The classroom windows let in a narrow, warm thread of sunlight from the north side of the world. Words floated in and out of the professor's mouth as everyone took notes. The weather was completely neutral — indifferent to anyone's preferences, yet agreeable enough for all. The cool air made you want to breathe deeply, like it was actually worth the effort.
Tocino was asleep on my lap, giving me the warmth that the room fell just short of, right against my stomach. Everything would have been perfect if that insufferable goddess hadn't sent me a message half an hour ago.
Reader System: Ren Amel
New Message!
In a voice barely above a whisper, I said, "OPEN."
---
Reader System: Ren Amel
Status: *A rock has more fans than you. (Literally.)
Popularity Contest:
- Rank: #500
- Original Loyalty: 99%
Bookmarks:
- 3/3
Reader Comments:
- 47:01
Messages:
Nicole °■° HAHAHA, you explained the magic better than I did (^_^;)
Nicole °■°: But what are you going to do for the practical? :p
---
I closed the window before I could read anything else.
Tocino cracked one eye open on my lap.
"My owner?" he murmured, looking up at me with half-lidded eyes.
"Technically, *I'm* your owner," I whispered.
"Details."
??◇?
"That's all for today." Aldric said. "Your next instructor will be here shortly — History of Magic. Stay in this room; he'll come to you."
He walked out the moment he finished speaking. An expectant silence settled over the classroom, then gradually gave way to the low hum of student conversations. The class had gone by faster than I expected. Two hours of theory and examples on arcane magic, most of which I already knew.
"Are you from Lynnwood?" Alice asked, glancing at me.
"Lynnwood?" I said, genuinely confused. "Not at all."
Lynnwood was where Amanda came from — a prestigious prep school for nobles and barons. As if a broke editor could ever walk those halls.
"Hm." Alice said. "Where are you from, then?"
My face went blank. Where I was actually from was a perfectly ordinary high school...
"You probably wouldn't know it," I said, barely moving my lips. "It's on the outskirts of Verend."
Technically not a lie.
"I see. You don't really seem like you're from Verend, though. I'd have guessed Framstone."
"You'd be right," I said, managing a small smile.
Alice narrowed her eyes slightly. Before she could say anything else, the door opened slowly.
The History of Magic professor arrived exactly three minutes after Aldric had left. She was a small woman with gray hair pulled into a tight bun and round glasses that gave her the look of a walking library. She entered without introduction, set a stack of books on the desk with a sharp thud, and looked out at us as if we were already behind.
"I'm Professor Venn," she said, adjusting her glasses. "History of the Veil, first year. We're starting now."
No welcome. No personal introduction. She simply opened the first book and began.
She was good. I had to give her that. The way she connected dates to consequences, wars to magical discoveries, names to ideologies — it was the kind of storytelling that made time disappear without warning. Even I, who already knew the major events of this world's history from the flashbacks in Arcane Hearts, kept finding new details in every sentence.
Tocino had fallen back asleep.
Alice was taking notes at a calm, steady pace. Most of the class was doing the same.
So was I. Or pretending to. I was actually writing something else in the margins of my page.
Practical evaluation. Likely. First years always have one in the first week — Chapter 4 of Arcane Hearts confirms it. Baseline assessment. Routine for everyone. Catastrophic for me.
I underlined the last line twice, then scribbled over it.
The problem was simple and brutal: I had no baseline. No level at all. I was a twenty-three-year-old from a completely ordinary city.
Reading about swimming doesn't teach you how to swim.
What are you going to do for the practical?
Nicole's message floated through my mind, carrying that invisible little smirk I could feel right through the screen.
I closed my fist under the desk.
Professor Venn shifted topics, moving from the First Rupture of the Veil to the political fallout that followed. Several students turned pages. Amanda, two rows ahead, raised her hand to ask a question — one the professor answered with what looked like genuine satisfaction.
The gears of a protagonist, turning perfectly.
I went back to my margins.
Options:
1. Fake an injury.
2. Study the books all night.
3. Ask someone for help.
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I stopped at number three.
Who? I didn't know anyone. Alice was the only person who'd said more than two words to me, and that was only because we'd ended up sitting next to each other by geographic accident.
Tocino opened one eye.
"You're moving around too much," he murmured without lifting the rest of his body.
"Shut up," I whispered.
"What's your problem?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
I exhaled so quietly it was barely more than air.
"There's a practical evaluation," I said, moving just my lips. "Magic. Which I don't know how to do."
Tocino processed this with the calm of someone who wasn't particularly surprised by the information.
"so?"
"so?" I glanced at him sideways. "If I can't cast basic magic in front of everyone on the first day, I stand out in exactly the wrong way. A first-year at Hirus who can't invoke anything isn't a quiet extra. And on top of that, I don't even know when it's scheduled..."
"Hm." Tocino closed his eye again. "What about the books?"
"I don't have them here."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe the dorms"
A pause.
"Rough life " he said.
I looked back at the front of the room before I could say something that would completely unravel my composure.
Alice was watching me from the corner of her eye.
