that they didn’t?” I said slowly. I was treading into dangerous territory, but I’d rather risk suspicion than give up before I’d even started. “All you mages think of human technology as fun toys. You’ll watch their shows and drive their cars, but they’re all frivolous little conveniences to you. You don’t take them seriously. If someone told you that humans can solve a problem that mages have failed to solve for centuries, you’d laugh at them.”
I saw the skepticism in even Darshan’s eyes. “I don’t get you. You’re trying to say humans have a solution to a problem they don’t even know exists?”
I zipped open my backpack, taking out the shopping bag of supplies that Aegis had gotten for me earlier. “It’s called printable sticker paper.”
#
“Holy crap,” said Darshan, trying to pick our initial sample off the table with his fingernails. “This stuff is a pain to get off. I’m not even sure what spell to use for it. The easiest way would be some obscure glue-removal spell, maybe?”
“If you don’t know that spell, there’s a good chance no one we’re facing will either,” I said. I’d devoted some thought to Arcturus’s team composition. I guessed that Acubens would be on there, but there were too many possibilities for the third slot. The Nightfelds had any number of vassal mages they could call on.
“In an actual duel, you could burn it,” said Darshan, thoughtfully. “Scrape it away.”
“Yeah, but first you’d have to notice it in between fighting somebody, realize what it is, think about what to do, then devote some of your precious focus to performing higher magic.” I gave a smirk. “I chose the gym with its smooth floors for the duel for a reason. The paper will stick beautifully.”
I saw the slow-dawning light in Darshan’s brown eyes. “This could really work. If I apply Wey’s Formula to segment the magic circle into disjoint pieces… and draw each segment on a separate sheet of sticker paper…”
“With printing, you can make perfect copies of anything you draw,” I added. “We can practice sticking the segments in place as much as we need. We can refine this to an art.”
“Damn,” said Darshan in awe. “If we get this to work, we can change everything.”
“Does that mean you’re in?” My heart rose. “I know it puts you in a tough spot, coming out against the Nightfelds in an important duel, so I understand if you don’t want to. But you know more about magic circles than anyone I know—”
“I’m in,” said Darshan, eyes alight. “For the advancement of magic. For the shot at taking down the Nightfelds. And,” he gave a small grin, “for an excellent group project partner.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me lately,” I said, matching his grin. “Well, we have two weeks, so we’d better get working.”
We raided the library shelves for books, piling them high in our reserved room. While Darshan read through them with astounding speed, scribbling notes as he went, I worked out some of the more practical issues with Aegis.
“Pretend these are magic circle segments,” I said, handing Aegis a sheaf of sticker paper. “How quickly can you slap these down while running in a circle?”
We pushed the table and chairs to one corner of the room to give us room for practice. “Let’s do about ten feet diameter to start,” I said. “Ready, set, go!”
Aegis immediately grabbed a sheet and tried to peel it, only to run into our first problem. “It won’t come apart from the bottom sheet,” he objected, picking at a corner. “This is going to take too long.”
“That’s because your fingernails are too short! You always cut them too close. But, hmm.” I thought for a moment, then grabbed a scrap of regular paper off the table. I took the sticker paper from Aegis, peeled up a corner, and stuck the scrap under it. “Now try,” I said, handing it back to Aegis. The paper scrap formed a sort of pull tab that he could grab onto, letting him peel off the top sheet much more quickly.
“There we go,” I said, satisfied. “Problem solved.”
“Thank you,” said Aegis. There was a hint of warmth in his eyes that I hadn’t seen for a long time.
I gave him a little shove. “Now, go run in circles.”
We tried different shapes and positions of paper tabs to see which was the easiest to use. We experimented with different running patterns to see which was fastest: clockwise, counterclockwise, zigzag jumping between points