The boy in the back looked like he wanted the floor to open and take him.
He stood when Professor Rae pointed at him, pushing his chair back too hard. It scraped across the stone floor and turned a few heads. He adjusted his glasses with one hand, then made the mistake of looking around the room. That only made it worse.
Professor Rae leaned against the front table and smiled at him like she had all day.
"Name."
"C-Cedric Vale."
"Good. Cedric, come here."
Cedric swallowed and made his way down the aisle. His shoulders were stiff. He kept his notebook pressed against his side like it might help him. It didn't.
The room had gone quiet in the way classrooms always did when someone else was about to embarrass themselves.
Professor Rae picked up a piece of chalk and drew a rough circle on the floor. A few lines crossed through it. Nothing fancy. She stepped aside and tapped the center with the heel of her shoe.
"Stand there. Relax your breathing. Feel the life force in your body and pull it inward. Don't force it. If you force it, you'll get nothing. Or worse, you'll get a nosebleed and waste my time."
A few students laughed.
Cedric didn't.
Professor Rae folded her arms. "The spell is [Elementary Strengthening]. It's ugly. It's basic. You'll use stronger versions of it for the rest of your lives. Start now."
Cedric stood in the circle and shut his eyes.
Nothing happened.
He frowned harder. His lips moved under his breath. Ian watched his fingers first. They twitched once, then clenched.
Still nothing.
A second passed.
Then another.
Professor Rae glanced at the class. "You're all watching a very important lesson."
Cedric opened one eye, already sweating.
"That talent means nothing," she said. "Lineage means less. If you can't control yourself, magic won't listen."
The boy took a breath through his nose and tried again. This time a faint shimmer ran across his skin. It appeared around his wrists first, then his neck, then faded almost immediately.
Professor Rae nodded once. "Better. Again."
Cedric drew in air like he was bracing for a punch. The shimmer came back. Thin. Uneven. But it stayed.
"There." Rae pointed at him. "That's it. Hold it."
Cedric's jaw tightened. The shimmer trembled around him.
Professor Rae turned to the class and raised a finger. "What you're seeing is the first stage. All strengthening spells begin with internal circulation. Before fire. Before lightning. Before any of you start trying to blow holes through walls because you think it looks impressive." Her eyes flicked toward the left side of the room. "You learn how to reinforce your own body."
She snapped her fingers.
A wooden practice rod floated up from beside the desk and landed in her hand. Before Cedric could react, she swung it straight into his shoulder.
The crack echoed through the room.
A few students flinched.
Cedric staggered but didn't drop.
Professor Rae smiled. "And that is why we learn this first."
Cedric stared at her, half horrified, half relieved.
She pointed to his seat. "Sit down before you fall over."
He went back looking pale but oddly proud. A few people watched him with new respect. Most looked nervous now. The room had finally understood that this wasn't going to be theory and pretty lights.
Professor Rae drew another circle.
"Next."
Hands did not go up.
She chose anyway.
By the third student, Ian already understood the pattern. Breathing. Focus. Internal circulation. The spell itself was simple. Crude, really. It relied more on control than complexity. The problem was that most of the students were trying too hard. They wanted a result so badly that they kept reaching past the feeling they were supposed to catch.
Magic was rarely kind to impatience.
Professor Rae called on Ariel Goldstone next.
The blue-haired girl rose without a word. She walked to the front like she had been waiting for this. The cold look she'd given Ian earlier was gone, but not forgotten. It had just settled lower. Quieter.
She stepped into the circle and rolled her shoulders once.
Professor Rae said nothing this time.
Ariel closed her eyes.
The air around her tightened almost at once. A pale film spread over her skin, smooth and bright, much steadier than Cedric's attempt. When Professor Rae struck her with the rod, the sound came out sharper, wood against resistance.
Ariel barely moved.
That got a reaction.
A couple of students muttered under their breath. Someone near the back let out a soft curse.
Professor Rae's smile thinned. "Good control. Sloppy transition at the start, but good."
Ariel opened her eyes and stepped out of the circle. On the way back to her seat, she glanced at Ian.
It wasn't a challenge. Not quite.
More like a note being left on the table.
Your turn.
Professor Rae looked down at the roster in her hand, then back up.
"Mr. Ambrose."
There it was.
Ian stood.
