Flinging Rocks at Bureaucrats in a Magical Academy

By the time Fabrisse returned to class, he was exactly one hour and twelve minutes late, which meant he had missed the first session. His robes were damp, his knees caked in mud, and a lone duck feather stubbornly lodged in his hair despite repeated attempts to brush it out.

The door creaked.

Every head turned. Silently.

It wasn’t just that he was late. Or that he looked like he’d been dragged backwards through a wet hedge.

It was that he was The Chosen One now.

Thirty-two pairs of eyes stared at him like he’d grown a second head, and the second one had better posture. One of them blinked with genuine awe. Another narrowed in suspicion. Someone—probably Vex Aldoran with the perpetually judgmental cheekbones—whispered something to the girl next to him, who then immediately tried to look like she wasn’t staring.

Fabrisse had never been stared at by that many people in his life. He wasn’t built for that sort of attention. He was the type to sit near the middle-back and hope no one remembered his name during roll call. He was the background detail in someone else’s story.

And yet now, the classroom felt like a stage.

He clutched his satchel tighter, trying not to let the glowing Stupenstone clink too loudly inside.

“Ah,” came the dry voice of Professor Edvaris from the front. “How kind of you to join us, Mr. Kestovar. And looking positively swamp-sculpted, I see.”

There were muffled chuckles.

Fabrisse dipped his head and said nothing.

As Fabrisse slid into his seat, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, he heard someone behind him whisper, “That’s him.”

Someone else whispered back, “Did you see the notification post? He actually unlocked the Eidralith.”

And another, “Why does he still look like a wet goblin?”

He sank deeper into his seat.

If this was what being special felt like, he wasn’t sure he liked it.

But still, he patted the satchel. The Stupenstone was warm.

Fabrisse kept his eyes down, trying to will himself into the cracks between floor tiles. The murmurs kept multiplying; he was certain they were breeding now. Somewhere behind him, someone furiously whispered about Eidralith protocol violations. Another voice mentioned ‘residual contamination’ like it was a communicable disease.

Then, he made the mistake of looking up.

Across the room, amid a row of upper-form students who always looked like they had somewhere better to be, sat Veliane Veist. She had once again attended a lecture for a class above her level.

And she was looking directly at him. She didn’t do anything else; no frowning, no smiling. She just looked.

He couldn’t tell from her face what she was thinking.

It was the kind of look someone gave a puzzle box just before they started solving it. It wasn’t the disinterest of someone who’d dismissed him outright, nor the open awe of someone impressed. It was worse. It was curious.

Fabrisse hated being the puzzle. Especially one she’d already once dismissed.

He immediately forgot how to hold his hands. Were they too visible on the desk? Should he hide them? Cross them? Fold them like a normal person? He shifted, then froze, then pretended to shift because of a totally normal chair adjustment reason.

Does she think I fed the Eidralith on purpose? If yes, that would suggest deliberate resonance manipulation, which I couldn’t even fake. But if she thinks I didn’t know what I was doing, that’s worse. It makes the Eidralith’s response look arbitrary.

What if she thinks I’m trying to act like I don’t care, and now I look like I care a lot?

He made eye contact again, and she was still watching with the same composed curiosity.

He looked away so fast he almost pulled a neck muscle.

Fabrisse would be thinking about that look for the next seventeen years. And he still wouldn’t know what it meant.

Soon after, the bell rang. It had probably been ten minutes only, but he felt like it was ten hours.

As the other students rose, gathering satchels and muttering their end-of-period complaints, Fabrisse stayed frozen in place, half convinced that if he didn’t move, the world would just reset itself without him.

Then . . .

He heard footsteps before he saw her.

Veliane Veist was standing there.

She glanced briefly at his satchel, where the faintest glow of that one Stupenstone still shimmered under the flap.

“They have merryberry pie today,” she said. “With the glaze too.”

Words. From Veist. In his general direction.

A couple of students near the door turned to look. Even Vex Aldoran raised a carefully sculpted eyebrow from the back row.

Veliane Veist didn’t come up to people and have a chat. She was popular, sure, but not because she was approachable.

