“Please do this for me,” Jary says. “I’m this close to getting somewhere with my experiment. I can’t go on a field trip, I’d die of anxiousness.”

Mirel and Jeveth look at him, then at each other. Jary tries for his best pleading face.

Jeveth is the first to cave. “All right, stop twitching, you’ll sprain something.” He sighs. “I don’t understand why you need both of us to go in your stead.”

“Yup. Jev will be completely fine on his own,” says Mirel.

“Hey, wait a moment.”

“Have you met my students?” Jary demands. “I was planning to ask one of you to go with me from the beginning.”

Mirel groans. “You’re really not helping your case right now.”

It takes some more cajoling and the promise of expensive booze to get them to agree to take Jary’s students on a week-long field trip. Jary is almost surprised it works. It wasn’t even his original plan - the dean dropped the trip on him just days before Jary’s planned departure from Sinon. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Jary discarded some of his more drastic ideas - such as locking up his two mage hunter friends in a cellar somewhere - and embraced this opportunity.

He’d waited too long. Jeveth and Mirel were quick to follow up on their ambition and became mage hunters before Jary knew what was happening. And now that he has nothing more to learn from the College, he needs to get to Katan, Gata’s capital, and he needs to do it the smart way.

A teleportation spell won’t cut it. Though suspicious as a nation, the Aradoran are generally uninterested in other countries and have no interest in chasing after escaped mages. Especially students. Now, though, in Ajali, and after becoming a well-known instructor at the College, Jary is in a completely different situation. Ajalins guard their magic. As a country surrounded by four powerful nations, they are right to do so.

The day Jeveth, Mirel and the students depart, Jary cleans out his lab. Once again, he burns all of his notes except for the one old notebook, now packed even more tightly with unintelligible scribbles. Jary takes only a small satchel for his clothes and provisions. He hopes that if he leaves his room looking like it always does, there’ll be more confusion surrounding his disappearance - and a slower reaction to it.

He uses four teleportation spells in succession. He prepared them in advance, set them up so they should be mostly untraceable.

Of course, that’s something he learned at the College, with Jeveth and Mirel sitting right next to him during lecture. The mage hunters of Sinon can track him. Jary knows this, which is why he heads north towards Wyrn rather than south towards Katan. Wyrn he can reach in several weeks, and even though travelling along the coast is more dangerous for him, once he reaches the city, he’ll be able to disappear. Or at least stay hidden until he finds a ship bound for Katan.

He knows full well the hunters will chase him down before then, though. It isn’t a problem if he prepares for it.

Jary sets his trap a week’s journey out of Sinon, in an old river bed running through a forest. A dripping, moss covered cliffside on either side, a small creek trickling through - it’s a perfect location. He finds a dry spot, sets up camp and gets to work.

The spell itself is simple in principle, but not in execution. It takes Jary most of a day to carve magic circles into strategically positioned rocks. He carves some onto the cliffs, hidden by moss. Then it’s a matter of waiting.

His perimeter alarms go off around midnight. He set a layer of frost over several spider webs, knowing that he’d be able to feel disturbance in the air that way. And whatever’s coming, it’s coming fast.

Jary rolls out of his bedding and into a crouch, already chanting. A man appears from around a bend in the riverbed, running fast, though obviously not at full speed. He’s alone. Either his mage hunter partner is nearby, or he’s no hunter at all.

Not worth taking the risk to find out.

Jary knows the stranger is a vampire by the way he moves, faster and with more momentum than a human mage would. He can also feel the pull as the stranger, consciously or not, siphons off all magic in the area.

If he’s a vampire, he’s not a hunter.

Jary changes tack mid-incantation, goes for something less lethal. It’s too late to dispel the trap completely. It’s dark, and the stranger wears a hood, so all Jary can see are two glowing blue eyes.

The trap is sprung. The moment the stranger steps into its perimeter, the magic circles light up, creating a three-dimensional pattern, not unlike a spider’s web. The vampire prepares a light spell in one hand, but Jary doesn’t see what happens next. A maze of ice mirrors encases the vampire. They’re designed to hold him there for a couple of days, reflecting any magic he uses right back at him. Inescapable, but temporary.