He felt the room shift before he even reached the front. That part was familiar. His surname had done that his whole life, though not always for the same reasons. At home it brought expectation. In the hidden world, it brought something else. Curiosity, usually. Sometimes contempt.
He stepped into the circle.
Professor Rae watched him a little too closely. "You seemed confident earlier."
Ian gave a small smile. "I answered two questions."
"And now you can answer a third with your body. Go on."
He let his eyes shut.
The noise in the room faded. Chairs. Breathing. A cough somewhere near the windows. All of it slid back.
He reached inward.
For a moment, he found nothing.
Then he found too much.
A slow current moved beneath his skin, quiet and heavy. It wasn't wild. It wasn't distant either. It had always been there, apparently, and waiting for him to stop treating his own body like something separate from his will.
He drew it in.
The response was immediate.
The spell wrapped around him with a clean, dense pressure that sat closer to the bone than the others had. No flicker. No shaking. Just force, gathered and held.
Ian heard the silence in the room change.
Professor Rae stepped in front of him. "Hold it."
He did.
She hit him across the forearm first.
The rod bounced.
Not much. Just enough.
Her brows lifted.
The second strike came harder, aimed for the shoulder. Ian braced for it, but the blow landed dull, stripped of most of its bite before it sank in. He felt it. He'd have a bruise later. Still, he stayed upright.
Professor Rae lowered the rod.
"Open your eyes."
Ian did.
For the first time since class began, Professor Rae looked genuinely interested.
"Who taught you control exercises?"
"No one."
"Don't waste my time."
He held her gaze. "I read."
That got a few laughs from the room, but Professor Rae didn't join them.
"Read what?"
Ian hesitated for half a beat. "Old family material."
The temperature in her expression cooled a fraction. Not enough for anyone else to notice, maybe. Ian noticed.
Professor Rae stepped back and nodded toward his seat. "Sit down, Mr. Ambrose."
He turned and walked back through a room that had become very aware of him.
Ariel was still watching.
This time, when he sat, she spoke without looking at him.
"You enjoy that?"
Ian set his notebook down. "The class?"
"The attention."
He took a second before answering. "Not especially."
She let out a quiet sound that wasn't quite disbelief. "Could've fooled me."
Professor Rae clapped once from the front. "Good. Now that half of you are intimidated and the other half are overconfident, we can continue."
The lesson dragged after that.
Not because it was bad. Because the first hour had sharpened everyone's nerves and the rest had to live in its shadow. They spent the remaining time practicing circulation in pairs, correcting posture, learning how to breathe without strangling the spell halfway through. Ian made a point of staying measured. There was no reason to show more than necessary on the first day.
Even so, he caught the glances.
A few because of his performance.
Most because of his name.
By the time class ended, his shoulder ached faintly and his mood had settled into something cleaner than excitement. He left with notes in one hand and a growing sense that Imperial Institute was exactly what it claimed to be.
Not impressive.
Demanding.
There was a difference.
Outside the classroom, the corridors of the main building were crowded. Students pushed past in loose groups, robes brushing against modern bags and glowing screens. The old stone walls held all of it without complaint. Somewhere above, bells rang once.
Ian had just started toward the stairwell when someone called after him.
"Ambrose."
He turned.
Ariel stood a few steps back, one hand tucked under her notebook. Up close, her blue hair looked almost black where the light didn't catch it.
"You left before I could say congratulations," she said.
Ian looked at her for a moment. "That what this is?"
"No." She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "That'd be strange, wouldn't it?"
He waited.
She shifted her notebook against her side. "You knew the spell before class. You knew the answer to Rae's question. You talk like you've been waiting for this place your whole life."
"I have."
"Right." Her eyes moved over him once, taking inventory. "So what are you trying to prove?"
The question came fast and clean. No padding around it.
Ian could have given her something polite. He didn't feel like it.
"That I belong here."
Ariel studied his face, maybe checking for irony. She didn't find any.
"People who belong here usually don't have to say it."
Then she walked off into the crowd.
Ian watched her go, more amused than irritated.
A little blunt. A little arrogant. But honest. That was better than the smiling kind.
His next class passed in a blur of leaves, measurements, and an elderly professor who smelled faintly of smoke and wet soil. Introduction to Botany turned out to be less about plants and more about surviving the ones that noticed you. That improved it.
