Void Lord: My Revenge Is My Harem

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Professor Snake's eyes twinkled. Then, with a lazy sweep of his hand, he let the hat question slide off the table as if it were a crumb. "Mmm. Hats are dull things," he said, voice mild. "They keep the weather off. They sit there. They nap. Not worth the time."

His gaze, sharp behind the soft words, flicked to Fizz's bright face and lingered half a heartbeat. The old man filed something away — an old habit from a long life of watching. "The little one noticed. He saw the stitch no one else sees." Then he left the thought where it was.

"We are not here to talk about my hat," he went on, as the hookah made one polite bubble and fell quiet again. "We are here for John."

He tipped two fingers at Fizz without looking away from John. "And for you, small lord. You are very… impressive. Majestic. Handsome. Perfectly round in a way that no geometry text has yet captured. The fur glow is tasteful. The whiskers are a triumph. If I were a painter, I would weep."

Fizz forgot the hat at once. He put both paws to his cheeks and made a tiny squeak. "Go on," he said, eyes huge. "No, really, Professor Hat —sorry, Snake— continue. This is vital academic feedback."

"Your diction is clear," Snake said gravely. "Your sense of drama is… refined. Your restraint could use work, but we will call that a resource, not a flaw."

Fizz bowed in the air. "At last. Finally another man of culture."

Snake continued, "I got a job for you."

Fizz floated a little higher, eyes shining, then narrowed his gaze with sudden suspicion. "And what do I get in return?" he said. "Besides fame, which I already have. Do you have an offer for me? Will there be snacks? Is there a stipend?" He put on a deep fake voice. "I remind you, Professor Snake, that I am a luxury good. A premium service. My invoice is long and my pockets are short."

Snake dipped his head in grave agreement. "You might be expensive," he said. "We will discuss terms. Fair ones. Work for your knowledge and your pockets. With coins. I would like to speak with you alone about it, if John allows it."

Fizz folded his arms like a tiny lord. "I am open to negotiations. John won't mind. They must include cookies."

"Done," Snake said, and slid a porcelain plate across the desk with three neatly stacked butter cookies that had not been there a moment before.

Fizz gasped. "He conjures snacks," he whispered to John. "He might be a good man."

Snake turned back to John. "Do not look at the cookies yet," he said mildly. "They are a trap for your attention. I still haven't said anything about the job."

Then Snake allowed the corner of his mouth to lift, then turned the full weight of his attention back to John. "First, the dull truth, and then the interesting work. John, I read your paper."

John stood a little straighter. His hands were open at his sides. His jaw was set the way it always set when something mattered and he refused to let it show.

"I did more than read it," Snake said. "I wrote part of it. The questions…"

John's eyes narrowed. "What."

Master Hale and Master Venn shifted near the door, but they did not speak. They watched the old man like people who had learned it was safer to let a river finish a bend before judging where it would go.

Snake tapped a finger on a stack of forms. "I put a special part into your exam. Only yours. The void questions were not on any other desk in that room."

John felt the old anger rise like a hot hand under his ribs. He kept his face plain. He did not flinch. In his head, the words were not plain. "Old fox. You set the floor crooked and then asked if I could walk straight."

Snake went on in the same calm voice. "No one else saw those questions. If they had, they would have stared like someone had brought them a plate with nothing on it and asked them to eat." He placed two fingers on a folder. "Your answers were good."

"They were mine," John said. He did not thank the old man. He did not bow. He did not smile. "I wrote what I know."

"You wrote what you feel," Snake corrected gently. "About void. You wrote it in the clean hand of someone who has been alone with a hard thing for a long time. You were wrong twice in the words and right seven times in the shape. That is what I wanted to see."

"And I failed," John said.

"You failed the public mark," Snake said without shame. "Because I pulled your paper into my hand before the room made a number out of it. I could not both test you and let the machine grade you. If I had, the machine would have thrown up ink and called you a liar. I did not want a liar. I wanted you."

Master Hale cleared her throat softly. "Professor," she said, "you might consider leading with the less alarming phrasing next time."

Fizz leaned forward, scandalized on John's behalf. "You switched his paper. You rigged the test. You made my master a sad pancake on purpose."

Snake lifted a palm. "I made a door where there was a wall. I watched who could see it." He pointed at John. "He saw it."

John said nothing. Inside, the long black line that held him together hummed. I needed the pass to move forward, old man. You took it away, even if you plan to hand me a different key. He locked the line tighter.

Snake did not look surprised at the silence. He let it sit. He let the room breathe. Then he said the thing that made the air change for everyone in it.

"I want to teach you myself."

Master Hale's head turned fast enough that the blue braid at her neck swung. Master Venn went still like chalk before a mark was made.

"Professor," Hale said, voice low, "you have not—"

"In fifty-three years," Master Venn murmured, finishing the line. He blinked twice, as if the number had dust on it.

Fizz's jaw dropped. He pointed from Snake to John and back again, his paw wagging like a small flag. "You—he—what—him? Of course him. But why?" He made three small circles in the air and put both paws on his head. "John, act shocked with grace."

John did not act. He asked a clean question. "Why."

"Because you are the one I cannot place," Snake said simply. "Because I am the one who has read the books that pretend to be about you and are not. Because there are three kinds of teaching: the kind you can pay any clerk to do, the kind you can only learn by bleeding on the floor until you hate the floor, and the kind that happens when an old thing meets a new thing and both decide to listen. I prefer the third kind. It happens… rarely."

John gave a slow nod. "Why me?" He asked.

"The reason is simple, you are special," Snake said. He leaned back in the chair; the wood creaked in a friendly way under the long weight of years. "My name is Professor Snake. Old joke of a name, yes; older than you think. I am the headmaster of Heart Magic Academy. I am a little older than two hundred. I am not proud of the number; it is just a number. I have seen war and drought and bad kings and good apprentices and worse. I have seen a river flow backward because three men argued about it and the river was polite. I have read the books that should be dust and kept them from turning to dust. I have, in all that time, never seen void magic done by living hands."

He lifted a finger. "I have read about its shadow. I have found ten pages in six libraries that do not agree with each other and three that lie on purpose. I have an ink brush of a slate in a language that does not exist anymore that says void is not emptiness, it is a room where nothing is allowed to be rude." His eyes crinkled. "You are the first person to make that room in front of me. You did it by accident, with fear, with anger, with love, with responsibility — who can say. But you did it. And I will not trust a junior teacher to guess how to help you not die."

Hale and Venn were very quiet.

Snake laced his fingers. "No one here knows how to teach you. I know how to learn with you. That is enough."

John's voice was steady. "You want me to be your student."

"My apprentice," Snake said. "My only one."

He let the words sit there and grow their own legs. They walked around the room. They sat on the sofa in the corner. They climbed up the pile of books and looked down with the smug faces words wear when they know they are important.