Talek. What a mess. How was she supposed to train for real?


    Damnit. She’d said the same thing last weekend when Akari had asked for Missile advice. All students in the school’s Mana Wing had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, and they faced serious consequences if they broke it.


    Oh, for Talek’s sake.


    Great. She slipped off her Traverse shoes, then followed Maelyn past the waterfall and down the stairs.


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    Hana. Age twelve.


    Damnit.


    Oh well. One failed train project was a mana artist’s playground. Akari and the others weren’t actually going into the Hollows, of course. That would be suicide. Fortunately, the entrance was more than ten miles from here. The smaller mana beasts wandered up through the man-made tunnel system, and their crystal cores were as good as any.


    Well, shit.


    You don’t have time, Akari reminded herself. A few more months, and she’d be on her own, without the luxury of choosing her battles. Besides, if she’d been born two hundred years ago, she would have faced mana beasts every day, just beyond the borders of her clan’s village.