A new week, a new day.

  It was Enid’s third week at the academy.

  For some reason, she felt like more had happened in these three short weeks than in a hundred years deep in the forest.

  Maybe it was because her memories were coming back little by little.

  Or maybe it was because there were simply more people around her now.

  Either way, she didn’t hate it. Enid had always loved being around others, and teaching the magic she adored to her students was genuinely fun.

  She found every race’s youngsters and half grown kids adorable.

  To her, birth and growth were part of nature’s power, one of the most important pieces of the cycle itself.

  New lives always came bursting with confidence and energy, eager to try anything they touched for the first time.

  Enid believed change was a good thing. Enough small changes, enough new ideas, and the world slowly became better.

  As a long lived nature elf, she was naturally slow to notice change, and a bit cautious about it.

  So watching over these students, supporting the ones who would someday reshape the world, that was her way of adding change to the world too.

  Because of them, she was willing to try anything new, just to make sure her ideas about improving nature magic could be passed on cleanly to the next generation.

  That was what Enid believed.

  Right up until she started grading.

  Grading was terrifying.

  Honestly, Enid couldn’t even describe her mood.

  Since early morning, she’d been in the dining hall, eating while she worked through the stack of reports Nino had collected for her a few days earlier.

  And she discovered something for the first time.

  Anger, despair, helplessness, and laughter could all show up on the same face at once.

  She was furious that some of them thought they could hand in garbage like this.

  She was crushed by how close to zero most of them were in actually understanding the new concepts.

  She was exhausted because almost everything she tried to teach had gone right over their heads.

  And she couldn’t help laughing at how absurdly padded some of the papers were, like slapstick dressed up as scholarship.

  Caroline and Jules had planned to sit with Professor Innis, say hello, and have breakfast together.

  Then they saw the thick stack in her hands, and the expressions shifting across her face.

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  They exchanged a look full of sympathy, then quietly kept their distance.

  Both of them knew what it meant.

  Any educator who could stare at a pile of academic junk stuffed with filler and repetition and still stay calm had the patience of a saint, the kind you’d build a shrine for.

  The fact that Professor Innis stayed quiet and polite at all was already the gentlest reaction they’d ever seen in this academy. Antonio himself wouldn’t have been that steady.

  By the time Enid reached her classroom door, she didn’t even know what expression she was supposed to wear.

  She wanted to slam the whole stack onto the floor in front of everyone and stomp it twice.

  But if she wanted to keep her reputation as kind and easygoing, she had to swallow that urge.

  On the other hand, forcing a bright smile and telling them to try harder next time.

  Nope. She couldn’t do it.

  When the bell rang, she still walked in, because she had to.

  The students looked up, and something felt off about Professor Innis today.

  She was smiling, sure.

  But why did that smile feel dangerous?

  During class, Enid stopped pretending.

  She went straight at the “authors of the finest comedy ever written” and didn’t hold back.

  It was the first time the students realized something important.

  Professor Innis, the academy’s famous “smiling face” professor, could stay smiling even while she was furious.

  She stood there with that beautiful smile, pouring out frustration and disbelief, firing questions at them until they wished the floor would swallow them.

  She was like a gorgeous rose in full bloom.

  A rose with thorns.

  And these thorns could shoot.

  Even after class ended, Enid still didn’t feel better.

  She hadn’t taught a single new topic today.

  Instead, she’d spent the whole time using the simplest words she could think of, trying to make them understand the key to sensing other elemental mana.

  By the time the lesson ended, out of more than three hundred students, at least fifty finally found the trick.

  That was the best result she could get, even with Nino and Eleanor helping.

  She kept four students behind and told them she’d make time to tutor them later, to cover the knowledge they missed today.

  Then she left in a hurry.

  All she wanted was to curl up in her office with sweets and floral tea and comfort her wounded soul.

  Sometimes, though, the universe made a point of showing her exactly what “nothing goes right” really meant.

  On the walk back, at a corner in the hall, the curse inside her flared again.

  It was a kind of pain she could endure, but not ignore.

  And with her mood already wrecked, it made everything worse.

  Enid had a pretty good idea who she was going to see after the corner.

  She wanted to run.

  She couldn’t.

  And of course she was right.

  Rosalie, the “saint child” from the divine arts department, stepped around the corner, spotted her almost immediately, and lit up.

  “Oh, Professor Innis. What a coincidence!”

  Rosalie bounced over with a bright, cheerful stride.

  “I knew it. I was feeling weirdly happy just now, like something good was about to happen. My gut was right!”

  Rosalie came right up beside her, eyes shining.

  “Professor Innis, do you want to go for a walk and talk? I’ve got so much I want to tell you!”

  Enid really wanted to say no.

  She really did.

  But Rosalie’s sweet face and pure enthusiasm were lethal.

  Enid couldn’t bring herself to reject him.

  Damn it, she thought. He was a boy. Why did he have to be this cute.

  And he was wearing the girls’ uniform too.

  “Mm, good afternoon, Rosalie,” Enid said. “What a coincidence. I can’t refuse an invitation from such an adorable student. Lead the way.”

  The moment Professor Innis agreed, Rosalie looked delighted.

  He grabbed Enid’s hand and started practically skipping, like a princess who’d stepped right out of a storybook.

  Which was the problem.

  This “princess” looked like a girl in every way that mattered, except he wasn’t.

  And aside from being cute, Enid still couldn’t see what Rosalie supposedly had in common with Ilyana.

  The only shared point seemed to be that both of their holy power made her curse hate its life.

  Rosalie held her hand and dragged her along without a hint of mercy.

  Enid followed like a puppet with snapped strings, stumbling a little as she went.

  And in her head, the thoughts kept looping.

  Rosalie’s face is too close.

  He’s ridiculously cute.

  His blond hair even smells good.

  Too close, though.

  Way too close.

  Professor’s curse is about to lose it.

  My chest hurts.

  Literally.

  I want my bed.

  Please.