“Well, they didn’t keep me on a leash,” I lifted my chin.

  “Rauf-Pool has great parties, I can confirm.”

  “When did you confirm that?” Calypso asked innocently.

  I quickly changed the subject to safer territory.

  “What does it matter, I went, end of story. Hey, do you wear gloves all the time?”

  “Almost. I only take them off for three reasons.”

  “Which are?” I squinted suspiciously.

  “When I go to bed and when I take a bath.”

  “That’s two reasons. What’s the third?”

  “When I’m having a good time with a girl. But that one can overlap with the previous two.”

  “Got it,” I snorted.

  “Hard to get cozy in gloves, of course.”

  “Well, I’m not really the cozy type,” Calypso drawled lazily.

  “I prefer things… rougher.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I blurted without thinking.

  “Oh really? How would you know?” Calypso asked, feigning indifference.

  For the hundredth time today I cursed my big mouth.

  No, I was definitely too tired today and losing control of myself…

  “There are all kinds of rumors about you,” I shrugged with my most innocent expression.

  Phew, I think I covered that up.

  “Hmm, rumors, you say… I se-e-e.”

  Calypso was about to say something else, but at that moment our classmates literally descended on us before we even reached the academy building. With loud shouts they swarmed us from all sides, all talking at once.

  “So-o-o, what happened in the end?”

  “Yeah, yeah, tell us!”

  “What went down?”

  “We heard a rumor that someone’s trying to break a Seal of Creation…”

  “Did you see anything interesting there?”

  “And what’s the Mentor saying?…”

  “It’s so great that magic is fine in the world, what a relief to be able to cast again!…”

  “Come on, Lori, why are you being quiet, tell us!…”

  The pressure from everyone was so intense that before I knew it they’d literally dragged me into the common room, sat me down in a soft armchair, pushed a glass of something very far from plain tea into my hand, and stared at me expectantly.

  Not only our classmates had gathered, but many students from other groups too, including the di Vern-Rodinger brothers — Dayon and Delson.

  Everyone was dying to hear the information firsthand, especially since the Mentor wasn’t at the academy yet, and our other colleagues from the edge of Forland hadn’t returned either, so there was no one else to get details from.

  Some of the curious students settled on nearby beanbags, some sat right on the floor, and others, like the Rodingers and Margarita d’Acura, perched right on the table.

  They tried to drag Calypso in too, but he flatly refused and made it clear they should leave him alone.

  “Hey, aren’t you staying with us?” Delson asked.

  “No time,” Calypso replied curtly.

  “I have things to do.”

  He didn’t say anything more and left the common room before I could say anything.

  Honestly, I would’ve left too — I could use some rest. But I was also curious to hang out with everyone, so I stayed.

  Today, due to the emergency with the anti-magic zone in Forland, almost all the adults were busy with more serious matters than academy classes. So the Armarillis students got a rare free evening, which everyone was enjoying to the fullest.

  Our chat stretched on for a couple of hours, and the common room turned into a mini-party.

  What were we celebrating? Oh, everything at once: my return to the academy in general, today’s victory over the kernals and our group’s miraculous survival, the existence of magic in the world, and just because!

  Students are like that — give us an excuse and a party organizes itself in no time. Someone even brought a cauldron of fire punch from somewhere, and at some point I felt my head starting to buzz.

  It had been a long time since I’d enjoyed socializing this much. Being homeschooled, I rarely crossed paths with people my age, even though we constantly had visitors, but still, this was different. So now I was making up for my social deficit.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I was also curious to try getting the di Vern-Rodinger brothers to talk. I wanted to subtly feel out the situation about where Calypso’s head was at, try to figure out exactly what he remembered about the events from a year ago. I wanted to understand what to expect, what to be afraid of.

  But my casual attempts to get Dayon and Delson talking failed miserably. The brothers either didn’t understand my hints or successfully pretended not to, simply because they didn’t want to answer.

  The latter seemed more likely to me. And I didn’t dare ask directly in front of everyone else. I was already worried about being too obvious and giving myself away.

  We also raised glasses of punch to Calypso’s knowledge and his progress in mastering shadow magic, by the way, and at that moment I really wished Calypso himself was there.

  “Does Calypso not like this kind of scene?” I asked Delson, looking around our noisy common room.

  By this point the room was buzzing and shaking with periodic bursts of laughter from students sprawled and lounged in groups around different corners.

  “No, actually, it’s the opposite,” Delson shook his head.

  “He’s usually the one who starts any party. Calypso’s a total party animal where there’s a party, there’s Calypso, everyone knows that, it’s like a law of nature. He also loves cranking up the music, he’s a huge music buff. So his not wanting to join us today is beyond me. It’s totally unlike him. He’s not the type to hole up alone and skip a party for some peace and quiet.”

  That’s when I started to worry.

  What if Calypso was feeling sick after I touched his bare hands today? What if he was really unwell and we just didn’t know?

  Calypso had said he could sense these kinds of fluctuations in a mage from a distance, but I didn’t have that ability. And I didn’t know if anyone here did.

  “I’m gonna go check on him,” I said, standing up and setting my empty glass on the table.

  “Maybe he needs some help after today.”

  “Calypso needs help?” Dayon laughed.

