The bustling rotunda of the General Studies wing offered a stark contrast to the stifling elegance of the noble gardens. Here, the air buzzed with unfiltered chatter, the clatter of dropped textbooks, and the rushed footsteps of the standard student body.
Alice spotted them near a bulletin board—a tight cluster of girls wearing the bronze-trimmed uniforms of the regular classes.
"Elara! Clara!" Alice called out, waving brightly as she jogged over. Her smile, this time, was noticeably warmer, lacking the rigid perfection she used on the nobility.
Elara turned, her eyes immediately dropping to the silver epaulettes gleaming on Alice's shoulders before flicking back up. A sharp, mocking smirk touched her lips. "Well, if it isn't the star of the Honor Class. Surprised you can still see us all the way down here, Alice."
"Oh, please," Alice groaned dramatically, stepping directly into their circle and looping her arm casually through Clara's. "If I have to endure one more hour of Instructor Clive lecturing on the precise geometrical measurements of a basic light sphere, I might voluntarily throw myself off the floating island."
Clara giggled, the tension instantly deflating. "Is it really that awful? We thought the Honor Class was supposed to be glamorous."
"Glamorous?" Alice laughed, shaking her head. "It's a nightmare dressed in silver thread. The nobles spend half their time plotting against each other over tea, and the other half pretending they understand advanced elemental theory better than the rest of us. I'd trade my schedule for a single, relaxing afternoon in General Studies in a heartbeat."
The sharp line of Elara's shoulders finally dropped. She uncrossed her arms, letting out a short, genuine laugh as she leaned her weight comfortably against the stone masonry.
"We do have it easier with the workload," Elara admitted, leaning against the stone wall. "But at least you get to sleep in a room all to yourself. Have you heard the rumors going around the lower wards lately?"
Alice tilted her head, her curiosity genuinely piqued. "Rumors?"
"About the night walkers," Clara whispered, glancing nervously around the crowded rotunda as if the shadows might eavesdrop. "Students have been spotting them around the old training grounds and outskirts of the dormitories past curfew. Shadowy figures just... standing there. Muttering things."
"My instructor said that it's just upperclassmen sneaking out," Elara added, her voice dropping an octave. "But a student from the third-year Sector told me he heard the syllables. He said it didn't sound like normal casting. It was heavy. Wrong. He thinks someone is practicing Black Magic right under the Academy's nose."
Alice's heart executed a painful, stuttering halt.
Her bright, friendly expression remained perfectly glued to her face, a flawless mask of mild intrigue. But beneath it, a cold vacuum opened in her stomach.
The old training grounds... where Ms. Noctiliene tutors me.
Clara shivered. "They say Black Magic doesn't use the body's vessel at all. It just pulls directly from the darkness, bending the rules of the world to do whatever the caster wants."
Bypassing the internal vessel. Bending the rules of the world. The scent of crushed mint and ozone rushed back to Alice, suffocating and sharp. She remembered the sheer, crushing weight on her mind whenever she forced the Magic Language to obey her raw intent. The way the air around her mentor seemed ancient and dangerous.
Is that what I've been doing? Panic, sharp and icy, clawed at her throat. Is Ms. Noctiliene teaching me Black Magic?
"That sounds terrifying," Alice managed to say, her voice impressively steady. She offered a comforting smile to Clara. "But you know how rumors are. The Academy has wards for that sort of thing. I'm sure it's just some foolish students trying to play a prank."
"I suppose you're right," Elara shrugged, though she still looked uneasy. "Just... be careful if you're wandering around late, Alice. Even with your fancy silver epaulettes."
"I always am," Alice promised softly.
The first bell chimed, triggering a sudden, rushed migration toward the lecture halls. Clara and Elara waved their farewells, quickly melting into the tide of bronze-trimmed uniforms.
Alice raised a hand in return, her perfectly polite smile still anchored to her face.
She turned and let the sea of rushing bodies carry her forward. Her feet moved on pure, hollow instinct. Inside, her mind was a deafening roar of static—a frantic collision of half-formed questions, crimson eyes, and the suffocating scent of ozone that simply could not coalesce into a single, coherent thought. She drifted down the crowded corridor with vacant, unblinking eyes, a silent passenger in her own body, entirely disconnected from the stone passing beneath her shoes.