For several days Quinn revised the design diligently. Armed with a set of equations designed by Bjorn, he poured over every facet of the kite''s design, from the shape of the spars to the angle of the smaller wing at the rear. As the days came and went, he began to feel a mounting sense of frustration. Each new calculation depended on the accuracy of the previous calculations, and like Empress Sasha''s legendary dead-reckoning journey to the Western Face, small errors could compound over time. What he wanted was "fixed points," data which had been verified not through calculation, but through observation.


    Seth, who was by far the more empathetic of the two brothers, noticed Quinn''s frustrations immediately, and Quinn was ashamed. The evening before their off-day, a night which Seth usually spent with one girlfriend or another, Quinn sat alone in their shared dormitory. Dusky light filtered in through the bay windows, illuminating the immaculate white marble chamber. The door opened, filling the room with more light.


    "Shouldn''t you be chasing skirts?" Quinn asked.


    "The night is young," Seth replied. "You should join me."


    "I''m busy."


    "It''s never going to be perfect. Back when we invented the first kite, we did it by making small, cheap prototypes. We didn''t have the equations we have now. And it seemed to be better that way. The sooner we stop fussing over the details and start building, the faster we will make progress."


    "The carpenters in town are too expensive," Quinn protested. "We need to minimize the amount of money we spend on prototypes, or we will end up dipping into next year''s tuition to pay for the stupid things."


    "That''s an excuse."


    "I need to do something," Quinn said.


    Seth pulled the seat from his personal table and lifted it. Everything in the old dormitories had been incinerated in the flames of ethermancy, so the marbled blue-teal oval-shaped rug in the center of the room was brand new. Seth set his chair on the edge of the rug and took a seat.


    "You think you are not adding any value to the team," Seth observed.


    "Am I?" Quinn asked. "Bjorn is an expert at math and physics. Vince understands birds. Irene understands boats, rigging, fluid dynamics, and who knows what the hell else. You''ll be the one up there risking your neck. And what does that leave for me?"


    "Ethermancy," Seth said flatly.


    "That''s going to be easy."


    "For you maybe." He stood, walked to the bay windows and slid one hand against the smooth marble wall. "Do you think you could do this?"


    "Do what?"


    "Cut the marble like Kiera did?"


    "Of course not."


    "Why not?"


    "She is a Heritor. They teach the students differently at the Eight Color Monastery."


    "So figure out what she knows somehow. Ask Professor Atlas what he knows. Rediscover it from first principles. I don''t think it matters. But if you could figure out how to cut wood the same way Kiera cut this marble, we wouldn''t need to hire carpenters."


    "And you''re fine waiting on me like that?"


    "That''s why we are here isn''t it?" Seth asked. "The world-famous University of White Chasm. Where else in the world are we going to have this opportunity?"


    Quinn sighed and stuffed the papers in his desk with disgust. "You''re right. The prospect of using ethermancy at that level makes me feel excited."


    Seth reached out and grabbed Quinn''s shoulder, smiling warmly. "You will be the most important out of all of us."


    "I''ve been thinking about the fight on the lawn. With the fireballs and the barriers. Do you remember?"


    Seth nodded.


    "Something bothers me about Kiera and Claire. A few things actually. First, I saw both of them touch the aurascribe, but now that I think back on it, I never saw the coppery maze patterns appear in the air around them. Second, Claire Aden was able to shoot fireballs at people while standing very close to the other students. She was standing inside of the other auras while lobbing fireballs at everyone. Finally, the aurascribe was only configured with three different weaves. Where the hell did Kiera get the weave to create that explosion of ice?"This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "That''s a lot of questions," Seth said. "But I''m too dumb to help you answer them. It''s a good thing girls like dumb."


    It''s that golden luck of yours, Quinn thought. He waved Seth away. "Go on then. I''ll try to find Professor Atlas and see what he has to say about it."


    "Do you think I''ve got a chance with Kiera?" Seth asked.


    Quinn rolled his eyes. "I would stay away from her if I were you," he warned. "You would not be able to keep it a secret if you had an affair with the woman. Her father has oculomancers, or have you forgotten?"


    "Nothing so scandalous. Maybe a little flirting. Maybe she''ll even let me kiss her. I''ve caught her stealing glances at me before. Also, she is a healer and she has a kind heart. I''m confident that she would not allow her father to harm me."


    "I''m less worried about Kiera," Quinn said. "It''s the child that''s dangerous. Kiera had the dignity to avoid fighting us on the lawn. Claire Aden would happily incinerate all the students just to see if it was possible."


    "I''m pretty sure Claire has a crush on me," Seth said.


    "Which is exactly why you should stay very far away from both of them. Claire is nobility. Who knows what sort of trouble the child will concoct if she catches you flirting with Kiera. It would break her little heart."


