Tidefall sent every first-year home with summer magic rules.

Harper hated them by post.

Jasper knew because her first letter arrived with SUMMER TYRANNY written across the envelope.

Inside, she had written:

JASPER,

Mum has read the rules three times and now every time I touch anything she asks if it is "within supervised first-year scope." I made my bed with movement magic and she got the handbook.

This is somehow your fault.

P.S. Brannor forever.

P.P.S. My rock is on my desk.

P.P.P.S. Ava sent me a letter with headings.

P.P.P.P.S. DO NOT TELL AVA I COMPLAINED ABOUT THE HEADINGS.

Jasper laughed loudly enough that his mother looked over from the kitchen.

"Harper?"

"How did you know?"

"You only laugh like you're being attacked when it's Harper."

Jasper wrote back.

He did not tell Ava about the headings.

He did tell Ava that Harper had specifically instructed him not to tell her about something.

This caused three more letters.

The summer rules were not actually terrible.

First-years could practise effects already signed off as safe, with a guardian aware of what they were doing and within strict limits.

Small-object movement.

Basic Blinka-lights.

Controlled warming.

Simple drying and mending.

No new spells from books.

No magical competitions in public.

No testing shields against anything harder than approved soft practice objects.

No deciding that "I almost know how" counted as permission.

Jasper's mother watched every home practice session as though she expected the kitchen table to explode.

He floated three bottle caps across it.

One fell.

His father clapped.

"Do not encourage mediocrity," Jasper said.

"I support my son."

"It fell."

"Dramatically."

Jasper practised shield shaping with rolled socks.

His mother threw them gently.

He blocked five.

Missed two.

His father walked through at exactly the wrong moment and received a sock to the shoulder.

"I have entered combat."

"Sorry."

"I surrender."

They stopped.

That was the strange thing about summer magic.

Nobody was trying to make him improve quickly.

There was no next assessment.

No class chart.

No reason to use Essence simply because it was available.

Jasper could stand up to get a book.

He could walk three metres to switch on a lamp.

He could carry a cup with his hand.

At Tidefall, magic lived inside lessons and systems.

At home, it became optional.

Jasper liked that.

Thorne's final instruction returned to him.

Learn something useless.

So Jasper learned card tricks.

Not magical card tricks.

Real ones.

His father found an old beginner book and showed him how to hold the deck without announcing to everyone that he was hiding something.

Jasper's first attempt was terrible.

His mother saw the card immediately.

"Again."

By the end of the week, Jasper could make one appear from behind his father's ear badly enough that everybody still laughed.

It was useless.

Completely.

Jasper sent Thorne a postcard through Tidefall's summer office.

LEARNING USELESS CARD TRICKS. YOUR FAULT.

Two weeks later, a reply arrived.

GOOD.

Nothing else.

Jasper put the postcard in the history box.

Summer filled itself with ordinary things.

Family visits.

Shops.

Books.

Letters from Harper.

More organised letters from Ava.

Magic practice every few days.

No Water Titan.

At first Jasper counted the silence.

One day.

Three days.

A week.

Then he stopped.

Maybe Titan-sense worked best at Tidefall.

Maybe the Water Titan was simply elsewhere.

Maybe nothing needed to happen.

He did not turn summer into an experiment.

When Jasper missed Tidefall, he discovered he missed the people more than the mystery.

That felt important.