The good news was that Max remembered everything about Crimson Academy.
The bad news was that everything he remembered was terrible for him specifically.
He sat at the desk staring at nothing while his brain ran a full recap of the novel's plot like a man reviewing security footage of his own impending doom. First tournament arc, roughly three weeks from now. Julius picks a fight with the protagonist and loses spectacularly in front of the entire academy, and then exits the story so cleanly it was almost impressive. No dramatic final scene. No last words. Just gone.
All these happens in three weeks.
Max stood up.
Okay. There were new rules now. No picking fights. No interacting with the protagonist. No getting anywhere near the plot. Just keep his head down, be so unremarkable that the story forgot he existed, and figure out how to still be breathing by chapter ten. It should be simple, manageable and completely doable.
He decided to take a walk to clear his mind.
---
Sky Academy was even more ridiculous in person.
He had imagined it plenty of times reading the novel but imagination had limits. The actual place had none apparently. Everything was enormous and deliberate, buildings connected by stone bridges wide enough to fit a carriage, courtyards that opened into other courtyards, towers that caught the morning light like they were showing off. Students moved through it all in their academy uniforms looking like they belonged in a painting.
Max walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes slightly down, the universal posture of a man who did not want to be spoken to. It worked surprisingly well. A few students glanced at him and quickly looked away, which he assumed was the Julius reputation doing its job for once. Being known as an arrogant noble apparently had its perks.
He found the academy gardens mostly by accident, following a path that curved away from the main courtyard and opened suddenly into something that felt completely out of place with the rest of the campus. Quieter. Greener. The kind of place that existed specifically for people who needed to escape whatever was happening everywhere else.
He walked in and immediately felt his shoulders drop about three inches.
Then he noticed he wasn't alone.
A girl sat on a stone bench near the far end of the garden, a book open in her lap, silver hair catching the light in a way that made the whole scene look mildly cinematic. She wasn't reading though. She was looking at the flower bed in front of her with an expression that was hard to read, somewhere between thoughtful and somewhere else entirely.
Max recognized her immediately and felt his stomach do something unpleasant.
Reina Valerie. One of the heroines of Crimson Academy. The daughter of a decorated war general, top of her year in both theory and combat, and the first girl in the novel to fall properly into the protagonist's orbit. Calm, observant, the kind of person who noticed everything and said very little about it. In the novel she was described as someone who made people feel seen without ever trying to.
She had also, according to the same novel, heard plenty about Julius De Caesar, and none of of it was good.
Max's first instinct was to turn around and leave before she noticed him.
His second instinct was that it was already too late because she had just looked up.
They made eye contact, and for some reason he stopped walking.
She didn't look alarmed exactly, more like she was filing him away, recalculating something quietly behind her eyes. The kind of look that made you feel like you'd already said something and were waiting to find out what it was.
"De Caesar," she said. Not unfriendly. Not warm either. Just even.
"Valerie," he replied, because his brain supplied the name before he could decide whether responding was a good idea.
A pause. He should leave. He was going to leave.
His eyes drifted to the flower bed she'd been staring at before he walked in. Pale blue flowers, slightly wilted on one side, leaning away from where the bigger hedges were casting shade over them.
"They're planted too close to the hedge," he said, without fully meaning to. "They're not getting enough light on that side. That's why they're leaning."
He had no idea why he said that. He didn't know anything about flowers. Julius certainly didn't know anything about flowers. It was just the first thing his brain produced and his mouth had apparently stopped asking for permission.
Reina looked at the flowers. Then back at him.
"I know," she said quietly. "I've been thinking about whether to mention it to the groundskeeper or just leave it."
"Leave it," Max said. "They'll grow toward the light on their own eventually."
She looked at him for a moment longer than felt comfortable. Not suspicious exactly. Just like she was changing her opinion about him and comparing it to who she thought he was.
He cleared his throat.
"I'll leave you to it," he said, already stepping back.
She nodded once, eyes drifting back to the flowers.
Max walked back the way he came with the distinct feeling that he had just failed at being invisible on the very first attempt.
Behind him, he didn't see her glance back.