Chapter 9: Even My Teacher Thinks I Should Give Up

Morning came too fast.

I know this because Rin woke me up by sitting on my chest. She did not do it on purpose. She had, at some point during the night, migrated from the right bed to my bed, curled up on top of the blanket like an actual cat, and gradually worked her way upward until her full weight was on my ribs and her tail was across my face.

She weighed more than she looked.

“Rin.”

“Mm.”

“Rin, I cannot breathe.”

“Mm.”

“Rin, my lungs are organs I need.”

“…warm.”

“Rin.”

She opened one eye. The honey-colored eye blinked at me, very close, very slow. Her ears were relaxed. Her hair was everywhere. She looked like a person who had slept well for the first time in twenty years and had no intention of stopping.

I looked to my left.

Sakuya was already awake.

Of course, he was already awake. He was sitting on his bed, fully dressed, boots aligned, hair combed, reading the same leather-bound book with the calm patience of a person who had been awake for hours and had chosen not to disturb anyone. His shelf was still perfect. His blanket was folded into a square so crisp it could have been used as a serving tray.

He looked up. He looked at Rin on my chest. He looked at me.

He smiled.

“Good morning, Alfred-kun.”

“…good morning.”

“Rin-chan seems comfortable.”

“Rin-chan is crushing me.”

“She must trust you very much.”

“She is asleep on my organs.”

“Trust takes many forms, Alfred-kun.”

I peeled Rin off my chest the way you peel a cat off a warm surface, which is to say, slowly, with great care, and with the full understanding that she was going to come back the moment I stopped paying attention. She made a soft protesting noise and curled into the warm spot I had left on the mattress. Her tail wrapped around the pillow.

I got dressed. Sakuya had already laid out a basin of water, a clean towel, and a small bar of soap on the stand between our beds.

“…did you set this up?”

“You were sleeping. I did not want to wake you.”

“Sakuya.”

“Yes, Alfred-kun.”

“You do not need to prepare my washing basin.”

“It was no trouble.”

“That is not the point.”

“What is the point, Alfred-kun?”

“The point is that normal roommates do not prepare each other’s washing basins.”

“I see.”

“…”

“I will prepare only my own basin tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

“Unless you oversleep again.”

“I will not oversleep.”

“You slept through the sixth bell, Alfred-kun.”

“…what bell is it now?”

“The seventh.”

“Classes start at the eighth.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you not wake me at the sixth?”

“You were sleeping. I did not want to wake you.”

“SAKUYA.”

“And Rin-chan was on your chest. It seemed rude to disturb her.”

Rin, from the bed, made a smug noise. I did not know a sleeping person could make a smug noise. I was learning new things every day at the Academy.

I washed. I dressed. Sakuya had also acquired a schedule at some point between dawn and the seventh bell. A written schedule. On good paper. With the class locations marked in a neat hand and small notes in the margins about which corridors to take and where the water fountains were.

“The kitchen staff.”

“They are very helpful, Alfred-kun.”

“You befriended the kitchen staff on day one, and now they give you schedules.”

“They give me many things, Alfred-kun. Would you like a pear?”

He held out a pear. It was a good pear. I took the pear. Rin materialized from the bed, fully awake, cloak on, hand out. He gave her a pear. She took the pear. She bit into it without thanking him. He smiled at her. She turned her back.

We walked to class.

The three of us. Down the second-floor corridor of the east wing, through the covered walkway, across the great courtyard where the morning mist was still burning off the white stones. Students moved in groups. First years in gray tunics. Second year in blue. Third-years in black. The seniors wore whatever they wanted because they had apparently earned the right to dress as if they had been struck by lightning and survived.

The classroom was on the west side, ground floor, through a heavy oak door that had been left propped open with a brick.

It was not what I expected.

No desks. No chairs. No board at the front with chalk and important diagrams. The room was round. The floor was smooth stone, polished to a dull shine, with a wide circle carved into the center in thin silver lines. The walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves held everything: books, bottles, bones, crystals, a stuffed bird of unknown species, three candles burning in jars, a basket of what appeared to be dried mushrooms, and a single boot with no partner. The ceiling was high and domed, and the light came in through narrow windows set just below the curve, casting long pale columns of morning sun across the floor.

Students sat on the floor along the walls. Thirty of them. Maybe thirty-five. They sat in clusters and pairs, whispering. When I walked in, a few heads turned. When Rin walked in behind me, more heads turned. When Sakuya walked in behind Rin, smiled warmly at everyone, and sat down beside me close enough that our shoulders almost touched, the whispering got louder.

Rin sat on my other side. She pulled her knees up. Her tail curled around her ankles. Her ears tracked the room the way a hunter tracks a tree line.

I was sandwiched.

This was becoming a pattern.

The eighth bell rang.

Nothing happened.

