Solene's morning was followed by Advanced Alchemy with Professor Ashling and her first advanced Healing class with Professor Whitethorn.

  Solene had Professor Ashling as a professor before for her Alchemy classes—he was certainly the favorite for that subject amongst the faculty. He was a dreamy sort, more an artist than the avid chemist most imagined—or like the others in the faculty. His approaches to the study of Alchemy were more intuitive, but no less innovative for it.

  When she was in Professor Cinnabar's class last year, he had made it so much more nightmarish with his tight timelines and sharply-graded recipes. There was also the way that he looked at certain students that made Solene uneasy, herself one of them. All of those students were among those with the highest grades in the class, and seemed to have at least some passing talent for alchemy. With that and his muttering about elixirs of immortality and the similar, Solene was grateful to not have him this year.

  Whereas Professor Ashling encouraged more experimentation with the ingredients and never raised his voice when a student made a mistake. Then again, Solene wasn't sure that Professor Ashling could raise his voice. He also tended to drift off on philosophical tangents and the occasional story about an expedition to get potion ingredients that had gone awry. His classroom was also nice, with several of his watercolor paintings hanging up on the walls under a layer of enchanted glass to protect from any mishaps.

  As for Professor Whitethorn, she had retired from the field of Healing quite young to become a professor, perhaps because of her family. She had a child she'd eagerly show pictures of to anyone who asked from a square-shaped locket around her neck. She was kind but firm, and always smelled of lavender. She sat her students in a circle and encouraged more discussions based on the readings and arguments about how to best treat a particular malady or injury.

  Solene was already looking forward to every class with Whitethorn and Ashling. It was exciting to finally be able to study what she wanted, to get that much closer to the dream of following what her father could not.

  She met up with Tamara, Willa, and Carmen for lunch. Tamara was still undecided in what she would do following graduation from the Anouir Institute, so decided to take a handful of specialty electives like Fire-Spinning and Wandmaking. Carmen was taking some healing classes, same as Solene, but at different times than she was. Willa on the other hand, had stacked her classes with types of plant magic, expected really for a Hollyoaks student.

  After they'd swapped stories of their morning classes and exchanged speculation of the upcoming year, all too quickly they had to depart for their first afternoon classes. The first of which was, for Solene, Professor Vasquez's Ancient History class.

  Located on the first floor in one of the eastern wings that was far-off from the dining room and the main corridor, Professor Vasquez's classroom resembled an antiques shop more than it did a classroom.

  There were bookshelves draped in tapestries and overflowing with weathered tomes and trinkets lining every wall. Instead of any kind of desk, there were an odd selection of wooden tables, some round and some square, all of which had tablecloths draped over them and an eclectic collection of chairs gathered around them.

  "To everyone coming in, your seat is assigned with a little brass plaque," Professor Vasquez announced as Solene walked through the door. "Find your plaque and you find your seat!"

  Everyone was shuffling through the narrow aisles between the tables, trying to find their seats. Solene tried to stick to the corners of the room, but wasn't able to get a good look at the plaques on the tables. So she ventured into the thick of it, only to find herself having to move quickly to adjust to all the people trying to navigate the small space.

  "Excuse me, coming through—"

  Solene darted away to allow a herd of classmates to pass, just as someone else hit her from behind. The collision was immediate—Solene found herself sprawled out on the floor, her books and pencils scattered around her on the floor and the lid to her pencil case with Inkpot the Witch-Cat on it now dented.

  "Oh, sorry!"

  Solene froze. Slowly, she looked up as the owner of the voice, the one who had bumped into her knelt down.

  It was him again—Dorian.

  "I am so, so sorry," he continued, oblivious to her anxious heartbeat or racing thoughts. He gathered up her scattered pencils and placed them neatly back in the tin. "I really didn't see you there, I—"

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "It's okay." She managed a gentle smile, something that made her want to get up and run and never come back here. She pulled herself up onto her knees with as much dignity as the situation allowed. Which, naturally, wasn't much.

  Dorian placed the lid back on the pencil case and stacked it on top of her books before handing them back to her.

  "Sorry, I really should have been looking," he said again, his face turning red.

  "It's really okay, don't even worry about it." She tried to inject into it a chipper sort of tone, but she could see from Dorian's expression that she was failing at fooling him. "Really!"

