Lysandra looped an arm through Aurelia and Kael like a warm ribbon, sun, moon, and stars in a small orbit of their own making.
They threaded their way through students and tutors towards the classroom.
Aurelia moved with them, feeling the contact like a small, surprising current. We've only known her a week or two, she thought, tugging at the edges of the realization with a faint, private bewilderment. And she's… touchy. So touchy. How is that possible?
The thought unspooled into memory like a ribbon pulled from a box.
Lysandra became the wild axis between them, a bridge between sunlight and noise. She pulled Aurelia into salons and carriage rides, dragged Kael out of his calm, and made a show of him tasting lavish food for the first time.
She pressed fingers to Aurelia's hands with an intimacy that unsettled and warmed in equal measure and called it 'admiration' until the word lost its edges and became something softer.
There were moments that felt like small altars, the quiet of a potion simmering, the clink of a spoon, Kael's backlit profile as he read, Aurelia's hand learning the counter-weight of a blade, Lysandra laughing.
They argued once in the yard, sharp words about class and station, but the words were pried apart by practice and apology, and the next day found them sparring again as if nothing had happened.
Kael's dry remarks that somehow untied Aurelia's instinct to perform, the way the three of them fit into the throng so naturally that rumor had to work to catch up.
Now, in the present, the memory folded back, and the warmth of Lysandra's hand still looped through Aurelia's.
The small circuit of touch that had become routine felt new when she leaned into it, familiar only because they'd woven it together. We barely know each other.
At the sight of Lysandra's comforting grin, Aurelia's unease immediately softened. She reassured herself, cute as a bunny, unwilling to acknowledge the small, ridiculous pleasure that made her chest loosen.
If being looped into a human ribbon was the price of that grin, she supposed she could suffer it for now.
"You know how we were split up into divisions, right? Seperate from the bookworms and muscleheads," Lysandra explained, "We're the Arcanum division, so why are we taking a class in the Scholars' Wing division? We haven't gone there for several weeks until now. Why learn runes and sigils?" She asked, genuine curiosity in her tone. "Why not just cast harder?"
Kael glanced at her. "Because they extend Aether. Runes store patterns, so a ward lasts without you holding it. Sigils aim or trap a current without needing constant casting. Alchemy and ritual feed or multiply what Aether can do."
Aurelia added, cool and practical, "Think of Aether as live music and the others as instruments and sheet music, different tools for different jobs."
Lysandra nodded, satisfied. "So they overlap with Aether. Got it," holding a thumbs up with a cheeky smile.
They threaded down the marble. Aurelia, between Lysandra's brightness and Kael's quiet steadiness, drew murmurs wherever they went.
"—that's her, the Caelistra girl who lost—"
"—A commoner…how filthy."
"—and that pink-haired one's clinging to her like they're lifelong friends—"
Aurelia kept her expression smooth, but she felt the prickle of eyes along her back.
Kael noticed it too, his jaw tensed slightly. He didn't say anything, though his glance toward the whispering group was warning enough.
Then, abruptly, Lysandra stopped. The air seemed to be still around her.
Without a word, she turned toward the cluster of gossipers, and the world changed.
Silently, she turned to face the group of chattering onlookers, and in that moment, everything around her transformed.
It wasn't a spectacle of magic, devoid of glittering sparkles or a radiant burst of Aether. Instead, it was the sheer force of her presence that shifted the atmosphere.
A real, almost suffocating weight descended upon the courtyard, causing the lighthearted chatter to falter and fade into an uncomfortable silence.
The gossipers froze, their lively expressions faltering as they sensed the sudden intensity in the air, like startled deer realizing they had been spotted by a predator lurking in the shadows.
Their laughter faded, and their eyes darted nervously as they registered the unspoken command in her stance.
Lysandra's voice was soft, but every word carried like a whisper against glass, "Repeat that," she said, smiling sweetly. "Go on. I didn't quite catch it."
Her tone was playful, but her eyes gleamed with something cold and sharp, a predatory look.
One of the students laughed awkwardly, fumbling for an excuse. "N-no, it was nothing, we were just—"
"Then don't," Lysandra interrupted, still smiling.
The courtyard went silent. Even the breeze seemed to hesitate.
One of them muttered something about a misunderstanding and slunk away.