We sat. We waited. The whispering continued. A girl across the circle was staring at Rin with undisguised fascination. A boy next to her was staring at me with undisguised suspicion. Another boy in the back was asleep. An instructor was supposed to be here. An instructor was not here.

The door at the back of the room opened.

A man walked in carrying a cup of tea, half a bread roll, and the general demeanor of someone who had woken up eleven minutes ago and had not yet forgiven the sun for existing.

He was tall. Not young. Not old. Somewhere in the middle, the age where you have stopped caring about first impressions and started caring about whether your tea is the right temperature. His robe was the Academy’s dark blue, but it hung open over a plain linen shirt that had not been ironed this century. His hair was brown and going gray at the sides and had been combed with, at most, three fingers. He had a thin scar across his left eyebrow that pulled the brow up slightly, giving him the permanent expression of a man who had just heard something mildly ridiculous and was deciding whether to comment on it.

He stood in the center of the silver circle. He took a long sip of tea. He looked at us over the rim.

“Right.”

Silence.

“I am Instructor Gale. You may call me Gale-sensei, or Sensei, or Sir, or nothing at all, as long as you pay attention when I am talking and do not set anything on fire unless I have specifically asked you to set it on fire. I teach first-year foundational magic. This means I will spend the next eight months teaching you how not to kill yourselves with your own mana. Some of you will be good at this. Some of you will not. The ones who are not will end up in the infirmary. Instructor Lena is a kind woman. She will fix you. She will also be very disappointed in you. I find that her disappointment is a more effective motivator than anything I can offer, so I will not try to compete.”

He took another sip of tea.

“Questions so far.”

Nobody had questions.

“Wonderful. Now. Names. I am going to go around the room, and you are going to tell me your name and one thing about yourself. Keep the one thing short. I do not care about your life story. I do not care about your bloodline. I do not care about your father’s rank, your mother’s holdings, or the name of the horse you rode in on. I care whether you can cast a clean barrier spell by winter. Everything else is decoration. Begin.”

He pointed at the girl to his left.

“Maren Holt. I can light a candle without a match.”

“Useful at dinner parties. Next.”

“Toren Vail. My family serves House Ashford.”

“I said I did not care about that. Try again.”

“…I like fishing.”

“Better. Next.”

It went around the room. Name after name. The answers grew shorter as students realized Gale-sensei was not interested in impressive things. A girl who began describing her family’s magical lineage was cut off after the fourth word. A boy who tried to mention his entrance exam score was told to share something that mattered. A girl who said, “I can make soup,” was told she was the most promising student so far.

Then it reached me.

“Alfred Takafumi the Second.”

The room shifted. Not visibly. But the air changed. The name carried weight I had not put into it. Three students across the circle sat up straighter. The sleeping boy in the back opened one eye.

Gale-sensei looked at me over his tea.

“Takafumi.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“The Second.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“Your grandfather built half this campus.”

“…I have been told that, Sensei.”

“He also blew up the other half at least twice.”

“I have not been told that, Sensei.”

“Mm. One thing.”

“…I am lazy.”

“Honesty. I appreciate honesty. We will work on laziness.”

He looked at Rin.

“And you.”

“Rin.”

“Rin, what?”

“Rin.”

“Just Rin.”

“Yes.”

“One thing.”

Her ears twitched. She thought about it. She looked at me. She looked back at Gale-sensei.

“I like fish.”

Three students laughed. Gale-sensei did not laugh. The corner of his scarred eyebrow went up a fraction higher, which I was beginning to understand was his version of laughing.

“Noted. Next.”

Sakuya.

He stood. He did not need to stand. Nobody else had stood. He stood anyway, with the smooth, easy grace that I still could not place, and he smiled his warm, steady smile at the room.

“Sakuya. I am Alfred-kun’s roommate and look forward to supporting him.”

“One thing about yourself, not about him.”

“That is about me, Sensei. Supporting Alfred-kun is what I do.”

Gale-sensei stared at him for three full seconds.

Then he looked at me.

Then he looked at Rin, pressed against my right side.

Then he looked at Sakuya, still standing, still smiling, on my left.

He took a very long sip of tea.

“Takafumi.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“You are the Haruno girl, are you not?”

“…”

“EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT THIS?”

“Your grandfather was famous, your father runs a guild, and the Haruno girl sent a letter to every noble house in the eastern reach when she was fourteen, announcing her intentions. Yes, Takafumi. Everyone knows.”

“She — she sent — she was FOURTEEN.”

“I was at the dinner where Lord Ashford read it aloud. He cried laughing. His wife framed it.”

“…”

“Takafumi.”

“…yes, Sensei.”

“Sit down. You look pale.”

I sat down. I had not stood up. I sat down further. Rin’s hand found my sleeve. Sakuya sat back down beside me, still smiling, apparently unbothered by what had just happened or by anything that had ever happened in the history of things happening.

