From the journal of Madeline Le Torneau: “The evergreen trees smelled nice.”

  By the time the next town weekend rolled around, Madeline could not have been more eager.

  She’d spent the next days and weeks in a state of agonizing slowness, one step at a time, collecting more parcels from her “Aunt”, learning more casting theory, practicing shields ad nauseum and meeting with Professor Taran in between all her responsibilities and regular exercise sessions.

  The theory lessons were important and honestly sort of fun, focusing on training their minds' imagination as the base to the remainder of the theory lessons before the Ye Evergreen break. Yes, every Warrior knew how to do certain things with their power as a foundation - shields and fireballs - but the upper limit of their ability, according to Professor Herbert, could only be capped by their inherent level and their ability to imagine.

  So they drilled. They practiced storytelling in front of the class where their assignment mandated coming up with the most ridiculous story elements they could think of. Some chose silly outfits for their characters, others equally silly proportions - Talia seemed fond of her antagonist being awkwardly shaped - and more still chose funny or odd settings.

  After they told their story in full, Professor Herbert asked goofy questions and the students were tasked with coming up with full answers on the spot, under peer pressure, however they could. The answers could flow logically, they could be story consistent or they could be completely random and make no sense. The point wasn’t the answers themselves necessarily, but to train the mind to block out the noise and use their faculties to create under pressure. They progressed to the point where Herbert said the class was ready for the next step after Ye Evergreen. Heckling.

  The outdoor practical training with Professor Walcotte also progressed. Their lessons remained fixed on shield creation and shield creation only, both to Madeline’s boredom and to her grudging acceptance of the fact that Professor Walcotte knew better. Heck, if Madeline had been able to cast a shield properly, she might not have gone to the hospital wing and she might not have fucking died for a minute causing who knew what sort of complications.

  Walcotte had begun flinging full fledged fireballs at their shields, and they held for the most part. Only Deacon struggled to hold his shield against the repeated pounding of Walcotte’s attacks. Still, the class as a whole had done well enough that Walcotte arranged Professor Reese of the Storm Sorcerers to come and test their shields in front of an open forum of their peers. Apparently, this annual event could turn into quite the spectacle for neutrals with side bets flying back and forth on who would last longest. Last year was a bit of a dud, rumour had it, so combined with Madeline’s quasi-celebrity status and the dog days of winter, people were already looking forward to the testing.

  This year, Walcotte offered a prize to the shield who held longest and a warning that they better use their time over the Ye Evergreen break to practice hard because anyone embarrassing her would suffer indeed.

  Madeline also began having semi-regular conversations with Professor Taran about the fallout from her glimmer and her dying and her health in the weeks afterward. Despite Madeline’s insistence that she felt better than ever, Taran insisted with equal force that she needed to be monitored just in case. At least the meetings took place among nature, first in the fields where they grew the flowers - the purple ones would forever make her think of Florian and she stole a beautiful singular purple flower to put in her hair for no reason at all thank you very much - and then at later meetings Taran chose the rows of evergreen trees as the setting so she could tend their growth.

  Taran explained the remainder of what happened to her in the moments after she cast the glimmer, confusing Madeline even further about the events of that night. She’d say absolutely nothing about the intruder, who were his companions, how he passed the guards, if he was caught, only saying that if the Prime wished her to know the information then he would tell her and that she would be better off focusing on her studies.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Try as she might, she couldn’t completely erase the intruder’s threats from her mind. Oh well. Nothing she could do about it now.

  The technical explanation of her suffering sounded like complete gobbledygook to Madeline. Taran hypothesized. Madeline tried not to fall asleep.

  According to the elderly woman, Madeline’s death released the excess energy she held within, and then - thanks to Taran’s rather uncommon skill as a Life Witch - her revival put her soul back into her body. Her fucking soul. Or whatever life force turned her body from a skin suit full of flesh to the living, breathing impostor currently named Madeline Le Torneau.

  Taran said the process of returning her soul to her body thinned the line between their world and the afterlife. Well, she described it as the line being a straight one with life on one side and afterlife on the other. Upon death, in typical situations, the soul simply crossed the line. Not Madeline’s, not that night. Taran allowed her soul to push against the line, bending it at the middle, and just before it crossed planes Taran caught her. But the line snapped back to straight, losing some of its thickness in the process.

