The Academy's Genius Mage

Beatrice’s office had a particular quality of silence that other rooms didn’t.

The three brothers stood in the corner and said nothing.

Beatrice sat behind her desk with her hands folded and her expression carrying the specific calm of someone who has seen worse and has not yet decided how much worse this is.

"The abduction of a junior cadet," she said. Her voice was level, each word placed with care. "And the use of forbidden techniques within academy grounds." She let that sit for a moment. "Neither of these can be overlooked. They are crimes. They carry consequences." She paused.

"However. In consideration of the Ironhart family’s standing, I am reducing the punishment to a suspension of one whole year." Her eyes moved across the room. "Sir Valdmir."

The man seated across from her had not moved since he sat down.

"I understand the gravity of what they’ve done," he said. His voice was deep and measured, not raised, not performing anything. Just speaking, the way a person speaks when they have never needed volume to be heard.

"And I am grateful for the academy’s mercy in this matter." His crimson eyes moved briefly, barely a second toward his sons. Then back to Beatrice. "I will take full responsibility for their actions. This will not happen again."

He rose.

He was tall in a way that wasn’t just height, the kind of presence that made the space around him feel borrowed.

"If that concludes this matter, Headmaster," he said, "I will take my sons and see to their discipline personally."

Beatrice watched him for a moment with eyes that had seen fifty years of powerful people walk through that door.

She nodded once.

Valdmir Ironhart. Head of the Ironhart family. Father of Talon, Kine, Ley.

And Lucas.

*****

The carriage moved through the dark without hurrying.

It was a fine carriage, the kind that money doesn’t just buy but accumulates over generations, the leather deep and dark, the curtains heavy enough to kill the light from outside down to thin pale lines.

It should have felt comfortable. It felt like a container.

The three brothers sat across from their father and nobody spoke.

Kine lasted approximately forty seconds.

"Uh... Fathe—"

"Shut up."

Two words. Barely above a conversational volume.

All three of them flinched. Their shoulders dropped by instinct, heads going lower, and the carriage was quiet again except for the sound of wheels on road and the particular loudness of three people trying to breathe quietly.

Valdmir looked at them.

Not with rage. With something more patient than rage and considerably more unpleasant. His crimson eyes moved from one face to the next in the dim light, unhurried, taking inventory.

"You were inside that academy for three years," he said, his voice carrying the quiet menace of something that doesn’t need to be loud to fill a space. "I gave you one instruction. A simple one." A pause that had texture to it. "Maintain a low profile. Don’t draw attention."

He let the silence that followed do some of the work. "Were you always this incompetent? Or did you specifically choose this occasion to demonstrate it?"

Nobody answered. The correct answer was silence and they all knew it.

His eyes settled on Talon. Stayed there.

"And you." The two words landed differently than the ones before them. "I placed my expectations in you specifically. Out of three of you, you were the one I trusted to think." His gaze didn’t move.

"What happened to that, Talon?"

Talon’s fists had closed in his lap. He opened them deliberately, slowly, then lowered his head. "I have no excuse, Father," he said. His voice was controlled. "I was careless. It won’t happen again."

’Damn it,’ he thought, underneath the steady voice. ’Only if I had just refused from the start—’

Valdmir watched him for a long moment. Then looked away, which was somehow worse than continuing to look.

"What’s done is done," he said.

The three of them lifted their heads slightly, tentatively.

"You are no longer cadets of that academy," Valdmir said. His tone had shifted, not warmer, but different.

"Which means you three are no longer bound by their rules." Something moved at the very edge of his expression. Not quite a smile. Something that lived near one. "So. Come with me."

He leaned forward slightly, his voice dropping to something that was meant only for this carriage, these four walls, these three people.

"It is time you helped with the PLAN to—"

"..."

Kine’s eyes went wide. Ley’s breath caught.

"Yes," Talon said. The earlier shame had been replaced with something entirely different. "We won’t fail you this time, Father."

*****

Starc’s voice came again, a degree firmer. "What is the secret the two of you are hiding?"

Sylvia looked at her hands.

Her fingers shifted in her lap, restless, like they were looking for something to hold onto. Her lips opened. Closed. The words were there and they weren’t coming out and the silence stretched another second, then another.

Lucas stared at the floor beside her. His thoughts were running in tight circles and arriving at the same conclusion every time. ’Damn, we are doomed! trapped either way even if we tell the truth or try to lie, we are just done... out of the academy...’

"I’ll ask one last time." Starc’s patience had found its edge. "What are you hiding?"

Sylvia inhaled.

Slowly. Deliberately. The breath of someone arriving at a decision.

"I’ll say it."

Lucas turned to her immediately. "Sylvia—"

"We can’t keep hiding it, Lucas."

"You remember what you said, right? You specifically said—"

"I know what I said." Her voice was quiet but it wasn’t uncertain. She looked at her hands one more time, then something settled in her expression, not resignation, something more like clarity. "But hiding it now makes it worse. They’re going to find out eventually. Its better than facing consequences that we don’t want." She turned to him, and her eyes were steady. "It’s okay. I’ll tell them."

Lucas looked at her face.

Looked at the table.

’Whatever you’re about to say, just don’t regret it.’ he thought.

"Enough," Starc said. "Speak."

Nova leaned forward without realizing he was doing it. Celia’s hands pressed tighter together. Gideon went completely still. Their ears straining to catch every word.

Starc’s eyes sharpened to a point.

The room held its breath.

Sylvia took one last slow breath, her shoulders rising and falling.

"The truth is..."

Every pair of eyes in the room locked onto her.

Lucas stared at the floor. Jaw tight. ’Just Don’t regr-’

"...Lucas is my boyfriend."

The room detonated.

"WHAAAT?!"

Nova, Celia and Gideon all three at the exact same moment, the exact same volume, the exact same pitch of absolute disbelief, their voices colliding every corner of the staff room simultaneously.

Professor Starc blinked and was thinking he misheard it.

Lucas Froze.

Very slowly, he turned his head toward Sylvia, his brain refusing to process what he had just heard.

’WHAT THE FUCKK!?’