TUESDAYS MEANT ADVANCED Combat Lessons, which I undertook with many familiar faces: Adelina, Theo, Seb, Audrey, Nicole, Derek and Louisa were all in my class. That was around half of us. Thus, it was one of my more well-liked classes.

Our coach was a gruff, tall man by the name of Coach Penderson, who also happened to be one of Adelina's family friends. I wasn't surprised. I really wasn't that surprised.

Which was why I wasn't all that surprised when, midway through our spars, Coach called out Adelina to the side for a quick chat. I continued on with my spar with Louisa, exchanging spell after spell, attempting to deflect and block all the things she threw my way.

Adelina came over a moment later. "Hon? Come over with me for a second?"

I paused, and Louisa sucked in a deep breath, wiping the sweat off her brow. I casted her a glance. "I'll be right back?"

She nodded. "Take your time. I need a bloody break."

So I scampered over to Adelina. "What's up?" I whispered to her, glancing at where Coach Penderson was still standing.

"Coach just told me about something, thought you'd be interested as well."

"What?" but we were already practically next to the Coach. I glanced up and gave a polite nod. "Sir."

"Good, good. So, have you heard of the school's Duellers' Club, Honoria?"

Who hadn't? Everyone knew of the Duellers' Club. It was one of the school's most successful school teams. Only the best of the best were allowed in. I knew why Adelina would be informed about it, but why me?

"Of course, sir."

Coach nodded. "Well, we want to recruit a few more kids from your year. Right now, the only people from your year they have are Theodore Yu over there, Christian Morgan in the other class and Caitlyn Morson." Caitlyn was a day student. "We need more students. Adelina's a clear choice, especially considering her family, and she's the best in the class, but you're not that far behind."

I blinked. "I'm not really that good. Sebastian and Audrey can both beat me."

"We've asked Sebastian before," he explained, "he's not interested, and he rightfully pointed out that his technique is too poor. Sebastian depends on his ferocity and unpredictableness to win fights. It's why he keeps beating you, because you don't see his blows coming. But against someone with more training? It's useless. And technique is difficult to teach when he's at this kind of stage. As for Audrey, I'm putting whether or not to bring her in on hold right now. She's good, but she's unstable. Somedays she does great, other days she's one of the worst in the class. You might not be able to beat her on her good days, but at least you're consistent."

That, and the fact that I was Adelina's friend, probably. That had to play a part in this somehow. Wouldn't be surprised if Adelina had recommended me just now and Coach was making this shit up on the spot.

But I didn't say that. The Duellers' Club was prestigious, important, and an opportunity I simply couldn't give up. So I said, "I'd love to join if you believe I'm up to task for it." My parents would be so happy. The Duellers' Club would go into my university application, and it was something people seriously considered.

Besides me, Adelina beamed. "Told you, Coach. And Honoria works really hard too."

"I can tell," Coach said with a nod. "The way you fight, Honoria, it shows the hours you've put into it. It's not a fight for you, it's an art."

I blushed. "I try, sir, I try." I'd learnt years of dancing when I was younger. I'd stopped because of my schedule, but part of it still remained in my bones. It wasn't something that I could just stop doing, ever.

"Sounds good, then," Coach said. "I'll send more information later by email, keep an eye out for that. Go back to your workouts. Looks like Louisa and Audrey have paired up now—" Louis had been with me, Audrey had been with Adelina "—so why don't you two pair up and continue, then?"

"Yes sir," Adelina said with a grin before dragging me back to the middle of the gymnasium. "Oh, this is going to be so fun."

"You're the only reason I'm invited."

"Nah, nah," Adelina muttered with a shake of her head. "Yeah, you're not top of the class right now, but give it some extra time with intense coaching and practise? You can top it. Trust me. I'm a Roche. I know what I'm talking about regarding combat magic. I might be fucking everything else up, but this is one thing I'll never fail at."

"It's in your blood," I said, half-mocking, half-serious.

She nodded. "It's in my god fucking blood, Hon. Alright. Let's do this. Spar time."

"You can count to three," I told her, taking my position on the other side of the large, round mat.

"Alright then. Three, two, one. Go."

Adelina liked to play offensive. I preferred playing the defence, parrying and looking for chinks in my opponent's attack. Adelina was faster and stronger than me, and had a larger arsenal of spells, so I'd have to be more careful than usual.

As I expected, she went for the first move. A bolt of magic spiralled towards me, and I quickly casted a spell shield to deflect it with a flick of my fingers, twisting one hand clockwise to form another barrier to block her secondary attack while using the other to create a blast of purple magic. As I ducked to dodge her next bolt, I threw the blast at her as well, and she twirled to move out of its speeding path. Since I was half-knelt on the ground, I formed two tendons that shot out at her ankle. She hadn't expected that, but managed to destroy them with a slash of green.

