Jules was the first to make it over to the nook they’d chosen, away from most of the busyness of the rest of the workshop. Pax wasn’t surprised when she helped them all find a seat and kept herself between the other three children and him and his friends.

  Their companions, however, ignored Jule’s implied barrier and quickly glommed onto the kids, soothing away any wariness in moments. Talpa elicited giggles with his tentacles, while Eris flung her impressive wings out and preened under the admiring gazes while tipping her head like a queen for scratches. Horrid showed off her scales and, Pax suspected, used a bit of her Scent Lure to calm their nerves.

  Tell Horrid thanks. Pax sent privately to Amil.

  No problem. She loves kids and is happy to adopt our littles as her own.

  Jules’ protective demeanor relaxed a little after the antics of the companions. But she didn’t take a seat. Instead, she gave Pax, Amil and Rin a once over before pointing at the three kids behind her. “This is Theo. He doesn’t say much, but is happy to work and do whatever is needed.”

  The first boy she pointed to had sandy blonde hair that still looked tousled from waking up this morning. He had already hit his man’s growth and even seated, it was obvious he was going to be tall and strong when he finished growing.

  Pax could easily envision him awakening as a worker or, even better, a warrior.

  “Next is Finn. He’s always trying to figure things out and would rather spend all day on a puzzle than get anything useful done.”

  “Hey,” the smaller boy said. He scowled at her, his dark brown eyes full of indignation. Everything about him seemed to contrast with Theo completely. He was slender with a small stature, while his hair was dark brown and neatly combed. “You weren’t complaining when I figured out how to get past those two locks on the Bronson’s root cellar.”

  “True.” Jules’ stoic expression melted for a minute with a reminiscing smile. “That was good work.”

  “Told you so.” Finn sat back and crossed his arms in satisfaction.

  “And last, there’s Lina. She’s been taking care of what little coin the Vipers have scraped together and makes sure it stretches as far as possible.”

  Lina lifted a hand from giving Talpa scratches and gave Pax a cheery wave. She’d pulled her chestnut brown hair back in a tidy ponytail, her hazel eyes lively and active.

  “So, what exactly are you going to do with us?” Jules was back to aiming a suspicious look at Pax.

  “Relax, Jules.” Pax gave her a reassuring smile. “To start, we’re just going to look at the unawakened mana inside you to see if we can find distinct patterns. We’re starting simple before we work on using our various mana types to try to organize the chaos I found last time I worked with an unawakened kid.”

  She didn’t look reassured. “You tried this with another kid, and it didn’t work?”

  “It was our first test. I found he had a whole cloud of various substances whirling everywhere inside him. When I used my different mana types, I made the storm of movement calm down in a small area. Then the mess would sort itself out into piles of the various types of energy, all in a nice sphere around where I was working.”

  Finn leaned forward, fascination on his face.

  “That’s as far as I got because that work tapped out all of my mana before I could get very far.”

  “So, your friends here are going to give you enough mana to make it work this time?” Finn asked.

  “Not today.” Pax shook his head. “Like I said, we backed up a step. With all the littles here, now we can learn a lot more without the Inquisitors around to stop us. So, our first step is to look inside as many of you as possible to see what the differences are. I’ll just use a bit of light mana to record the response and then move to the next kid. If we can figure out something related to your eventual class—”

  “You could make me a mage!” Finn interrupted, a mix of hope and excitement filling his expression.

  Pax chuckled. “Well, that’s the hope, but we can’t make any promises. Even managing a successful Awakening without an artifact would be amazing.”

  Jules nodded solemnly. “We’ve checked out the children’s area. There are a lot of teens like us ready to join the fight. Now they’ve just got us doing all the scut work with some training if we insist.

  “Titus and Crissim already shared specific details of the noble’s methods of influencing their classes. Their tutors are putting together new programs to copy those. But getting littles their classes, any classes, along with some mana has to come first. None of us want to be sidelined while the world falls to pieces.”

  The other littles nodded their agreement.

  “Agreed.” Pride filled Pax as he saw their determination. “And you don’t need to worry about today. We’ll start out by just looking, and then I’ll use a bit of light mana at the surface. Nothing too drastic or powerful. I do this kind of thing all the time with mages when I help them unlock their minor elements.” He motioned to Amil and Rin sitting on either side of him. “Plus, we work with mana every time we help someone connect with and Tame their new beasts.”

  “You’re going to help us Tame a companion?” A flash of excitement lit up Lina’s face.