  He just leaned forward and grabbed her elbows. With a strong upward pull, she was standing again. The sudden motion of it left her breathless—or maybe it was something else.

  "Thanks." Solene looked away as quickly as she could manage. "I think my seat is—"

  "Over here." Dorian also averted his eyes and reached to scratch the back of his neck. "I was just coming over to tell you and, well. . . "

  "Oh, okay then." Solene swallowed and craned her neck.

  There the nameplate was, right on the table where Dorian's bag was draped across the back of a seat.

  She followed him to the table and took her seat. She kept her eyes down, on her notes and things and tried to pretend he wasn't there. Because it felt wrong to look at him, and to admit that she found him striking, pretty even, to look at.

  It wasn't too long after the school bell rang that everyone finally managed to find their seats. That was when Professor Vasquez took to the board.

  "Welcome to Ancient History," she declared. "For many of you, this is the last of your required history credits before graduation, and I have no intention of holding any of you back from that goal."

  She surveyed the class and narrowed her deep brown eyes. "However, do not mistake this for a class where you can just slack off. History—even and arguably especially ancient history—is vital to the decisions we make every day. One might even argue that the problems we are facing date back to our most ancient records."

  She took a glass orb off of a pedestal on her desk and waved her hand over it. In a gentle glimmer of silver light, sparkles of white like snowflakes began to dance around the room. With a flick of her wrist over the orb, magnificent lights of green and magenta and violet painted the ceiling, catching the light of the different chandeliers that Professor Vasquez must have installed into the walls.

  Dorian frowned at the lights, and maybe Solene imagined it, but he looked a little pale.

  "It is only natural that we begin our class with a unit on the Long Winter." Professor Vasquez began to stroll down the aisles. Students hastily kicked their schoolbags beneath their chairs or the tables to make room for her. "The Long Winter is where our earliest records begin, and marks the start of continuous, well-preserved history."

  She tapped the orb. With another silver light, silhouettes of people appeared. "Many important magical families gained power in the Long Winter, including the Blackbriars, Anouirs, and Beltanes, with their overseeing and maintaining refuges with their magic for the population to live."

  Professor Vasquez paused and glanced in Solene and Dorian's direction. Then she looked away, to one of the girls who had slightly pointed ears. "The elven compounds like our neighboring Primaverde were also formed during this time for similar reasons. These groups would later go on to form the Covenant and unite any previous nation-states and tribes into one unified society under the banner of the warrior known as Durendal."

  Another tap, and the silhouette of a warrior with fox ears appeared.

  "We'll also talk about some of the myths and legends that surround this era, and go into the current academic theories on the truth behind the lore." The lights resembling snowflakes stopped in midair. The approximation of the Northern Lights above grew lighter, and the room dimmed as the shadowy silhouettes of people and warriors coalesced into the shape of a sinister black wolf with piercing red eyes. Beside it appeared the shape of a girl in a red cloak, so frightfully small in comparison to the wolf.

  There were gasps from several around the room—including from Dorian, Solene realized. She turned to look at him—he'd gone stiff and his hands were curled into fists so tightly that they were shaking, his knuckles white.

  She found herself reaching toward him, parted her lips to ask what was wrong, only for Professor Vasquez to continue.

  "This of course means we will be talking about the Badwolf and the Girl in Red, among the other stories."

  Of course.

  Solene had once had a beautifully illustrated book full of fairytales—and the story of the Big Bad Wolf and the Girl in Red had been one of them. Nearly everyone knew the story, or at least some version of it. She'd had nightmares of it a great many times until her father finally decided to put it on the high shelf where she couldn't reach it anymore.

  She shuddered at the thought—there were so many gruesome or haunting endings to the tale.

  Sometimes the Girl in Red was eaten by the Wolf. Other times she prevailed by her own cleverness or courage.

  But perhaps most hauntingly, the ending in the book that Solene had read as a child, the Wolf took the Girl in Red away screaming into the winter wasteland, never to be seen again.

  In a silver flash of light, the projections were gone, and Professor Vasquez was left holding the glass orb and smirking.

  "I hope you'll enjoy a little bit of dramatics and showmanship from time to time, or at least tolerate it." Professor Vasquez made her way back to the front of the class."With that, let us truly begin. Now open your textbooks to page twenty-three."

  As she did so, Solene spared a glance for Dorian, who it seemed was trying to avoid looking at her now too, or at least, anything living at all.