There was a short silence before they burst into giggles.

"What the heck was that?" said the girl Seiren had first met. Seiren blushed to the roots of her hair. She'd never conjured anything like that and most mages would have impressed for a first try, but what would they know?

"That was meant to be a horse?"

"It's so fat!"

"I loved it!" She turned in surprise to see the requester's pink, delighted face. He grabbed her hand with his only functional one. "Miss, you're amazing! I wish I could be like you!"

"You learn it at magic school if you work very hard." Seiren couldn't help but be a little pleased; at least someone recognised the difficulty of what she did.

They all swarmed around her, wide smiles and whoops.

"That was amazing, Miss!"

"Teach us, Miss!"

"I can't! You need to go to magic school."

Their faces fell.

"We don't have the moneys, Miss," said the girl in a quiet voice, her eyes downcast. "Most of us don't have mams and dads. And those who do, we don't have much moneys so it's hard to go to school."

Seiren's heart felt heavy. She knelt to the girl's height and gripped her shoulders, staring at her straight in the eyes.

"Don't let that be a hurdle to you getting into King's, you hear?" she said fiercely, her eyes ablaze. "I got a scholarship into King's. The school paid for all my teaching. I didn't have any money. I didn't have my parents, either. They died when I was twelve and I didn't have anyone since. I did it. So can you."

"Really?" The girl brightened up.

"Honest as the sun."

Those simple words seemed to reignite the fire in the girl and several others around them. They clutched at each other, trembling with exhilaration.

"We can go too? All of us?"

"If you work hard enough, yes."

"We can! We can be mages!"

"Yes. Now bog off. I need to look at this boy's arm."

They laughed and waved, darting to return to their game, leaving the boy with the chaos magic arm. He shuffled forward and offered it shyly. Seiren touched it with tentative fingers. It was warm below her fingers and soft. The surface thrilled beneath her touch; a thin film adhered to her fingers when she lifted them and then receded back to the boy's cocooned arm. There was so much life and energy beneath it she could almost sense a pulse.

"What did you do to your arm...?"

"Pietr. I got caught nicking stuff in the market. A man caught me and beat me for it." He rubbed his head, sheepish, with his good arm. "He broke my arm. The lady doctor wrapped it in this and said it should heal in four days. It's been two so far."

Four days! Normally broken arms take weeks, if not months. If this was the strength of chaos magic, Seiren could only imagine it fine-tuned with enough trialling or if powered by runes.

"And it doesn't hurt?"

"Nope. Not a bit. Just a bit itchy and I can't scratch it, but it doesn't do anything else. It hurt a lot more when it was broken!"

"That's... amazing." Seiren poked Pietr's fingers. They wriggled. What she would give to crack it open and see what was on the inside.

Or, you know, you could just go ask Loren.

A shrill whistle pierced the night air. Without Seiren realising, the sun had set, and most of the children had actually returned to the hospital interior.

"What was that?"

"Oh, that'll be the military people chasing a bad guy. It happens from time to time."

"I didn't realise there are bad guys here." That was such a stupid thing to say. Of course there were bad guys everywhere. The jovialness and positivity of the Bicknor residents so far had given Seiren such a skewed view. Pietr had just told her about the man who'd beaten him up. Of course there were foul people here, too. "What happens to them?"

"They get locked away and never seen again."

"But what happens to them?"

He shrugged. He kept glancing back at the open double glass doors into the hospital.

"You should go, eh?"

"Yes, Miss. Thank you for the magic. It was amazing."

"Any time."

"Really?" He grabbed her hand, hope shining in that innocent face. "Will you come back? And show us more magic? Milena and Leksi will love to see it too."

Seiren hesitated. This wasn't a burden she'd actually take on. She regretted being carried away by the reverence the children placed on her.

But she was going to be at the Institute for the next few weeks anyway. What was ten minutes of magic going to hurt? Not her, and not these guys, who seemed to have brightened up considerably since her rather dismal attempt at transmutation magic.

"Sure."

