Alphabeta’s testing hall put most universities to shame.

Built in a multipurpose space that could’ve served for recitals, speeches, or even spectator sports with the right equipment. It had been lined with rows of tables to one side of the room, and long rune-scribed mats laid out on the other side, surrounded with personal shields so that spells could be thrown back and forth without risk of collateral damage. Girls were doing spells on those mats: Creating lights, conjuring shapes, lifting stones. Displaying their skills.

A teacher by the entrance called out, her voice amplified so that everyone could hear her clearly, though nobody would find her voice uncomfortably loud.

“Applicants to the right–find an open seat and sit down. You will not look up from your test until you’ve completed it. Once it’s done, bring your test to me, then head over to an open practice mat for practical demonstrations of ability.”

Here, Daniel knew he’d shine. Swaggering to one of the open seats, he sat before the slightly-enchanted paper and picked up the #2 pencil provided. Multiple choice bubbles were so easy as to be laughable, and he blew through them one after the other. Questions about magical theory, basics that Daniel didn’t even need to consider–for many of the questions, he didn’t even need to look at the multiple choice options, he just knew the right answer immediately.

Smirking as he got past the first page in minutes, he wondered how the nearby girls were doing–surely they found this as much of a joke as he did. Turning his head–No. His eyes remained on the next page of his test.

(Hey, why can’t I–)

Turning his head–No.

His gaze stayed locked on the paper. (They enchanted us?)

Straining, Daniel turned his head–No.

He simply could not look up from the multiple choice questionnaire, no matter how much effort he poured into the attempt. Cheating wasn’t simply forbidden–it was impossible, robbing his autonomy away.

(Note to self–figure out what this sort of spell is called. Figure out how to get around it.)

Daniel wondered what’d happen if he found a loophole in their magic and managed to cheat. Would they give it a pass, because it demonstrated more skill and magical power than simply answering the questions normally?

Then again, what good would cheating be if he could bypass spells created by the teachers?

Flipping to the next page, he grinned. (Rune diagrams–they must have heard I was coming.)

This was no test, it was a game. He knew runes better than the alphabet, and quickly identified the purpose of each diagram, flipping from page to page.

Potions knowledge took a bit more effort, but not much–who could forget what amounted to memory puzzles and shopping lists?

With every question, his confidence grew. He finished up before the girls sitting around him, most of whom had sat down before he walked into the room–and, once he stood up and his answers had been locked in, he was able to glance at their tests.

(Wow, really? They’re getting answers wrong? This is…like… grade school stuff.)

Walking back to the teacher by the door, he brought his test back to the teacher organizing this section. Holding out the sheaf of papers triumphantly, he said, “Here’s my test.”

“That was fast, Miss…?” She took the stack and glanced through horn-rimmed spectacles at the top of the first paper. Finding his name printed there, she read out, “Aster.”

“It wasn’t hard,” he replied, keeping a straight face–even dressed as a girl, he’d been caught off guard by the ‘Miss’. “I didn’t see any reason to slow down when I knew all the answers.”

“The fastest results aren’t always the best,” she pointed out, thumbing through to check a few things before setting aside the stack.

Daniel nearly ran his mouth: ‘In a duel, it’s the quicker warlock who wins, not the one who sits down to hem and haw over the details.’ He caught himself, just barely too late to keep from speaking entirely. “In a d…” (Witches don’t duel.)

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Hmm?”

“In a day or two,” he said, mouth running ahead of his thoughts, just filling the air. “Will we…know our test results?”

She exhaled through her nose. “Ms. Aster, we don’t need to wait that long. I’ll have the results as soon as the last test is done.” Holding up his test, she added, “In fact, I’ve already graded this paper, and you did remarkably well–if you can handle yourself this well with practical magic, I am fully confident I’ll see you in my class.”

“I’m sure I will.” He smiled, and–hoping to sell it a bit–gave a slight curtsy.

Her expression flattened by degrees, a shade cooler than it’d been before his attempt at femininity.

(Crap, crap–)

“Don’t expect your confidence to get you through my lessons,” she added. “If you expect to breeze through this easily in my class, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

(Oh, she just thinks I’m cocky.) “I won’t. May I ask your name?”

“Once you’re enrolled, Professor Blackburn,” she said. “Until then, I prefer non-students simply call me Velma.”