Another made a small, graceless bow and hurried off.
Kael raised an eyebrow. "That was… unnecessary."
Lysandra turned back to them, all sunshine again. "Oh? I was teaching manners."
Aurelia observed her, expression unreadable. That shift, from cheerful to commanding, was too smooth to be a coincidence.
Maybe she isn't as innocent as I thought. Cute like a bunny, yes… but perhaps one that bites.
Kael sighed. "Next time, maybe don't start a war over whispers."
"They started it," Lysandra said lightly. "Besides," she flashed a grin, "You both looked like you needed rescuing from boredom."
So much for harmless, she hides her teeth behind a charm.
Hold on, she thought, deadpan. Isn't this the exact stereotype from books I've read? The cute one turns out to be the most dangerous?
Still, she allowed herself to be dragged along, Lysandra humming happily beside her.
Kael trailed behind with a quiet exhale that might have been amusement.
Aurelia muttered under her breath, "Bunny my ass."
By the door, the air smelled of chalk, ozone, and crushed herbs.
A narrow-shouldered woman in a charcoal coat waited at the front. When she moved, her amber eyes cut across the room.
"I am Instructor Selvara Thane," she said as the students took their seats. "Professor Marlec teaches the shaping of force, Aether. I teach what meets force at the edge: external systems that make magic lasting and practical. Runecraft, sigilwork, alchemy, ritual binding, summoning, and spiritcraft. The disciplines that turn an idea into an engine, and a call into a companion or a curse."
A slab of blackstone slid up from the lectern, its surface spidered with fresh glyphs.
The lines took light like a net and glowed, then pulsed with a slow heartbeat.
"Runes are language made dangerous," Selvara went on. "Each mark names a command in a tongue older than most kings. A single rune is a spark, linked, they are grammar. A novice carves a warming stone, a master sets the roof to fall. Runes also name spirits, a bound rune can force a lesser wraith into a lantern, make it do the task you carved."
She swept her sleeve. Violet sparks drifted into the air and arranged themselves into a slow-turning wheel of geometry.
The sparks braided where lines crossed, and the students leaned forward.
"Sigils are geometry given will. They do not speak, they frame. They trap a current, hold a doorway, stitch a teleport anchor. A sigil can hold a spirit's passage, pinning a visitor to a place so it cannot slip loose… If you draw every line clean. One crooked stroke, and you turn a ward into a door."
Selvara uncorked a vial of liquid the color of molten moonlight and set it steaming on the desk.
The vapour smelled faintly of iron and orchard blossoms.
"Alchemy is the marriage of matter and Aether. Potions, transmutations, philters that change a thing's nature: make stone soft or poison inert. It can also make offerings, pharmacopoeic anchors that render a summoned thing corporeal for a handful of breaths. But alchemical fuel is not free: rare ores, blooded herbs, the memory of a city, alchemy feasts on the world."
She drew a slow spiral in the air. A low wind rose, ghosting the students' hair. "Rituals are full orchestras: many minds, many steps, offerings, songs. They are what allow a door in the ether to stay open long enough for a tide to pass. Through ritual, you call upon the weather, open gates, and even bind a spirit to the service of a city. Ritual gives persistence, with persistence comes cost."
Selvara's gaze sharpened, and the blackstone's glyphs shivered as if listening. "Spirits are not tools. They are well clothed in hunger and memory. Some answer to your name because you remember their true name. Some bargain, some take. You may bring a guardian to stand at your gate, but the guardian will keep its own ledger. A spirit given little may steal much: time, a child's laugh, a last memory. Others will gnaw at the edge of your mind until their presence is indistinguishable from your own."
A hush dropped into the lecture hall like a curtain. Selvara's hands were folded behind her back, and the amber in her eyes glowed with an almost tender warning.
"These systems overlap with Aether," she said. "You use runes to call and name, sigils to shape and hold, alchemy to invite a body, ritual to align. Aether is the quick current on the surface, fast, immediate. The rest are scaffolding: the grammar, the anchor, the price. A skilled mage blends them. You might carve a rune to remember a spell, paint a sigil to aim it, feed the whole thing with alchemical essence. But every measure asks something of you. Blood, time, rare reagents, or a piece of yourself you don't notice missing until it's gone."
