Chapter 805: Can We Talk?
Chapter 805: Can We Talk?
The rest of the school day passed with the usual exhaustion of classes approaching exam season. Students were sharper, tenser, and more easily irritated than they had been even a week before. Theory exams waited in a week, and the practical exams would follow the week after. No official format had been announced yet, which meant every student had started inventing possibilities in their own head.When lessons finally ended, the academy bells rang across the grounds with a low, steady sound that rolled over the corridors, courtyards, and dormitory paths. Students poured out of classrooms in waves, talking louder than they had in the morning, either relieved to be done for the day or annoyed that their evening would still belong to studying. Liam moved through them without joining anyone, his books and assignment materials held beneath one arm as he made his way toward the dormitory side of the academy.
Only then, with the day’s observation finished, did his thoughts settle fully on the report.
’Too much needs to be cut,’ Liam thought as he crossed beneath one of the outer archways. ’If I include everything Nyxie showed me, Lady Seraphina will know I used a method beyond normal observation before she finishes the second page.’
That might not be a problem on its own. The assignment had not forbidden the use of familiars, summons, or magic-assisted observation, at least not explicitly. But Tactical Espionage was never only about following the written instruction. Seraphina wanted to see how they interpreted limits, how they hid methods, how they weighed risk, and how well they understood what their own results revealed about them.
A perfect report could be more suspicious than a flawed one.
’The sleeve habit can stay,’ he thought. ’The staff hall timing can stay. Professor Vale’s document transfers can stay if I keep it general. The red wax should be removed. The storage corridor hesitation... maybe implied, not stated clearly.’
He adjusted his grip on the books as he stepped outside.
The cold hit him immediately.
Liam’s expression darkened by a fraction.
Late autumn had sharpened overnight. The air was colder than it had been the previous week, more biting, more determined to make itself known. It moved across the academy grounds in thin, hard currents that slipped beneath collars and pressed through clothing with irritating persistence. The sky above had already begun fading toward evening, though the sun had not fully disappeared. Its light looked pale and useless, stretched across the dark stone of the academy without warmth.
Students reacted as they crossed the grounds. Coats were pulled tighter. Scarves were lifted over mouths. A few students hurried toward the dormitory buildings with their shoulders hunched. The first-years complained most openly, though even some second-years looked displeased by the sudden drop in temperature.
Farther ahead, a group of students from Crescent walked through the cold with far less discomfort, their expressions mildly amused by everyone else’s suffering.