"My dear lady," I said, sweeping in front of Sandara in a courtly bow and tossing an empy hand out into the air. This wasn't a dress rehearsal practice, just ordinary class, so I only wore my normal school clothes, but in the actual scene of my arrival to the palace of the Argentflame Emperor, I'd also flick my purple cloak out in a wide arc, mimicking wings.

Sandara gave a ladylike curtsey, and once I finished rattling off my lines, we spun into a dance. If I'd been watching the play at a large theatre, then this dance would have likely been an elaborate performance, with multiple eye catching displays of physical prowess, background dancers, and more.

As things were? We had six backup dancers, I was an okay dancer, as was Sandara, and neither of us up to the international caliber of the largest theatres. That was alright, though – we were wizards. We got to cheat.

All of us on stage discreetly flicked out our wands or amulets, casting the flyte spell on ourselves and lifting up into the air as we danced. Sandara cast haste on herself, turning her mediocre coranto dance into a dizzying spin. In the same instant, I drew on my bloodline to match her, letting our pace spin around the three sets of background dancers, while the Emperor – a tall, gangly man from Sandara's combat team – watched on from his throne.

As we reached the top of the stage, where Salem and a few other students were on beams in the rafters to manipulate the light and sound magic, Sandara and I both released our flyte spells and cast slowfall.

We spun in a circle as we fell, drifting to the ground over the course of long seconds, and I drew Sandara in, turning my back to the audience in what was supposed to be a stage kiss.

Up until that point, things had been going well enough. We'd stumbled a few times in our aerial dance, and I thought that professor Violet would probably make me work on the delivery of me asking Sandara's character for the dance, since it had been a bit wooden and rote-sounding.

As I tried to turn her, though, Sandara leaned in and kissed me full on the mouth, and several things happened at once.

Orla and Seren manifested in a flash of blue ether as I flung my hand out, drawing on my bloodline without even meaning to, and slammed my hand into her to throw her back. An instant before I could touch her, one of her hair beads flashed with red ether, and a shield interposed itself between us.

"Get back ya' harpy bi–" Salem shouted from the rafters, leaping to his feet quickly – too quickly.

He had the slowfall spell cast on him, as all members of the production did, but the artificer crafted device he'd been working on tuning to make sure that my cantrip was caught and carried across the entire room was caught with one of his legs kicking out as he fell.

Normally, the machine was strapped to the beam, but in the repairing, Salem had undone the strap in order to access the back and run an ether current through one of the wires to look for the disconnected one, which meant when he kicked it, instead of just knocking one of the plates around and needing to re-tune it, the entire massive machine was sent plummeting to the air, with no slow fall magic of its own to catch it.

Professor Violet, for all that she was capable of casting fifth circle magic, was not a battle mage and didn't have the reaction speed that I'd come to expect from my more battle-oriented professors. She stumbled back as she saw it falling, panicking and reaching for her wand, but was far too late to catch it in time.

The device hit the ground and exploded, plates of enchantments, bits of wire, and ether-infused crystal shards flying everywhere as the magic released a terrifyingly loud burst of sound.

At the crash, nearly everyone on the stage except for Sandara and I was blown back by the shockwave. The backup dancers slammed into the curtain, the emperor was blown straight through his illusioned balsa wood chair, and the flute of one of the musicians in the background exploded as they were all flung back. Orla barked, creating a wave of blue light that blocked the magic from touching her, as well as two of the other musicians and Seren, but it drained her.

The wave hit Sandara and I as well, but I was already burning my fire already, and the blow did nothing more than make me stumble. It hit Sandara's shield, which had already been cracked by my hand, and the force magic dissolved. Another one of Sandara's beads popped as the magic formed a complete aegis around her, sheltering her from the wave of sound.

It wasn't enough to save her from Salem, though. He'd landed on his feet, and magic seemed to whip from around him, unstructured in a way that I didn't understand. There almost seemed to be threads spinning around him, half-visible, smelling of nightmares, and his glowing green eyes were practically dripping with a neon light.

That was when I caught the scent of unnatural, deadly power emanating from him, as the aberrant tainted bloodline shot through the threads of nightmare psionics, and I turned, prepared to intervene if I had to. He wasn't transforming, not like he had the night that his sealing magic had been broken, but that didn't inherently mean he was safe.

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Salem staggered then, one of his eyes turning black, and the threads exploded forward. They shot from his body, reaching for Sandara, and I threw myself in front of her, flicking my hand and creating an energy barrier around myself to defend against psychic magic influenced by loup garou magic.The threads warped, spinning around my body without touching me, and they slammed into Sandara's head, before dissolving into motes of light.

The scent of death and destruction around Salem started to fade, but behind him, Professor Violet floated into the air, her face a thundercloud of emotions and wand aloft.

