The Academy [BOOK ONE COMPLETE]

I looked up at the robe, hanging from thin air. The skull grinned down at me, but what else could it do? I patted the platform next to me. “It’s your school. Wait, can you actually sit?”

Coratorus hissed. Maybe it was supposed to be a chuckle or a laugh, but it was hard to tell. The robe floated down and its hem bunched into a pile to my right. The earlier lone hand was gone, apparently wandered off somewhere.

The skull settled next to my face, facing the flying snow in the middle of the trilithon. “I wanted to be sure you are fine, but I didn’t want to come disturb your gathering,” they whispered.

The pressure made it feel like the teeth on the right side of my mouth would fall out at any moment. “What would people have said, if you did?” I said, squinting my right eye shut.

“Well…”

“You just didn’t want them to tell you to grade your exams? Ferne even told me to punch you in the skull already because of the time when the wards failed and you were nowhere.”

“I’ll get around to the exams,” they said.

I scoffed.

“You drew the fire run well. I’m glad to see you’ve taken to the school and the progress you’re making.”

I looked at my fingers. The power rolling off the lich made it harder to feel, but I brought the mana back, feeling the tingling in my fingertips. “It’s weird,” I said. “I didn’t really mean to.”

“Meaning and doing are not always related. I’ve been meaning to correct your exam for weeks already.”

“And you even look so damn smug about it. How do you even manage looking smug? How does it work?”

They whispered another laugh, short hisses of dry sound. “It’s a question that many necromancers have debated for a long time. Maybe you are just good at noticing things.”

“So you’re not going to tell me?”

“If I kept telling people everything and getting involved in every little problem, would I be doing my job as a teacher?”

“Sounds like an excuse for being lazy,” I muttered.

The skull leaned back on arms it didn’t have. It stayed still for a moment, then pushed itself back upright and turned its eye sockets to face me. “The presence in the mountains has awoken. It will threaten the school again. I leave it for you to handle.”

“Oh, I will.”

The thing had messed with me enough. It lurked in my dreams, it had tried to make me its.

I was mine.

I would find it and tear it apart, whatever it was. I clenched my fist, letting the mana inside me mix with Null outside. They ground against each other, and for a moment the resonance spiked into a perfect ringing note, like a violin being played with a scalpel.

“Beautiful,” Coratorus said. An invisible hand settled on my shoulder. The robe hung down, sleeves draping the floor, cowl suspended on the skull. “I will get around to grading the exam soon, but I know already you are starting to understand. It is a long road, much longer than anyone could believe.”

“But?” I asked.

“No buts,” they hissed. The skull tilted slowly to look at me. “I don’t have one anymore.”

“I’ll push you off this platform, principal.”

Coratorus hissed its weird laugh again, like reeds in the wind. It floated up from the platform, probably to remind me that it could. “You will fit right in here, Lina. Learn what you can from the others and study hard. I will be waiting, when you are ready.”

The robe turned around and floated to the middle of the structure. The wind blew around it and the billowing snow hid the black figure from my sight.

I shook my head, shaking melting snow off it. I didn’t want to fit into a place as stupid as this, but I was starting to fear I would. A skull for a principal, a copper ant for an accountant. Teachers like Falar and Jextor and Ferne, about to kill each other or fall asleep at any moment.

I stood up, slapping the back of my robe to throw off the ice and the sleet. The moon hung low in the sky, half covered by the Academy’s ceiling. I should get back to the infirmary. By now, I would probably fall asleep on my face the moment I stepped in through the door.

That would be fine. I hadn’t punched Coratorus in the skull like Ferne had asked, but if the entity showed itself, I would punch it instead.

“Huh?” I asked.

“I said, do you want to go get breakfast? I want to have a proper meal, not bacon that tastes like chewing on a piece of leather.”

I blinked, trying to clear my vision. I had slept like a corpse. No dreams, not even a vague memory of falling asleep. Grit’s white hand rested on my shoulder. She tensed up when I looked at it, but kept it there. I patted it lightly. “Let’s go before Marcus gets here and tells us not to.”

We were the first in the Breakfast Hall. A group of skeletons was gathered in the corner, leaning their skulls together. When I stepped in, they all straightened and started organizing the chairs and fetching and placing cutlery down.

“Do you think some gossip reanimated those?” I asked, frowning at the bustling skeletons.

“Could have been Marcus,” Grit said. “Let’s grab the best table.”

“Did you see Falar?” I asked as we sat down.

“No. He slipped out during the night.”

“Did… did you check?”

“A bit?” Grit said, facing my stare. “Just a peek.”

“What if he had been still leaking death? Or slept naked?”

“That would have been awesome.”

I groaned and leaned back in the chair. Should have expected that.

The door opened and the janitor stepped in. He pushed his cart to the side of the door and kicked its wheel. A wooden claw snapped down, clamping down on the wheel. “Oh, good morning kids,” he shouted across the empty hall. “You’re early.”

