“You brought me to a wall?” Koda asked Raine. They had been hiking the snowy mountain trail throughout the entire brisk, cold morning. Raine kept silent most of the way, giving him childish looks from time to time. She never told him where they were going, only that it was a surprise. Finally they had stopped here.

  Koda peered at the wall, moving his hand along the crevices and brushing off the snow drifts from the more bulging aspects of stone. Granite, igneous, it seemed to be just a plain, old, rocky wall.

  Raine giggled. She placed her hand on the smooth stone and the wall lit up with a sheen of indigo lights. The blunt stones glowed and hummed with soft runes. Dust shook from the cliff as it split down the middle and churned like gears. They sounded as if they were within the mountain itself. The wall opened with a grinding pull revealing a corridor.

  Raine gave Koda a smug look and together the two mages walked through the door. With each cautious step, light the ground under Koda’s feet. Koda’s eyes wandered over amethyst crystals that jutted from the walls and ceiling. He reached out to the smooth gems, and just like his footsteps, the crystals illuminated at his touch. He glanced at Raine who returned the look with a coy wink.

  “We’re here,” she said.

  Koda blinked and looked around. His friend played only more games with. They’d arrived at a dead end. As enjoyable as the crystal cave was, there wasn’t anything special about it. It most certainly was not an underground city like Sik J’dio Sahde Alanoon, but he did not want to come off as rude. “Ah, an interesting cave, Raine,” Koda finally said.

  Raine smirked. She took a hold of a stalagmite and shifted it forward. Once again dust fell from the ceiling and the mountain rang with a churning sound. Koda yelped as his feet gave way and his body dropped through the ground. He kicked out his feet and tried to drag himself down the chute but it was to no avail, he careened too fast. He landed with a light bump on his rear before a massive staircase. Raine landed on her feet beside him.

  “Welcome to my school, Koda,” said Raine. She gestured her hand to follow her up the staircase.

  Koda rubbed his sore backside. “This isn’t Michael’s school.”

  At the top of the stairs, she pushed open a set of heavy wooden doors. “No, this is another school I studied at.”

  She led him down a pair of hallways and into a large open area where students of all color types sparred, read from tall stacks of books, and quizzed each other on homework. Raine gasped and ran to a trio of students walking across the quad. Like her, they were all elves dressed in long violet robes. They carried scrolls in their arms but quickly dropped them to embrace Raine in a long hug.

  Raine waved over to Koda. “Koda, these were my classmates and best friends when I studied here.” She gestured a hand to a tall elf with a crew cut. “Kaiden.” She slapped a shorter and huskier elf on the shoulder. “Enzo.” She then cuffed the chin of a female elf with spiky red hair. “And Pulsa.”

  Koda nodded in acknowledgment to each. “I’m afraid Raine hasn’t mentioned much about her past schooling,” Koda said with a frown.

  “We’re not exactly allowed to talk about this school,” said Enzo.

  Koda looked at the three before turning back to Raine. “What is this place?”

  A low voice broke from behind Koda. “Allow me to answer that, Mage King.”

  Koda spun around to find an elf, no younger than himself. He had long auburn hair draping over his shoulders and a pair of black tinted spectacles covering his eyes. A grizzled burn mark checkered over the right side of his face. His mage robes were styled like Elucard’s assassin garbs, complete with a kevlar chestpiece and taped shins and hands. His outfit showed off the colors of purple, brown, white, blue, and red. Skilled, no doubt, whoever he was.

  The man raised a finger, “But first…”

  Raine, Kaiden, and Enzo took hold of Koda’s arms and kicked him to his knees.

  Koda’s eyes widened and tried to wrench his arms free. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “Relax, Koda,” said Raine with a calm voice. “We just have to write a rune on you.”

  Koda struggled harder. “Rune!?”

  “Expose his throat,” ordered the man.

  “No, wait!” Koda cried as Pulsa bent his head back.

  The man swiped across Koda’s neck. Then up, and ending with a circle. A faint glow marked the rune and seared into Koda’s flesh, then vanished completely.

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  The three elves released Koda.

  “Now you can not act against this school,” said the man.

  Koda rubbed his throat. “Who… are you? What is… this place?”

  The man adjusted his spectacles. “I am called Nova, and this is my precision magic school.”

  Koda raised his brow. “Precision magic?”

  Raine placed a hand on Koda’s shoulder. “It may be better known as forbidden magic.”

  Koda glanced at Raine and then backed Nova. How could anyone teach forbidden magic? “But you said—”

  “The rune keeps me from betraying the school, Koda. We can not speak of it to outsiders.”

