Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

There was a brief commotion when Briam’s fire drake familiar hissed up a storm and started chasing Briam’s terrified neighbor across the classroom before Briam calmed it down. Apparently the magical reptile liked the unfortunate boy even less than it did Zorian. In any case, Ilsa came in soon after and started the class.

Zach never showed up.

Zorian spent the entire class in a daze, shocked at this turn of events. Where the hell was Zach? Everything happened almost exactly as it did in his future memories so far, with Zach’s absence being the first major deviation. This firmly cemented Zach as somehow connected to this madness, but it also put the boy out of Zorian’s reach for the moment.

The lecture was even more annoying now than it was the first time he listened to it, since from his perspective he went through these review sessions less than a month ago. Apparently Ilsa worked off some kind of a script, because the lecture was virtually identical to the one from his memory, the only difference being that Zach wasn’t there to compete with Akoja for answering Ilsa’s questions to the class.

Funny how things seem clearer in retrospect. Zach was acting strange right from the start, in that very first lecture, but Zorian thought nothing of it. Sure, Zach volunteering to answer the teacher’s questions was out of character for the boy, but not completely implausible. It was just a review session anyway, and they had to know these things to pass the certification. It took two weeks before people really began to take notice the extent of Zach’s sudden improvement.

So many questions, so few answers. He could only hope that Zach would show up soon.

Zach didn’t come to class that day, or the next, or the day after that. By Friday, Zorian was pretty sure the other boy wouldn’t be showing up at all. According to Benisek, Zach simply disappeared from his family mansion on the very same day that Zorian took the train to Cyoria, and nobody had seen a hint of him ever since. Zorian didn’t think he could cook up anything the investigators hired by the boy’s guardian hadn’t thought of doing, and he didn’t want to attract attention to himself by asking around, so he reluctantly put the mystery of Zach aside for the moment.

His schoolwork was going well, at least. Thanks to his foreknowledge, he aced Nora Boole’s surprise tests and didn’t really have to study for any subject — a small refresher was sufficient to coast him through pretty much anything. Once his warding class really gets going that’s probably going to change, but for now he had all the free time he wanted to deliberate on what he should do about the rapidly approaching summer festival and the accompanying assault.

Sadly, with Zach absent, Zorian had hit dead ends in all the clues he had, and was now at loss how to proceed.

«Come in.»

Zorian opened the door to Xvim’s office and defiantly met the man’s gaze. He was pretty confident in the accuracy of his ‘future’ memories by now, Zach’s mysterious absence aside, so he knew this was going to be another exercise in frustration. He was tempted to boycott the meetings, but he suspected it was his stoic perseverance in the face of the man’s antagonism that eventually convinced Ilsa to take him under her wing. And besides, he felt that he would be doing Xvim a favor if he quit — Zorian had a distinct feeling that the man was trying to get him to quit the last time around — and he was far too spiteful to do that. He sat down without prompting, a little disappointed that the man hadn’t remarked upon his intentionally rude gesture.

«Zorian Kazinski?» Xvim asked. Zorian nodded and expertly snatched the pen that the man had throw at him out of the air, having expected it this time.

«Show me your basic three,» the man ordered, not in the least bit surprised at the feat of coordination.

Instantly, without even an extra deep breath, Zorian opened his palm, the pen practically jumping out of his palm and into the air.

«Make it spin,» Xvim said.

Zorian’s eyes widened. What happened to ‘start over’? His current attempt wasn’t any worse than what he displayed during their last session before that fateful dance, and Xvim’s only response that night had been ‘start over’, just like any other time. What changed now?

«Are you having problems with hearing?» Xvim asked. «Make it spin!»

Zorian blinked, finally realizing he should be focusing on the current session instead of his memories. «What? What do you mean ‘make it spin’? That’s not part of the basic three…»

Xvim sighed dramatically and slowly took another pen and levitated it over his own palm. Instead of just hanging in the air like Zorian’s, however, Xvim’s pen was spinning like a fan.

«I… have no idea how to do that,» Zorian admitted. «We weren’t taught how to do that in classes.»