“If you’re heading that way,” she added, casually, “I don’t mind company.”

Fabrisse’s brain did a small loop-de-loop and promptly fell off its broom. “I—uh—sure. I mean yes. I—”

“Absolutely not,” came Lorvan’s voice as he strode down the aisle. “I have business with Mr. Kestovar, and it concerns many responsibilities.”

Veliane gave a small incline of her head. “Yes, Mentor. Another time, then.”

She walked off, unhurried, as if the interruption didn’t matter, but Fabrisse was already replaying every syllable in his head like a spell loop.

The Stupenstone in his satchel gave off another tiny glimmer—not bright enough to notice, unless you were already looking for it.

Fabrisse wasn’t sure what triggered it. Her voice? Her attention? Her—

“You’re staring again,” Lorvan said.

Fabrisse snapped upright. “Yes. Business. Consequences. Got it.”

It was only then that Fabrisse noticed the second person accompanying Lorvan. It was Professor Coll Langley, Head Researcher of the Division of Hydro-Aetherics. Langley wasn’t a gifted spellcaster, or at least that was what he told people, but his water glyphcasting work and his contributions to the Theory of Symbolic Resonance had secured him a permanent place in the upper echelons of the Archive. Fabrisse had seen Lorvan and Professor Langley together rather often, and it seemed as though the two had been working together on various projects in the past.

“Good morning, Kestovar. I believe you’re still neglecting your codex-crafting assignments?”

Fabrisse hesitated. “I’ve been meaning to catch up.”

Langley clicked his tongue. “You should. Theory is nothing without record. It’s the spine of magical continuity—especially for magi who don’t plan on hurling lightning around until their joints give out.”

He turned toward Lorvan, adjusting the charred folder under his arm. “You ought to have him assist with transcription sometime. Exposure breeds fluency, and it’s an essential part of archival discipline. Especially for those following a non-combat-oriented route.”

Lorvan replied, “I’ve been meaning to ask, but Mr. Kestovar seems to have a habit of disappearing whenever a codex-crafting session is near.”

Which, to be fair, he was guilty of. He had tried glyphcrafting. And tried again. And tried again.

He knew what to do. He could recite the principles of symbolic balance backward. But when it came time to set quill to page, to channel intent through the ink and weave meaning into shape, something always faltered. As with everything else he did.

Langley shook his head. “You must bring him to your next codex-crafting session, Lorvan. You are to guide him, not give in to his evading acts.”

That got Fabrisse to gulp. He knew Lorvan would take Langley’s advice seriously.

It wasn’t long before Langley excused himself. He said, “I believe you two have something rather important to attend to,” and simply left.

Lorvan led Fabrisse not back toward the dorms, nor toward the usual lecture halls, but up. Past the Core Library spires, past the astrolith garden, and toward the high balconies where only upper faculty or guests of the Bellatorium were usually allowed. The Bellatorium was just one of the possibly dozens of chambers used for significant magical rituals, declarations of magical law, and high-level negotiations with extraplanar entities. Headmaster Draeth had long maintained that one could never have too many ritual chambers.

Fabrisse’s muddy boots squeaked on polished runeslate tiles. He was about to open his mouth, but it seemed as though Lorvan had telegraphed what he was about to say.

“You’re not in trouble,” Lorvan said, which of course only made Fabrisse more anxious. “Though you are extremely inconvenient to explain.”

“Explain to whom?” Fabrisse asked, half-trotting to keep up.

“To the Archmagi. And a few ancient, curious entities who are wondering why their sacred ward decided to nibble on your aura.”

“Oh,” Fabrisse said. “So, like. A chat.” Curious entities? He thought. Can’t be more curious than Veliane. I hope.

“Yes,” Lorvan said flatly. “A very polite one. Please act like the young adult you are and try not to babble.”

“It’s not my fault the Synod teaches thirty-seven different veil forms but zero conversation skills,” Fabrisse muttered.

“You’re babbling.”

He wasn’t sure if that was meant as a correction or a warning. Either way, he noted it and tried to shift to half-sentences.