Gale-sensei finished his tea. He set the empty cup on a shelf between a crystal and the stuffed bird. He rolled his shoulders. He looked at us with the tired, steady patience of a man who had taught too many first-years and had survived all of them.

“Right. Magic. Let us begin with the part where I keep you alive.”

He did not keep us alive.

Or rather, he tried, but magic on the first day is less like learning and more like being told very firmly not to touch a hot stove by a man who knows you are going to touch the hot stove. He walked us through mana flow. Basic mana flow. The kind where you hold your hand over the silver circle and push energy out through your palm and try, very hard, to make the lines glow.

Most students managed a flicker. Maren Holt, the candle girl, maintained a steady glow for four seconds. The soup girl managed nothing but looked extremely determined. The sleeping boy in the back produced a burst of light so bright that Gale-sensei had to shield his eyes, then went immediately back to sleep.

“…someone wake him before he does that in his dreams and blinds his roommate.”

Rin’s turn came. She placed her hand on the circle. The lines lit up—all of them. The entire circle, wall to wall, blazed silver-white. The shelves rattled, the stuffed bird fell over, three bottles clinked together, and every student in the room leaned back.

Rin pulled her hand away.

“…sorry.”

Gale-sensei picked up the stuffed bird. He set it back on the shelf. He looked at it. He looked at Rin. He looked at the bird again.

“Don’t apologize. Just warn me next time.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“How long were you in that scroll?”

“…a while.”

“Mm.”

My turn. I placed my hand on the circle. I pushed. A small, tired flicker crawled across one line, went about a hand’s length, and stopped. The line dimmed. The room was quiet.

“…lazy.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

“Your mana reserves are not small, Takafumi.”

“I am aware, Sensei.”

“You are simply not using them.”

“I am aware, Sensei.”

“This is a choice.”

“…yes, Sensei.”

“We will revisit this choice.”

“I was afraid of that, Sensei.”

He almost smiled. Almost. The scarred eyebrow went up, and the corner of his mouth did the smallest possible twitch, and then it was gone.

Sakuya’s turn. He placed his hand on the circle with the careful precision of a calligrapher placing a brush on paper. The lines glowed. Clean. Even. Steady. Not the blaze Rin had produced, but something else. Something controlled. The glow spread out in a slow, even wave, covered the circle perfectly, and held. No rattling. No falling birds. Just light, smooth, and warm, filling the lines like water filling a canal.

Gale-sensei watched for a long moment.

“Name again.”

“Sakuya, Sensei.”

“Family.”

“None of note, Sensei.”

“That control is not the work of no family.”

“I practiced alone, Sensei.”

“Mm.”

Gale-sensei held his gaze for a beat longer than he had held anyone else’s. Sakuya smiled. Gale-sensei did not smile back. He moved on.

The class ran until the tenth bell. By then, two students had minor burns, one had fainted, the stuffed bird had fallen over three more times, and Gale-sensei had gone through two more cups of tea. He dismissed us with a wave of his hand and a single sentence.

“Do not practice in your rooms. The east wing is made of wood. I will know.”

Students filed out. The round room emptied. Rin stood and stretched the way a cat stretches, with her whole body, arms above her head, tail arched. Three boys walking past the door tripped over each other. She did not notice.

Sakuya handed me a rice cake. He had produced it from somewhere. I had stopped questioning where Sakuya got things from. Sakuya got things the way rain got to the ground. It simply happened.

I took the rice cake.

“Alfred-kun.”

“Yeah.”

“Gale-sensei is observant.”

“Yeah.”

“He will be a good instructor.”

“Yeah.”

“Alfred-kun.”

“What?”

“You did not try your hardest in class.”

“…”

“You pushed a flicker.”

“I pushed what I pushed.”

“You pushed what you chose to push, Alfred-kun. There is a difference.”

I looked at him. He was smiling. Of course, he was smiling. But behind the smile, his dark, steady eyes were watching me with something I had not seen there before. Not judgment. Not disappointment. Something closer to patience. The deep, quiet patience of someone who had already decided how a story would end and was willing to wait as long as it took.

I looked away.

“Rin, Dormitory.”

“Fish for lunch.”

“Fish for lunch.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

We walked back across the courtyard—the three of us. The sun was high, and the mist was gone. The Academy’s white stones glowed under the clear, bright sky, and the banners on the towers snapped in a wind that smelled of old magic, new beginnings, and whatever Sakuya had put in the rice cakes, because they were, infuriatingly, delicious.

Rin held my right sleeve.

Sakuya walked at my left shoulder.

Neither of them was willing to fall behind the other.

I walked between them, carrying a rice cake I had not asked for, toward a dormitory room where a floor had been swept for me before I arrived, and I thought, very briefly, of a letter I had never read, sent by a girl in a tower, to a king who liked plums.

The morning sun was warm.

I did not trust it.