Chapter 3
Orin Hallowshaw, gaunt-faced, tall, disheveled, walked in through the door, and was surprised to notice that there were only four more students in the alchemy classroom. Lesya Rosefield, Trisha Evermore, Sid Vercliff, and Miles Farrow.
He grunted self-satisfactorily at them, muttering, “No sunfuckers,” and slammed his bag on the last bench in the room.
Trisha chuckled, having caught that.
“Mr. Hallowshaw, welcome.” Professor Veilmonte nodded at the last student.
“Professor.” Orin nodded back.
“As I was saying before your late arrival, the events of last night have had some effects on the larger student body,” Cassian said, gathering all the beechmasts that the students had submitted and placing them all in a boiling cauldron.
It was hard for him to shift to this role of teacher after he’d spent four years as a student here.
These students were once his juniors. Two of them knew him on a first-name basis.
But decorum demanded formality, and so he stood tall and addressed the class at large.
“I am sure you all have heard what happened in Lynsfeld late last night at Vincent Crenshaw’s wake. ”
“Is it true?” Orin, who was usually the most nonverbal and quiet of all House Balthazar, was very vocal today. “Did Vincent’s corpse really walk into the bar? That’s what they’re saying.”
Cassian’s face went pale as death. He pressed his lips together, holding himself back from saying something that he’d regret later.
“As far as the official story by the Aladrian Vanguard goes, it was a horrible accident, Mr. Hallowshaw, nothing more,” Cassian said. “There was no necromancy reported at the wake.”
“Come on,” Orin said dryly. “It’s just us.
” Us being House Balthazar. As far as unspoken code went, both houses abided by the rules of fraternity.
A member of House Balthazar, no matter if they were a student, teacher, or outside the student body, always felt obliged to be in each other’s corner.
Likewise with House Solaris. This had created a deep rift, something worse than a rivalry, between the two houses.
The rest of the students looked at Orin, then at each other, and finally, all eyes were on Cassian.
“No one tells us shit, Professor,” Sid Vercliff, a relatively short-heighted boy, blond of hair, heavily freckled face, said. He had a bruise mark under his eye. “It’s like something happens in the world, and we’re all blamed for it.”
“You know you cannot take that personally. The mage world, unfortunately, has its fair share of flaws. Biases and hatred, prejudice and—” Cassian began, but Miles Farrow cut him short.
“You’re one of us, brother. Gave us the tour of the undercroft the whole first week. Don’t be a sellout now,” Miles said, snapping his fingers.
“So I suppose all pretense of teaching goes out the window,” Cassian said, looking at the students, and then at Lesya desperately.
She thought she heard his voice in his head say, Help me.
But Sid Vercliff was right. No one ever told House Balthazar shit.
“Solaris students have been hounding us since morning,” Trisha said.
“And we don’t even know what for,” Lesya added the final nail in the coffin.
“Fine. Fine,” Cassian sighed, rolling his sleeves back, an act that made Lesya feel like her stomach was in knots. “Well, as with any hypothesis, let’s begin with what you know.”
At this, the five students in the class, spread out across thirty benches, turned around and started discussing actively amongst themselves.
“Vincent Crenshaw was murdered by a Deathless, allegedly. That much we got in the paper,” Orin said from the back of the class. “Next thing you know, everyone important from all over has gone to pay their respects, including Headmaster Solwyn and Professor Moore.”
“And then, last night, something happens at the wake,” Sid continued.
“They call him the Grath Nomad.” Miles Farrow had a smile across his face as he said the name. “You know that, don’t you, Professor?”
When Cassian didn’t say anything, Miles continued. “They say he’s one of the Deathless that Crenshaw couldn’t kill. A right-hand man of Mortandagh.”
“I think that’s enough,” Cassian said, raising his hand.
“Is it true, Professor, that there’s a Deathless still out there who knows the secrets of Aeternum?”
Cassian turned his head to look at Trisha, who had asked this question. His face had gone red, lips pressed together.
He looked one last time at Lesya, the voice in her head saying, Thanks for nothing, I guess, and then clasped his hands together.
