Illusory Choices

  Slowly, as if time had been halved, the Academy of the Graces began to process the events that had occurred. Students retreated into buildings; staff raised their hands to re-establish the barrier.

  Moriya was the first to walk toward the center of the clearing, the edges of his shadowy cape picking up the wet grass as he stood beside the dazed Headmistress. The silence and shock, not to mention the anticipation of what would happen next, allowed their conversation to be heard by all present in the courtyard:

  “Why didn’t you fight back? You could have easily overpowered her.” Moriya’s voice was flat, poignant.

  “I couldn’t.” Airy, feeble.

  “Do you need help getting up, or do I need to call Chelsi?”

  “No. She’d sooner kill me. Is the Archivist here?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “If she were here, she would have intervened in the first place.”

  “No, that’s not it. Worried about J—never mind. What about the council?”

  “Here, except for Halle.”

  “That’ll suffice.”

  “Another battle?”

  “Due northeast. Headed from the southeast Royal Boundary. Based on the timing, should be approximately 2396, 1779. Take the last fourth-year class and go.”

  Just like that, the world sped up again. A mellow-pitched alarm sounded, emanating throughout campus for all to hear as students returned to their daily lives, classes resumed, and a single group of fourth-years gathered into a circle by the sidelines.

  Meanwhile, Theo continued to watch. In her vulnerable and apathetic state, the Headmistress raised her arm to Moriya and said something he couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, though, the professor did not move a single muscle.

  She repeated it, even caused some heads to turn, and then the child professor finally reached under his coat, and, after a long pause, handed a book to the Headmistress.

  Once the tome was within grasp, she took it without even a second’s delay.

  “Hey, Theo, you good?”

  Not able to tear his eyes away from the Headmistress hunching over in her spot and whispering words under her breath, Theo wondered what spell it was that she was using to recover from what should have been life-threatening injuries.

  “Really puts into perspective how dangerous magic really is when you see stuff like that. Honestly, after learning some spells from Callie, magic kinda makes me feel disgusting.”

  He thought nothing of the first sentence, but after the second, he knew.

  A conversation came back to him, one from so long ago that he had to convince himself that it hadn’t been a dream.

  It is non-color. Null. Nothing. It is loss.

  Closest I see only once before.

  The Outsider.

  And then, as he unconsciously mouthed the cursed words to himself while watching her cast the fifth and sixth sentences, the seventh and the eighth, he caught Moriya staring at him and froze.

  The professor stiffly tilted his head and folded his arms, his lethal glare plain to see even from the opposite side of the yard.

  “Oh shit, he saw us. Quick, look busy so he doesn’t come over here.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Gladly listening to Elias for once, Theo fully turned toward his classmate and discovered that almost the entire class surrounded him even though Elias was the only one who was speaking.

  “Yeah, don’t think so, bud.” Kor was facing Theo, but her eyes were glued to the professor.

  Knowing that it probably wouldn’t go very far, Theo tried to play it off anyway. “What are you all doing here? And where’s Faris and Darius?”

  “Ah, Darius is—” began Callie, moving her hand away from her mouth to point toward the Great Hall before interrupting herself.

  Theo turned around, watching his weaponsmith and caster slowly make their way to him, one cradling a pile of similar-looking books in both arms, while the other held a single one in his free hand.

  “Uh oh,” said Elias from behind him.

  “Uhhh oh,” echoed Kor.

  “Theo, come over here. Right now.”

  Turning to the sound of his slightly annoyed professor, who stood about three steps to the left of him, Theo unfortunately only took mental note of the no-longer-incapacitated Headmistress and not the book in his teacher’s hand before something hit him hard.

  Slam.

  Almost tipping over from the impact, Theo held his good hand up to his left ear and regarded the professor incredulously, mouth open and eyes wide. “What the—”

  Candlelight. Almost gone. The hair on the left side of his head, matted and wet. Tissues on the floor to wipe off the blood and tears. A single book on the desk in front of him, bloodied and blurry. A heavy numbness filling every fiber of his being, leaving no room for pain. He had forgotten the words. He was so sorry he had forgotten the words.