Pietr's grin was so big it almost split his face. He waved at her with his magicked arm and raced back to the door, where a disapproving-looking nurse stood, about to lock up.

Seiren thought about that cocooned arm during her cart travel back to Loren's. Such lively magic couldn't be achieved through rune or burst, or even flash. Organic magic was a possibility, were it not illegal, so she'd never seen it used. It would never be used in a hospital. But even if it was chaos magic, the magic of equivalent exchange which thrived in areas of life and death, how was it controlled? Uncontrolled green runes promoted uncontrolled healing and eventual overwhelming of the host.

"You haven't said much all evening, Seiren." Loren plonked a bowl of last night's stew in front of her, this time with some sort of noodles. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Seiren frowned, chewing her lip.

"If you keep doing that, you'll draw blood."

Sure enough, the metallic tang of blood proved Loren right.

"Chaos magic. You're training in it?" Seiren blurted out.

Ah, so you finally ask for me.

"Mmm?" Loren turned back to her. She'd been busy waving out of the windows at passers-by again. It was hard to imagine someone this scatter-brained could produce such brilliant magic.

"Chaos magic."

"Oh. Well, healing is part of my job after all."

"You're already proficient in it even though you've recently started training in it?"

She blinked at Seiren. For a moment, Seiren wondered if Loren had been lost in a daydream already or got distracted. To her surprise, Loren chortled and almost inhaled her stew.

"Oh! You think... oh I'm not surprised! The registry hasn't been updated yet. So you think I'm still in training! No. I'm its pioneer."

Seiren ogled at her.

"I created chaos magic."

Seiren's spoon clattered to her stew, spraying sauce everywhere. She created...!

See? I told you you've seriously underestimated her. She's not an airhead.

"Wait," Seiren croaked, her mind spinning at the speed of a spooked horse. "So when the textbooks say a doctor discovered it by accident, it was talking about...?"

"Me? Yeah. But it didn't put my name on it because it was just so experimental. I submitted my discovery under a fake name so although the results could be replicated in practice – so they knew I didn't make it up – they didn't trace my name. I wanted more time with it first, but it was just such a big discovery! Can you imagine – a new type of magic!" Her face brightened despite the fatigue and bags under her eyes. She gestured with energy. "It's only earlier on this year that I began to submit discoveries in it. I was making actual progress. These patients who would otherwise have suffered from their illnesses – chaos magic healed them in ways runes wouldn't, or at least not as easily. But these broken bones, failing hearts, bleeding ulcers... chaos magic healed them! Not completely, and not always, but at the very least it provided the symptomatic relief so many of them craved. Short of anaesthetising them with strong medicines that might kill them, we have nothing."

The enthusiasm radiated off her in waves. Seiren still struggled with the idea that Loren Rummage was the one who discovered this new branch of magic.

"And the idea is so simple: healing with life energy. One for one. Life and death: it's all in one. Just simply tuning to it and aligning the patient's life energy to the circle of life and you can heal. It's literally magic. Burst and flash couldn't achieve this complexity. Rune couldn't be this delicate. Fold magic is still too immature, but I'm working on that—"

"Wait, you're pioneering fold magic, too?" Seiren reeled; she couldn't take any more surprises that day.

Loren giggled. "Oh, that side nobody's interested in. I created fold magic too, during my time at King's. Nobody wanted to try it. Anything I can fold, rune or burst can do anyway, so there wasn't much worth in investing in it – so they tell me when I applied for grants in fold magic, anyway. It was too, ah, what did they call it... superfluous. Basically, because it can't be used as weapon or to the military's advantage, they don't care. So it got relegated to a hobby. I don't have much time for it any more."

"It didn't benefit them?" But its potential was unknown. It seemed ridiculous to shoot it down so early in its stage. Seiren had attempted fold magic during a dull burst magic lesson. She'd managed to create small dancing men and shimmering stars. She probably should have used it for Pietr and the others instead of her failed blob horse. Perhaps Rowan had a point: she should not rely so much on her rune magic.

Could it be...? No way. Seiren has insight?!

Perhaps I should light an orange rune on my head, too.