    "That''s fair. Very well, I will trust your judgment on the matter. Good luck with your research."


    After Seth left, Quinn began to explore the campus in search of Professor Atlas. He was not in his office. Since the professor usually taught class on the field north of the campus, Quinn was unfamiliar with any potential classrooms or laboratories where he might be found. He began to ask the other students at random, and at first the students answered with apologies and shrugs.


    Finally, he asked a student who was carrying a huge stack of books. "I just saw him in the library," the boy replied.


    Among the bone-white halls of the library, the Aden family soldiers, armed with rifles and sabers, eyed Quinn suspiciously as he passed. A group of no less than ten oculomancers were busy collecting books from the architecture section, which left most of the glossy, varnished wooden shelves completely empty.


    What the hell are they doing here? he wondered.


    Professor Atlas vin Truscae was in the ethermancy section, holding a thick leather bound tome titled Sex-Specific Magic: The Arbitrary Laws of Life and Heaven Aspects. Without looking up from his book, he said, "Quinn, did you know that only females can use the life-aspect to heal others?"


    "I did not know that," Quinn admitted. "Though I did notice that all of the students in the combat medicine class are girls. Now that you say it, it makes sense."


    "Yes, it is quite fascinating. I often wonder who put such rules in place. Was it a god? Was it a man? Forgive me, you need not answer. I suppose your presence here is not a coincidence. Do you have questions for me?"


    "Three questions. First, I noticed that the coppery weave patterns did not appear around Kiera and Claire during our class this week."


    "That is not a question," the professor rasped. "That is an observation. And an astute observation as well. You must have been the only student to notice."


    "What can cause that to happen?" Quinn asked.


    "And what is your second question?"


    "You are not going to answer my first question?"


    "I am trying to be efficient. I suspect that all three of your questions share a single answer."


    "Very well. I want to know why Claire Aden was able to use ethermancy inside the auras of other students. Finally, I want to know why Kiera Blaine was able to use a water-aspect weave without ever touching the aurascribe."


    "Three questions, with two answers," the professor said. "Excellent. I will begin with the third question, because it is the most straightforward. Heritor Kiera was trained at the Eight Color Monastery, and their curriculum is slightly different than ours. This knowledge is second year material, and even then it does not impact commoners like us because our auras are too small. If we had access to larger auras, like the Heritors do, then we would be able to fit larger and more complex weaves on the inner surface. Tell me, Quinn, my most astute student, if I were to tell you that the mechanisms of an aurascribe could be encoded as weaves, what would that imply?"


    Quinn''s eyes went wide with shock. "It would mean that any free space in the aura could be modified dynamically, without an aurascribe."


    "That is correct," the professor beamed. "This fact is mentioned to second year students, but the aurascribe weaves are too large to fit on auras of the first harmonic, so we do not cover the exact mechanism. In fact, an aura of the seventh harmonic is required to store just the aurascribe logic."


    "So Kiera modified her aura without using the aurascribe," Quinn said.


    "No, that is not true at all."


    "She either used the aurascribe or she did not. Which one is it?"


    "You are thinking in the wrong direction," the professor said. "I will give you a hint. Not long ago, just a few months back, there was quite a scandal here at the university. There was no ethersleep, and, in fact, there was so much ether in the air you could practically see it."


    "But ethermancy stopped working," Quinn said, finishing the thought. "It stopped working for everyone except Kiera Blaine!"


    "That is a secret that not even I knew until just recently," the professor said. "How did you find out?"


    "I was there, on the battlefield. She paid me and my brother to haul injured soldiers to her tent for healing."


    "Ah, that is a rather extraordinary coincidence."


    Quinn shrugged. "I don''t see how that''s a hint. Either she modified her aura with an aurascribe, or she did not use the aurascribe."


    Unless.


    "Professor, does Kiera even have an aura?"


    "She does not," the professor replied.


    "How do you know?"


    "I asked an oculomancer."


    "What did she say?"


    "She told me that Kiera is a witch."


    "And Claire Aden?" Quinn asked.


    "And Claire Aden," the professor agreed.


    "Father Winter," Quinn cursed. He slapped himself on the forehead.


    If they are both witches then perhaps they are no longer bound by the Heritor Oaths? He reasoned. Is that why they joined the Aviation Club? Is the Elder Saint spying on us? Does she want to steal our technology and use it to travel to the Sister World?


    "I think that answers all three of your questions," the professor said.


    "Wait, I have one more question."


    "Yes?"


    "Is there a weave for cutting wood?"


    "Of course. It is a life-aspect weave." He pointed to a book on the bottom shelf. "I would start by reading Introduction to Floramancy, and then I would tackle Cutting Ethermancy, 2nd Edition. You can find the latter tome in the industrial ethermancy section, two shelves down that way."