A hand went up, Callen from the middle row, sandy hair catching the rune-light. "You said 'price.' What kind of price? Physical, like blood? Or, something else?"
Selvara's face softened with approval. "All of the above. A rune written on living skin will draw from the bearer whenever it is struck, a sigil left half-formed will fray your will. An alchemical salve may require a root dug from a forest that dies thereafter. Spirits demand contracts: names, offerings, or service. Some ask for memories, some ask for the right to be named in your children's songs. The price looks different depending on which bargain you make."
Another voice, skeptical. "If runes are sentences, can't we just write enough to do anything? Stack them?"
"You could," Selvara said dryly, "if you enjoy dying in a single breath. Language rebels when misused. Stack too many commands and the syntax collapses. Your mind becomes the parchment, and the ink is pain." She let the warning hang in the air like a struck chord.
From the aisle, Lysandra tilted her head. "Then why bother with Aether at all? Why not just call a spirit to do it, prepare a sigil, and be done?"
Selvara's smile was a small, sharp thing. "Because the battlefield rarely waits for you to grind a potion and draw a circle," she said. "Aether is quick to answer the one who has the will. The others are permanence, anchors you build when you have time to pay the cost. There are moments when you need a tide in an instant, there are moments when you need a gate opened for a year. Know which you want, and which you can afford."
Aurelia watched the blackstone's chains of light fade to embers and felt the words settle. Language that fights back… spirits that bargain with memory… cost that is not always coin. She tapped her pen against the desk, a thin metallic sound.
Selvara's voice dropped soft as she let them go. "Remember this: power with no cost is an illusion. Names, lines, offerings, these things bind. If you leash a spirit, do not be surprised when it strains against the rope. Choose your language and be ready to answer when it speaks back."
The slab dimmed, the runes went silent. "Questions?" she asked. "Ask now. Ignorance is an expensive tutor."
Hands went up. Cassian asked about binding lesser spirits to household tasks.
Lucien wanted to know if a sigil could be rewritten to be forgiving.
Kael, quiet as a shadow, raised his hand and asked a plain, practical thing about the stability of rune-anchors under stress.
Selvara answered each with the practiced patience of someone who had seen both the neat solutions and the ragged consequences. "A lesser wraith can fetch for a season," she told Cassian, "But teach it gratitude and it will take that from you and never leave. A sigil can be rewritten, but the old lines remember. You rewrite a house and the house remembers the first tenant anyway," She turned to Kael, adding, "As for rune-anchors, they're resilient, but under significant stress, they can fracture. It's vital to ensure they're properly aligned and supported, otherwise, they might fail when you need them most."
When class broke, the lecture glow still hummed at the edge of thought.
Students gathered slates and murmured under their breath.
Aurelia sat a second longer, the blackstone's afterimage in her pupils.
Lysandra popped up at her elbow, effervescent. "You looked like you were going to duel the slab," she said, grinning. "Which system do you vote for? Least likely to explode our eyes off?"
Kael fell into step behind them, slate tucked against his chest, voice low.
Selvara's final words trailed after them like smoke, each exacts a price.
Aurelia watched Lysandra with the kind of attention usually reserved for a complicated puzzle or a new, dangerous theory.
The girl's laughter left tiny ripples in the air, and the light caught in her pink hair, making it look like spun cotton candy.
There was something about the way Lysandra moved, effortless, uncalculated, that made Aurelia's chest prickle.
Is she wearing a potion like perfume? she wondered, the thought sliding into her head like a silly, unwelcome guest.
A charm draught tucked behind her ear, a mist that softens eyes and stiffens collars?
Or did she scribble a rune on me when we held hands, a little line that says "be fond"?
Maybe a spirit? A small, obedient sprite whispering compliments into anyone who looks too long. Or… half-siren? .
Kael, who had been watching them both with the quiet neutrality that unnerved her as much as it steadied, gave a slow, almost amused lift of one brow. "You're staring," he said, voice low so only she could hear.
Aurelia blinked, color rising. "I am not... I'm merely observing," she corrected, trying for hauteur and landing somewhere between indignation and fluster.
Admiring. That's more accurate. Admiring is not staring.
Lysandra caught the direction of her gaze and cocked her head, eyes widening a fraction.
