Harry slammed to the floor, breath rushing from his lungs and a discomfort bordering on pain blossoming in his ribs. The subtle crack of his back nearly distracted him from avoiding another swing. The crackle of crystal on crystal resounded throughout the training room, just loud enough to make his ears ring and his nausea return.

"Keep your focus!" Cormac snapped, raising his glasslike lance once more. Harry twisted. He was small, true, and on a good day he was just as agile as Cormac was, but the older man rushed forward in a blinding sweep just when he thought he'd gotten an attack pattern down. His sword slid further into the pockmarked floor, courtesy of a whistling downward stroke. Before Cormac could pull back, Harry tore at one of the spells brimming within his soul and projected it outward. The sparks dancing along the edge of the lance—just strong enough to be painful—flickered out weakly.

A gust of air accompanied the familiar drain of his magic. It took a second to rip his sword from the ground, but it was a second that Cormac had faltered, and Harry balanced himself on his front foot. Motion blurred at the corner of his eye. He barely managed to raise his sword in a parry before it was caught by the flat of Cormac's lance.

"Your balance is shit," Cormac said sharply. "Spread it evenly, across your feet! Weigh down your strikes with your back, not your balance!"

Harry only nodded, mouth dry and lungs aching. His breaths would have come in gasps had Cormac given him the time to inhale. AS it was, his nose flared sharply on occasion, every strike a fleeting instant to catch some air. A second spell rose to the surface of his soul-sea. He grasped it eagerly.

Just before Cormac swept past his sword, intent on delivering a glancing blow that would lead to yet another shallow cut, Harry released the magic. It flowed throughout his body, continuous, clockwise. He moved with it. The familiar azure glow of Warp energy reflected in Cormac's suddenly-wide eyes. He tried to pull back, but it was too late; Harry billowed backwards, just a fraction of an inch, enough to cause Cormac to overextend and trip. He recovered quickly, but not before Harry delivered a gentle slice across his sternum.

"Point to Harry," Aaron said. Harry fought the urge to glance at his commander, instead keeping his eyes on Cormac's sluggishly oozing cut. The blood flow certainly wasn't normal, instead a few mere drops that seemed to be evaporating even as they stared at each other. "Match point, on Cormac. Start!"

Then Cormac surged forward again, and Harry's body dissolved into a flurry of action and reaction. The man was clearly going easy on him, and a small part of Harry gritted its proverbial teeth in distaste. It bubbled up, only to be encapsulated by a sunbeam that became a weak Thunder spell erupting from his palm. The lance of light was easily caught on Cormac's spear and redirected, sparking into the nearest wall without harm.

"Just make it painless, Harry," Cormac suggested. "You're not going to win this one."

"I don't win any of them!" But that single second of speaking disrupted his breathing patterns, and when his breathing left, so did his focus. Cormac's lance suddenly sparkled where nothing had been a moment before. Harry's eyes widened.

"Nowhere to go!" Cormac roared. Harry's hand slipped inside his pocket. A cool, smooth stretch of metal twisted obediently under his grasp. The Warp magic he'd used to avoid the spear the first time wouldn't rise from his soul again, at least not yet. So he grabbed a different one.

The first spoon Harry threw Warped him a half dozen feet backwards. The second teleported him just to the edge of Cormac's sight, still out of range. Harry caught the discerning eye of Aaron tracking him and the glints of metal, still burning blue with Crystal magic. There was something… calculating in his gaze. Approving, but calculating.

And then he was gone, reappearing right behind Cormac. A bit of velocity from the Warp carried over, and he grinned, aiming his sword right at Cormac's shoulder. The blade extended.

Without even looking at him, Cormac used the butt of his lance to whip his arming sword to the side and lash him across the thigh with the blade. Harry couldn't suppress the surprised grunt, but he could fight back the cry of heated pain that came from landing on his injured leg. Cormac swept his lance up and twirled it, blood flying from the spinning blade. "What is it with you and teleporting fucking cutlery?" he demanded.

"And that's the match," Aaron said as he stood. Beside him, the Queen looked on impassively, as did three other recruits. "Cormac, you win."

