Checking her timepiece all the way out of the library, past the empty dining hall to her class building, Ty tried to walk as fast as she could to get all the intrusive thoughts out of her head before they could germinate.

  She had a class to manage, plans to draw out. She had lessons to go to the next day, things to prepare before the morning. There was no time to be confused or disillusioned. It wasn’t her, it wasn’t what she was taught.

  And forget about Theo, she admonished herself, it won’t happen again.

  At the door leading into the class common room, which she had to pass through to get to her room, she breathed in and let her tight-lipped smile drop, steadying herself as she pushed open the door.

  “Oh, that must be Ty.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Quietly making her entrance, she nodded to Cyril, Callie, and Faris, who were sitting on the couches by the lounging area.

  “Hey, tact,” Cyril called, waving his hand in his usual friendly manner.

  Faris eyed her with faint interest. “You’re back later than usual.”

  “I was at the library,” she answered tersely, closing the door and taking the checklist by the entrance before heading over to the kitchen to prepare some water.

  “It’s nice, huh? So big! I’ve been missing out,” Callie nodded enthusiastically, using her free hand to reach for her bag on the ground. “I picked up something from there earlier, actually.”

  Faris perked up. “Oh? Let’s see it.”

  Leaving them to their conversation, Ty filled a cup with water from the kitchen’s reservoir and brought it over to the fireplace, placing it in the small slot for mugs before standing up and noticing the figure who lay sleeping on the armchair beside her.

  Oh, Graces.

  “What are you doing, heating water by the fire?” chided Faris loudly from across the room, startling her. “Just run a Purify and then Heat!”

  Much to her dismay, she could see Theo stir from the corner of her eye as she bit her lip and resigned herself to her fate, kneeling down to wait for the water to boil. If only you didn’t screw up earlier and tried to fight. You could have done this in your room.

  “Maybe she doesn’t wanna,” answered Cyril before returning to their conversation.

  Meanwhile, Ty tried to occupy herself with Nate’s paper bag, reaching her hand in and taking out a random sachet. Anima X, it wrote in a messy and almost illegible scrawl, Mix w liquid. Max 1/24h.

  “You’re back.”

  She stiffened, but then focused on her medicine, unwrapping it to see that the herbs were ground into a fine and faintly sparkling powder.

  Looks like what I take in the morning, she thought to herself as she put it down and reached again into the bag only to pull out a note.

  Take three Anima X, two V, then I until you feel better. Use extra as necessary. Should last long time.

  “You’re sick, aren’t you?” Theo asked in a hoarse whisper.

  Ty shook her head slightly, folding the note and putting it away. “No, I’m not,” she lied.

  “Or are you a halfling?”

  There it is, she thought to herself spitefully.

  “Halfling? I heard halfling!” Cyril was the one to yell embarrassingly loudly from across the room this time.

  Ty wished there was a spell to make herself disappear.

  Theo yawned, unfazed and unperturbed. “Yeah, I was just asking Ty if she had ever heard of it.”

  With nowhere to run, she answered quietly, “I have,” before pouring her medicine into her steaming cup.

  “Aren’t those a myth?” wondered Callie aloud, looking at Theo curiously. “Some rumor to make people fear the Ancients?”

  Faris chortled. “History tells a different tale.”

  Putting down his mug, Cyril hummed pensively. “They’re real alright, but most kids end up dying in the womb. My father operated on a few back in the day, and I’ve read some of his notes. None ever lived long, though.”

  Theo sat up, shocked. “Wait, who the hell’s your father?”

  Before Cyril could reply, Faris interjected disinterestedly, “The fool’s royal.”

  The physician opened his mouth and closed it, and then opened it again to speak. “Wh…what? Really? I-I thought you were exaggerating earlier!” he stuttered.

  “See, this is precisely why I told you it was a secret, Faris,” groaned Cyril, holding his head with his hands dramatically.

  “And precisely why I never said I’d keep it,” he answered with slight amusement in his voice. “Anyway, typical rumor is that the ones who don’t die are supposedly locked away beneath the main MATS headquarters because they’re monsters—hey, that’s going to boil over.”

