Chapter 4
“We should probably get some breakfast before we head back to the room,” I said to Byron.
“Are you hungry?”
“Right. Undead. Well, we need to go back to the room for the tutoring schedule anyway.”
Byron insisted feeling that way was normal and that I would adapt eventually.
When I returned to my room, I found a sealed letter floating just inside the doorway at eye level.
I couldn't help but groan when I read my tutoring schedule.
2 hours of mathematics, 2 hours of chemistry, 1 hour for lunch, 2 hours of latin, 2 hours of dexterity exercises, 1 hour for dinner, and then 1 hour of magic theory.
At the end of all of that, I knew Byron would want me back in the library for the rest of the night. Then again, my choices were to be a wizard or to be a reseller. As awful as the schedule sounded, the reward at the end was worth it.
“Looks like we already know one of your tutors.”
He was right. Lensis Thormandy had to be the goth girl I met yesterday, unless Lensis was an ultra-common name among wizards for some reason.
“We know the magic theory tutor too.” The name listed for that was Dean Pernel.
“She would be an enjoyable conquest.”
I almost complained, but that comment was far more subdued than ones he made previously.
He could have told me about how he wanted to rip her shirt open, sending her buttons flying across her office before putting her back on her desk.
Then, with her legs up, pounding her while she licked her own nipple.
But he didn't.
After a quick shower, I returned to the library for my 8 a.m. tutoring session. Lensis had already claimed a table and assembled a stack of books.
When I approached, she watched me dubiously.
“What?” I asked as I sat.
“Were you in the library all night?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“I was on my morning run and saw you leave the library. It was 7 a.m.”
“I might have gotten caught up in my reading.”
“But you don't look like you've been up all night,” she said, looking me over again.
“You might be my first stalker. If you're not, then the first one was better at it because I never found out.”
Lensis leaned back. “I'm not stalking you.”
I started to count off examples one finger at a time.
“You followed me into the library. You insisted on showing me around even when I wanted to be left alone. You were waiting outside the library for me to come out the next morning. And you weaseled yourself into being my tutor so we could spend even more time together. Tell me I’m wrong. ”
“You’re wrong.”
+1 Will point.
“You are a far more natural viceroy than I was. Well done.”
Lensis rolled her eyes. “May I see the rest of your schedule?”
I slid the paper across the table.
“What the hell?” she muttered. “You have four hours with Joseiah Erasmus and then an hour with Dean Pernel herself? And you have a 24-hour library pass? Who’s kid are you?”
“Are those things unusual?”
She paused to consider if I was being serious, which I was. “Dean Pernel sometimes acts as a thesis advisor. Otherwise, she hasn’t taught a class in 20 years from what I’ve heard. Most of the students here would kill for just one private lesson with her. And Joseiah…”
“Is he a big deal?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s a prodigy. When he was a freshman, he destroyed a banshee a senior summoned by mistake, after it had killed 2 seniors.
A whole dorm would be dead if he didn’t intervene, and banshees are serious monsters.
Veteran wizards would struggle against one.
He won the international battle chess championship as a sophomore, beating out every student from every other magic university in the world.
And there’s a rumor going around that he has invented his own spells already, which is very, very difficult to do. ”
“What is he now?”
“A junior.”
“I don’t know anything about magic, and I’m impressed.”
“You should be,” Lensis replied. “Are you going to tell me why you’re getting this special treatment?”
I shrugged. “Probably not. You’re going to be even more confused when you see how bad I am at math and chemistry. And everything else, really.”
We spent the first 20 minutes of our tutoring session identifying where we should start.
I genuinely enjoyed algebra in school, and geometry was interesting until we got to writing proofs.
From there, the idea of math became too abstract for me, and that little bit of friction was enough for me to give up entirely.
Lensis didn’t comment on how behind I was, but she couldn’t totally disguise her reaction either. On several occasions, she looked at me the way bouncers did when I gave them a fake ID so I could drink underage.
Most surprisingly of all, Byron was actually helpful.
He hadn’t exaggerated when he said he used his extra 1,000 years of life to study.
He was familiar with most of the mathematical concepts Lensis covered in that first lesson, and he was good at nudging me toward understanding when something wasn’t quite clicking for me.