  The idea was another fascinating one, but Pax was pretty sure that with no mana control he knew of, an unawakened child wouldn’t be able to make the crucial connection required to Tame a beast.

  He gave her a regretful look as he shook his head. “Sorry. As far as I know, you need to be Awakened and able to control your mana for a Taming to work.”

  “Then let’s get to work. Whatever you need to do, I’m ready. I’m tired of being stuck as a useless kid.” Lina scooted up on the edge of her seat, expression determined.

  Finn nodded his agreement, while Theo didn’t seem to have an opinion either way.

  Jules finally nodded and took a seat next to the other three. She waved a hand like a queen giving them permission. “I want my class, too. Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.”

  “How long will this take?” Finn asked, looking like he was suppressing a lot of other questions.

  “Just a few minutes for each of you. Then we’ll rotate through the rest of the Viper littles and eventually everyone in the children’s section who’s willing.” Pax shrugged. “If we figure out how you’re different from each other, we’ll move on to the Awakening part. That’ll require me and four other mages or some of our companions to attempt.”

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  “But there are only three of you?” Finn looked intrigued, obviously interested in the puzzle.

  “Well, we won’t figure things out in one session. That one kid I worked with from Salman only taught me what one kid was like. We need to see a lot more to figure out what makes you Awaken into different classes.”

  “Do you even need to know that?” Finn sounded impatient now. “The normal mages who Awaken kids don’t know that. Why can’t you just pour a bunch of mana into one of us and see what happens?”

  “I like this kid,” Amil said with a laugh before holding his gaze. “But remind me later to tell you about my little episode of being too impatient with lightning magic. This stuff can be dangerous. We’re all better off if we do as much research as possible before we throw mana at the problem.”

  Finn’s eyes widened at Amil’s words, and he opened his mouth to ask more questions.

  Pax held up a hand to interrupt him. “How about we start with you, Finn? Want to come sit here?” Pax pointed to the padded chair he’d positioned so he and his friends could all reach it.

  Finn’s questions dried up in an instant and a sudden return of common sense had him aiming a worried look at Jules for her reaction.

  She snorted. “You got yourself into this. You want a class? This is the only way to get one right now.” She paused and aimed a considering look at Pax. “And we’ve known Pax for a long time. The last thing he would ever do is hurt a kid, right?”

  Pax gave her a firm nod, and Finn’s worried expression cleared. He moved to sit in the indicated chair, his eager curiosity back.

  “Join me?” Pax said to his friends as he scooted his own chair close enough so he could lean forward and place his hands on Finn’s head. In the future, it would be easier to just stand, but for now, Pax wanted the extra safety of a chair, so he didn’t crash to the floor should he run into some kind of problem.

  He gave his friends a grateful glance as he felt their hands settle on top of his. They were all pretty close, crowded around the younger teen. Pax sensed Finn’s tension growing.

  “Don’t worry, Finn. Your only job is to relax and be patient. The last time I did this, the kid got bored pretty fast, since he didn’t have much to do while I looked at his energy patterns and organized things with a touch of light mana.”

  Finn’s worry seemed to ease at the reassurance. Pax took advantage of that, closed his eyes, and drew on his mana skills with a quick pull. A moment later, he was inside. Behind him, he could feel the patient energy from his friends, hovering at the edge of his awareness and watching, ready to support him.

  He knew immediately this wouldn’t be something he figured out in a few hours or even days. Pax had known he wouldn’t find anything like the organized patterns and nodes he’d discovered when examining Titus, but felt resigned to see the same roiling storm of fine particles of energy.

  They swirled right up against the surface of Finn’s skin in an impenetrable fog. It made him wonder if the internal storm of movement was partially to blame for the crazy energy some kids seemed to have at a young age. It would definitely explain how they bounced from one thing to the other all day long.

  On the other hand, Pax had also seen the lethargy caused by too little food and poor living situations. He wondered briefly if the storm of energy in a starving street kid would have less energy than he saw now.

  Pushing his musings aside, Pax focused on the task at hand. He pulled up his memories of working with Kai the first time and the work they did together during the trip across the Wilds. He’d become pretty familiar with the boy’s internal patterns and worked to spot any differences between Finn’s and Kai’s.

  How can you make out anything in this mess? Amil’s question was exactly what Pax was thinking.

  Give it a couple of minutes and soften the focus of your mana skills. Try to see the bigger picture. Then I’ll switch over to using my light mana.

  The next few minutes passed, and Pax could tell Finn’s storm of energy differed from Kai’s, but not exactly how.

