Consciousness came to Leo not with a sharp, shocking bang, but like a gradual, torturous wave of consciousness thundering upon the blistered and brined shores of his thought. With every new awakening of consciousness came the haunting proximity of the nothingness, the numbing feel of the armor, the enticing voice of omnipotence. He was lost in a sea of his own broken potential, and long time he had no wish to reach the land. The smell was the first thing which held him to the ground. The old, warm smell of the sanctuary of Riven, the smells of ozone as a result of recent magical work, of dust, soft and comforting, and of the tangy, coppery smells of alchemical preservatives. It was the odour of secrets, of repentance, of recovery to-day. He lay on a low cot in some shady niche, and the coarse, grey wool blanket was drawn up to his chin. His body had been emptied like a vessel which had lost its blood through a metaphysical hemorrhage. Three days. The knowledge appeared in his consc

This atmosphere in Riven’s sanctum of Riven was forever altered. The dust motes were still capering their dainty ballet in the dim light of the stolen will-o’-the-wisps, the jars of biological and occult curiosities still hung along the hewn stone walls, but the basic movement of the room had been moved tectonically. The statement made by Leo, ‘I will re-write the lesson’ did not consist of sand, but of bedrock, as far as their reality together was concerned. Riven had not merely crossed it, he had brought his own tools to strengthen the position. The penitent scholar, the conscience-stricken teacher had vanished, in his place a ferociously determined, more or less bestial strategist. The atmosphere was now filled with a fresh, malevolent intendment.Their new task was not to be started with the flash and fury of the combat spells, to the brutal and soul-scouring excitement of the Echoing Well, but in the silent and dense thicket of the theory. Riven had given it the name ‘Advanced Es

The stolen key was as hot as a live coal in the Leo’s pocket, and the dull violet beat of it throbbed at his thigh. Kael and Leo had told neither Aria nor Mira anything of it, and burdened themselves with their new secret silently on top of a load they were already bearing. It did not take too long before the other shoe dropped.And the very next day it fell, in the shape of Professor Riven. Then, as they were off to a lecture on convergences of elements, he came in their path and turned a thundercloud of cold fury. The stormy eyes, ordinarily so critical, were narrowed with an anger which was strictly, personal.“There was an inquisitive happening in the Bazaar yesterday,” he began, and his voice was dangerously low, cutting off the morning gossip of the passage. He was not looking at Kael, but right at Leo, as though he were the only guilty party. “One small piece of something or other of a certain... professional interest was lost out of a stall of an old snoop of the Chorus of Equ

The delicate, frightened silence, which had succeeded the trance of Aria, was broken by a chime which rang not alone in the atmosphere, but in the very bones of all students alike. It was the clank of pomp and ceremony, of coming spectacle. All initiates and pupils were called to Grand Athenaeum at once.The air was electric, a strong contrast to the gloomy tension that had haunted them. “The Duality Games” were playfully sneezed into the ears of the crowd like gunpowder. It was a once in a lifetime occurrence to the majority. The air was high in excitement and fierce rivalry. This was the best of all the traditions in the Academy, a ferocious, magnificent contest which displayed the finest efforts of its pupils.The Headmaster occupied the centre dais, and was bathed in a golden light. He smiled beatifically and held out his arms in an embrace of welcome.“Students of the Arcane Veil!” his voice shrilly shouted with pride. “The Duality Games have been our crucible, through centuries.

The phantom ache of the Dual Core experiment was a perennial, dissonant throb in the very substance of Leo’s consciousness, the background sound of an imminent break which tinged every thought, every action. It was a pain he couldn't share, a danger Riven had forbidden him from even acknowledging, another terrible secret added to the crushing, suffocating pile. He passed through the last, tortured hours of training before the Games as a glass man, and was horrified to think that one word of command, one explosion of the controller magic of another party, even Aria’s anxious eye, would have torn him to pieces a million innumerable ones. And it was under this state of delicate, fainting tension that Mira happened to find him. He was already cowering in an empty balcony, with his right hand clinging to the railing, and his eyes looking over the star-spangled emptiness, as though it were asking some reply, or as though it were the last, sweet, unconscious repose. She came not with the ac