Chapter 67: His Rival Followed Instructions

“Questioning Dante doesn’t make somebody disposable,” Honey told the student, setting the plant cover down before her grip bent it. “If you learn from him, you still have to decide whether the answer is right.”

The student looked toward the doorway again. “I just meant he helps people who actually want him there.”

Honey returned the padded target to its shelf. “Then help him notice the difference between wanting to learn and wanting to agree.”

The following morning, she joined Posey behind the practical court’s spectator barrier. Beyond it, three waist-high platforms stood over a shallow pool, linked by narrow channels. A floating frame held a marked load at the first platform, and a catch net covered the far drain.

Dante studied the course from the entry steps. Water circulated through the middle section under a fixed guide rail, while a rotating arm swept across the final channel. The examiner ran it once before the start, showing exactly how low it passed.

Jett checked the support beside the first platform. Lucan examined the middle current’s control handle, and Dante stood at the last section’s lift plate, where he would guide the frame after their handoff.

Each station needed its own operator. Jett would use the first guide to start the load moving, Lucan would carry it through the middle current, and Dante would take the final lift. They could call instructions across the course, but reaching for another station’s controls would cost points.

Dante found this arrangement tolerable because it placed him at the finish, where witnesses would naturally look when something impressive happened.

Professor Bell checked that they understood the stop signal before the examiner started the clock. Jett pushed the first guide forward, keeping the loaded frame level as its floats entered the narrow channel.

“Center is clear,” Lucan called. “Bring the right corner half a hand toward you.”

Jett adjusted it, and Dante watched the left float clear the divider. He called the next mark before Jett needed to ask, giving Lucan time to draw the middle current beneath the frame.

A shallow stream ran around each platform rather than beneath the spectators, and the dry steps stayed available on either side. If the frame fell, the load would reach the net instead of the drain. Dante checked those distances while Jett moved, remembering the very different channel at Lakehaven.

Here, he could see how an ordinary mistake would end. There was no trapped worker across the water and nobody holding a shutter open for an audience. The difference made it easier to concentrate, although admitting that would have spoiled his claim that the course lacked an appropriate level of danger.

The first guide loosened as the water took the weight. Jett released only after both front floats crossed the painted line, and the frame continued without striking the rail.

It was the library model made large enough to fail publicly. Dante found that useful, because public failure encouraged concentration in a way assigned reading rarely managed.

Lucan held the current steady through the middle bend. The frame’s left corner approached a post, and Dante called for a smaller turn instead of a stronger push. Lucan followed the instruction immediately.

Something warm and deeply unreasonable moved through Dante’s chest. Men with excellent abilities were standing where he wanted them and listening when he spoke. He began considering whether the university would rent this court by the semester.

“Where do you want the front?” Jett called, interrupting the early stages of a constitutional crisis.

Dante returned his attention to the last channel. “Keep it level until the blue mark. I’ll take the lift there.”

He laid his hand on the control plate and felt the prepared lift catch beneath the frame. Lucan reduced the current as Dante raised the front just enough to clear the lip, keeping the rear floats in the water until the weight shifted.

The rotating arm came around again. Dante had planned to turn the frame high, but Lucan pointed to the narrow gap beneath its lower edge.

“That angle will catch,” Lucan said. “Drop the front, then turn after it passes.”

Dante nearly insisted. His imagined campaign had not included receiving last-minute directions from its principal enemy, especially in front of Posey.

Then he looked at the actual distance between the arm and their load. Lucan was right, an exhausting habit that would eventually require a formal response.

Dante lowered the front. Jett called the arm’s approach from his clearer position, and Lucan held the remaining current until Dante had the frame balanced. He let the arm pass above it, turned through the opening, and drew the load onto the final platform.

All four corners settled. He ended the lift, raised his hand, and heard the finish signal before allowing himself to imagine any statues.

Their score included one slow turn and a clean set of handoffs. Posey cheered loudly enough that a neighboring spectator grinned at her, and she made no serious attempt to look impartial.

Dante crossed the shallow pool by the dry steps and clapped Jett on the shoulder. “You called that arm before I could see it. Without you, it would have hit our load.”

Jett accepted the praise with a modest expression that lasted until somebody else looked over. “I do enjoy carrying this household.”

Lucan offered his hand, smiling at both of them. “That last turn was good.”

Dante shook it while wondering whether genuine friendship was the man’s most advanced weapon. Unfortunately, it had excellent results.

Outside the court, Posey caught Dante’s hand before he could put it in his pocket. Her thumb brushed the red ribbon on his wrist, and she told him that his release had looked easier than yesterday’s model.

“It involved fewer witnesses trying to make me sensible,” he said, glancing at Honey.

“I can arrange more,” Honey replied, and Posey laughed against his shoulder.

The notebook student waited until the others had finished speaking before asking whether she could prepare the practice targets regularly. Dante remembered how carefully she had reset them and agreed.

“I look after people who stand with me,” he told her, enjoying the way she held his gaze.

She thanked him as though he had offered more than a job moving padding. Dante noticed, and the feeling stayed pleasant enough that he left the promise unexplained.

His phone vibrated after the crowd thinned. The alumni chairwoman offered a room, payment, and an audience for a demonstration. Her attached notice called him Blackwell’s answer to ordinary magical limits.

Dante read that line twice, already seeing the room full and every chair facing him.