"Not so surprising," he said, grinning. "Still, you put up a good fight for a brat, Harry. Need some help with that leg?"

Harry shook his head, searching his soul for the proper sunbeam. It shone, and Harry sifted through the tree of knowledge that came with it. A spell, invariably complex but one he could at least perform, rose to the surface. He grasped it and forced the magic to bend to its pattern.

A wash of gold-green light spewed from his fingertips. Skin and flesh knit back together wherever the light struck, along with a pleasant, numbing warmth. The inflamed flesh bubbled back to normal in mere seconds. "I'm better with healing than you are. Not to mention I don't trust you with that glorified glass stick."

"You're one to talk," Cormac retorted easily. "You change weapons every time we spar."

The Queen stepped forward, shaking her head at Cormac. The admonishment was offset by her amused smile, however. "I've told you before, Cormac, that there is no reason for Mr. Potter to grow particularly attached to a weapon until he has completed his training," she said primly. "Whereas you and Aaron already had skill in your particular choices, Mr. Potter is completely talentless with weapons and too small to use anything other small weaponry."

Cormac snorted and turned away, allowing his crystal lance to dissolve into motes of dust that spread evenly along the floor. Harry snorted and let off an Aero; the crystal sand, built up over a week of spars, magic practice, and discussions that became arguments, blasted towards a nearby wall. It joined the small pile of glittering grains that slowly grew in one corner of the room. He glanced at the Queen searchingly. "Are we ever going to use that stuff?"

"The Kings say it is useful," the Queen admitted. "They will not give me any more information than that, but they have not been wrong yet."

"Alright, Kingsglaive! Form up!" Aaron's snap brought barely a flinch to Harry's shoulders. He glanced at his commander and stood in a lazy half-circle with the other recruits. Cormac grinned at him from his left, while an older, more grizzled man glared down at him from his right. "Her Majesty has an important announcement. You listen and listen well, or I'll have the talkers in for double training tonight."

Where most of the others groaned, Cormac included, Harry fought the urge to snark back in reply. Double training might have been hell, but using the Warp was fun, even if he could only Warp a few times before getting nauseous. Battling with it just made things merrier.

The Queen stepped up, her stern gaze sweeping across all of them. The light gleam of the stone set within the Ring of the Lucii shut Harry's mouth faster than he possibly could have on his own. "Tomorrow morning, the two oldest members of the Kingsglaive, Cormac and Aaron, are going on their first mission as protectors of the Crown. This is all I am going to tell you, so be on your guard for the next week of your stay here. You might not have your taskmaster here to push you to your limits, but rest assured you will easily be trained as hard."

Another round of groans, this time more subdued than the first. The Queen didn't give any indication she heard them. "That concludes our business for today. Dinner will be brought to you in an hour, so until then, discuss things amongst yourselves. If I hear of one more argument between anyone, Mr. Potter will have the permission to use his magic on you." Harry smirked and raised his hands, suddenly wreathed in lightning.

Any further muttering died down completely at that point.

As the recruits wandered about their business, Harry approached the Queen. "Your Majesty, is there somewhere we could talk?" he asked, a niggling idea in the back of his head. She raised an eyebrow, but nodded and gestured out of the training room. It had grown substantially in the three months Harry had been training as a part of the Kingsglaive, and though he was still just a recruit according to the Queen, he was easily their most magically skilled. Physical weapons, on the other hand…

Well, the throb in his hand said a great deal.

He navigated the halls of Buckingham Palace with ease. The Windsor Castle pathways would be more difficult, once the Queen moved there for the spring and summer, but Buckingham was mapped as easily as the inside of his old cupboard. His eyes fell on a familiar tearoom across from a recently-repaired window.

"How about here?" he suggested. She nodded and bade him enter. He grinned at the still-dented silver tea set that had been placed there only hours before.

"What would you like to discuss, Mr. Potter?" the Queen asked. Harry winced when he thought of it.

"I want to join Aaron and Cormac on their mission."