“Hi,” I shouted.

“Good morning,” Grit said as he walked closer to us. “Want to sit down?”

“I’m just the janitor and you’re students. You must have all kinds of interesting magic stuff to talk about with each other.”

“Nope,” I said and kicked a chair out for him from below the table. “Come on.”

He shrugged and sat down opposite of us. “I try to get in early before the rush. Part of the job to not be in anyone’s way.”

“How do you become the janitor of a black trilithon in the middle of nowhere, anyway?” I asked.

“Beats me,” he said. “But I like it much more than working for the clowns in Tenorsbridge. That place is the worst.”

“Tenorsbridge? Wait, were you a…?” The thought made my throat clamp shut. Oh hell. I started going through everything I might have said to him. Oh damn. The Janitors. Invincible, omniscient, the protectors of—

“Lina?” Grit asked. “Um, were you going to say something?”

I gripped the table so hard my fingers turned white. “Were you a Janitor? One of the four?” I asked, forcing the words out of my mouth.

“Huh?” he said, and frowned at me. “Those fancy bastards wouldn’t know which way to hold a broom. Call themselves the Janitors, bah.” He pursed his lips and huffed, continuing in a quieter voice. “…never stopped complaining when I polished the floors, either. Who slips two hundred and fifty-five times in a single day? If they’re supposed to be that clever, shouldn’t they stop rushing about after the first hundred times?”

“Maybe you polished the floors too much?” Grit asked.

“No such thing as too polished,” Hector said, glancing over his shoulder at the skeletons. “They’re really taking their time today, aren’t they?”

The discussion made my head spin. I had never seen a real Janitor, but I knew how people talked about them. Hormens said they were the one real danger to business in Tenorsbridge. That anything that went on in the city, depended on them allowing it. The only time I saw him look worried when he spoke about the Janitors. I glanced over my shoulder in case they had heard me think badly about them. What an amazingly dumb thought. Instead of a bunch of disappointed Janitors, I saw Fek step in through the door.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hector’s with you as well? Cool!”

“Hey kid,” the janitor said, waving a hand. “How are you up this early?”

“I can be early when I want to,” Fek said. He tried to grab a sandwich from a skeleton carrying a whole tray of them, but it slapped his hand. “Ouch, and Minnelil woke me up when she went on a walk. She’s usually quieter,” he said, shaking his hand and pulling up a chair for himself.

“Maybe she had trouble focusing,” Grit said, looking at me for some reason. “Could she have tried to come to the infirmary with fewer people around?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, turning my face away. My scalp got warm and started to itch. I scratched at it. “Anyway, what’s been going on here?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Fek said, drumming the table with both hands. “Ferne finally fell asleep teaching the rune class. But it might have been because she was teaching the sleep rune and I tried it out. She seemed really angry and told me I can’t come to the lecture again until you’re back.”

“Great,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Someone saw Coratorus a couple of days back! That’s always big news.”

“Right, that was when we played cards,” the janitor said. “He told me to come fetch you guys.”

“I saw them last night,” I said. “They made a really bad joke.”

“Come on!” Fek shouted, spluttering his lips. “Did you want to hear the news or not? Stop stealing my thunder.”

I waved at him to continue. More students were filing into the hall. The skeletons finally put a bunch of plates in front of us. The eggs and beans swam in bacon grease and thin red sauce. Something that looked like a piece of dried dog poop sat to the side of the plate. I poked it with the other end of my knife and it gave slightly.

“Blood sausage. The chancellor loves it,” Fek said helpfully. “Right, and Lombarte finally came back. Those two goons of his are running all over the place, reminding everyone to let him cut in line as it’s important exam season and so on.”

Grit groaned and rolled her eyes. It was always a sight when she did, as her eyes were so large and red.

“Never liked that boy,” the janitor muttered. “Not that it’s my place to judge, mind.”

“I’ll cut him, alright. That Kertharian bastard,” I said. The knife broke the skin of the black sausage with a crack.

“He’s not really from Kerthar, his family just goes back like a dozen generations…” Fek said, but trailed off as I stood up.

She walked in, closing the door carefully behind her. The golden flecks in her eyes sparkled all the way to where we were sitting.

“Just a moment,“ I muttered.

Grit slapped my ass. “Go get her.”

“Inappropriate,” Fek said, cutting into the bacon.

I didn’t know about that, but getting slapped by a Jonungaard was always an experience. I limped my way to Minnelil. She smiled at me, crinkling her eyes.

“Hey Lina, any plans?” she said.

“Some, yeah,“ I said. “Going to kill something dead up in the mountains, maybe train with Coratorus one day. Finish the semester alive after all, I think.”

Her smile widened, reaching the sides of her face. How could her mouth be so wide? It was amazing.

She held out a hand to me. “Perhaps learn to channel first?”

“Maybe I will,” I said, taking her hand.