  Ok, using light mana for the next couple of minutes, he warned the other two. Get ready.

  Knowing what to expect, Pax grabbed about a fifth of his light mana, along with threads of each of the four primary elements. When he had it all ready, he gave it a hard push into Finn’s mind, sending it out in a small sphere around the area they were working in.

  The difference was immediate. The swirling chaos faded back, leaving small particles hanging in the area suddenly still. With a drifting motion, they sorted themselves into piles of different types, loosely partitioned into five separate sections around Pax.

  He used his newly leveled Mana Projection to generate a thin but strong shield that pushed back the chaos and created something similar to his Sphere of Perception, but full of mana instead of sensory data. Once it snapped into place, the drain on his mana subsided significantly.

  As a test, he pushed the spherical barrier further, increasing the size of the calming energy. He grinned when he found it took little effort at all. Now wasn’t the time to test his limits, but he was glad to know it was easier now. That would be critical when it came time to infuse a child’s entire body for an attempt at awakening.

  Mana skills for the win again.

  No kidding. And wow! Amil’s soft amazement made Pax smile. That’s incredible.

  This has to be why no one has figured out the awakening process before. Rin sounded excited about the possibilities. Without adding light mana to the mix, seeing even this much would be impossible, wouldn’t it?

  Probably. Now hurry and analyze what you can. I shouldn’t hold this very long if we’re going to check out the rest of the littles.

  As his friends fell silent, Pax shifted his awareness to examine the various sorted collections floating around them. They were tiny, as he’d only organized a small area with his mana. It was hard to compare them with the ones he’d seen inside Kai. Pax still didn’t have enough experience to know what he was looking for.

  Following his earlier advice to his friends, he let the focus of his mana skills soften, working to get a feel for the overall impression of the unique collections.

  It felt much like the times he’d found a rooftop perch to observe the movements on Thanhil’s busy streets. He didn’t look too closely at any one thing, but did his best to gain an overall impression of the action.

  The first thing he noticed was how lopsided the groupings were. One of the five areas had over ten discrete piles in it, while another only had two. Pax scanned back and forth, noting the number of piles.

  It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, because he wasn’t sure what counted as an official pile. He saw small flickers of energy that could be an extremely minuscule accumulation of particles. Pax ignored those for now. Tracking them would have to wait until he developed his skills in this area a bit more.

  Next, he made mental notes, as best he could, about the feel radiating from the five areas and anything else noteworthy. He wasn’t sure exactly what the differences meant, but knew it had to be important.

  Some radiated pulses of power that weren’t completely regular. Others just seemed to have a more active energy, while some felt calmer. Pax wasn’t sure if he was making up things when he decided that a lot of Finn’s piles seemed to have an almost playful quality. Maybe they mimicked the energy of his creative mind and quick questions?

  It didn’t take long before he reached a point of information overload and knew he needed to take a break and record impressions. He didn’t grow too discouraged at how vague the data he’d grasped was. He knew he’d get better with all the exams they had planned.

  It reminded him of learning to distinguish nuances of any type of information after gaining more experience. It hadn’t taken too many nights moaning with stomach cramps for street kids to learn to identify the subtle difference between food that was still good and something that had just passed the safety point.

  Or there was the way every street kid knew how to distinguish various sounds and smells on the streets and their meanings with ten times the accuracy of the wealthier citizens who paid no attention. Any Viper little could pick out the clomp of guard boots, regardless of whatever other loud sounds tried to drown them out.

  Determination filled Pax. He’d do the same here, study so many of these patterns until he could recognize all the subtle differences. Pax would spend time with as many of the unawakened children as would let him.

  But for now, this was all he could learn from Finn. Pax broke the connection and sat back to let out a long breath. He was glad to see that Rin pulled out a notebook without him even asking and began writing things down.

  “Tell us what you’re writing, so Amil and I can add our observations when you’re done with yours.”

  Rin gave him a quick nod and began speaking as the littles leaned forward with avid interest. “It looked like the weird particles of energy calmed down when your mix of mana hit them and began splitting into different sections—”

  As the three of them jotted down everything they could remember, Pax was pleased with the results. They might have a lot of information that they didn’t understand the significance of, but that would come later. It had to.

  A determined excitement built inside Pax as he thought about all the littles they could check now without having to hide what they were doing. It was just a matter of time before they cracked this puzzle. They were going to figure this out.

  Rin clapped her notebook closed and gave him an expectant glance.

  He looked over at the other three kids waiting their turn. “Who’s next?”

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