floor toward their tables. Mice like the kind Barclay had seen with Selby at the Woods’ edge scurried beneath barstools. Spiders descended from webs along the ceiling, white as snowflakes.
Many of the students screamed and dashed out of the Beasts’ paths as they made for the Glowsap mixtures. The innkeeper swatted at the mice with her broom.
“What were you thinking, letting vermin into my restaurant?” the innkeeper shouted at Floriane, who was pulling spiders out of her tangled hair. “You only told me you were brewing potions! I would never have agreed to this! High Keeper Erhart is going to hear—”
With many apologies, Floriane ushered the students and their beakers of Glowsap outside, all sorts of Trite and Familiar class Beasts following in eager pursuit. By the time they’d dumped all the Glowsap in a cider barrel and sealed it, three students had fainted. Several had spilled the concoction on themselves, making their skin swollen like Abel’s but worse—letting out a bright, eerie glow. Barclay and Viola grew sweaty lunging away from Murrows.
Few students paid attention during Athna’s lecture that followed, as they were all still shaking Anthorns out of their coat sleeves. In the commotion, Barclay had left his textbook in the Ironwood Inn, and so he and Viola whispered instead of studying.
“It’s a shame,” Viola said. “Floriane is very well-known! Her tinctures and potions have done a lot of good. I considered apprenticing to an Apothecary Master—I’ve always been good at traps—but Dad would never have dreamed of it.”
“Why not?” Barclay asked.
“Oh, the Dumonts have all been Guardians. It’s the family trade, and it’s what I wanted in the end, anyway.” She gave him a sly smile. “But an Apothecary Master might be a good fit for you! I’m sure there’s lots of crossover with mushroom farming—”
“Stop doing that,” he snapped. “Stop trying to make me a Lore Keeper.”
“Oh, you’re not fooling me. I’ve seen you slipping out at night to spend time with Root.”
Barclay glowered. Viola was as sneaky as she was smart.
“We’re only training. I need to win, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m not going to beat Tadg by getting enough sleep.”
“Or could it be that you don’t hate Root or Sycomore as much as you thought you would?”
Barclay crossed his arms and pretended to listen to Athna’s presentation about fossilized remnants of forgotten Beasts.
“So you’re going to brood and ignore me now?” Viola asked.
He didn’t answer.
“At least talk to me about something, so I don’t have to pay attention to everyone still staring at me.”
Barclay struggled not to smile, preferring—as Viola had accused—to continue brooding. “It must be so exhausting having people give you things and be so polite all the time, Your Highness.”
She elbowed him in the side. “They’re not being polite. They think I ran away.”
“Well, did you?” he asked. Viola didn’t strike him as the sort to abandon her teacher.
She sighed and stood up. “I think it’s better that I not go to Runa’s lecture. But Abel and Ethel should be back by then.” She handed him her copy of A Traveler’s Log. “Just… just read the page that I bookmarked. I think it might help you.”
Before Barclay could protest, she left, and his bitter mood soured further. He did not like Root. He did not like Sycomore.
Thankfully, Ethel and Abel did return for Runa’s presentation—Abel with a strange green ointment on his face, but otherwise well. Tadg was gone, which suited Barclay fine—he didn’t want to see Tadg and Abel stir up another fight. Then he remembered that Soren, also a Guardian, was giving his lecture at the same time as Runa. So Tadg had left to spend time with his future Master. Well, they deserved each other.
Runa held her presentation in the Guild House, and even though it was the town’s largest building, students were crammed inside, filling the tables, standing along the sides, and seated on the beer-sticky floor.
While Abel described the gory details of what had happened to him in outrageous exaggerations (“The sap exploded all over my face! I was covered. Hot like lava.”), Barclay opened A Traveler’s Log to the page Viola had marked.
It’s a common misconception to believe that a bond between Keeper and Beast is only ever initiated by the Keeper. It’s true of Familiar class Beasts and almost always of Prime class. These Beasts don’t have the power to forge a Mark. But on rare and remarkable occasions, I have heard of or witnessed Mythic class Beasts casting the bond themselves.
Why? Well, that