He smiled. (Once I’m enrolled. Even the teachers know I belong at a school like this.)

(Eh…not exactly like this, but certainly at a magic school.)

“Thank you, Velma,” he said, turning to walk to the practice mats.

Time for some practical magic.

He stepped into the ring, and felt the slight pop of magic sealing around him, weighing on his ears like a pressurized airplane cabin at high altitude. Everything around fell silent–it was just him and the sound of his breath, with slightly aching ears from the pressure.

Another student, a blonde girl about his height with a bandaid over her nose looked distraught and slightly pained as the magic sealed her into her own private bubble. He caught her gaze, smiled, and gestured to his face. Reaching up, he squeezed on his nostrils and blew until his ears popped.

She mimicked him, expression melting to relief, and gave him a thumbs up in response.

He smiled, waiting for instruction.

A second passed. He shivered–he hadn’t accounted for the dress being this drafty, he was used to pants that kept his legs comfortably warm. His dress came down pretty far, but a gentle shifting of air in the room still sent cold tendrils up his bare legs.

After a few more moments, glowing letters formed in front of him, hovering in the air. ‘Follow instructions accurately, quickly, and efficiently.’

“Okay, which instructions?” Then he answered his own joke. “Yup, that’s correct, the witch instructions.”

The letters shifted. ‘Conjure light.’

Light spells were easy peasy, and about what he’d expected from a witch’s school–there wouldn’t be any fast, complicated evocations. Reaching into his purse, he took out his wand, flicked it in the air, and flexed his power. It felt like tensing muscles somewhere deep in his chest, except for a lack of physical strain on any part of his body–the more he tensed, the more power he unleashed, and here it took just a little burst of power for the desired effect.

He created a little mote of werelight.

The letters flashed green.

‘Dismiss light.’

He did so, releasing the tension he’d held over his heart. Robbed of its fuel, the light winked out like a lightbulb and the letters flashed green again. Again, simple.

‘Instructions understood. Proceeding to testing.’

“Uh…oh. That was just to make sure I…understood…”

The letters had already begun to reform. ‘Create a physical construct four feet wide and six feet tall, capable of withstanding fifty Newtons of force.’

“Uh…uh…”

The girl next to him was already working on it, already building a barrier. He had to stop and think, focusing on how much power he needed to stop that much force.

“Cavilion Elementus?” he flexed his power to try and release just enough energy for the result he wanted, but it was like going to pick up an object without knowing how heavy it’d be, and he had no way of fixing after the fact if he overcompensated. Sending out power, he flicked his wand through the air.

A slightly shimmering shield formed in front of him, then shattered. The instruction letters flashed red, highlighting the end, ‘Capable of withstanding fifty Newtons of force.’

He scowled–he’d been trying to avoid wasting power, but he’d undershot. He tried again, figuring out the exact level of magic power needed to pass by gut feel–a bit of trial and error based on the failed attempt, and a bit of superstitious guessing. “Cavilion Maximus!”

This time it worked, but when the letters flashed green, they seemed…duller. No shiny success for him, just an adequate result.

Another set of instructions formed, asking him to manipulate flame. Trying to whip out the magic, he sent a gout of fire that burned a brief hole in the letters, stopping against the edge of the invisible seal that penned in his practice mat. He tried again, slower–when he stopped and focused on exactly what he needed to do, he did better.

It went like that. His hastily conjured magic worked one in four times, but more often than not he had to try again, reworking the power needed on the fly. None of the spells were particularly complicated or immensely difficult, but they were tricky and specific–he didn’t want to take an hour on each one to work out exactly how much energy he should send out, not when speed was being accounted for, but instead he kept flubbing it, using far too much or far too little power.

The girl with the band aid on her nose finished up. When she left, she gestured to her ears and beamed at him, calling out words he couldn’t hear.

He smiled weakly. (She’s done already?)

Another girl took up that spot.

That girl left, too, replaced by yet another would-be student.

Aware how long he was taking, aware of every mistake, Daniel tried to get closer to finishing. He put himself more into every spell, but it didn’t help–that just meant his mistakes were more dramatic.

Thirty spells in total passed, and by the end, sweat had begun to drip down the back of his neck. He remembered Velma’s words: “If you can handle yourself this well with practical magic.”