  Complete gobbledygook.

  Regardless of Madeline making her feelings plain on the topic of her health, Taran wouldn’t take her word for an answer and so they met. Madeline repeated to Taran that she felt more than fine and they spent some time discussing possible long term effects that mostly culminated in Taran suggesting she stay away from scenarios in which the barrier between life and the afterlife could meet. Madeline assured Taran she would do so. Somehow. Probably. Whatever that meant.

  So when Madeline stepped onto the pavilion and saw the horse drawn carriages already prepped to take them into town, she nearly screamed in excitement. She’d taken an extra long time in the shower that morning, making sure to get the steam rocks roaring and her pores open and cleansed. She’d used a body scrub and spent extra time with the soles of her feet that had grown calluses from all the exercise. She’d noticed changes to her body as well, a tightening here, a new muscle there, a more pronounced curve in another place and importantly, her reaction time did seem improved.

  Expecting cold weather, she’d worn a heavy cloak and an equally heavy scarf and a black toque, tinged with Warrior red. She waved to Stefan who waited outside a carriage with Willow, evidently that relationship was going well. Talia wasn’t there, she’d left in the middle of the night to have a cup of tea with Lane, but she instructed Madeline to wait for her and that she would be there on time, guaranteed. Madeline waited with Hayden.

  “You think we should take this one?” the diminutive Hayden asked, clearly doing the calculation of how many people could fit inside the carriages, how many people were left on the pavilion and how many carriages were left. “We might need to go soon or else we’ll have to take the next round and I don’t want to wait that long. Kills half the day.”

  Madeline agreed. “I have someone I have to meet soon, I can’t wait until the next round of carriages.”

  “That means we’ll have to go without her,” Hayden warned.

  “She’d kill us,” Madeline responded. “She’s probably just running late, you know how Talia is. But still…”

  “Yeah, I do,” Hayden agreed. “Okay, let’s try and wait for another carriage then if she’s not here, we do what we have to do.”

  Madeline nodded and waved a friendly wave to Deacon who walked by. He jogged over, his auburn beard freshly trimmed and styled sharply.

  “Hey guys,” he said. “Running late? Oh no, let me guess. Waiting for Talia.”

  Hayden laughed. “Right on the first try. What about you? Where are the rest of the boys?”

  Deacon grinned. “They went early, but I didn’t have anyone to take to the coffee shop,” he coughed exaggeratedly at Madeline who blushed, “so I’m going to meet them for lunch instead. I was going to wait for the next round of carriages but if you guys want to share one, it could be good for some company?”

  Hayden looked at Madeline who took one more long glance at the gate, hoping to see Talia. She checked her Academy provided timepiece. “Maddy, we’ve gotta go.”

  Madeline nodded and followed Deacon to an almost full carriage, who opened the door and let the girls get on first. He sat across from Madeline, Hayden finding the seat to her left. Deacon started chatting with a second year girl on his right, smiling and nodding his head.

  Madeline probably should have been paying attention to what they were talking about, especially when Deacon tried to include her in the conversation.

  Her mind drifted.

  Where the heck was Talia?

  by Nick Aalderink

  One oath to the Light. One mark of the Devil. Zero room for error.

  Mortally wounded defending his elderly neighbor, she made him an offer. If he could do everything over, would he walk away from the path of darkness that he'd trodden; would he be a good man? When he swore that he would he didn’t realize he’d have to defy the Devil to make good on his oath.

  Branded by the Demon King as his champion of darkness, he’s given a simple task: subjugate a peaceful village in Hell’s name. Will he serve the Demon King and betray his oath? Or will he defy him and watch Hell’s armies slaughter three hundred innocents. There’s no good path to navigate the line between his oath and his orders, only less terrible ones.

  Armed with misfit demons, an elf-girl bound by life debt, and forty years of finding loopholes, Chuck will twist his orders and turn subjugation into protection—making Hell itself serve the Light. Keeping promises is never easy—and redemption doesn't come with a manual.

  Being good is harder when Hell signs your paychecks.