After lunch, having received the seal of admission and a short “welcome” from the secretary, Hiro didn’t linger—he went wandering. The day was bright, the air sang with mana, and above the Academy’s spires the banners of Arcanum snapped in the wind.

  The courtyard stretched vast and varied: training circles with white markings, an archery range where a stubborn boy of fourteen struggled to hold a bow, alchemical greenhouses with fogged glass domes, a library that looked more like a cathedral, and a dozen more buildings—each crowned with its own sigil on the pediment. On the flagstones of the walkways faint defensive tracings shimmered, nearly invisible unless one knew how to look.

  “Shield formation—on the left,” a dry voice clipped across the training field. “If your fireball flies into my bell tower again, you’ll be the one repairing it.”

  And just then, a student’s fireball slipped control. Hiro stopped, snapped his fingers in the air, and stripped the excess impulse out of the spell. The orb hissed apart in harmless sparks, dissolving before anyone’s head was endangered. No one really understood what had happened. A few students looked around in confusion.

  “The wind died down, snuffed it out,” the instructor muttered, believing his own excuse, and carried on with the lesson.

  Hiro smiled faintly and moved on. He loved magic. Loved it as a phenomenon—alive, stubborn, unpredictable. But what the Academy called “fundamentals” had long ago become for him nothing more than warm-up exercises.

  Near the greenhouses stood a girl in a green apron, shooing glass bees—tiny pollination golems. The air smelled of honey and ozone. Inside, amber liquids shimmered in flasks, and somewhere a coil crackled. Life buzzed.

  “Careful,” she warned when Hiro peeked inside. “Yesterday some curious fool grabbed a sun rose—and the rose grabbed him first.”

  “Right, good to know, ha,” he nodded and moved on.

  The notice boards were plastered with papers: recruitment for the Club of Arcane Ethics, a dueling tournament, an invitation to join Practical Curses — By Permission of the Supervisor Only. Among them one seal stood out in royal colors: To the Court of His Majesty Armand de Lacour. Selection of candidates for service to Princess Rosaline. Hiro shrugged and passed it by.

  The corridors of the administrative wing gleamed with polished marble, while the academic halls beyond were quieter, smelling of chalk and warm paper. Hiro wandered slowly, reading the brass nameplates, until one half-open door caught his attention. Curiosity won out, and he looked inside.

  A professor stood surrounded by scattered artifacts and scrolls. This was Kairat—the Academy’s gloomy authority on chaos and curses. He moved with deliberate slowness, as though every gesture was part of a ritual.

  The professor suddenly raised his head and noticed Hiro. For a moment, his right eye blazed crimson, a demonic spark flashing within.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Oh… interesting…” Kairat murmured to himself. His gaze slid not just over Hiro, but through the room itself, along the walls, even out the window. “The whole chamber… and beyond… a singular case.”

  He spoke in riddles, and silence thickened in the room.

  Hiro only arched a brow slightly, thinking:

  “Strange fellow. No matter… I suppose we’ll find a topic to talk about later.”

  Without a word, he turned and continued down the corridor, leaving behind the unsettling sense that the professor had glimpsed something invisible to others.

  Through an archway the cool air of the river drifted in. A small bridge led toward the residential wings, a mill turning lazily in the distance. Hiro felt a pleasant pang—he had always wanted to be in a place like this. He walked on, eyes roaming, not at first noticing that the plaques on the doors had shifted to silver-blue, and in the windows fluttered ribbons, bows, and dresses. On the porch sat two girls, gossiping about someone’s romance.

  He pushed open the nearest door and stepped into a corridor lined with soft carpet, slim vases, and the scent of lavender. From the room opposite, a girl with a towel around her hair burst out, saw him—froze.

  “Uh… hi,” said Hiro.

  “A-a-a!” she shrieked, and bolted deeper into the building.

  Immediately several doors flew open. Voices tumbled over each other:

  “A boy in our wing?!”

  “We don’t mind!”

  “Didn’t the student council president warn him?”

  “I saw that face at the arena!”

  “He’s the one who blew up the wall!”

  Laughter, shouts, the patter of bare feet. And through the noise, like a knife cutting butter, came a calm, commanding voice:

  “Disperse. Now.”

  Across the carpet strode Rosaline de Lacour—in the Academy’s perfectly fitted dark-blue uniform. Two attendants followed a step behind, as custom dictated. Her silver-lavender hair fell in a smooth wave, her gaze direct, cold, bearing that peculiar shade of highborn ennui. She halted before Hiro, letting her eyes travel from his haori and gloves down to his training pants.

  “You appear to be lost,” she said. The word you held both courtesy and absolute authority. “This is the women’s pavilion. The men’s is across the garden, right of the tower with the astrolabe.”

  “Got it,” Hiro nodded peaceably. “You should put up signs.”

  The corner of her lips twitched—irritation.

  “Come. I’ll show you the way, or else you might walk into the baths next, and I’d rather not drown in paperwork because of it.”

  “No need to trouble yourself,” he said, but Rosaline had already turned on her heel. He followed.

  Behind them the girls whispered:

  “She’s leading him herself…”

  “Totally claimed him!”

  “The president can do anything.”

  “So we can’t, huh…”

  Rosaline walked quickly. The garden behind the pavilion was manicured to perfection: hedges trimmed into crowns, a fountain with a mermaid, the silhouette of the astrolabe tower against the sky. Sunlight danced across her hair, making it seem almost luminous.

  “The Academy has a uniform,” she said without looking at him. “I believe you’ve heard.”

  “I’ve heard,” Hiro replied. “It doesn’t suit me.”

  “The regulations don’t care what suits you.”

  “Neither do I care what the regulations think.”

  She exhaled sharply through her nose—annoyance. At the stairs of the men’s dormitory, Rosaline stopped and met his eyes, steady and assessing.

  “If you ever need assistance,” she said evenly, “submit a request to the Student Council. I will review it.”

  “Good to know,” he answered.

  “And one more thing,” she added. “Do try not to destroy any more walls.”

  “I didn’t think your walls were so fragile.”

  She turned and left, her attendants following with casual nods. On the porch of the men’s dorm, someone snored on a bench, book over his face. Somewhere on the third floor, voices argued over a teapot.

  “New guy?” A broad-shouldered upperclassman with a ring of keys stepped out from the lobby. “Third floor, room 317. Don’t shout at night and don’t bring servants into the room—we’re the poor faculty.”

  “Understood,” Hiro said.

  Room 317 greeted him with warm half-light and a view westward. From the street came voices, the bell tower tolled sunset, dust drifted in golden motes. A bed, a desk, a bookshelf with empty spines, a brass oil lamp, a washstand. Clean. Cozy.

  “Just like the guild in Pyron,” he murmured, opening the window. Warm stone and mint from the flowerbeds drifted in.

  He sat on the bed’s edge and closed his eyes. Tomorrow the schedule would begin: history of realms and kingdoms, bestiary, spell formulas. And, of course, a class with the professor of chaos—the one who looked through layers as through glass.

  Boring. And the most fascinating thing. All at once.

  The bell tolled again. Down the corridor someone shouted about cards and debts. Hiro lay back, left the lamp unlit, and did what he did best—listened. To mana flowing through the walls. To the day closing. To the night arriving.