(“If.”)

Clearly, he couldn’t. His practical magic sucked so much that even these witches were doing laps around him.

He needed to turn things around, and he couldn’t, because there were no spells left to test him on–save for one.

The letters reformed. ‘Lift the stone. It will grow heavier over time. Keep it suspended for as long as you can.’

A test of strength and nothing else.

Okay.

If he couldn’t be precise, he could at least be strong. He wasn’t sure how long the girls around him had lasted, he just knew he had to make it longer, to show off enough raw power to stand out from the pack.

A pebble appeared, popping into existence in front of him.

He took a breath, focused on what he wanted to do, flexed the psychic muscles in his chest, and lifted the stone, hovering at a point a few feet off the ground.

Levitation had its difficult parts, but this wasn’t one of them. Moving things around precisely? Daniel struggled there; it took too many precise releases of power to control direction and thrust. Quickly? Even harder–take all the issues of precision and put them on a time crunch. But just holding the rock in place in the air didn’t take precision, just focus and power.

Daniel didn’t feel the effort at first, but as seconds passed, the stone began to grow, swelling out with his breath. Inhale, nothing. Exhale, and it expanded, like a balloon drawing on his own magic.

He reached into himself, to the deep well of power somewhere in his belly, anchoring himself to the magic. The rock swelled past the size of a basketball, then a beach ball. He braced himself, spreading his legs into a solid stance he’d seen in a kung-fu movie, reaching deeper.

(I’m strong enough to lift the rock,) he told himself. (This is true. This is the way things are. My will overpowers reality. I am strong enough to lift the rock.)

He had to believe it–if he didn’t believe it, deep in his core, the magic would fail. Truth was no mere social construct, for the purposes of magic, truth carried weight. In order to lift the rock, he needed to believe he was strong enough to lift it, and that belief had to be founded in truth.

The paradox would make him go cross eyed if he thought about it too much, so he didn’t think about it.

Fully a boulder now, the rock grew larger, and larger.

He had begun to sweat so much it justified his choice of premium setting powder. Breathing deeply, Daniel lowered his hands down almost to his knees and lifted them up, as though pushing the rock with his palms. Levitation magic boiled the air, and he saw sparks of light shimmer around him.

(I am strong enough. I can lift anything.)

Power flowed from him. He could do this. He would do this. He’d show the school that, for all he lacked, he had the might of great warlocks of old, and the will to use it.

The rock grew bigger, so big it pressed against the shimmering shield surrounding his testing platform, sending up motes of angry light as the barrier struggled to contain his spells, to keep it from spilling out into the testing hall at large.

(Is this enough? Am I even doing well?)

It wobbled, threatening to fall out of the air.

(What if this is expected, too? What if I’m kidding myself, if every girl here can lift these boulders and I’m a joke for telling myself this is impressive?)

It started to sink, dropping, nearly touching the ground. He sucked in his air, throwing out more power.

(No–no. Hold on. I’ve seen them testing. I haven’t watched, but I’ve seen–other girls lifted rocks. None had one this big.)

Exhaling, Daniel Aster laughed, recognizing what he should have realized before: He’d proven enough already. If they wanted to confirm strength, he’d done it; no girl in the class had lifted anything bigger than this. He’d seen some fairly large rocks, but his boulder had grown to the size of a small car, bigger even.

“YES!” he said, triumph coursing through him. He was strong enough. He knew it. The rock lifted, higher, and so did he, levitation energy flowing in every direction. His feet lifted off the ground, floating up in tandem with his stone, knowing that he would pass this test with flying colors.

Then, without warning, the magical barrier penning in his training pad burst. Sparks shot up, and all his strength lashed out into the room beyond.

Levitation energy that he’d stopped trying to focus, relying on the training pad to keep it contained, now shot out untamed in every direction. Tests shot into the air, papers fluttering like birds, and half the girls in the room–everyone not currently inside a training circle of their own–staggered for a moment as the magic lifted them up off the ground.

All eyes turned to him, floating several feet off the ground and cackling like a madman.

He realized, only then, that his dress hem had flown up along with the rest of him, and his tighty whities were showing.

“Uh–” he started.

The power left him, and he fell back down in a heap.

(Well…shit.)