“Oh.” I blinked. I should have had something more profound to say.
She pursed her lips, jaw clenched.
“Wouldn’t the instructor be a better choice to give you a few pointers?” I donotbelieve I just said that. I waved both hands in front of me. “I mean, I’m happy to assist, I really am, I just…”
She pressed her eyes shut, her expression that of a person preparing to have a limb amputated with a dull saw and no anesthetic. “I require more than ‘a few pointers.’ The academy does not offer any remedial woodworking courses. I would need to seek out a trade school, which—”
“I’ll help. I’ll help however I can.” Words gushed out as I stumbled to my feet.
I caught myself and nodded politely.
“Thank you, Mister Thistlewood.”
Please call me Theo.
◊ ◊ ◊
We met late morning that weekend in an empty crafting room on campus, with Sephimara arriving almost to the minute of the agreed time. We may not have been friends, but I now allowed myself the liberty of at leastmentallybeing on a first-name basis with her.
“Good morning, Mister Thistlewood.” She wore her uniform, which was not required when class was not in session.
“Good morning, Lady Arazniros.” I motioned to a long maple wood workbench with many decades ofscuffs and dings. I’d set out tools and a few practice pieces of wood. “I am not a skilled instructor, but I remember my initial lessons, and thought perhaps I could replicate them.”
“That sounds most reasonable.”
“And while you’re practicing, I could work on some of my own homework. I feel a bit overwhelmed in geomagic.”
“As I recall, you scored adequately on both quizzes last week.”
She remembered?
I nodded. “What was it that Master Arel said our first day?”
“Anything less than excellence will incur consequences.” The hint of a smile crossed her lips. “Which I thought was unduly ominous.”
We held each other’s gaze a moment.
“So, I spent the morning procuring a few things.” I laid a pair of old chisels on the workbench. “It was not easy to find them, I might add.”
She inspected the tools without touching them, glaring as if they were venomous insects. “I do not wish to sound ungrateful, but they do not appear to be in especially pristine condition.”
I grinned. “Correct. In a wealthy city like Halamar, it wasn’t easy to find something this shabby.”
She furrowed her eyebrows ever so slightly. “Did your first lessons involve some sort of hazing ritual?”
“Not at all. The first lesson was how to properlysharpen your tools.” I handed her a sharpening stone, explaining cutting angles and such, and when she seemed to have grasped it, cracked open a text and notebook to begin my own homework.
“It is curious.” Sephimara held up the smaller of the two chisels to the light as she inspected it. “Even if I were to have taken lessons, I would wager that I would have been provided with a set of immaculate tools.”
“And the sharpening relegated to an assistant?” I added.
She nodded.
I shrugged. “Who knows if this is the best instruction technique. I thought it was… interesting. In retrospect, anyway. At the time, I thought it was tedious as hell.” I should not have let the curse word slip.
She let it slide.
She spoke a few minutes later. “What made you decide to enroll in the mage specialization, Mister Thistlewood?”