Professor Venn was now covering the Reconstruction Period — when the first invokers had learned to stabilize their bonds with entities from the Substrate. Fascinating under any other circumstances. Right now it was background noise to my silent crisis.
"Hey."
The voice came from my left. Low, unhurried.
Alice wasn't looking at me anymore. Her eyes were on her notebook, pen moving slowly.
"What?" I replied at the same volume.
"You've been fidgeting for ten minutes." A pause. "The professor already noticed you."
I went still.
"How do you know that?"
"Her eyes landed on you for a moment." Another pause, shorter. "And on your invocation."
I closed my eyes for a second.
When I opened them, Alice was still writing as if she hadn't said anything.
"Thanks," I said.
She didn't answer.
I spent the next two hours copying notes at the pace of someone trying to make up for lost time, Tocino asleep on my lap, Nicole's question still unanswered and circling somewhere in the back of my head.
What are you going to do for the practical?
When the bell rang at the end of the last class, students began to stand and gather their things. The murmur of conversations gradually returned. Some left in groups, others stared at their schedules with concentrated expressions. It was lunch hour.
I stayed seated a moment longer.
Tocino stretched across my legs with an exaggerated full-body extension that took up more space than something his size had any right to.
"Is it over?" he asked.
"For now," I answered.
"Good." He sat up with the dignity of someone who had just woken from a perfect nap. "I'm hungry."
"Same."
We both looked down at the same moment, and I reached into my pockets.
I stood up, tucked my notebook under my arm, and looked toward the door. Students were filing out in small clusters, voices blending with the sound of footsteps on the stone corridor.
Alice was already on her feet beside her desk, sliding her notebook into a bag that also looked two sizes too big for her. Everything about her followed that same oversized pattern.
"Do you know where the dorms are?" I asked before I could think twice about it.
She looked at me.
"Yes," she said.
"Can you tell me how to get there?"
A short pause.
"I can show you," she said finally, in the tone of someone making a minor decision. "I'm heading that way anyway."
Tocino jumped up onto my shoulders.
"What about the dining hall?" he added, with complete naturalness, as if joining the conversation was the most normal thing in the world.
Alice looked at him. Then at me.
"That too," she said, and started walking toward the door without waiting.
We followed.
The east wing hallway smelled of old stone and something vaguely floral I still couldn't identify. The last students from 1-A were disappearing in different directions.
"How did you know the professor noticed me?" I asked as we walked.
"I already told you," she answered without turning her head. "Her eyes settled on you for a moment."
Tocino, perched on my shoulder, leaned slightly toward my ear.
"I like her," he murmured.
"Hm," I replied just as quietly.
"What did you two say?" Alice asked without turning her head.
"Nothing," said Tocino.
She didn't ask again.
I walked behind her for a long stretch while neither of us said anything, drifting along almost like the wind was guiding me. I felt a little uneasy and tried to ask a few things, but she only answered in short, clipped responses.
We arrived eventually. The dormitories were enormous — they branched off from the main building and connected to what I now realized was the widest structure on campus. We parted ways at the entrance, me with a smile and her with a small wave, then headed in opposite directions.
The dormitory attendant was a middle-aged woman with her hair in a tight bun and a list in her hand that she consulted without looking up.
"Name?" she asked when I got close enough.
"Ren Amel."
"Amel," she said.
She ran a finger down the list.
"Room 112. Second floor, end of the right hallway." She handed me an iron key without ceremony. "Rules are posted on the door. If you lose the key, you pay for the replacement."
"Understood."
She never looked up once.
Tocino and I climbed the stairs in silence. The second floor smelled of wood and something clean, almost medicinal. All the doors were identical — dark oak with small brass number plates. 101. 104. 107.
At the end of the right hallway, exactly where the attendant had said, was 112.
I slid the key in. The door opened without resistance.
It was a small room.
Not small by Hirus standards. Just small, full stop. A narrow window let in a strip of afternoon light. A bed against the left wall. And half a meter from the bed, a dark wooden desk.
I stood in the doorway.
I knew that distance. I'd seen that same geometry so many times before.
On the desk sat four books.
Each one as thick as a forearm. No titles on the spines. No decorations. Just four volumes stacked with the precision of someone who had placed them there deliberately.
I looked at them for a long moment.
They were the four volumes I had requested.
Tocino jumped from my shoulder onto the desk, sniffed the spines with careful interest, then settled on top of the first one with the expression of someone claiming territory.
"Good room," he said.
I didn't answer. I felt a flicker of mild annoyance.
I walked over slowly, ran my fingers across the cover of the volume Tocino wasn't flattening, and sat on the edge of the bed.
The strip of light from the window cut exactly across the center of the desk.
Tomorrow there could be a practical evaluation. I had four years of history memorized and zero hours of real magic under my belt. Alice knew the professor had noticed me. Tocino had nearly derailed the first canonical scene because he wanted to go to the dining hall.
All of that was true.
This is my life now.
Also true: I had a room. A bed. A desk half a meter away. And four volumes of my own novel waiting for me.
I picked up the first one from the stack, nudging Tocino aside slightly. He let out an indignant meow but didn't fully move.
I opened to Chapter 4 of Arcane Hearts.
