. I will suppress your memories of this, and then go."

The assassin made a gesture, and power slammed into my mental barrier. I resisted with everything I had, pouring the tiny scrap of dragonfire I'd managed to recover, as well as every last drop of ether in my pool into the defense. I just needed to hold on. There was clearly limited feedback from the assassin's contingency item, or he'd have been able to worm his way deeper into my head.

Then the technique was over, and the assassin flickered away.

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