Oracle (Book I)

The Duel

"Are you really sure we can brew in our room?"

Caprice pushed the bedding hanging over the end of her bed even further away from the fire underneath the now fuming cauldron. Inside, a potion base quietly boiled. The fire was one of her slow heating flames, but better safe than sorry. Luckily the weather was cooling and they only needed to crack the window to ease the heat that permeated the room now that the cauldron was lit.

"We can..." Nezzle sent a look Bossa's way.

Bossa ignored her, furiously scribbling at some last minute homework.

"And?" Caprice prompted. "What if you set something on fire?"

"You get bad marks. You can only set fire to someone's bed three times," Bossa replied without looking up from her work.

"Accidentally or otherwise," Nezzle cocked her eyebrow. "After that, you're banned from fire and cauldrons in the dormitory and have to go one of the vacant schoolrooms down in the catacombs or the alleys where you can't burn anything down."

"Just how many bad marks has Bossa had?" Caprice winced.

"Why do you assume it's me?" Bossa muttered with a quick glare.

Nezzle held up two fingers, answering, "Two strikes."

"Then it's a good thing--though it was a bit tricky--that I managed to hunt down some of these this morning." Caprice held up a little bottle whose neck was tied to a string that hung around her neck. What appeared to be long, narrow needles floated inside. They were about the length of the index finger. Occasionally the needles turned just so, catching the light or choosing to appear, showing themselves to be shiny red.

"What are they?" Bossa squinted curiously.

"They're thissles. Fire thissles. One of the first magical beings and the reason the seasons change. They're everywhere all the time, too thin to see or invisible. In case Bossa sets the room on fire—"

Bossa slapped down her quill on her papers.

"What!"

Taking her bottle from around her neck, Caprice knelt down and put it close to the fire underneath their cauldron. Becoming completely visible, the thissles in the bottle pulsed and burned a bright, metallic red like ultra-thin needles of fiery tinsel.

"I mean, if there's a fire, they'll light up and so will the ones I'm releasing in the room.

"One of us can pop back here and put the fire out as soon as possible," Nezzle nodded. "Not a bad idea."

"I got just enough for each us and some to go in the room. Please don't lose them. We'll turn them lose once the potion is done."

"Won't they wander out the window?" Bossa flapped her hand, gesturing outside.

"Not if I put magic wrap over it."

Nezzle advised, "Put wrap over the door, too."

Bossa eyed the twigs in Caprice's hair and dirt smudged clothes.

"You were out traipsing around the grounds, hunting for thissles at the crack of dawn?"

Tossing her the necklace with her thissles on it, which the other girl caught one-handed, Caprice shrugged. "At least I got them though."

~

At breakfast, a high cackle cut through the Grand Hall.

Caprice ground her teeth.

"I hate that stupid laugh," she muttered. "I always have."

Karrigan carried on in a loud, obnoxiously airy voice.