If the Queen was surprised, she did not show it. The only indication she'd even heard him was the faint downward tug at her lips, and even then he only spotted it because he'd been looking her in the eye for most of the three months he'd been a part of Kingsglaive. "And why should I allow that?" she asked. "Mr. Potter, the mission I am sending Cormac and Aaron on is dangerous, extremely so. I will not deny that you are skilled with magic, but that's about the only thing you have. Your prowess with weapons, physical and ranged alike, is abysmal, and you know none of the survival skills that Cormac and Aaron are trained in."

"You said it yourself, I'm the best we have with magic," Harry argued. A heat began to rise in his chest, and he wasn't sure if it was anger making itself known or the remnants of one of the fire spells he'd shot at Cormac in their spar. "Cormac can barely use it himself, and all Aaron does is set things on fire. I've been rediscovering spells that some of the Kings don't even know about."

"Again, why should I send you?" the Queen repeated. "They might not need magic for their mission."

"Please," Harry snorted, "of course they're going to need magic on their mission. If it was something normal, you would have just sent some government agency to do it. People don't even know we exist, and we have magic to separate ourselves from that."

The Queen stared at him neutrally. The ember in his heart didn't wink out, though, and he continued to stare fiercely at her. Eventually, she sighed and shook her head, a small but amused smile on her face. "Sometimes I wonder if you're really the same shy child that turned up in one of my tearooms three months ago. Where did you get to be so outspoken against your elders?"

Elders, Harry noted. Not authority, but elders. "Cormac hasn't been a very good influence on me," he admitted ruefully. "He's a good fighter, but a bad politician."

"And he's the best of our lot for it," the Queen shot back. Her smile dropped, and again there was a solemn hint of something he couldn't identify in her eyes. "I am afraid, Mr. Potter, that I will have to deny your request to join Aaron and Cormac on their mission."

"What? But why?"

"Several reasons, not all of them satisfactory." The Queen raised a chine teacup, inspecting the color lazily. "Mr. Potter, you've said it yourself. You're the best magician we have in the Kingsglaive, and we need someone who can teach that art to the recruits. I can do some of it, but they will empathize better with a member of their own crew. Besides, you're not mature enough for this mission."

"I am not immature!" Harry denied immediately. The Queen merely raised an eyebrow. He huffed in response and shook his head.

"Mr. Potter, you are indeed immature. The fact that you demanded to argue this point instead of seeing the reason behind it is proof enough of that."

"But—"

"Enough, Harry!" The Queen snapped. Harry stumbled back, eyes wide, from the sudden halo of Holy magic surrounding her. "My decision is final. You're not experienced, mature, or expendable enough to join Cormac and Aaron on a mission that is time-sensitive, deadly, and important. Are we clear?"

Harry didn't respond immediately, instead trying to quell the seething rage bubbling in his stomach. His magic wrenched violently, torn between taking action against the person that had hurt him and cowering under the weight of the Queen's stare. "Are we clear?" she repeated, more force in her voice.

Eventually, Harry nodded mutely and turned to leave the room. The Queen didn't say anything as he left, giving him just enough time to run to the end of the hallway before a few unwanted tears leaked from under his eyelids.

The flame already lit inside him and magic mixing with anger, Harry slowly unclenched his fists. The jagged shards of crystal hovering mere centimeters from his hand vanished into dust. 'No use crying over this,' he though bitterly. Still, he couldn't completely fight the needle of betrayal piercing through the forced calm.

"I'm good at this!" he snarled to the empty hallway. "I can do this!"

"Can you really?"

Harry blinked and whirled, a specific sunbeam already selecting from the brilliant light shining inside his soul. The speaker tensed, then relaxed. "You're getting me all sorts of snappy, Potter. Cool off and come in for some tea with Gerard and me."

Beatrice Friesinger stared down at him, making him feel even smaller than he usually did. She walked with willowy elegance towards an open tearoom, then glanced back and gestured for him to follow with a bangle-clad hand. He fought off the surprise of her appearance and did so, still bubbling with impotent anger.

