Hermes woke to a sharp clicking sound followed by three loud knocks on the dormitory door.
Some sort of wake up call, presumably.
He lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, cataloguing how he felt. Remarkably good, as it turned out. He had slept so deeply it felt less like sleep and more like a brief interruption in consciousness — one moment his head hit the pillow and the next the ceiling was bright with morning light. No dreams. No disturbances.
He credited the mattress.
He had also, he noticed, slept in his uniform. It hadn't even occurred to him to change. He filed that under things he would handle differently tomorrow and watched his dormmates drag themselves upright one by one with the collective enthusiasm of people who had not asked to be awake.
There were two cupboards along the far wall. The first opened to reveal four shelves of mugs, each containing a toothbrush. His dormmates retrieved theirs without looking, moving with the automatic efficiency of a routine so established it required no thought.
When in Rome.
Hermes found an unclaimed mug on the bottom shelf, inspected the toothbrush briefly, and followed the group out into the corridor and down to the washroom — a long stone room lined with basins fed by pipes that produced water at a temperature best described as aggressively cold. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and did his best to make himself presentable, which in the absence of a mirror was largely an exercise in optimism.
Back in the dormitory his dormmates opened the second cupboard. Everything inside was neatly arranged — uniforms pressed, night suits folded, each set organised by name.
Hermes located his set by scanning the names stitched into the collars until he found his own.
Gaemond.
He stared at it for a moment.
Really.
He changed into the fresh uniform and stuffed yesterday's clothes back into the cupboard, as everyone else was doing, the careful organisation of the morning already collapsing into a general tangle of fabric within about thirty seconds.
Across the room the leader had produced a small mirror from somewhere — his own, clearly, a personal possession — and was inspecting his reflection with the focused attention of someone who considered this time extremely well spent.
Hermes watched him for exactly one second, decided this was not worth thinking about, and followed the others out into the corridor.
When in Rome, he thought. Always when in Rome.
They soon reached the dining hall and joined the line. Breakfast was two boiled potatoes, the soup, and the bread. The holy trinity, apparently.
Hermes collected his tray and made his way over to where his dormmates had settled, setting it down and taking a seat with the casual air of someone who had been invited.
The table went quiet.
The leader stared at him with an expression that suggested he was questioning his own perception of reality.
"What do you think you're doing, peasant? Go sit in a corner somewhere."
"Come on," Hermes said pleasantly, not moving. "Aren't we friends? Besides, eating alone is awkward. You understand."
"Friends?! I would never be friends with a cowardly peasant rat like you! Get lost!"
"But I want to be friends with you," Hermes replied, in the tone of someone making a very reasonable observation. "Can I really not?"
A baffled silence settled over the table.
"What is wrong with him?" someone muttered.
Everything, Hermes thought cheerfully. Absolutely everything.
No one moved to physically remove him. After a moment of collective indecision the group seemed to settle on the more dignified strategy of simply pretending he didn't exist. That was fine by him. He had no intention of leaving — he had zero idea what the daily schedule looked like and the last thing he needed was another corridor incident with a prefect. Tailing his dormmates until he had the shape of the day figured out was the most logical approach available.
He started on the potatoes.
Two days left. Including today.
He had already made his opening move — and it had come together almost accidentally. When Professor Abano had seized on his vision and declared him a true seer in front of the headmaster, he had felt the opportunity crystallise before she had even finished her sentence. He hadn't corrected her. Why would he? She had handed him a lever and he had taken it with both hands.
He had described what he saw exactly as he had seen it — the ruined castle, the monsters marching backward, the limbless dead, the skeletal figure with its arms raised, the gray fog swallowing everything, the sun rising and setting three times. Every detail, precisely as the hint had shown him, delivered with the careful gravity of someone reporting a genuine prophetic vision. At least he had tried to.
It hadn't been enough. Roland was sharp and deeply unimpressed and had filed the whole thing away under unlikely.
Which is unfortunate.
The plan had been elegant in theory. Roland commanded a castle full of wizards. If he took the warning seriously, the monster attack would be handled entirely without Hermes having to do anything at all. Maximum reward. Minimum risk. Not a single step taken toward anything resembling combat.
Even Sunny only had to spit on the Tyrant to clear his trial, right?
He chewed his potato.
Right.
The headmaster was a resource. The castle was a resource. Professor Abano was a resource. He just needed to find the right lever to make any of them actually useful.
Two days to find it.
He dipped the bread in the soup and chewed thoughtfully.
He hadn't even tested his attributes yet, beyond Oculus Sapientiae. They sat in his status window like a lottery winning he had no idea how to cash. Well — he had ideas. The problem was the how. He was broke.
Literally a peasant. No materials to craft a single memory, much less an echo. And forget either of those — he didn't even have a soul core yet, which was absolutely necessary for creating both. Until someone generous decided to remedy that situation, which he considered highly unlikely, his other attributes were effectively decorative.
Across the table his friends had moved on to complaining about the day ahead, their voices carrying the resigned misery of people facing something unavoidable.
Runes, apparently. Everyone hated the subject. Everyone hated the teacher more.
Hermes looked up slowly.
Runes.
That might actually work.
After all, Ars Scriptoria should allow him to perform runic sorcery. And a runes class was, if nothing else, a place to start.