In the original version of the trap, the mirrors would have amplified the magic of the prisoner, likely incapacitating him the moment he tried to break free.

Jary gapes at the stretch of ravine ahead of him. His trap is invisible from the outside, of course. It’s there physically and he can touch it if he likes, but only because he knows where it is.

This is a problem.

First of all, the hunters are still coming for him and will be here soon. Second, he just trapped someone completely innocent.

Vampires can’t die, so this one should be fine, except they rely on magical energies to keep them going. Without that, they hibernate. And Jary’s trap prevents any access to magic from the inside. Once the mirrors melt, there will be a hibernating vampire out in the open. They might get caught if a mage finds them, or they might end up sucking a normal human of all life force. Either way, leaving the vampire here is risky.

But. Jary needs to get to Wyrn. Needs to complete his research. Is he really going to endanger his mission for a stranger?

Turns out he doesn’t have time for soul-searching, because two more magic users trip his perimeter alarms. Jary only has time to place himself between them and the invisible trap before they arrive, movements enhanced by lightning spells.

“I didn’t really believe the dean when she told us we were hunting you, Jary,” says Mirel. “But then, what do I know about judging people’s intentions, right?”

Next to her, Jeveth is expressionless, silently staring into Jary’s eyes. Jary knows that kind of stare - Jeveth isn’t looking for answers or an apology. He’s zeroing in on his prey.

“I’m sorry,” Jary offers anyway. “I always intended to leave Sinon. I wasn’t supposed to befriend anyone while there. That was a mistake.”

Jeveth’s lightning spell crackles around his clenched fist.

Mirel spares him a glance, then continues scowling at Jary. “You won’t come with us peacefully, will you?”

Jary shakes his head.

“All right then. Fine. Damn, and we could have just done the field trip.”

She’s crossed the twenty metres or so between them almost before she finishes speaking, dark magic sword in hand. Jeveth appears on Jary’s other side. He swings his enchanted spear, Sorrow, at Jary’s head.

The magic inscriptions on Jary’s bracelets and anklets light up. A tight ring of fire circles his middle, then explodes outwards, blasting Mirel and Jeveth and sending them flying. While they are still victims of inertia, Jary directs a flat, open palm at each and shouts a short incantation, dispelling their lightning speed.

“Is that how you wanna play?” Mirel asks once she finds her footing.

Jary shakes his head once more. “I don’t want to play at all.”

Jeveth and Sorrow are on him in a split second. Shadow step. Of course. Jary does another fire blast, only this time he sends himself skidding back along the layer of ice he’s covered the ground with.

Mirel notices and immediately wind walks into the air, but Jeveth gets caught by the icy hands that burst out of the ice and grab hold of his legs. Mirel’s dark magic sword turns into a whip. She swings it at Jary, who has to blast himself to the side, because his ice doesn’t move fast enough.

He knocks his head against the invisible maze and curses, hopes neither of the hunters noticed. He needs time to think. He has spells on him that could end this quickly, but Mirel and Jeveth are his friends. He’s not ready to kill them.

He should be, though, because they are good hunters. Both have noticed what Jary is hiding. Mirel strikes at it with the whip. Panicked, Jary encases his arm in ice and lets the whip wrap around it. It’s a mistake, he realises, as Mirel throws him aside, leaving room for Jeveth to blast the maze with a gust of hot wind.

Smart. They know it’s either fire or ice with Jary, and fire doesn’t make solid objects.

The maze melts. It turns visible as its magic dissipates, then turns into a cold puddle. There’s the vampire in the middle of it, unconscious. That they’ve uncovered a person gives Mirel and Jeveth pause. Jary slips his arm out of the ice and shoots harmless blasts at both hunters. Jeveth blasts him back, and only a quickly summoned ice shield saves Jary from serious burns.

He’s thrown right at the vampire, has to actually untangle himself from the man, and in doing so, he pulls off the vampire’s hood.

Jary stops breathing. He knows this man.