Every person's magic showed itself in a different way. Mine was a dark purple that was nearly black, hers was an emerald green. It fit her exuberant, loud personality.

I didn't let her recover, though, shooting out another tendon that went for her arm. I casted a charm for a quick flash of light, momentarily blinding her. But Adelina had most definitely seen that move before, casting a large shield, that while fragile, was still enough to block my tendon attack. Instantly I aimed another orb at her. She deflected it too.

And she was done playing now, going directly for three orbs that flew towards me with extreme speed. I slid between the trajectory of two, but the third caught me by surprise and knocked me backwards. She hadn't been using her strongest orbs—but to be fair, neither had I, it was a spar after all—so I only barely lost my balance. If Adelina had been putting in her all, I'd probably have been sent flying back by a metre or two by the impact from the green, glowing orb.

She wasn't done yet. A crackle of energy soared past my head as I instinctively ducked at the sound. With a glance of disbelief at my friend, I summoned two shields on my hands, deflecting her barrage of incoming attacks. Once she had stopped to catch a quick breath, I threw both shields at her. One caught her in the stomach, the other missed, but the first was enough to make her double over with a wince for a second.

A second was enough for me to send a large blast of magic at her chest. She reacted just quick enough, forming a barrier to block it off, though the impact of my blast against her shield sent her sliding back slightly.

She glanced behind. I was pushing her a bit closer to the edge of the circle than she'd like. If both her feet went out of it, she'd lose by default.

Our eyes met across the circle. She smiled. I swallowed slightly—when Adelina smiled at you in the middle of a dual, you were completely and absolutely fucked. That was a widely agreed upon fact in our particular class.

Two emerald blades formed in her head. Oh come on. She knew I was physically far weaker than her, and that I could match her in long-distance combat. So she was going to make this up-close and personal.

"Come on, Hon!" she yelled out as she launched herself towards me. I swore under my breath and created a series of blasts that she sliced through until she was only around a metre away from me.

No way out of this without being a chicken. I summoned my own daggers, formed of my purple magic. Usually, I preferred using whips, but using whips at this distance against Adelina Roche would only mean I'd be too busy trying to keep them intact to actually do anything else.

Adapting to your opponent was very important. Against Adelina, the best way was to stay alive.

She was just that good. Like she always said, it was simply in her blood. That was an indisputable point.

Adelina had been learning to fight with her magic since she was a young child, because this was the sport her entire family had mastered. She was raised in that environment. It was part of her. It was something someone like me could never exceed, because I simply didn't breathe this sport like she did.

The swords came clanging down, and I raised my daggers to block them. Perhaps bringing daggers into this sword fight wasn't the best idea, but I was far too shit with swords. I might just last a few seconds longer with daggers.

Adelina's smile grew. Mine faded. It was usually how interactions between us went, at least until the very end. Not this time, though, I had a feeling this was precisely how this interaction was going to end. With her grinning like a fucking Cheshire Cat, and me on the ground.

She slashed up, I twirled out of the way, trying to find an opportunity in her relentless attacks. That was my only hope, because I had no chance of beating her in terms of pure prowess. Trickery was my only option, but Adelina was someone who'd seen every trick in the book.

She swept out with her leg and I jumped up. Blasts and orbs and tendons would do nothing now—the time it took to summon them was enough for Adelina to put me on my ass. She was fast, painfully so. When she moved she looked like a blur. I'd know, I dealt with her every day.

She was waiting for me when I landed, though, and slashed at my neck. I hadn't regained my balance yet, so I was unable to duck backwards.

We both froze. And then she wrinkled her nose. "I win."

I huffed, carefully pushing her hand away. "Of course you do. Don't sound so surprised."

Adelina gave a little shrug. "You lose the second we get into close-quarters, you know? Your magic's good enough, but your actual fighting skills..."

"There's a reason I don't let most people get into close-quarters combat with me. But you're not most people, are you?"

"Fair enough."

Coach Penderson stood in the middle of the gymnasium, surveying everyone. As Seb and Theo finally ended their deadly dance, he clapped his hands. "Alright, everyone. Gather around. We have a busy lesson ahead of us. We're working on defences today–noticed quite a few of you have some work to do regarding that."

I suppressed an internal groan. I needed to work on everything but my defence. My defence was perfectly fine. My offences, far less so. But I kept a straight face. Showing my displeasure wouldn't get me anything. And I didn't want to do anything that might put my newfound invitation to the Duellers' Club at risk.