“I think that’s as good a segue as any for today’s lesson,” he said, adjusting his tie till it was a little looser and he could breathe. “Can anyone tell me what Aeternum is?”
Four out of the five students groaned. Lesya kept mum.
Miles jumped in, saying, “Come on. What are we, first-years?”
“The answer, if you please, Mr. Farrow,” Cassian said, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk. Lesya suspected he knew exactly what effect such movements of his were having on her.
“Fine,” sighed Miles, and droned, “Aeternumancy is the power to bring people back from the dead. It’s also the power that allows you to cheat death, control those who’ve been brought back from the dead?—”
Cassian shook his head with a smug grin.
“You’re thinking of necromancy. All those things you described—bringing someone back from the dead, evading death, controlling the undead—all of those are characteristics of necromancy.
A notable necromancer of the last century was Mortandagh, capable of doing all of that.
He bestowed his devout followers with life eternal.
Because he harnessed such great necromancy, he was said to be unkillable himself.
You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Farrow.
Remind me, how did you get into the advanced alchemy class? ”
Miles boisterously brought out his channeling device, a curving, double-edged dagger.
He threw the thing in the air, turning it into a wooden box at the apex of its throw.
As it came down, it turned into a champagne flute, and then into a metal ball, and finally, back into the double-edged dagger as it landed hilt-first in his hand.
“Elemental transfiguration might have gotten you far with Professor Rhys, but you’ve got to be more than a deft hand at turning this into that and the other if you’re going to survive my class.
Alchemy is all about nuance. Knowing the exact difference between one element and the other.
With that in mind, would anyone else care to tell me what Aeternum is?
Miss Rosefield, you’re all up in your book. What does it say about Aeternumancy?”
Lesya looked up at him, and for a split second their eyes met.
And for that split second, they were not student and teacher, but what they once were.
His lips on her neck, taking in every bit of her through kiss and breath.
His hands on her hips, her hands in his hair.
The two of them in a naked embrace in the same hidden rooms in the astronomy tower where once she’d spied revelries.
His fingers interlocked with hers, his hot exhales upon her breasts.
It was her first year. She’d just turned nineteen. He was about to graduate. Twenty-two, confident, handsome, dangerous.
During her first week, he’d found out that someone had cursed her. He’d found the boy (Trevor Filmore) and had beaten him with fists till Trevor was bloody and screaming apologies. He’d made sure Lesya had heard those apologies. From then on, no one had even stared at her sideways.
Lesya—
“Ms. Rosefield?” he called again sternly, bringing her back to attention, to this humdrum world where he wasn’t Cassian but Professor Veilmonte, and she still had three months to go to graduate. Three more months of keeping this a secret. Well, if Trisha knew, Lesya wondered who else knew.
She dreaded it.
Calm down. You’re spiraling again.
Don’t tell me to calm down, she found her own voice within her head.
This was their secret. They’d devised their own way to keep in touch with each other when others were around.
Cassian had found the books on telepathy in the library, deep within the profane-craft section.
It had been the riskiest thing Lesya had done, learning a bit of profane-craft, but here she was now, holding an entire conversation with him while neither of their lips moved.
Sorry, he said, his voice soft. Still getting used to this teaching thing.
Who told you that you had to?
I couldn’t stay away from you, you know that.
Two years and not a single letter from you, she taunted.
Oh, but I was singing ballads in your head all that time, he laughed.
Here he had her. The telepathy they’d learned was of a more arcane kind, the kind for which long distances were a trifle. But those two years had driven her insane. At the end, she never really knew if it was the real Cassian speaking to her or just her imagining him.
“I still think it’s all bullshit. I think Aeternum and necromancy are the same thing,” Miles Farrow complained.
“There are many branches of ancient magic. Most of what we practice today are diluted offshoots of what once were powerful disciplines,” Lesya said quietly, making all others stop what they were saying and listen intently to her.
“Aeternum is one such ancient branch of magic. It is also deemed forbidden by all scholars. There exist no records of books on the matter.”
“Still haven’t explained it,” Miles chirped in.