Page 26 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“When does he have the patience for it?”Tara tilted her head, musing to herself and stifling a slight snicker.

“Sup, Mr. Frosty.” Gael waggled his eyebrows. “You excited for the big day?”

“I’m prepared.” I glowered. “Are you?”

“Always ready to fuck shit up.” He balled a fist and punched his open palm.

“Go away.” I waved my hand, a shooing gesture to usher him into the classroom, where I hoped he’d expel all his chatty energy before the bell rang. It wouldn’t happen. It never happened. I sighed.

But goddamn, a guy can dream.

When the bell finally rang, I stepped into the classroom and immediately went to work discussing today’s expectations. They’d be called down to the auxiliary gym soon, and I wanted to reiterate one final time how important today was for them.

“Today’s event ties to the Spring Showcase as a baseline in a sense,” I said, reminding those who’d lacked the attention span to focus during the other lectures I’d given about this activity. “There will be scouts from every guild in Chicago attending. Does anyone know what a scout does?”

“They’re managerial recruiters that often work on the PR side of things,” Katherine answered with a raised hand.

I nodded, gesturing for her to continue since she wanted to include a lot more in her response.

“They evaluate magic proficiency, collaboration, personality, extracurriculars, and anything else they deem noteworthy when deciding whether or not to list a potential candidate for anenchanter’s observation.” Katherine brushed a stray curl from the rim of her glasses, then tucked it behind her ear.

“Okay, that sounds like a lot,” I said. “But why don’t the enchanters just show up whenever?”

“Because they’ve got jobs.”“Who has that kind of time?”

“Is he really going over this again?”

“What the fuck, Frost? Kill me now.”

“¿No repasamos esto ya? Incluso hubo una prueba.”

“Wait. What’s a scout? Like the sailors?”

“So is today actually part of the showcase or not?”

“Seriously? He’s acting like we don’t already know this.”

“When did we learn this?”

“Why is he just now going over it the day of?”

“Well? Does anyone want to vocalize their answer?” I glared, letting them know their thoughts bounced around a little too loudly for my taste.

“Oh.” Caleb raised his hand high, stretching his fingers as far up as possible like there was a cluster of eager people surrounding him, and he desperately wanted to be called on for the answer.

“Yes?” I looked at him.

“Enchanters simply don’t have the time or resources to attend every event,” Caleb said, tempering his hive of a mind that darted in a hundred different directions on an explanation, but he’d learned that sometimes less was more and focused on the key components of his response.

I practically smiled. Good job, Caleb.

“That’s the reason scouts are so vital,” he continued. “They’re trained to understand several important needs. Guild interest, enchanter preferences, and market drive—basically, what magic and personality will appeal to the public. This allows the enchanter to prioritize the time they do have when they show upto the official competition later. Well, determining which events and dates they attend because they really only want to see their prospective candidates casting, so it’s important…”

Caleb noticed the eyes of his classmates glaze over.

“For fuck’s sake.” Kenzo folded his arms and glared. “You’re worse than Frost.”

“And that’s really the most important factor.” Caleb grinned anxiously.

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