-

THE FIRST DUELLERS' Club meeting I attended was at the end of that week, on Friday before lunchtime. I went with Adelina after our Theory of Magic lesson, though we were in different classes.

The club met in the gymnasium, as expected. We were earlier. Except for Theo and Christian, no one else was here.

I frowned. We were on time, technically.

Adelina glanced at me and whispered, "Only the lower fifth members meet during this lesson. The fourth formers are considered too young for the club, and the upper fifths are sorted into the senior group with the sixth formers. It's just us and them, along with Caitlyn."

Ah. That explained a lot. I gave Adelina a quick nod of understanding, quietly greeting Theo. I ignored Christian, and he ignored me. We didn't know each other particularly well. Actually, I don't think we'd ever spoken before. All I'd ever heard about him was that he was Lucy's main love interest.

Theo returned with a nod. "Welcome to the club, you two."

Adelina flashed a bright smile. "How nice of you, Theodore."

Theo let out a little snort. It wasn't humour, just acknowledgement. I'd noticed he was like that a lot. He rarely ever showed emotion unless he was around his best friends. If Seb was around, he'd be a lot more relaxed. If not, he was very strung up.

It was why I generally preferred being around Seb. He was just far easier to get along with. And he wouldn't suddenly stop talking and get ridiculously absorbed in his own things. Or take thirty fucking years to respond to your messages on social media.

I asked Theo for help with my Artefacts prep once. Once. He responded three days later, when I'd already handed in the assignment.

I swore he did it on purpose. Except when I asked Seb, he just told me that Theo was the kind of person to turn all his notifications off and check social media once a week, and that if I ever needed to contact Theo, it was better off asking him to pass on the message. Their dorms were next to each other, apparently.

I glanced at Adelina, and we moved to the side and sat down cross-legged. I whipped out my tablet and started swiping away, while Adelina started a conversation with Christian about their Maths class and how much they despised their teacher. As I had neither met the teacher nor be interested in their conversation, I stayed out of it.

Caitlyn Morson came sauntering in, glancing around. Spotting Adelina, the two girls gave each other a hug before pulling apart and gushing over the fact that they were now in the same club. I glanced up and looked back down.

Part of me really wished I was invisible right now. With Adelina being friends with both Caitlyn and Christian, I was either going to be alone, or stuck with Theo when he wasn't feeling antisocial. And heaven knew that was a rare, rare chance.

This was going to be awkward.

Maybe I should befriend Caitlyn.

The rational part of my brain said that. The other part told me that I was too tired to even get off the floor and haul myself towards them to join the conversation right now.

So I stayed down there. Theo gave me a strange look, as if asking, isn't that your friend over there?

I arched my brow and stared right back at him. He looked away first.

I think Seb had told me that Theo was a bit scared of me. That he saw me as a threat to his academic status. I thought it was ridiculous.

Theo was what I considered a genius. The kind of person who didn't need to study to get good grades. Who always achieved what seemed to be impossible with minimum effort put into it. That wasn't me. I always had to work hard. I always had to work so hard to get even a fraction of what people like him could achieve. I thought it was so unfair, but what could I do about it but work even harder?

The thought made me laugh, but I stifled it down as Coach Penderson strolled into the room. "Okay, okay, calm down, you two. We got business to deal with. Right. I'm sure you've all noticed Adelina and Honoria's new addition to the club—if not I'd be concerned. Now. We don't actually have much time to practise before the Duelling Opens starts in January, so I want to add more sessions. All of you will be going except Christian. Along with this one and the one after school on Monday, I want to add an extra session on Thursday afternoons. That good with you all?"

I blinked. "Sir, I have human History club after school on Thursdays."

"Damn. The rest of you?"

"I have the same," Theo admitted. "Cait too."

Caitlyn nodded as well. We all went.

Coach shook his head. "What about mornings?"

"I'm not a boarder," Caitlyn said, "but if it's not too early I can probably try and come in for that."

"It won't be too much. What time do you come in now? Eight twenty?"

Caitlyn nodded. "I live ten minutes away."

"Would you be able to come in half an hour early? Seven forty?"

Caitlyn gave it some thought. "Yeah, works."

Seven forty? That meant I had to rush breakfast, but it shouldn't be too bad. Though having to do physical activity right after breakfast was a bit... iffy.

"All of you good with that, then? Thursday morning works?"

"Sounds good." Theo scratched his neck. "I wake early to go to the gym anyways."

I glanced at Adelina, who also did the same thing. She nodded. She'd never mentioned that before. Strange.