"Wait, don't!" I tried to shout, but it was too late. Professor Violet might not be a combat mage, but she was a fifth circle mage, and her spells had been built into her wand well. Arcs of swirling white and blue light shot from its tip, binding around Salem's form, and the smell of death around him exploded out again as the loup garou sensed a threat.

This time, both of Salem's eyes turned black, and he tore through the binding magic with his bare hands, the tattoos on his arms beginning to writhe and twist again as the loup garou tried to take full control of his form, and threads of what I was confident were unmanifested psychic power shot toward professor Violet. I spat out a curse and launched into motion, flinging myself in front of Salem.

At the same time, Sandara thrust her palm out and conjured a crossbow, heavily runed and covered in glowing specks of artifice, and she cast an arcane missile spell through the powerful bit of equipment.

In retrospect, I couldn't blame Sandara for acting. With the limited information she had at the time, she only knew that a student on my team had shouted at her, then all hells had broken loose, before he was suddenly swirling with crazy dark magic and attacking her and the professor. Of course she'd step in to try and contain him.

In that instant, however, I felt nothing but rage at her for making the situation worse.

The arcane missile lined up within the crossbow like a normal arrow, then it fired out in a massive swarm, close to thirty different streaks of red light erupting as one and seeking Salem's form.

I snarled and pivoted, turning and flicking my wand out to manifest a shield and energy barrier specifically tuned to stopping the arcane missile spell. My barrier robbed her attack of most of its power, though there were still so many of them that they shattered my shield and forced me to conjure five more, draining entirely too much of my ether. Worse, it freed the loup garou to act, as I was no longer standing in front of it, distracting it from professor Violet.

Salem leapt into the air, wings of shadowy death exploding from his back, and his hand reached for the professor. Professor Violet's eyes widened and she threw a fireball at him, the tiny bead of red light rippling through the air and right for his form. I was too slow to react, busy conjuring shields as I was.

Orla and Seren leapt into motion. The tiny fire spirit jumped onto the doglike head of the gadhar hound, and they leapt after Salem. Orla barked, knocking Salem aside, and as the professor's spell started to bloom into a massive explosion of fire, Seren opened his mouth, drawing the flames to himself and converting it into his bloodline fire. He was still full, so he passed the power along our connection, refueling some of the fire I'd spent in the fight.

I flicked my hand down and spat a single syllable, casting the newest cantrip I'd learned – amplify voice.

"Stop attacking him!" I shouted, and my voice boomed through the entire theatre. "You're only making his bloodline react harder!"

I pointed my wand at Salem and muttered words of power, casting suppress enchantments on him. Technically, he wasn't under the influence of an enchantment spell, but there was still a source of magic trying to erode over his mind, so it might help. Maybe. At the very least, it wasn't an attack, so it shouldn't set him off any worse.

Salem landed in the rafters, his void eyes studying all of us as the battle between the powerful psychic and the brutal beast warred within him. I watched him, tossing my wand into my Etherius locker and raising my hands in a sign of non-agression.

"Salem, it's okay. You can do this. You've fought it every day of your life, today isn't any different just because it slipped its leash."

I spoke as calmly as I could, trying to put a mix of perfect confidence and non-aggression into my amplified voice. Throughout the theatre, people held still, scarcely willing to breathe in the presence of such a delicate and confusing situation.

Slowly, oh so painfully slowly, his wings of shadow started retreating. He closed his inky eyes, and his tattoos stopped writhing on his skin. Three long heartbeats passed, and then he opened his eyes to reveal the vibrantly glowing green light again.

"S' me," he said, his voice hoarse and tired. "Sor–"

Then for the second time in as many minutes, he fell off the rafters. I flicked my hand out and cast slowfall, darting over and catching him as he landed softly in my arms. I let out a sigh of relief as I saw his chest slowly rising and falling, then turned to look around at the rather destroyed theatre.

Professor Violet who hadn't not moved an inch while I'd been talking to Salem, turned and raised her hand.

"I have already called the Erudite and professor Alydia. One of them will be along shortly to help sort things out. For now, anyone who was injured should go to our hospital, or else a friendly church in the city. The rest of you, sit down and wait!"

As soon as she finished her announcement, she landed and rushed over to me.

"What, exactly, was that?" she demanded, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and anger. "He shattered my fifth circle binding spell like it was tissue paper! And attacking a student?"

"Is he a demigod of a dark god?" Sandara asked, approaching from the stage, then cocked her head as if listening to something very far away. "A loup garou? That doesn't make any sense."

"And you! Miss Sandara, don't think you're getting off lightly," professor Violet said, turning on the tall student. "What, by all the hells, possessed you to kiss a fellow student without consent?"

"Of course it's Emrys. Oh, and Salem. Did it break loose again?" a familiar, tired voice said, and I turned to see the Erudite and professor Alydia standing in the doorway. The Erudite looked even more tired than usual, and was rubbing his face while leaning on his staff like a walking stick.

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