Basic Thaumaturgy for the Emotionally Incompetent

Chapter 71: It’s my ritual hat

Fabrisse spotted the scullery maid just as she emerged from the east gatehouse kitchen, balancing a cloth-covered tray in one hand and muttering under her breath about ‘those noodle-limbed faculty boys and their fire rites.’ The smell hit him before the sight did—fresh-baked bread, still warm enough to leave heat ghosts in the air. His feet moved without permission.“Afternoon, Marla,” he said, putting on what he hoped was a harmless grin.

Marla squinted up at him. “Well if it isn’t the stone-toting noodle boy himself. Shouldn’t you be . . . oh, I don’t know, learning to levitate something without spraining your fingers?”

Marla was one of those people who seemed to exist outside the formal structure of the Synod, and yet knew everything that happened within it. She had never worn a robe in her life, but could recite the list of instructors most likely to pass out during a fire rite and the students who snuck snacks into Transmutation Theory. She was brisk, sharp, always smelled faintly of flour and rose ash, and had the rare gift of being able to scold and spoil someone at the same time.

“Working on it,” he said. “You, uh . . . delivering that somewhere urgent?”

Marla huffed and tilted the tray so he could glimpse the edge of a golden-brown crust. “Urgent as in ‘don’t let the head lecterns eat my eyebrows if it’s late,’ sure. But urgent as in ‘couldn't spare a heel to a growing boy with a bruised academic record’? Maybe not.”

Fabrisse perked up. “I’d consider it a charitable donation to the undernourished.” He paused. A brief thought surfaced, telling him that he could always ask if they needed help in the scullery. A few hours of dish-duty might earn him meals without dipping into his savings.

He extinguished the idea immediately.

He had to earn the grant. Or, at the very least, a position on merit—through his magical prowess, not pot-scrubbing. He was a student at the Synod, not a kitchenhand with glyph-scuffed sleeves. His mother hadn’t sent him here to munch on bread during break time and come back smelling of soaproot.

Marla rolled her eyes but didn’t pull the tray away. "You know, my husband used to say things like that. 'Oh, Petey, love, just a spoonful of honey for the nerves, your body runs on magic, mine runs on jam.' And now look at him, sitting at home in bed all day with Laika curled across his stomach like he’s the emperor of breadland.”

“I’d be happier if you handled little Laika for me, to be honest. She’s a terror,” Marla said, proud. “Little legs like fury. But loyal. Unlike some students who forget their manners and try to charm free loaves without even asking about my week.”

“I was going to ask,” he said. “How your week?”

Marla drew herself up, shifting the tray to one hip like she was preparing for a long march. “Oh, a whirlwind, darling. First the ovens shorted out while we were baking, because someone in Alchemy decided to reroute our aether grid. Don’t ask me why, probably trying to boil their laundry or something. Then the junior scullery girls mixed the basil glaze with the chili oil again, which would’ve been fine if the basil hadn’t already been laced with shimmerroot for Professor Yoren’s ‘digestive lecture banquet,’ whatever that means.”

Fabrisse kept nodding along, but soon, the sounds no longer reached his ears.

The tray. The aroma. It was stronger now: rich and buttery, with the unmistakable scent of warm creamy tart, laced with sugar-glazed crust and a whisper of steaming mingleberry jam. It drifted past his nose, bypassing thought and heading straight for his soul.

“Mr. Kestovar.”

The voice dropped like a cold stone into a bowl of soup.

Fabrisse froze. The sugar-honey fog vanished in an instant. Marla’s voice cut off as both their heads turned.

Lorvan stood three paces behind him, arms folded, expression very much Not In A Tart-Eating Mood.

Fabrisse felt himself wilt. “. . . Mentor.”

Lorvan glanced at the tray, then back to Fabrisse. “Why are you not assisting with the ritual preparations? This is your assigned contribution, is it not?”

Ah, the dreaded rituals.

Technically, they were part of an ‘Introductory Ritual Mechanics’ practicum that was mandatory for students at every level, non-introductory included. In practice, it meant spending two hours barefoot in the east courtyard, throwing starpetal blossoms into a runic basin while chanting about ‘inner clarity and harmonic grounding’ until someone passed out from incense exposure.

But it was a required participatory credit, and some students—like Severa, blessed be her smug enthusiasm—actually loved it. She claimed the petals responded to her ‘innate cadence.’ Liene would usually enjoy the rituals too, but only because she had an infatuation with petals.

“I was just—”

Lorvan raised an eyebrow. “You do realize credit participation is mandatory?”

“That ritual’s ridiculous. They’re just throwing petals into a runic basin and chanting in a circle until someone faints from incense.”

“Yes,” Lorvan said. “A perfect academic tradition.”

“I was going to go,” Fabrisse muttered. “Eventually.”

“And yet here you are, loitering by bread.” Lorvan glanced pointedly at the uncovered tray, then back at him. “Tell me, Kestovar. I thought you were taking your academic standing seriously now. Or are you planning to fail a fifth unit just to prove you’re artistically misunderstood?”

That stung more than Fabrisse wanted to admit.

“I’m not planning to fail,” he said, quieter.

“Then prove it. Go help. Credit is credit. Unless you’d rather throw away this term’s progress.”

Fabrisse sighed, then gave Marla an apologetic look. “Rain check on the loaf?”

Marla gave a pitying smile and whispered, “Check under the linen flap on the far right. Corner piece. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Fabrisse slid the corner into his sleeve like it was a relic, then trudged toward the central green where the students were already gathering in a petal-laden spiral.

He hated everything about petals.

“Hi, Fabri. You’re late,” came the chipper voice of Liene Lugano as he approached the green field.

She stood near the outer ring of the ritual circle, waving a hand over her head like she was hailing a ship rather than greeting a fellow student. Fabrisse’s reply died in his throat when he saw what was on her head.

A wreath. Or . . . it had started life as a wreath. It was now an uneven crown of crushed starpetals, trailing vine, and something that resembled kitchen twine. A single charmed blossom rotated slowly above her brow like it had aspirations of being a halo, but was far too tired for the job. Somehow, the entire ensemble hovered between sacred and unhinged.

She had always had a talent for taking perfectly elegant elements and turning them into the utterly bizarre, devoid of any grace.

She grinned. “Do you like it? I was aiming for celestial priestess, but I think I landed closer to forest hermit.”

“You look like a very floral comet crash survivor.”

“Thank you,” she said with twinkled eyes, as if that had been a compliment. “It’s my ritual hat.”

“There are no ritual hats.”

“There are now,” she said, and spun on one foot, nearly clocking a first-year with the trailing end of her vine sash. “Anyway, you can throw petals clockwise with the rest of us or pretend to rearrange the salt bowls for the next twenty minutes. Personally, I find the clockwise motion deeply healing.”

He stared at the circle. A few upper-years were singing a hymn. Someone had started burning the incense again—oh joy, today was neroli and fireleaf. His sinuses already felt insulted.

Standing near the stone dais, crotchety as always, was Headmaster Draeth.o hear.

She raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

He accepted.