But I didn't say anything about that, instead replying, "Thursday mornings are perfectly fine with me, sir."

"Nice, nice. Alright, let's get down to work, then. We have much to do, much to do. I'm gonna switch up the pairings a little—Adelina, I want you with Christian first. Go over there, see that arena? Spar there, please. The usual rules. Caitlyn, Honoria, Theodore, come with me. We'll work on your techniques."

From what I'd heard, Christian was one of the best duellists in the school. He wasn't in my class, so I'd never seen him fight, but if Coach was putting him against Adelina, that probably meant they were on the same level. But why wasn't Christian going to the competition, then?

I followed Caitlyn and Theo to the side, where Coach told us to stretch and warm up quickly while he grabbed some stuff for us. A moment later, he walked back out with some wooden weapons. Daggers and swords, mostly, which he tossed onto the ground.

"You three. I've realised you guy's main problems are that you're not the best at close-quarters fighting. I don't want you to focus on your magic, because it's already good enough. Instead, we're going to be using these."

I walked over with the others. Coach said, "Pick your weapons. Anything works. Whatever does the job for you."

So I picked up two daggers, before saying, "Sir, I'm usually best with whips."

Coach shook his head. "That's magic-based, more or less. I want you to work with the basics first."

Theo had picked up a sword, slashing it a few times in the air. Caitlyn chose a sword as well. I suddenly felt a bit out of place with my two daggers, but the thing was, I'd tried swords before. I couldn't get it, for some reason. It always felt a bit off in my hands, a little bit wrong.

While we were at it, I inched towards Caitlyn and asked, "Why is Christian not going to the Opens?"

She whispered back, "Because he's too good. He's already been selected to represent England in the European Youth Duelling Opens, and they don't want him to risk any severe injuries before the match. Or something like that. Really, he's just too lazy. And there's also the fact that a lot of the people at the Opens aren't actually that good, so he doesn't see a point in going."

I nodded and turned back to Coach.

Coach grunted as we each walked away from the pile. "Alright. Let's start with the basics. I want you all to get into stance, whatever stance you were taught. I don't care what it is, as long as it's a stance."

So we did. I raised both daggers before me, pointed inwards, feet firmly planted onto the ground, knees slightly bent. It was how I was taught when I first started learning combat, and I'd stuck with it. I'd always preferred the simpler things.

"Looks decent... Caitlyn, move your legs a little wider... there you go, perfect balance. Otherwise you'd be knocked onto the ground far too easily than we'd like. Honoria, raise your daggers. I get that it's heavy, but it needs to be higher. That's the only way you protect yourself. Theo... you look fine, you look fine. Keep up the good work. Okay. I want you all to lunge. Honoria, do your best with that, I know it's a bit strange with daggers."

Lunges. I stepped into a sword stance, one dagger in front as if it was a sword rather than a short dagger, and then thrust out with my hand before immediately following it up with my feet, sliding forward slightly.

Movement, the actions itself, was always something I was good at. I used to dance, after all. Coach nodded approvingly. "Not bad, not bad." He started helping Theo with his position, trying to get him to extend more so that he could reach further. "You're tall," he was saying as I shook my arm, "abuse that advantage. Your reach is far longer than anyone else's."

Caitlyn gave me a look, shaking her head. "This is all Coach ever discusses with him," she whispered. "Extending his fucking reach. It's just funny at this point. Theo doesn't need to be able to hit further, my god, he can skewer me before I can even touch him with the tip of my sword."

I let out a little snort. "Well, everyone has their strong suit, I suppose."

"Yeah, but isn't his already strong enough?" Cait asked, sighing. "Coach is like that, usually."

I giggled, and returned to practising my lunge, trying to push myself further in the same way Coach Penderson was instructing Theo too.

"Alright. Let's start work on your legs. I want you all to do footwork, front and back, left to right. Come on, get started, don't just stand around there like a bunch of idiots!"

And so the gruelling footwork session followed, until I felt like my legs were jelly and even Theo was huffing for breath. Caitlyn sent me a look of pain—despite having said no more than a couple sentences to each other in our lives, Coach Penderson's drills had instilled in us both a sense of teamwork and sympathy for each other.

That was nice.

I needed more friends. Quite honestly, anyone would be appreciated right now. It was painful, when I was in a class where I wasn't friends with anyone.

Adelina and Christian had finished their spar a little while ago, and now stood a little bit away, looking at us with equal smirks on their faces. When Coach turned away, I flashed my middle finger at Adelina. She stuck her tongue out in response.

Coach turned to the two. "You two done sparring?"

