"Dining hall etiquette is not a suggestion, young Valois. It is an order."
The voice was mature, calm, and edged with steel—enough to make everyone present, even upperclassmen, straighten instinctively.
The crowd parted in sepulchral silence to let a woman pass. She wore a faculty uniform, but in a way that resembled a general more than a scholar. Unlike the Academy's "queens," she bore no ostentatious jewelry or family crests.
She didn't need them.
It was Elena Thorne.
Known to all as the "Commoner Genius" of the previous generation, Elena had climbed to the top of the magical hierarchy through sheer talent and bloodshed, becoming a legend even the Duchies respected—or feared. It was said her control over the elements was so precise she could stop a man's heart without lifting a finger.
She stopped between Damian and our table. Her gaze, sharp as a scalpel, passed over the trembling Valois and locked directly onto me. There was no contempt in her eyes—but there was an analytical curiosity far more dangerous than Julius's or Damian's hatred.
"Damian Valois, leave now if you don't want your expulsion to become the next topic of discussion in the Duchy," she declared without looking at him, her eyes still fixed on mine. "As for you, Cassian Varkas…"
She adjusted her black leather gloves, a faint, almost imperceptible smile curving her lips.
"Come with me. We have much to discuss about your 'luck' in the arena."
As I looked at Elena Thorne standing there waiting, a wave of memories struck me with physical force. Her face—now marked by academic severity—was the same one I had seen that night in the capital's slums, three years ago.
The night I found Adela.
Back then, I was still exploring the limits of this body—and of this low-tier world. I stumbled upon an underground slave market, a place where the stench of despair and corrupted magic clung to the walls. Among the cages, I saw a girl with golden-blonde hair and eyes steeped in budding darkness—a black magic user sold by her own parents out of fear and greed.
The traffickers were not a problem. Their necks snapped before they could scream.
But just as I was freeing Adela from her chains, a presence materialized in the alley's shadows.
It was Elena.
At the time, she wasn't a teacher—just a mercenary or investigator tracking human trafficking. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. She saw the corpses around me, then looked at me—a fourteen-year-old child whose gaze held anything but innocence.
She didn't stop me. She didn't call the guards.
She simply let me take Adela.
That, more than anything, made the situation far more confusing.
"It's been a while, Professor Thorne," I said at last, breaking the silence of the dining hall. "I see you've traded steel for textbooks."
Elena's smile widened—an expression with nothing friendly about it, and everything of dangerous complicity.
"And you, Cassian Varkas… have stopped hiding behind that mask of yours," she replied, adjusting her glasses.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice so even Klaus and Sera couldn't hear.
"I let you go that night because I was curious what you would become. Now that you're in my Academy, don't expect the same privilege of anonymity. Walk."
I shrugged and followed her, feeling my friends' stunned gazes on my back.
"I don't recall doing anything so terrible as to make you this defensive, Elena," I said, using her first name with a familiarity that made nearby students hold their breath.
She stopped abruptly and turned, her glare sharp enough to incinerate most people—but it bounced off me like a breeze.
"That's what you think," she replied, narrowing her eyes. "You've spent five years in this Academy going unnoticed. And suddenly I hear you dueled a Sterling prodigy and left him on the ground? Not to mention Princess Elara…"
She stepped closer, close enough for me to see the mana shimmering in her pupils. Elena wasn't a noble—but her power made her more dangerous than any duke.
"That night, when I saw you take that girl, I stayed silent because I saw something in you that didn't belong to this world. But if you intend to turn my Academy into your personal chessboard, Cassian Varkas, I assure you—I'll be the one knocking over the pieces."
We walked toward her private office, leaving behind a dining hall already descending into rumor-fueled chaos.
Once inside, Elena sealed the door with a silence ward and sat down, crossing her legs with martial elegance.
"Now, let's speak honestly," she said, leaning forward on her desk. "Who are you really—and what the hell do you want from House Windsteel? Someone like you doesn't accept an engagement collar unless he plans to bite the hand holding the leash."