Chapter 5 #2
"Low sequence," Midus orders. "Sweep, reverse grip, thrust, disengage."
They shift. The new sequence is faster, lower to the ground. The scarred vampire drops his center of gravity and the staff whips through the air in tight arcs. Every movement is precise. Economical. The kind of muscle memory that takes years to build and centuries to refine.
I'm staring. I know I'm staring. My notebook is in my bag and I should be taking mental notes on technique but what I'm actually doing is cataloguing the way he breathes—steady, unhurried, like this is resting heart rate for him.
Like his body is so accustomed to violence that performing it is closer to meditation than exertion.
Then it changes.
Mid-sequence, mid-exchange, his eyes find me across the field.
Lock on. And the next strike comes off-script.
Instead of the called disengage, he redirects—a sharp, lateral crack that has nothing to do with the drill and everything to do with the fact that I'm watching.
The vampire student blocks on instinct, barely.
The scarred vampire hits again—harder, faster, abandoning the sequence entirely now.
A raw, improvised combination that's less demonstration and more statement.
The vampire student stumbles backward. Another hit. The staff cracks against his guard so hard it echoes off the stone buildings around us. A third strike catches him across the ribs and he goes down—hitting the dirt with a grunt, staff rolling away.
The scarred vampire stands over him. Breathing easy. He looks at me across the field and the expression on his face isn't anger or aggression. It's a question.
See?
I squint at him. Tilt my head. Give him the most eloquent what the hell was that face I can muster from thirty feet away.
His smirk widens. Just a fraction.
Crack.
The sound is sharp and ugly—wood on flesh. Midus is on the field. He's picked up a staff of his own and brought it down across the scarred vampire's back in a single, vicious stroke. A correction. The kind you'd give a dog that snapped at someone.
I jump as the current of magic inside me lurches to a halt.
"Kage." Midus says the name like a leash yanked tight. "What was the called sequence?"
Kage. The scarred one’s name is Kage.
He doesn't answer. Doesn't flinch from the strike, either—his body absorbs it the way stone absorbs rain, like it's happened so many times the nerve endings have stopped reporting.
But something behind his face changes. The smirk disappears. The storm-blue eyes go flat and hard and far away, and I watch the person behind them retreat to some interior room and close the door.
I know that look. I've worn that look. The expression of someone whose body is public property and whose mind is the only private space they have left.
Something soft cracks in my chest. My throat tightens. My fingers ache in tight fists, knuckles white, and I have to look away because if I keep watching him stand there with that dead-eyed compliance while Midus walks away swinging his staff like nothing happened, I'm going to do something stupid.
Something that involves fire and a combat instructor and the kind of consequences I can't afford on day two.
"Back on the rack," Midus says. Casual. Already turning away. The staff in his hand swings loosely at his side like he's already forgotten he used it.
Kage's jaw tightens. But his body obeys. He steps back, returns the staff to the rack, and resumes his lean against the post. Same posture. Arms crossed.
Watching.
But his eyes are different now. Whatever was alive in them a minute ago—the challenge, the smirk, the see?—has been replaced by something I recognize with a sick, lurching certainty.
He–
He's not choosing to be here.
He must not be a student…
He's definitely not staff if Midus checked him like that in front of all of us.
I know the walk. I've done the walk. The body complying while the mind screams.
I file him somewhere deeper than surface-level data points. Somewhere that matters. And I file Midus too—in a different folder. The kind with sharp edges.
"Pair up!" Midus barks. "Staves. Go."
Students scramble. Partners form. I stand at the edge of the field, staffless and partnerless—nobody wants to spar with the girl who, rumor has it, trips like a live wire.
"Hey."
I turn. The boy from Magic Theory—kind eyes, olive skin, the one who nodded—is standing two feet away, holding two staffs. He extends one toward me.
"I'm Emric," he says. "Emric Vane. You looked like you could use a partner."
I take the staff. It's heavier than I expected. I have no idea how to hold it.
"I've never done this before," I say. "Full disclosure. I’m Calypso."
"That's fine." His voice matches his eyes—warm, steady, unhurried. "I'll walk you through the basics. Just follow my lead and try not to hit me in the face."
"No promises."
He laughs. Quiet, genuine. And we begin.
He's patient. That's the first thing—patient without being patronizing, correcting my grip and my stance with gentle adjustments instead of lectures.
