The doors closed behind us with a sound that felt final. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a soft, deliberate thud—the kind that suggested this room had been closing on people for centuries, and it wouldn't mind staying closed on us forever.
The Principal's chamber was smaller than I had imagined. There were no towering windows or heroic statues glaring down in judgment. Instead, the walls were suffocatingly lined with shelves of records and ledgers so old their spines had faded into a uniform, dusty grey. It smelled of ancient parchment, cold stone, and the sharp, acidic tang of expensive ink.
This was not a place that needed to look powerful. It already knew it was.
The man behind the plain oak desk was older—late fifties, perhaps—but he stood with a straight-backed stillness that made chairs look like optional furniture. His robes were a midnight blue, unmarked save for a single, shimmering line of silver thread along the collar.
His eyes moved methodically. First to Arin, then to Lysa, then finally to me. I had the uncomfortable sensation of being sorted like a mislabeled scroll. I briefly wondered whether standing would make me look braver or simply unemployed, before finally deciding to sit.
Arin sat immediately. Too immediately. He folded his hands in his lap, wiped all expression from his face, and stared at a spot on the wall with the vacant intensity of a cow looking at a fence. Forty-percent-capacity mode was in full effect.
"Your son," the Principal said, his voice as dry as the records behind him, "caused no injuries today."
I exhaled, my shoulders dropping an inch. "That is… a relief, sir."
"However," he continued, walking slowly around his desk, "he demonstrated something far more disruptive than violence."
Arin tilted his head, his "normal boy" mask slipping just a fraction. "Sir?"
The Principal stopped just a few paces away. "Control. Tell me, Scholar—does your son always treat physical conflict as a problem of geometry?"
I cleared my throat, feeling a bead of sweat track down my spine. "He's always had a head for figures, sir. I believe he saw the other boy's center of gravity as a decimal point that needed moving."
The Principal didn't flicker. "And you, Lysa? Did you see it as a decimal point?"
"I saw it as a waste of time," she said, her voice dropping to that flat, terrifying pitch. "The decimal point was already in the wrong place. I was just waiting for the math to finish."
The Principal studied her, his gaze lingering on the white-knuckled grip she had on her books. "In the academy, we expect aggression. We train for it. What we do not expect from a child during his first incident is restraint paired with that level of… efficiency."
He returned to the desk and opened a drawer. The sound of sliding wood felt like a guillotine blade. What he withdrew was a small, dull iron coin.
He placed it on the desk. It hit the wood with a heavy, leaden thud that seemed to suck the sound out of the room. It wasn't gold; it didn't shine. It looked hungry. Even from three feet away, I could smell the faint, metallic scent of ozone.
The Mark. Clean lines. Imperial geometry.
"This," the Principal said, resting two fingers beside it, "is an Observation Mark."
Arin leaned forward, his blank expression replaced by genuine curiosity. "Does it itch?"
"No."
"Does it glow?"
"Occasionally," the Principal admitted.
"On purpose?"
The Principal hesitated. "Yes."
"Oh," Arin sat back, nodding. "That's fine then. I once lost a shoe and it was very stressful. As long as the coin knows what it's doing, I don't mind."
I closed my eyes, wishing the floor would simply open up and deposit me back in my library. "It is not a commendation, Arin," I whispered.
"Indeed," the Principal said, meeting my eyes. "It signifies attention. From the Empire."
The word settled into the room like dust after a collapse.
"Ah," I said weakly. "That Empire."
"Just checking," I added quickly when he raised an eyebrow. "There are… surprisingly many these days. One likes to be specific."
"Your son has been flagged," the Principal continued, ignoring my attempt at a scholar's deflection.
"Is that… bad?" Arin asked.
The Principal considered him. "No. It is dangerous. Dangerous like a roof collapse."
Arin looked at Lysa. "Dangerous like Mother finding out we moved her favorite chair?"
Lysa didn't blink. "The chair is worse. This is just a roof."
"Oh," Arin said, visibly relaxing. "I can handle a roof."
My fingers curled into my sleeve. "And my daughter? Is she… flagged?"
The Principal turned to Lysa. "For now, she remains noted. Not marked. Because she is visible. Visibility can be managed. I can see her anger, her skill, her protective streak. They are predictable variables."
He looked back at Arin. "Your brother—is not."
The silence stretched, long and uncomfortable. Arin was back to his blank stare, looking for all the world like a child who might struggle with basic multiplication, let alone Imperial-level combat. And that was the problem. He was a void.
"The mark does not bind him," the Principal said. "But it means the Empire prefers to watch before it decides whether to act."
Lysa stood up then, the chair scraping sharply against the stone floor. "If you're watching him," she said evenly, "then you're watching us. All of us."
"Yes."
"Then watch carefully," she replied, her voice cold enough to frost the windows. "And don't blink. It would be a shame if you missed something important."
For the first time, the Principal smiled—a thin, razor-sharp expression. "Very well. You are dismissed. There will be no record of today's incident."
We were escorted out in a silence so thick it felt like wading through water. I didn't stop until we were three hallways away, tucked behind a massive stone pillar. I slumped against it, my scholarly dignity finally evaporating.
"Forty percent?" I hissed at Arin.
Arin looked up, his face still eerily empty. "I think I went down to thirty-five near the end. I forgot how to blink for a minute. Was that good? I felt very normal."
"You looked like a haunted doll," I whispered. "And Lysa, you… you told the Principal of the Academy not to blink?"
Lysa was already looking at the exit, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "The Principal is still standing at his door," she noted, her voice low. "He's listening to the rhythm of our footsteps to see if we're still pretending."
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
The Empire had looked our way. And as we walked back out into the sunlight of the courtyard, I knew that no matter how hard Arin tried to play the part of a normal boy, the shadow of that iron coin would follow us all the way home.