  “You sure you’re not mixing him up with someone?”

  I shrugged.

  “It was a rough day, anything could’ve happened, doesn’t hurt to check.”

  I waved goodbye to everyone and hurried out of the common room.

  My heart was uneasy.

  In the academy lobby I saw Mrs. Brandt — the Mentor’s wife and, yes, Calypso’s mom. Sirinity was a beautiful green-eyed woman with long light brown hair. She usually wore long black dresses that accentuated her slender figure. At the academy she typically handled various administrative tasks and completely filled in for the Mentor when needed, whenever he was away and quick decisions had to be made.

  Sirinity also spent a lot of time with the children at Armarillis. And there were plenty of children here, since the vast majority of Fortemins came to the academy from early childhood and gradually learned magic through constant training. We’ve been taught to wield numerous types of weapons and control our power since childhood.

  For many, Mrs. Brandt was like a second mother. And for some — the only ‘mother’ they had. After all, quite a few students were orphans who’d come to the academy — awakened Fortemin magic was most often discovered in such children, and the universe most often gifted them with special magical abilities.

  The Mentor explained to us that this was primarily because it’s easiest to take such lonely children for training — when there’s no family, there are no problems, and you don’t have to spend weeks convincing some aristocratic family to give up their precious child to Armarillis. It’ll be better for them in the end, but try explaining that to some parents…

  Margarita d’Acura, by the way, was from exactly that kind of aristocratic family. Patricia told me her parents were very hard to convince to send their only daughter to some mysterious closed academy; the Mentor spent ages persuading them. But he managed even with such stubborn parents.

  Then again, I think nothing’s impossible for the Mentor. And if needed, he could have magically influenced Margarita’s parents’ minds, but Ilforte always preferred to act as gently and democratically as possible first, with mutual consent.

  In recent years, according to the Mentor, the balance had shifted when it came to orphan Fortemins, and Fortemins had started being born more often into complete families. But the academy still had a large percentage of orphans with no relatives at all. And for them, Armarillis became a true big loving family, and Sirinity would always be a kind of mother to them — strict but very loving and fair.

  I’d spent a lot of time with Sirinity in my childhood too, including after I’d completely switched to strict homeschooling. Her heart was big, and she definitely had enough love for everyone.

  Now Mrs. Brandt smiled warmly at me, asked about how I was feeling, and wondered where I was hurrying off to. After hearing my concerns about Calypso’s condition, she said:

  “Don’t worry, he’s fine, I talked to him half an hour ago. He’s in his office. Well, the room that’s been given to him as an office for convenience. When I stopped by, he was working on some notes, surrounded by blueprints, looking all serious and thoughtful…”

  I exhaled with relief. Well, good that Calypso was okay. Dayon was right, I’d worried for nothing.

  Although… It was still strange. Based on what the Rodingers said, Calypso didn’t seem like the type who’d choose to surround himself with blueprints in this situation over, say, some leggy brunettes like the Rodingers were. Strange.

  “I’m going to break up the party,” Sirinity said with a smile, nodding behind me, where bursts of laughter from the common room could still be heard from far away.

  “They’ve gotten a bit carried away.”

  Turning the corner, I pressed the right combination of buttons on my artifact bracelet and quickly said, addressing Kes:

  “Sirinity’s heading your way, I recommend putting some smart expressions on your faces ASAP, or at least hiding them behind textbooks.”

  “Thanks for the heads up, my dear Lori!” Kes replied cheerfully.

  “Code red! I mean, all clear!”

  I shook my head with a smirk and turned off the artifact. ‘My dear Lori,’ huh.

  Wait, why hadn’t I just contacted Calypso through the artifact to simply and quickly find out how he was feeling? Probably because I was subconsciously looking for an excuse to be alone with him…

  I sighed and trudged toward my bedroom, lost in my gloomy thoughts…

  For as long as I could remember in my conscious life, I’d always had a thing for Calypso. And it was always unrequited. Well, I mean, I never actually gave him a reason to ‘requite’ it, because — where was I and where was Calypso?

  Why would a problematic, defective girl like me set her sights on such a catch, one that every girl who could swoon was swooning over? One who could have any girl he wanted for the night, and not just one.

  Exactly, nowhere.

  Our paths in life were never meant to cross. Especially considering that the length of my life was a big question mark. Life in question, body in question, magic control in question… A walking problem, a permanent burden to everyone. What guy would want me with all these wonderful issues? None.

  And why would someone like Calypso want someone as defective as me? Right, no reason. It was obvious that someone like him, once he learned the truth, would just wave goodbye the same day at best. At worst — he’d say something so painful and cutting that I wouldn’t even want to live out the rest of my life.

  Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I doubt I’m that wrong about Calypso… There was no point in having illusions about him.

  So I always ‘kept up appearances’ around Calypso. I was always happy when he visited our home with his parents, always tried to be an interesting conversationalist and just a good friend.

  I understood he never even looked at me as a girl, and I didn’t push my luck, afraid of being laughed at. Stuck in the eternal friend zone, yeah. And I was just happy with any interaction. Each year there were fewer of those meetings, and my heart ached louder… I hoped I’d ‘grow out of it,’ but it wasn’t going away.

  And a year ago, I snapped…