  Koda studied Raine’s neck, using the Magi to enhance his vision, just as he did to see Lore’s magic potential. His irises glowed pink and Raine’s rune lit up like a star in the night sky.

  It read, ‘Secrecy’.

  Koda shifted his sight to Nova. His body flared with an inferno of magic potential. Each one of his elemental colors intertwined forming an ethereal rope that wrapped around the leylines that served as vessels for the Magi to flow through a body. However, it was Nova’s eyes that caught Koda’s attention. Tamed and raw magic burned, fused behind Nova’s spectacles.

  Impossible… Raine’s teacher… has fused with his magic. His very lifeforce is the Magi!

  Koda released his aura vision spell, doing his best not to look completely in shock.

  Nova nodded to Raine’s friends. “I’m sure you three have a class to get to.”

  “It was good seeing you again, Raine,” Kaiden said as he and the others waved their goodbyes.

  Nova tilted his head at Raine. “I sense that you have returned as a Tempest Mage?”

  Raine bowed to her former teacher. “Yes, Master Nova.”

  Nova gave her a curt nod. He steepled his fingers and led the two mage students down a long halfway and into his office. “Take a seat,” he said. “The both of you.”

  He waited for the two young mages to sit in a pair of small black leather chairs before leaning against his oak desk.

  Nova folded his arms. “It is good to have you back in my halls, Raine, but why did you bring this gentleman,” Nova asked. “We are not a tourist attraction.”

  “He is training in the ways of the Silver Mage, and I thought he could be a potential student.”

  Koda furrowed his brow. “I would not be opposed to learning forbidden magic, as my life is full of dangers and any advantage would be welcomed, but perhaps you can explain more about it, Master Nova?”

  “Precision magic,” he began again. “Is indeed known as forbidden magic; however, it has been a cunning tool in mage warfare for generations.”

  Koda leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles. He always had a kindling interest in the history of magic and mages. The history of forbidden magic was no different.

  “Long ago, when we mages were commanded to fight tooth and nail for our existence in the Arcana War, there weren’t any rules or laws on how to conduct our spell-slinging.

  “Back then magic battles were not confined to a dueling arena, but the battlefield. It was then a mage needed to know how to cast a spell to save their life, and it was then that precision magic was needed most. To end a fight before it began. To save a life or to save many lives, that was the difference between the magic you learn today and the magic you can not learn anymore,” Nova explained.

  “My master preserves the teachings lost to time, Koda,” Raine added.

  Koda nodded. To preserve the teaching lost to time. An excellent way of putting forbidden magic into perspective. “So you taught Master Stryneth?”

  Nova looked at Raine in confusion.

  “A blue mage, Master. He uses hallucinogens mixed with his water magic,” elaborated his student. “Do you know of him?”

  “Stry-neth…” Nova rubbed his chin, attempting to recall the name. “Hallucinogens. A blue mage.”

  Raine and Koda looked at each other.

  “Yes, I remember him. A most sinister student,” Nova answered. “I would stay clear of that one, Raine.”

  “What made him sinister, Master Nova?” Koda pressed further.

  “His cunning with precision magic is unrivaled by all except one Mateo—another mage that I regret teaching,” remembered Nova. “Stryneth was not sinister because of his clever use of precision magic; it was who he associated with.”

  “Who?” asked Raine.

  Nova leaned forward. “Vampires.”

  Koda and Raine looked at each other. “Are you sure?”

  “Other students reported him dealing directly with vampires to obtain rare liquids and poisons for his experimental magic techniques,” revealed Nova. “It is what led to his expulsion from this school.”

  Vampires. Stryneth became involved with vampires?

  “Do you think Master Stryneth still deals with The Night?” Raine whispered to Koda.

  Would it even matter to him? If Sable’s master did send Stryneth, what did a past connection with vampires mean to Koda? Calsoon was a demon, afterall. Even if Stryneth was a vampire, that meant nothing as long as the ends justified the mean.

  “I doubt it,” Koda whispered back. “Stryneth is a good man, he just has a shifty past. Anyone can change.”

  “I suppose you are right.”

  Koda turned back to Nova. “Master Nova, if you really did teach Mateo, you should be an elderly man. My vernal mage instructor was a small child during the Arcana War and she is sixty now. How could this be?”

  A sly grin carved across Nova’s face. “There are many secrets in the world you may never find out, your highness. My age being one.”

  “My grandfather told me that we elves lost our immortality before the Arcana War,” argued Koda.

  “We did,” said Nova. “But as I said before, there are many secrets in the world.”