"Bea, is that Potter with you?" Gerard Bole asked. Where Cormac was tall and thin and wild, Gerard was a stocky, short man, with a beard more impressive than most others Harry had seen. H raked a hand through oak-brown hair before settling his gaze on Harry. "It is," he said brightly. "Come, boy. Sit down and have a cup. Might take your mind off things."

Harry moved quickly through the room, feeling Beatrice' hazel eyes on him the entire time. A teacup had already been set out for him, and Harry fleetingly wondered whether or not they had expected him to show up.

"Now, what's this shouting business about?" Gerard poured Harry a cup of steaming tea. The soothing scent of lavender and chamomile did nothing to calm his nerves, however, and he didn't even reach for the cup.

"Cormac and Aaron are going on a mission," Harry said sullenly. "I've been on the team just as long as they have, and I'm really good at doing magic. Why don't I get to go with them?"

Gerard and Beatrice shared a searching look, one that made Harry feel like a zoo animal. When they glanced back, he schooled his expression. The soft smile on Gerard's face left a warm fuzziness coiling around the remaining anger in his stomach. "Harry, I'm going to be honest. You're not ready." Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Gerard stopped him with a single finger. "We are not ready. None of us are. Not even Cormac and Aaron."

"Then why would Her Majesty send them to do something?"

Beatrice set down her teacup. Where Gerard was all warmth, a trace of aloof coldness mirrored every action she took, every move she made. Still, there was something approaching familiarity in her eyes when she peered over her oval glasses at him. "Cormac and Aaron have had years of government training and experience with all forms of politics," she said stiffly. "Out of all of us, they are certainly the most qualified. They're each a master of a martial art, and with the addition of the magic that is gifted by the Queen, they present a credible threat to the average security force. However, they are still new with magic. As are you, for that matter."

"But I'm still better than them!" Harry complained. "Cormac can't even cast a Shell. How is he going to protect himself?"

"Through conventional means," Beatrice said. "Body armor and potions, for one." Harry must not have looked convinced—mostly because he wasn't—since Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Harry, we all come from strange situations. Three months ago, I was an illegal prostitute on the Piccadilly. Gerard didn't have a penny to his name. Only Cormac and Aaron actually had some sort of chance from the beginning. We need years, Harry, before we're all ready to handle the kind of missions that the Queen says the past Kingsglaive went on. Nyx Ulric fought in a war. You're eight."

"And a half," Harry muttered puerilely. Gerard shook his head, small smile still in place, even if it was more despondent than usual.

"That's what we mean, Harry. If we're not going, then you probably shouldn't either. I know you want to be helpful, but when missions like this come up, you won't be useful for a few years yet." Gerard leaned in, setting his tea to the side. "Look on the bright side, eh? You're young, so you learn faster. You'll probably be the first one of us out in the field when Her Majesty clears us for duty."

Harry glanced up, a bit of fire rekindling in his gut. The spoons gleamed for a moment, and he realized with a jolt of embarrassment that he'd literally begun glowing when Gerard had finished. "You really think so?" he said in a small voice.

"It's more likely than me working my way into Buckingham Palace," Gerard answered, disheveling Harry's already-ruffled hair. Harry smiled and allowed the irritation to finally subside.

The three of them talked for a while longer, never lingering on a topic for more than a few minutes. Harry could barely follow half of the conversation; he'd only heard a few hints about who was lined up to be the next Prime Minister, what was happening with Diana and her husband, and the matter of the royal family. They always came back around to him, though, and where the bitter rejection of being denied a place on Cormac's and Aaron's mission had once flourished, a prideful acceptance warmed.

"Would you look at that," Gerard exclaimed much later. "It's almost time for dinner to be served. We better get to the dining hall, or Her Majesty will have our hides." Harry stood, exiting the room before either of them could shunt the duty of tidying up the tearoom to him. Beatrice was particularly fond of it.

Before he could go more than a few feet, he reached into his pocket and smiled. The Queen could certainly stop him from going on the mission with Aaron and Cormac, whatever it might be, but could she stop a Kingsglaive? The cool, smooth metal of the teaspoon rubbed soothingly against his skin.

'Teleporting fucking cutlery indeed, Cormac.'