“It’s not that. I don’t think these lessons I’m giving you are doing enough.”

That made Luna pause. The breeze blew her hair across her face and she brushed it back absently. “But I like them.”

“You like the parts that are dangerous,” I said dryly. “That was about a tenth of a second away from being a really nasty accident.”

“I can control it better—”

I shook my head. “Your control’s good. Not perfect, but good. The problem’s me, not you. For a while now all of the exercises I’ve been giving you have been hands-off. I’m not teaching you how to use your magic, I’m just sticking you with some sort of problem and making you figure out a solution.”

“I thought that was the only way we could do it?” Luna said. “It’s not like you can learn to use chance magic.”

“And that’s the issue. You’ve gotten good at directing your curse, but it’s been a long time now since we’ve made any real breakthroughs. If chance magic were an academic subject, I’d be qualified to teach it up to high school. You need a professor.”

Luna hesitated. “So am I still your apprentice?”

I looked at her in surprise. “Of course.”

“Oh.” Luna relaxed a little. “Okay.”

“Wait, was that what you thought this was about?”

“Well, I was wondering . . .”

“I’m not kicking you out or anything. We just have to find you a part-time teacher, is all. You’re still my apprentice, and you’ll stay that way until you decide to leave or until you pass your journeyman tests. Okay?”

“Okay,” Luna said with a smile. “So are you going to find a chance mage?”

“Try to, anyway. But we can ask.”

We started walking back towards the stairs. “This isn’t going to be like when you were trying to find Anne and Vari a master, is it?” Luna asked.

“Let’s hope things go a little more smoothly this time.”

“So you’re getting a new job, and I’m getting a new teacher.”

“Pretty much.” I pulled the door open for Luna, then followed her through. “Should be an interesting few weeks.”

chapter 2

Ever since I broke away from Richard, my life’s tended to go in cycles. There are short bursts of chaos and danger, then there are longer periods where things are relatively calm. The month that followed that conversation with Caldera was one of the calmer ones.

Just because things were calm didn’t mean they were safe. Richard was still out there, along with all my other enemies. But there were no more missions, and beyond a couple of brief check-ins, Talisid didn’t contact us again. I took advantage of the breather to search for someone who could read those notes that Variam had brought back. None of the people I asked could do it themselves, but one acquaintance claimed to have a friend due to return to the country soon who’d be able to help. While I waited for that I kept sniffing around, but as January turned into February with no further movement on Richard’s end, it began to look as though my old master had put his operations on temporary hold.