"That's what's pushing the research. If in some way you can prove it will benefit the military, you'll get funding. Flash magic as weapons of war? Sure. Burst magic in creating strongholds? Not a problem. Runes to trap enemy soldiers? Be my guest. Anything else is purely for academic purposes and you have to fund it privately, and trust me, the funding is not cheap."

I wonder what the military has to gain in letting you do healing magic, then.

Sure not healing wounds in battle? Seiren mimicked Madeleine's incredulous tone.

Is it that simple? Madeleine sounded unconvinced. They have chaos magic for that already, if it's as advanced as Loren says it is.

It made Seiren uncomfortable to know the military had a personal interest and gain in her research.

"But why the interest in chaos magic? I thought your specialty was runes?"

"They don't teach us chaos magic at King's."

"Well, yeah, of course. I'm probably the only chaos mage in the whole of Karma. And I have no time to teach."

"The healing... I could use it in my research. Maybe. You wrote in the textbook that you wanted to avoid the complexities of runes, which is how chaos magic was created. But what if I could combine it with runes? What then?"

"Who knows? I'm not a rune specialist."

But she knew more about healing runes than Seiren did, even though Seiren slaved over pretty much nothing but runes during the six years at King's and read all the textbooks available at the library on it, including those in the restricted section after begging her tutor. She scooped the stew and ate half of it in silence.

"Can you teach me?" she blurted out.

Could mine ears be deceiving me?

Loren gave her a knowing smile. Seiren swallowed. Madeleine felt so pleased and hopeful in her head.

"You're a keen learner. I think you'll make a good chaos mage, actually. Your control over the runes is quite spectacular. I've never seen a red and a violet rune blend together so closely."

Seiren flushed to the roots of her hair. Loren had seen the show she'd put together for those children?

"You've a good heart, even if your mouth is a bit sharp. Milena went on and on about the boy mage outside when she came back in."

"The boy mage?!" Seiren's mouth fell open.

I think it's your hair. Did you forget to brush it again?

Seiren touched the untidy spikes at the back self-consciously. She didn't paint her face like most girls her age did, and her hair was untidy and kept at shoulder-length, but she would never pass for a boy, surely.

Loren chuckled, seeing Seiren's mortification.

"Don't take it to heart, Seiren. Milena's eyes are pretty awful. Her mother's health wasn't that great when she carried her. She liked a drink. Milena sees fuzzy shapes and probably saw the shape of your short hair."

"The boy mage," Seiren muttered, her face hotter than any orange rune she'd drawn.

"It's no big deal. You see that picture over there?"

Loren pointed over Seiren's shoulder. She turned and her eyes fell on the old photo she'd seen earlier on that day of the three siblings and blonde-haired boy.

"That blonde kid there? That's me."

Seiren choked.

"Yeah, I was a real tomboy back then. I used to beat up Rowan pretty good, too. He never really forgave me for that. But he used to be so fat he couldn't chase me, so it was great winding him up." Loren rested her chin on her hand, on a propped elbow, a small reminiscing smile on her face. "I didn't start growing my hair properly until I was about sixteen. Everyone thought I was a boy whose voice hadn't broken, for the first two years at King's."

Seiren's mind ticked and she frowned. "I thought people start at King's at twelve years old?"

"Yeah, not me. My parents were dead, so I didn't really have a place to go. When Ro said he was going to go to King's – that's where generations of his family have been – he asked me to come, too. If he boarded at King's, I wouldn't have anyone. I didn't think I could pass the proficiency test though. I'd never done any magic, ever. Apparently I had some potential. Enough for them to give me a scholarship, anyway. I enrolled at fourteen. Ro and I graduated at the same time."

Loren might sound off-hand about all of it, but scholarships were hard to come by. King's only ever handed out five amidst a class of a hundred with every year's entries. For someone who had never shown magic potential until the day of her proficiency exam, and to create a new type of magic during her student years and then a further one as a newly-registered mage...

Not an airhead, then, eh?

Seiren met Loren's grey eyes and leaned forward on the table. "Please teach me chaos magic, Loren."

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