Ever since the academy entered full lockdown, the campus was flooded with pushback against Antonio and a growing sense of anxiety about personal safety.

  Plenty of students from families that opposed Antonio politically insisted the lockdown was really a hostage situation, that Antonio was keeping them here to threaten their families.

  They never stopped to ask themselves why they had chosen to enroll in this academy in the first place.

  They also never stopped to ask a simpler question. If Antonio truly meant to hold them hostage, why hadn’t he gagged them too.

  That kind of noise was normal in a big academy full of people.

  But the Nature school was different.

  The Nature school was calm, almost peaceful, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Most Nature students were second sons from noble houses who had been more or less left to their own devices. They didn’t keep frequent contact with home.

  Being cut off from outside communication wasn’t a tragedy. For some of them, it was a gift. No letters, no demands, no family pressure. Just a stretch of quiet they could finally breathe in.

  And honestly, the Nature school students were a special breed.

  They were talented, they were entertaining, and they genuinely liked it here.

  Going home. Not happening.

  On top of that, Professor Innis was gentle and beautiful, her classes were excellent, and she took her students seriously. Word had spread that several attacks had been driven off by her.

  So the smallest school, the one that used to have the worst reputation for academic discipline, somehow became the quietest and most compliant place on campus.

  During class, you could listen to Innis teach. If you didn’t understand, you could still enjoy looking at her, or at the other students who were not exactly hard on the eyes either.

  After class, you could hang out with friends or do whatever you felt like. Everyone had their own thing going on. Nobody had time to worry about the loud chaos coming from the neighboring schools.

  Enid’s students weren’t particularly rattled either.

  Eleanor was the easiest case. She already liked living in the library, or studying under a professor. And since Jules, the dean of the Arts school, was her uncle, her parents were confident she was fine. For Eleanor, it didn’t feel much different from normal.

  Esme was similar. Her older brother wrote to her now and then, but she rarely wrote back. And she loved being around Eleanor and Professor Innis. She even joined small academic salons sometimes to practice socializing with other girls. Lockdown didn’t change her daily life much.

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  The only thing that bothered Esme was that Selena was now living with Innis.

  Esme was jealous.

  She wanted to share a room with Innis too.

  Selena’s situation was a little different, but she had no special complaints about the lockdown.

  The officer track focused on military command, officer training, and individual combat. Competition there was fierce. Different noble factions clashed constantly, and even the commoners formed cliques and groups. To be honest, Selena never liked the atmosphere.

  The Nature school was nothing like that.

  The students here lived at a relaxed pace, and Selena made friends quickly.

  Plus, she was completely absorbed in her research and training with Innis, working toward the impossible goal of making an Anti-Mage become a mage. Her days felt full in the best way.

  Innis also took good care of her now that they were sharing the same sitting room.

  Selena started to feel like Innis was the kind of person you could lean on, almost like a caring older sister.

  For someone who grew up without siblings, being looked after by someone other than her parents felt strangely addictive.

  She was getting attached, maybe a little too fast.

  Nino didn’t have many complaints either. He worried about his mother, sure, but that was it.

  He decided to use this time to change himself for good. Maybe when he finally went home, his siblings and his mother would be surprised, and maybe even proud.

  And Wolfgang

  Wolfgang was a fourth-year, which meant he was permanently busy.

  Lockdown or not, he didn’t care. All he cared about was how to rack up enough credits to graduate early.

  Did he miss home

  His relationship with his father and his brothers was complicated, not terrible, not warm either. He didn’t miss the cold palace life much.

  He also happened to hate the cold.

  And here, he could hide his identity as a prince and live quietly. Innis was willing to keep that secret. He had built real friendships with Nino and the others.

  Honestly, he didn’t want to leave.

  Fourth-years didn’t have the luxury of sitting around and overthinking their feelings anyway.

  So the Nature school, the one Enid had been placed in charge of temporarily, kept its strangely peaceful rhythm. In the middle of a noisy academy, it felt almost unreal.

  During that time, Enid’s own life stayed steady too.

  She taught her usual classes, gave her TAs extra instruction, checked student headcounts morning and night, and did a few patrol loops each evening.

  Nothing else changed much.

  One new habit did appear. Enid occasionally visited Rosalie, still unconscious in the main building’s infirmary.

  The one thing that felt different was that Kassim was gone. He used to talk to her readily, and his absence left a small, unfamiliar gap.

  As a long-lived nature elf, Enid had seen too many deaths.

  The loss of one short-lived person didn’t strike her with the kind of grief mortals expected.

  And with Kassim giving off that constant sense of something being off, it wasn’t as if she could pretend everything about him had been simple.

  Still, what could she do. He was dead. The scene was gone. Enid couldn’t dig deeper even if she wanted to.

  All she could do was watch herself and protect her own students.

  Enid also learned that besides the Nature school and the Hexcraft school next door, every other school had reported students vanishing without explanation.

  Those schools were far from Enid’s territory. She couldn’t sense what was happening over there.

  And she didn’t have the bandwidth to care, not really.

  Managing every student in the Nature school already drained her.

  A single professor precisely managing over five hundred people was rare, almost unheard of.

  Days like this felt like they could stretch on for a long time.

  Until something else happened.

  Rosalie, who had been lying in the main building infirmary the whole time, was gone.