Fletcher had hoped to see what demons the nobles possessed when Lovett finally decided that all the commoners had mastered infusion. Sadly, she always ordered them to infuse their demons before parting the curtain.

He had been surprised to find that Rory and Genevieve were adept at infusion, whilst Seraph, Othello and Atlas had taken several tries to manage it. It made a lot of sense, as the more powerful the demon, the more difficult it was to infuse them.

As the lessons progressed, Fletcher had begun to size up his fellow students. The nobles were proficient yet lazy, content with their current level of expertise and complacent in their learning.

In contrast, the commoners were learning at a furious pace, absorbing every bit of information that they could. Unfortunately, practice was the greatest teacher in both spellcraft and infusion, so progress was slow.

Still, there were several frontrunners amongst Fletcher's friends. Sylva and Othello were naturals, earning approving remarks from the teachers in almost every lesson. The same was true for the more cerebral demonology classes. The pair practically lived in the library, hunting through old tomes for hidden knowledge. Fletcher learned as much from them as he did from Major Goodwin.

As for the human commoners, Fletcher and Seraph led the pack, though it was through the dint of hard work rather than natural talent. The others had taken to whiling away their weekends in Corcillum, buying gifts and necessities and sending them back to their family. Seraph's family appeared to be wealthy already and he had visited Corcillum in the past, so he preferred to spend time studying with Fletcher.

He was a good-natured lad with a shameless sense of humour, earning many a disapproving stare from Sylva and Othello as they read in the dusty silence of the library.

'Gather round, everyone,' Lovett shouted, tearing Fletcher away from his musings.

Four servants had brought a round stone table to the centre of the room. It was covered in a white sheet, but Fletcher could see a large convex bump in the centre of it. Everyone found a place along the edge, although it was tight. Isadora made a face as a sweaty Atlas squeezed in beside her, then pointedly held a lacy handkerchief to her nose.

'Sorry,' Atlas muttered with embarrassment.

Lovett left her place at the table and kneeled beside the largest pentacle in the very centre of the room. Unlike the summoning leathers that they had been using, this pentacle was surrounded by the strange keys that had been etched into the front of James Baker's book.

'You are never to use a keyed pentacle without a teacher present, is that understood?' she growled, pointing at the star in front of her. 'Breaking this rule is grounds for immediate expulsion. You have been warned!'

The students nodded dumbly as she powered up the pentacle, the lines crackling with energy and spitting sparks in all directions. This time Lovett stayed with her head bowed for several minutes, her face contorted with concentration. The pentacle was pulsing with a volatile buzz, wavering like the incessant humming of a madman.

'Wow, if it takes Lovett this long, I don't think I could use a keyed pentacle even if I wanted to,' Seraph whispered next to him. 'I can barely infuse Sliver without almost passing out.'

'Don't worry. I'm sure with practice we will manage it,' Fletcher murmured back.

Finally, a sphere expanded in the centre of the star and hung in the air like a dim blue sun. Lovett panted and then shuffled over to the next pentacle on her knees. With a soft touch, she released a demon into existence above it.

'A Mite!' Genevieve whispered to Rory. Lovett heard and turned around with a tired smile.

'That's right. They make the best scouts, always needed when hunting in the ether. Valens is the first demon I ever owned. Without him, I would never have managed to capture Lysander, or any of the demons I had before him for that matter.' She strode back to the table and placed one hand on the white sheet that covered it. In the other hand, she held a long strip of leather that connected to the base of the keyed pentacle. Fletcher suspected it was so she could keep the mana flowing to it.

'What I am about to show you is the most expensive equipment in the entire academy. Do not touch it. Don't even breathe on it. Just watch,' Lovett hissed, looking them each in the eye until they were all nodding. With that last warning, she whipped off the cloth and revealed what was underneath.

An enormous gemstone was set in a white marble counter. The crystal was as clear as a mountain stream and its colouring was the deep purple of wild heather.

'The gemstone is a very rare type of crystal called Corundum,' Lovett said. 'It forms in almost every colour, but large, transparent pieces such as this are incredibly hard to find. We call them scrying stones, although this particular gem is known as the Oculus. We will provide you with one if you cannot afford to buy one for yourself, although you may find the quality and size of the academy's pieces quite . . . lacking.'

Lovett beckoned Valens over, and the little creature flew over their heads, settling on the gem. Unlike Malachi and Azura, the Mite's shell was a boring dark brown. As if she could read Fletcher's mind, Lovett smiled at him knowingly and stroked the beetle demon's carapace.

'Valens is well suited to his job. He won't look pretty on my shoulder, but he will be harder to spot if a hungry demon comes by in the ether.'

Fletcher had a brief recollection of Ignatius eating a brown beetle when he had first summoned him, but that thing had been much smaller than any of the Mites he had seen. It was probably a different species.

'Right, let's get this show on the road. You must push the mana through the demon and into the stone like this,' she said, laying her free hand over Valens.

The gemstone turned black. As she removed her hand the colour changed again. At first, Fletcher thought the gemstone had become a mirror, finding himself staring at an image of his own face. But soon the image flicked to Seraph's.

'You are now looking through Valens's eyes. It is a technique that we call scrying, very useful for scouting and controlling your demons from afar. We can already sense the demon's thoughts. Now we can also see and hear what they can in the crystal. It is essential to check what is on the other side of the portal with your least important demon before entering the ether. Should there be something dangerous on the other side when he comes through, it will be Valens at risk rather than Lysander. Because a Mite is smaller and more agile, he is less likely to be noticed and can escape more easily.'

The image shook as Valens buzzed into the air and hovered just in front of the spinning blue orb. Lovett clicked her tongue, and with that, the demon whipped into the orb like a gunshot.