He shows me the basic block, the basic strike, the footwork that goes with both.
I'm terrible at it. My arms are shaking, my core is weak from twelve years of facility stillness, and every time I swing the staff, my magic lurches in my chest like it wants to help and doesn't know how.
But Emric doesn't rush me. He matches my speed, lets me set the pace, and when I manage a passable block on my fifth try, he nods like I just did something worth noting.
"Better," he says. "You're picking this up faster than you think."
"I'm picking it up faster than I should. I think my magic is compensating."
He tilts his head, genuinely curious. "What does that feel like? Having magic, I mean. Vampires have abilities but they're—I don't know, they're just there. Extensions of what I already am. From what I understand, witch magic is more like its own thing. Separate from you."
"Separate but not," I say, blocking his next strike. It's sloppy, but it counts. "It's like having a roommate who lives in your chest. Sometimes we agree on what to do. Mostly she has her own ideas and I'm just trying to keep her from redecorating."
He laughs. "That sounds exhausting."
"You have no idea."
We reset. Go again. This time he adds a pivot to the sequence and I almost keep up.
"So what year are you?" I ask between strikes.
"Second." He blocks my clumsy overhead swing without effort. "You?"
"Technically first. Functionally zero. I'm three weeks late and twelve years behind."
"Twelve years?" His staff pauses mid-reset. "That's how long you were at the—"
My stomach drops. "Yeah."
He doesn't push. Just nods, adjusts his grip, and comes at me again—a slow, telegraphed strike to my right that I manage to catch on the shaft of my staff. The impact vibrates up my arms.
"Not bad," he says. "You're reading my shoulders. That's good instinct."
"I had a lot of time to learn how to read people. Not much else to do in a facility."
"Fair." He resets. "I can’t imagine what that must have been like, but summers at the family estate can get quite boring with the… older generations."
I snort. He grins—crooked. My stomach does a little flip.
We drill again. He calls out the sequence this time—"block, strike, pivot"—and I follow, my body starting to find the rhythm even if my muscles are fighting against it. On the pivot, I overcorrect and nearly plant my staff in the dirt. He steadies me with a hand on my elbow.
Quick. Light. Gone before I can flinch.
"Feet wider," he says. "You've got a low center of gravity—use it."
I widen my stance. Try the pivot again. It's better.
"Where's your family from?" I ask, because talking makes the burning in my arms easier to ignore.
"Baton Rouge, originally. We've been in Louisiana forever—eight generations.
My mom runs a blood dispensary in the Quarter—one of the licensed ones, not the black-market stuff—and my dad manages estates for one of the bigger houses.
Boring, stable, deeply un-dramatic. Everything a vampire family isn't supposed to be.
" He throws a slow strike that I block cleanly.
"My biggest rebellion was signing up for the advanced combat track instead of political theory. "
"Scandalous."
"My dad nearly had a coronary. He's convinced I'm going to get my teeth knocked out and bring shame upon the Vane legacy." He puts on a voice—deeper, stuffier, dripping with faux-concern. "'Emric, nobody respects a vampire with a crooked fang.'"
I laugh. Actually laugh—deep in my belly. He's grinning again, pleased with himself in an easy, uncomplicated way that has nothing to do with performance.
"Does it ever bother you?" I ask, resetting my stance. "Being a vampire here but not... one of those vampires? The ones with their names on the buildings?"
He wipes sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Takes a second before answering—not dodging, just giving the question the weight it deserves.
"Sometimes," he says. "You learn pretty fast where you stand.
The noble houses don't let you forget it—not with anything as obvious as cruelty, just...
proximity. They sit together, train together, summer at each other's estates.
And if your last name doesn't open those doors, no amount of talent is going to kick them down.
" He resets his stance, comes at me with a measured strike I barely catch.
"But honestly? I'd rather be here on ability than legacy.
The legacy kids have everything handed to them and half of them can barely hold a staff.
I earned my spot. Nobody can take that."
There's no bitterness in it. Just clarity. The quiet confidence of someone who looked at the game, understood the rules were rigged, and decided to play anyway on his own terms.
I respect the hell out of that.
"What about the… the daylight thing? Walking in the sun—is that a status marker too?"
His expression shifts. Something careful enters it—not guarded, just aware that the answer is loaded.