  The pain emanating from his burning ear didn’t hurt so much anymore.

  “You fool,” grunted Moriya, the book he had used to strike him still in his hand, the same one that he had given to the Headmistress not two minutes ago.

  “I—I’m sorry,” he replied in a whisper, still shaken from the sudden memory and forcing down the instinctive tears. “I’m sorry.”

  Looking like he was prepared to hit him across the head again, Moriya replied coldly, “Don’t be sorry. Be better, tactician.”

  And then, swiftly turning around to make his way toward the group of fourth-year students to the side waiting for his instruction, the professor left his bewildered student to explain things to his own classmates.

  Well. I guess being class lead does make you do stupid things.

  “Err,” he said aloud instead, turning back to his classmates with a sheepish chuckle. “That was…uh, nothing. Let’s move on.”

  “You mean like nothing happened to the Great Hall?” Holding up both arms, Korinna gestured wildly to the half-demolished building in front of them. “The fuck was that?”

  “Theo being fool,” frowned the unusually stoic Darius, still supporting at least half a dozen books in his arms. “Moriya have good reason.”

  “Yes, yes, I was being a fool,” sighed the physician. “Now, I think we need to get to Field study. The bell went off.”

  Callie perked up. “Oh yes. We were on our way too.”

  “I was really hoping they’d cancel class when I saw the hall go up in flames,” sighed Elias as well, lifting a hand up to conceal his yawn.

  “Field study’s important, though. Can’t imagine them canceling it.”

  Selene silently took Kor’s words as her cue to leave toward the lecture halls.

  While the three of them followed, Theo stayed to turn to the two other stationary students. “So, what’s up with those books?”

  The Ancient turned to the caster.

  The caster shrugged. “Studying.”

  The tactician-in-training regarded him dully, disillusioned and unconvinced. “Again with the studying. Not going to class?”

  Expertly absorbing his critical words, Faris turned his back. “No.”

  Darius’s questioning look transformed into a soft, apologetic smile as he followed the departing noble’s steps. “We do other study. History. See you later, Theo.”

  At a crossroads, with two of his classmates to the left—those who knew that studying changed little now—and four of his students to his right—those who wanted to keep the sense of normalcy that school provided them—Theo knew he had to decide.

  But his life was school. It was studying. Magic—that was all he had wanted to do since he was a child. Since Em had whisked him away, torn Theo from a childhood that had only convinced him of his worthlessness.

  He had centered his life around his studies, his marks, and his spells—without those, he was nothing. That was how he had lived until he started studying at the Academy; nothing else had mattered except for Em’s approval, not even his own wellbeing.

  How could he have known? After a life of being unwanted, being moved from place to place, scrambling to find a warm place to sleep in the night, scrounging for scraps in the city alongside two older children who had taken him in, children who he had eventually abandoned and who were now probably dead—the life Em had given him was what he had always dreamed of.

  Despite the pain and the tears. Em had shown him his world. Theo had accepted it with open arms, made it his.

  The world that Ty wanted…he would have to find it again. Something that wasn’t magic, something that wasn’t his studies. Something that wasn’t Em. Was he ready for that? Did he truly understand what following in her footsteps was going to entail? Shouldn’t he have thought about this more thoroughly before accepting everything at face value?

  I trust you. He could still hear the unspoken words from months ago, before she left. The words that wouldn’t have stolen the time he could have spent with her before she had to leave.

  I trust you, Ty. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, with every fiber of his being. And the class that she had entrusted him with—he knew he wanted to keep them for as long as they wanted to stay.

  The lecture hall bell tolled, signaling the beginning of classes.

  He lifted his foot up, stepped forward, and then turned to the right. Classes. He had to make it to class. Even if it was play-pretend, he had classmates to support. Ty had done the same; he could, too.