They nodded, smiles still on their faces.

"Great. Your turn for drills."

Their smiles wiped clean off.

Coach turned to the three of us. "You three, I think you can try for a three-person fight, yeah? Keeps you all on your toes. There is the two versus two battle, after all, would be good for you all to get used to fighting multiple opponents."

"Yes sir," Theo said with a nod before making his way to a faraway arena. Caitlyn and I exchanged a glance and followed.

We didn't waste any time getting down to it. It was a flash of purple, yellow–that was Caitlyn's colour, and dark green—Theo's colour, in a shade that was most definitely on the opposite spectrum of Adelina's as our blasts of magic met again and again.

Coach was right. We all did prefer using our magic a little bit too much. But one day of practice wasn't going to change anything, and I didn't want to risk using the things I'd just been retaught. Not on my first Duelling Club meeting.

I needed to do well. Not make a joke of myself right now. I needed to show them exactly what I was built of. I needed to prove myself in a way Adelina wouldn't. Coach had recruited me not because of my current level, but because of my potential. That placed my membership in a bit of a precarious position. I needed to push myself to my limits, do as well as I possibly could.

So I did what I did best: I formed two whip-like tendons with my magic and lashed them both out at Theo's direction, momentarily ignoring Caitlyn, dodging her onslaught of attacks. Theo stumbled as my whips made impact, but immediately casted a barrier that pushed them back away. I shot at him two orbs, throwing another one in Caitlyn's direction to keep her distracted.

Theo shot two blasts at me, and I deflected one and dodged the other, shooting one blast in reply before using my other tendon to slash out again, this time wrapping around his hand and yanking. The magical constructs weren't solid exactly, but they were enough to pull Theo towards me, and I took the moment when he was off-balance to shoot two blasts at him. He blocked one, but the second caught him and sent him staggering backwards. I smiled, but was instantly knocked onto the ground by a yellow orb.

Pushing myself back up, I glanced in Caitlyn's direction. She shot another at me, and I instantly dropped onto the ground to roll back out of the way, grimacing. I formed a barrier that blocked off her next few attacks so that I could get back on my feet.

My shields were usually quite sturdy. I'd realised over the years that if I paid enough attention, most ordinary attacks from people my age could be blocked by it without causing any substantial damage. That was one thing I could rely on in any fight, which was always quite nice.

All of Caitlyn's attacks bounced harmlessly off my shield. I formed a large tendon and threw it down at Caitlyn, and she leapt to the side to avoid it.

I twirled out of the way of an orb from Theo, flinging three small orbs towards him. I had little chance of being able to permanently knock either of them out of the fight, but I could drag this out a bit more. Let them fight each other and then reap the benefits.

Caitlyn slammed a large boulder down at me then, and I hadn't noticed the yellow construct until it was too late. I was knocked onto the ground and sent rolling, hissing in pain as I attempted to get back up. But Theo shot two blasts at me that ensured I stayed down. I tried to roll out of the way to avoid the barrage of ensuing attacks from both of them, but a few blasts still got a clear hit on me.

I tried to stand again, but Theo used a tendon not unlike my own that hit me on the arm, causing me to collapse from my kneeling position. Half my body was already outside the ring, but they had no intention of stopping just yet. I rolled forward to get up, and managed to dodge a couple shots but failed to get back any closer into the arena. I shot two blasts of magic at Theo, which he nimbly dodged, before sending a massive blast that knocked me off my feet and out of the ring.

I was out.

Well. I lasted a little while, at least. Rolling my shoulders, I started watching the fight between the two. It was much more fast-paced now, a flurry of green and yellow exchanges as they traded blast after blast, blow after blow. It almost looked like a painting from a distance, though the dark green with the light yellow had an almost comedic effect.

A blast from Theo caught Caitlyn in the shoulder, causing her to stumble backwards. Theo instantly slammed another into her stomach, sending her buckling back. Caitlyn casted a shield, but Theo's consecutive hit missed the shield directly and went for her unprotected legs. Caitlyn tripped onto the ground. A few more hits from Theo and Caitlyn was out as well.

Smart. The way Theo fought was by not giving his opponent a single chance once he gained an advantage. There was no way to beat him once you gave him an opening. When fighting him, you had to be extremely careful.

Caitlyn, meanwhile, took a much more straightforward approach. I could probably match her in an actual fight, though her boulders packed a punch. I never used boulders, because they were so difficult to aim and often hindered you if missed, which happened more often than not. If I dodged her boulders, I should be able to be at least equal with her. That was nice to know.

I just needed to put myself on par with at least one of them.