She came closer without awkwardness, all warm light and unbothered grace. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, genuine curiosity in the tilt of her voice.
Aurelia opened her mouth and closed it again. Words tumbled, theories about potions and runes and bargains, but they sounded absurd spoken aloud.
Instead, she settled for something dangerously honest. "I'm… admiring you."
There was a beat where the world narrowed to Lysandra's smile.
Then, without ceremony, Lysandra looped her arms around Aurelia and hugged her so suddenly that any remaining stubbornness in Aurelia folded. The embrace was warm and genuine.
"You could've just said so," Lysandra murmured into her hair, voice muffled and delighted. "Hugging is much better than ruses."
Aurelia's defenses melted in a way she hadn't expected.
She buried her face against Lysandra's shoulder and heard Kael clear his throat softly to one side.
"Cute," Aurelia heard herself say, absurd and sincere at once.
Lysandra pulled back a little, eyes bright. "Cute? I'll take that." She gave Aurelia a conspiratorial grin that felt like sunshine in the corridor.
She held up one hand, fingers bright and certain. "Summoning. Runes. Spirits. Alchemy." She tapped each with a quick flourish. "Scholar wing, right? The slow, clever stuff we learned just now."
With the other hand, she sketched an invisible pattern in the air. "Manipulation. Harmonization. Elemental." Her smile grew wickedly pleased. "Arcanum. Fast, showy, messy in the best way."
"Eight edicts," Aurelia murmured, finishing the invisible list in the soft light.
Two halves of the same coin, and one last face hiding under the rim.
"Where's the last?" Lysandra asked, cocking her head. "What've we missed? Enchantment?" She waggled her brows, waiting for confirmation.
Aurelia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "Enchantment belongs to the Martial Path," she stated.
It's not flashy, but it matters more than any parade of flame.
Lysandra's eyes glittered. "That sounds metal. Like, carving your life into your sword."
"Exactly," Aurelia answered. "Enchantment is the art of shaping your Aura into an object so it holds a signature of you, your rhythm, your steadiness, the way your will presses on the world. Properly done, a blade will answer your intent, steady a hand, or carry a charm that hums when danger nears."
Lysandra's grin faded a fraction. "But, do you lose bits of your life doing that? Do blacksmiths actually die early because they—what was the old line—'put their life into their creations'?"
Aurelia leaned forward, fingers steepled. "Not in the literal, dramatic way stories say. Most enchantments are made by borrowing a shaped measure of Aura and sealing it with sigils, runes, or ritual bindings. Think of it like imprinting a pattern rather than pouring your heart out. A skilled enchanter carves an echo, a patterned trace of your essence, so the object resonates with you without draining you dry."
Kael, who'd been listening quietly, added, "There are degrees. A temporary edge? Minimal cost, and the rune fades. A permanent soul-bind? Very rare, very regulated. That's when you talk about the real price. If you bind your life-force into a weapon, the balance shifts. Destroy the weapon, and the feedback can harm the binder. Use the weapon recklessly, and you burn yourself down faster."
"Dangerous," Lysandra breathed, delighted and alarmed at once. "So why do it at all?"
"Because it grants things other systems can't," Aurelia said. "An enchanted blade can hold part of your steadiness so your strikes don't falter when you're exhausted. It can carry a ward that protects allies, or a counter-rune that opens only to your hand. It lets a warrior extend the body's will into metal. It's intimate, practical, marriage between soul and tool."
She tapped the table lightly. "And because enchantment sits at the crossroads, you need runes to script it, alchemy to stabilize reagents, ritual to bind, and Aether to lay the outer frame. That's why the Martial Path leans on the Scholar and the Arcanum, nothing stands alone."
Lysandra exhaled, pleased. "So blacksmiths don't die on the anvil, unless they try to bind their whole soul for glory."
"Exactly," Aurelia said, "And once you understand that, the old sayings lose their roar and gain a face. Careful, human, necessary."
She watched Lysandra's bright expression soften into a thoughtful one. "It's tempting," Lysandra admitted after a beat, "But I'd rather be the one who makes the sun burn brighter than the one who pays for it."
Kael's mouth quirked. "A prudent impulse."
Aurelia's answer was a small, private smile. "Practical pride, then. Good enchantments are restrained in steel."