For reasons I can’t entirely explain, I follow her.

  The corridor feels different once we step into it together. Quieter. Or maybe I’m just more aware now.

  Elmyrra walks beside me with unhurried grace, her cloak whispering softly against the carpet. Students filter past in small clusters, some laughing, some whispering. A few glance at her. Most don’t.

  No one looks at me.

  I decide to break the silence.

  “Do you know how the dormitories work?” I ask. “How they decide who shares with who?”

  She doesn’t look at me immediately.

  “They don’t decide,” she says. “Not exactly.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  A faint hint of amusement flickers across her expression.

  “There are four residence houses,” she continues. “Each aligned to a different discipline. Astral. Aetherial. Martial. Umbral.”

  Her voice is soft, but there’s precision in it, like something memorized long ago rather than recently learned.

  “Astral houses those who work closest with celestial forces. Aetherial for elemental and arcane refinement. Martial for combat and strategic applications of magic. Umbral for shadow manipulation and boundary magics.”

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  “Boundary magics?” I repeat.

  “The places where things thin,” she replies. “Between light and dark. Between present and possible.”

  Something in the way she says it makes the air feel narrower.

  I glance sideways at her. She doesn’t elaborate.

  “And roommates?” I press.

  She folds her hands loosely in front of her as we descend a curved staircase.

  “Room assignments are not random. They are calculated.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Resonance.”

  The word settles heavier than it should.

  “Meaning?”

  She considers that, not searching, but choosing.

  “The academy charts students before they arrive. Bloodline. Magical signature. Political alignment. Aptitude projections.” A slight pause. “Behavioral probabilities.”

  My steps falter for half a beat before I correct them.

  “They overlay compatibility matrices,” she continues. “Projected influence outcomes. Risk thresholds.”

  “That sounds very precise.”

  “It is.”

  “And that determines roommates?”

  “It determines proximity,” she corrects quietly. “Roommates are intersections.”

  Intersections.

  Not coincidence. Not comfort.

  Design.

  A thought flickers at the edge of my mind.

  If it’s calculated, resonance, then why her?

  Why the Royal Oracle?

  Why someone aligned with Astral forces placed beside me?

  Or why me placed beside her?

  The corridor windows catch the afternoon light. For a moment, I have the strange impression of being observed, not by students, but by something farther away. Higher.

  The feeling passes.

  I swallow the question forming in my throat.

  As if sensing the shift in my thoughts, Elmyrra turns her head slightly toward me.

  “The system does not make errors,” she says.

  It’s the same certainty from earlier. The same unshakable knowing.

  I don’t know whether it’s reassurance.

  Or warning.

  “But it doesn’t always explain itself.”

  Our steps fall into rhythm again.

  Students ahead push open the doors to the main hall. Light spills into the corridor. The sound of gathering voices swells.

  I glance at her once more.

  She offers no prophecy. No justification. Just that quiet, unreadable calm.

  If the academy does not make errors, then I was placed beside her for a reason.

  And reasons, here, are never simple.