The Academy's Genius Mage

"Hold on."

Nova had both hands up before Sylvia finished her sentence, the universal gesture of a person who needs everything to stop immediately so they can catch up. "I’m sorry. I need a second." He looked between the two of them. "What do you mean the secret is that Lucas is your boyfriend. You two were just, friends. This whole time. Friends."

Celia stepped in right behind him, her brows pulled together, genuinely trying to work through the logic. "And why would something like that need to be hidden so badly? Why were you worried about the Truth Device over that?"

Even Starc had leaned back slightly, his expression shifting from interrogation mode into something that was trying to decide what it was.

Sylvia exhaled once. Then she spoke.

"You all know I come from the Silvercrest house," she said. Her voice started steady, the way it always did. "In my family, expectations are not suggestions. Every generation is held to a standard. Strength, discipline, focus, reputation." She paused. "Anything that reads as a distraction gets noticed. Gets talked about."

She stopped there for a second.

Then, almost against her will, her eyes dropped to the table.

A faint color had crept up the sides of her face, just visible enough that it was clearly real. Her fingers pressed together once in her lap.

"And then there’s me," she said, quieter than before, "who just..." She cleared her throat lightly. Didn’t finish the sentence the way she started it. "...fell in love."

She straightened slightly, composing herself, though the faint color hadn’t fully left. "It isn’t forbidden. It isn’t against any rule. But if my family found out, if people here found out—"

A short pause, her jaw tightening just slightly in the way it did when something genuinely bothered her. "They’d never let it go! I’d be teased, questioned, it would become a topic everywhere" Her voice dropped a fraction. "And honestly... I don’t think I could handle that kind of attention. Not for something this personal."

She looked back up. The composure was mostly back. The faint color was still there.

"That’s why I wanted to keep it quiet, and I didn’t want it turned into gossip or pressure. The Truth Device... it would’ve just exposed everything without giving me a choice."

"This can’t be-" Nova, meanwhile, had taken one step backward.

His hand closed into a fist, the bottom of it— He turned and drove it against the wall.

"No," he said, to the wall mostly. His forehead dropped forward and rested against it, fist still pressed there. "No no no no—" A long pained exhale. "It should have been me! not him!"

Gideon, in the corner, had gone very still. His eyes moved between Sylvia and Lucas.

Starc, who had been processing the last thirty seconds with admirable composure, turned to Lucas. "Is that true? Are the two of you in a relationship?"

Lucas snapped back to reality the moment his name was called. "Uhh—Professor Starc, I—"

Sylvia’s foot came down on his.

He absorbed the pain through sheer willpower and closed his mouth around whatever he’d been about to say. "—Yeah," he managed. "We are."

"It was my idea to keep it private," Sylvia added immediately, before Lucas could say anything that complicated it. "He was fine either way. I was the one who wanted it quiet."

Starc looked at both of them for a long moment.

Then he let out a small, tired breath and rubbed his temple once.

"So what I’ve done," he said slowly, "is force two students to disclose something personal. Something that is not against any academy rule. Something that has nothing to do with security or conduct or forbidden magic." He set his hands flat on the table. "That’s what this was."

Nobody confirmed or denied it. They didn’t need to.

"This interrogation ends here," Starc said. "You all can leave now." He looked at both of them directly.

The tension in the room dissolved so completely and so quickly that it almost left a vacuum behind it. Starc dismissed them.

*****

Nova’s arm locked around Lucas’s neck from behind without any warning, the grip of someone who has been containing something for the last ten minutes and has now stopped containing it.

"YOU ABSOLUTE TRAITOR."

"What—" Lucas grabbed at the arm immediately, fingers finding no purchase. "What are you—I can’t breathe—"

"GOOD." Nova tightened his grip. "You snake. You backstabbing, dream-stealing, future-ruining SNAKE. You knew. You knew how I felt and you went ahead anyway—"

"I don’t even know what you’re talking about—"

"MY IMAGINARY WEDDING, LUCAS. You destroyed my imaginary wedding."

"THAT’S NOT A REAL THING—"

"It was real to ME—"

Celia pressed her fingers to her forehead with the exhausted patience of someone who has accepted that this is simply her life now. "Nova. He’s already injured. If you keep going you’re going to actually break something."

"I’m already broken!" Nova informed her, without loosening his grip in any way. "Do you understand the pain I’m experiencing right now? Do you see me?"

"We all see you, Nova."

"Then why isn’t anyone helping me—"

"Because you’re the one doing the choking," Gideon said pleasantly, from a safe distance.

"Hey — listen—" Lucas was still trying to find an angle that allowed oxygen. "It’s not what you think. If you just let me explain for one second—"

Before he could continue, Sylvia, standing beside him, drove her elbow sharply into his waist.

"—Uff" Lucas froze mid-sentence, his voice cutting off instantly.

She stepped in smoothly, her expression calm but her words soft. "Please don’t hurt my Lucas that much... it pains me to see him like this."

The entire group went silent after hearing Sylvia say it like that.

Nova stared at her for a second.

Then his arm shifted from strangling to something closer to a reluctant side-hug. "...A-Alright," he muttered. pointing at Lucas. "We are talking about this." he whispered

Lucas coughed, finally breathing properly. His eyes slid sideways to Sylvia.

’Doesn’t she realize what would happen next?’

’I need to talk to her,’ he thought. ’Alone. Before any of this gets further out of hand than it already is.’