The first thing Fletcher saw in the stone was the red-tinged ground. Fine grains of rusty sand swirled above it, churned into dust devils by a seething wind. The sky was the orange of sunrise, yet it held no warmth, nor was there a source of light in the sky. Stunted trees dotted the landscape, their sparse branches contorted in rigor mortis. There was no life here, just a dry husk of a land long dead.

'Perfect,' Lovett said. 'We have emerged in the deadlands.'

'Deadlands?' Rory asked in an awestruck voice.

'Entering the ether is not an exact science. There is a large margin of error in where we might come out. The deadlands come with positives and negatives, depending on your purpose. There will be nothing to surprise you here, but if you are trying to capture a demon, you will have to drag it quite a distance to get back to the portal. If I was hunting, I would close this portal and open a new one, but for the purposes of this exercise it is ideal. The deadlands are between the void and the outer circle of the inhabited ether.' Lovett's voice was strained. Fletcher could see a vein pulsing in her forehead. Entering the ether must take a lot of power and concentration.

Valens turned and flew away from the portal, his altitude rising steadily. It was silent in the room, the only sound Lovett's heavy breathing, as the minutes ticked by. The landscape seemed to get even more desolate, with fewer and fewer trees until all they could see was flat, raw earth.

'How do you know where to go?' Tarquin asked. 'It all looks the same to me.'

Fletcher realised that was a good question. The young noble was a lot of things, but he was not stupid.

'The portal always faces the centre of the ether when your demon comes out, so you are orientated as soon as you enter. Additionally, all demons are drawn to the centre instinctually and they have an internal compass that tells them where it is. I can guide myself using this, but it takes practice and is not very accurate. That is why it is always risky entering the ether. I can only hold the portal open for so long and if I close it before Valens gets through, our bond will be broken, and I will lose him,' Lovett lectured back. Tarquin opened his mouth to ask another question but Fletcher got there first.

'What do you mean by the centre? Does that mean the ether has a shape?' he asked, trying to understand.

'As far as we know, the ether is disk shaped. The weaker demons tend to stay in the outer rings, with more powerful demons gravitating to the centre. There seems to be a rudimentary food chain, with low-level Mites on the very bottom, closest to the deadlands.'

Tarquin began to speak again but Lovett held up a hand to silence him.

'Save your questions for later. It is hard enough holding the portal open and guiding Valens without thinking of answers for you.' Even as she spoke, the pentacle flickered. She grunted and it glowed a steady violet once again.

Despite the intensity of the lesson, Fletcher felt himself relax, perhaps for the very first time. Everyone was learning something here, even Tarquin. It all made so much sense to Fletcher, as if he were remembering something long forgotten. He was meant for this.

The horizon began to fall away, darkening dramatically. The glow of the sky faded into a pure, starless black, yet the little Mite flew higher and higher. Finally he stopped and turned his view downwards once again.

'Look closely. You will see them,' Lovett said, her voice taught with exertion.

The land cut off in a neat line, creating the perfect precipice of a cliff that fell away into murky darkness below. Fletcher could see that the cliff line stretched on far into the distance, almost imperceptibly curving as they faded out of sight. He realised that the disk must be enormous, larger than a thousand Hominums. This would not be a good place to get lost, he thought grimly.

His line of thought was broken as he saw something stir in the abyss. As the beetle demon's eyes adjusted to the dark, a seething mass came into view. It twisted and writhed tortuously, a tangled chaos of tentacles, eyes and jagged teeth.

'Ceteans,' Sylva breathed in quiet horror.

'Aye, Ceteans. You've done your homework, Sylva,' Lovett uttered darkly, wiping sweat from her brow. 'Some call them the Old Ones. They starve down there, cannibalising each other as they wait. The Ceteans will snatch any demon that wanders this far, usually the sick or the injured trying to find somewhere to recover. That is why we must fly so high. This is the one and only time I will risk coming near them, so learn this lesson well. Stay away from here.'

Valens turned and flew back the way they had come. This time there were no questions as the group mulled over the nightmarish creatures they had just seen. The giant monsters were grotesque and tortured beings, of that Fletcher was certain. Though he could not hear anything, he could imagine their tormented screams in his head.

The blue orb that was the portal hovered beneath them, but Valens flew over it. With his current height, they made good time, the land rushing underneath like fallen leaves in a river. Fletcher wondered what it was like for Lovett, riding on a Griffin over the battlefield, then felt a pang of jealousy when he realised he would never be able to ride Ignatius.

'I will quickly show you where the hunting grounds begin, then I must get back,' Lovett spat through gritted teeth. 'Normally I can go for much longer, but I am not yet recovered from the capture of Atlas's Lutra a few days ago. I was lucky that Provost Scipio was there to harness it.'

'Harness?' Rory asked. Lovett ignored him, instead pointing at the gemstone.

The world had turned green. Valens was looking over a forest, though the vegetation was not one Fletcher recognised. Above it, he saw flocks of flying demons in the distance, swooping and turning like starlings. A swarm of tiny Mites flew low above the trees, before scattering as a large Mite not unlike Valens snatched one of them from the air. Far in the distance, ash clouds stained the sky. Below them, lava-tipped volcanoes spewed pillars of smoke, hanging in the air like columns supporting the heavens.

Something hit Valens with brutal force, knocking him out of the sky. Lovett cried out in pain as the image spun like a kaleidoscope, trees rushing up to meet them.

The stone turned black as ink.

Did you know that the Wattpad version of Summoner: The Novice is just a large sample of the first draft? The published version is longer and 100% completed, with more demons, more lessons and more action! 

The book is out now in all mainstream stores as well as online, so keep an eye out next time you're book shopping!

Feel free to keep reading and decide if you want to buy the published version later on. If you liked this chapter, please don't forget to vote!