“Hello to you too.” I opened my eyes and smiled at him. He looked a far cry from the gorgeous, naked man I’d woken up to this morning, dressed now in his blue-and-gold robes, his hair tied back from his stern but handsome face. “How’s your day been so far?”

“Busy.” Iannis placed his palm against the doorjamb and muttered a few Words. Glowing blue energy rippled outward from the door and across the walls, signaling that the protective wards had been activated. My magic wouldn’t be able to harm anyone outside this room, and no one would be able to get in unless Iannis let them. “Are you ready to begin?”

“Yes—” I began, then hesitated. “Well, no. Not exactly.”

Iannis’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown as he came to stand in front of me. “Why not?”

I got to my feet, so I wouldn’t have to tilt my neck back to look up at him. Or at least not as much—he was a foot taller than I was, after all. “You said my apprenticeship would take ten years. Is that the average length, or are you adding years because I’m so far behind?”

“It depends on the individual student, but yes, ten years is about average,” Iannis confirmed, and my heart sank. “You are a fast learner, so I am optimistic you can complete it in that time despite your lack of basic mage education. However, we really must do something about your Loranian—mage children typically begin learning it at four years of age.”

“Yeah, Fenris told me he was going to start giving me lessons for two hours a day.” I tried not to groan at the idea. “I just hope my eyeballs won’t fall out.”

“I think you’ll manage,” Iannis said dryly, though his lips twitched ever so slightly.

“So what’s the basic curriculum, then?” I asked as he pulled three brightly colored balls, roughly the size of lemons, from his sleeve.

He tossed the balls to me, and I caught them hastily. “You should practice your magic while we’re talking. We cannot afford to waste time.”

“All right, all right.” Sighing, I tossed them into the air one at a time, then spoke a variant of the levitation spell Fenris had taught me. The first ball shot up way too fast, and I had to bring it back down slowly—I still hadn’t properly recalibrated to account for my recent power increase. The second one came up more easily, the third even better.

“Good,” Iannis said once I had them all levitating individually. “Now make the one on the left spin clockwise, and the one on the right spin counterclockwise.”