By the time Calculus arrived, his patience had worn thin.
Numbers were still numbers. Magic had not done him the kindness of killing mathematics. It had only dressed it in stranger language.
When the last class finally released him, the daylight had already begun to fade.
Students spilled out across the campus in clumps. Some headed toward the dorms. Others cut toward the restaurants, laughing too loud, relieved that the first day hadn't broken them. A few were already practicing near the walkways, emboldened by instruction and too stupid to wait.
Ian stood at the foot of the main building and looked toward the western edge of campus.
The Beastiary would still be open.
His hand brushed the side of his bag where the black book rested inside.
Necromancy 101.
The title felt almost insulting now. Too plain. Too small for what sat behind that first page.
The study of Necromancy is the study of Death.
He started walking.
The campus thinned as he moved away from the busiest paths. The light changed with it. Less gold, more gray. Shadows stretched long across the ground. By the time he reached the Beastiary, the front entrance looked quieter than it had the day before. The sounds inside were louder, though. Rustling. Scraping. A low, wet growl from somewhere deeper in the building.
The same witch sat behind the front desk, though this time her book was gone. She looked up as he entered.
"You again."
Ian gave a small nod. "I had classes."
She stared at him.
He stared back.
After a few seconds, she sighed. "What."
"I still want the butcher position."
"You still don't know [Transparent Hand], do you?"
"No."
"Then I'm not sure why you're here."
Ian rested a hand on the desk. "I'm not asking you to hire me right now. I'm asking what I need to do."
That made her pause.
Not because the question was clever. Because most students didn't ask it that way. Most came in wanting exceptions, shortcuts, favors. Her eyes narrowed slightly, measuring him.
"Learn the spell," she said. "Properly. Not halfway. Greg doesn't have time to babysit idiots who drop knives or lose fingers."
"I can learn it."
"Maybe." She leaned back in her chair. "But even if you do, the work's ugly."
Ian said nothing.
She tapped a nail against the desk. "Blood. Smell. Long hours. Things screaming in cages. Sometimes they know what's coming."
That last line hung there for a second.
Ian held her gaze. "What's your point?"
A strange look crossed her face then. Not surprise. Not approval either.
"Freshmen usually flinch," she said.
"Should I?"
"Depends what kind of person you are."
Ian let that sit between them.
Behind the desk, a shrill cry cut through the building. Something answered it with a heavy slam against metal.
The witch reached for a clipboard, tore off a folded sheet, and slid it across the desk.
"Basic utility spells," she said. "First-year list. [Transparent Hand] is on the back. You won't master it tonight, so don't get dramatic. Practice until your control stops looking like a seizure. Then come back tomorrow between four and five."
Ian picked up the sheet.
"Thank you."
She waved him off like she regretted helping already.
As he turned to leave, she spoke again.
"Ambrose."
He looked back.
Her eyes had dipped to the side of his bag. To the shape of the book inside it, maybe. Or maybe that was his imagination.
"Whatever you're in a hurry for," she said, "campus has a way of finding out."
Then she went back to her papers.
Ian stepped out of the Beastiary into the cold evening air.
The sky had darkened while he was inside. Not fully night yet. Close.
From where he stood, he could see the line of trees beyond the farther buildings. Dense. Still. The Dark Forest sat behind them like a thought the school pretended not to have.
Do not try to explore the Dark Forest behind the main campus after 10 PM.
A warning for freshmen.
Or bait for fools.
Ian slipped the practice sheet into his bag and started back toward the dorms.
His pace was steady, but his mind wasn't.
Professor Rae's look when she heard his name. Ariel's question. The witch at the front desk studying him like she'd found something under a floorboard. Small things. Easy to ignore if he wanted to.
He didn't want to.
By the time he reached his room, the ache in his shoulder had deepened and the campus outside had gone quiet in patches. Not silence. Never silence. Doors closing. Footsteps in the hallway. Distant laughter. Pipes muttering behind old walls.
Ian locked the door, set his bag down, and pulled out the folded sheet.
Then he took out the black book and laid it beside it.
For a while he just looked at both.
A beginner's utility spell on one side.
A family stain on the other.
His mouth twitched.
Then he opened his notebook, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.
Tomorrow, he would learn how to move things without touching them.
Soon after that, he would kill something.
And when he did, he intended to be ready.