If I still struggled, he was endlessly patient with me.
Byron could be likeable and seemed to have a knack for mentorship. For long stretches, I would forget that he was the same person who killed a literal baby to give the King of the Abyss a venereal disease.
I managed to squeeze a few more Will points out of Lensis as we worked through our lessons, eventually moving from math to chemistry, but basic verbal commands stopped giving me consistent gains.
According to the voice in my head, I needed to start feeling her up and getting her naked to make serious progress.
I wasn’t opposed to those activities, but I also didn’t feel anywhere close to the point where Lensis would want to do that too.
“Want to get lunch before your lesson with Joseiah?” she asked as we wrapped up hour four of tutoring.
“When you beg me like that, how can I say no?”
“Does this routine work on all the girls?”
“What routine?”
“Oh, come on,” Lensis grumbled. “‘What routine?’ All the game you’re spitting.”
“I’m actually just really nervous,” I admitted. “I’m glad it’s coming off a little better than that, though.”
“I don’t believe you, but I am hungry. Cafeteria is this way.”
As we ventured across the quad, I tried to keep the conversation going. “You said you were new magic, right? Did that mean someone scouted you or what?”
She nodded. “I was the weird girl at my school, and I got really into wiccan and pagan rituals. I eventually found one that was a real spell. I was certain I imagined it, but then a recruiter appeared at my job the next day and brought me here.”
“What was the spell?”
“It’s silly. The spell made a single flower more fragrant. Not very impressive, but it got me out of my shit life and brought me here. I’m specializing in flora magic now.”
“What do plant wizards do?” I asked.
“A lot of it is next level horticulture, so I’ll be really good at growing things.
Advanced flora magic lets me do things like relive the life of a plant.
I can touch a 400 year-old tree and see what it saw when it was only 5.
One of my professors is an architect who grows the buildings he designs.
Another professor raises rare poisonous and predatory plants.
And my favorite professor used to be a spy, using roots and vines to infiltrate places to gather information.
I’m not sure where I want to take it, though. ”
“Wow. That all sounds really interesting.”
Lensis smiled and nodded. “I like it. How about you?”
I wasn’t immediately sure if I should answer, but the only restriction Dean Pernel articulated was my Heal spell. She said I could share my Light spell.
So I paused outside the cafeteria and activated it, a glowing point of light appearing over my head.
“How’d you do that?” Lensis asked. “No incantation? No gestures?”
I shrugged and deactivated it.
Lensis needed a few moments to see that I held the cafeteria door open for her. I followed her in and got a tray of what she was having–a piece of glazed salmon with a side of broccoli and a cottage cheese–and joined her at one of the tables.
The cafeteria itself was far more modern than the library, but it felt more like a high-end Las Vegas buffet than a university lunchroom.
“So you’re obviously going to try for the illusion school,” she said, continuing our conversation now that we were seated.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why wouldn’t you? A natural talent that strong should be nurtured.”
“We’ll see. What do you do when you aren’t studying and tutoring? The travel restrictions make me feel a little bit trapped.”
“That feeling will go away when you live through your first incursion,” Lensis replied.
“That’s when something gets through the wards.
Relatively rare, but you will see it at least once.
Some of the upperclassmen talk about monsters, but mine was people.
Criminals who practice dark magic and either want to steal something from the University or kidnap kids for sacrifices or ransoms.”
“Jesus. That’s intense.”
She nodded. “To answer your real question, I don’t really go out. I’m so scared of flunking that all I do really is study.”
“That will probably end up being my life too. You saw how far behind I am, and I don’t want to blow this opportunity either.”
“You don’t seem stupid, so what happened?”
“I didn’t give a shit. It all felt so arbitrary, and I had so little control over my own life that doing nothing was the only agency I had. So, I exercised it and slept through most of high school. Or skipped classes. I did a lot of that.”
“I understand the feeling,” Lensis replied between bites of salmon.
“But magic makes you feel like you’re in control, right?
That’s how it was for me. I think that feeling keeps me motivated more than anything else.
I like feeling like my destiny is my own and that the universe has to react when I want something to happen. ”