  Ty snapped out of it, using the sleeve of her cloak to pick up the cup by its handle and place it beside her to cool. “Thanks,” she barely replied, staring at the bubbling red liquid.

  It was a long time since she had heard that term. Having grown up knowing she was a halfling, she had tried to do as much research on the topic as possible, but the scarcity of literature was very telling—MATS didn’t want people knowing about them. There had been whispers and snippets of news about inhumane testing on Ancients and commoners alike, but no one truly knew for a fact what research went on in the deepest recesses of MATS HQ. And what became of those tests—if they truly took place—one could only guess. Because as far as the world knew, halflings did not exist.

  “So, what makes them so special?”

  Theo entertained Callie’s question with a smile. “Hard to tell what’s real with so many rumors floating around. Anything you could think of, it’s been said: instant casting, infinite anima, mind-reading abilities, teleportation, foresight, some live forever, some never age. Based on those alone, you’d think they were gods in children’s guises.”

  Faris clicked his tongue. “What I wouldn’t give for all that.”

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  “Yeah, it’s fun and all until you die before, like, twenty. I can’t imagine that ‘live forever’ rumor being true,” Cyril said flatly, getting up and taking his mug and Callie’s to wash by the kitchen.

  Also holding his mug out for Cyril to take on his way to the kitchen, Faris replied, “Why not?”

  “Human and Ancients’ bodies are functionally incompatible with each other,” the royal explained patiently, taking the cup before heading over to the back kitchen counter. “Kinda…like trying to pour a giant mug of water—anima—into a tiny saucer, the saucer being the same anima pool size for everyone who’s not an Ancient.” He turned on the switch for the reservoir of water above the sink, and then continued measuredly, “Over time, sure, we can train ourselves to slowly allow our containers to grow, but no matter how hard we train, we can’t use magic without a catalyst like a tome or sacrifice. For halflings specifically…I’d imagine with the flesh of a commoner and the anima of an Ancient, you’d be in some terrible pain all the time, trying to contain all that anima in a tiny saucer-sized pool.”

  “I mean, if you really wanted to, you could just uncap your anima,” Theo followed up in a bored tone, glancing at Ty.

  “Okay, but see, see—” Cyril swiveled around and waggled his finger disapprovingly at Theo, as if he knew that someone would bring it up. “That’s taboo. We’re not allowed to do that, because bodies aren’t malleable even at the stage where you’re advanced enough to try, and if you still force it, you could totally either kill yourself or irrevocably damage your permanent anima, which, you know, is what makes us human.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we all know,” dismissed Faris, similarly disinterested. “Tell us something we actually care about.”

  Cyril set down the mugs with a clatter and turned around to face Faris, an incredulous look on his face and his hands on his waist. “Well, if you don’t care, then I’m done talking,” he pouted.

  Impervious to his antics, Faris chuckled and got up himself. “About time, too. Gonna get some studying done.”

  When Faris’s figure disappeared through the hallway to the inner dorms, followed by a heavy-footed Cyril, Ty snapped out of her stupor and adjusted herself to sit in a cross-legged position, sipping on her medicine and occupying herself with the equipment checklist she had collected from practice earlier.

  The room was quiet.

  “I…I, um…I think I’ll do the same over some tea.” Callie eventually piped up, gathering her things and heading over to the kitchen to fill up a pot of water before stopping by the entrance to the dorm rooms. “Good-night,” she said to the two remaining students in the common room bowing politely before rushing away.

  “Good-night,” the two reciprocated awkwardly, far too late for Callie to hear.

  Once the silence returned, Ty turned back to her checklist and continued to drink the medicine, feeling the blood return to her cheeks.

  “How right were they?” Theo asked quietly, propping his head up with his hand.

  “Depends,” she mumbled into her mug.

  “What do they do with the others?”

  “I don’t know any more about that than everyone else.”

  “What about what Cyril said?”

  She put down the sheet and thought hard about what she could divulge to someone who was practically a stranger to her. “I…guess I take medicine every morning, or I get nauseous because of all the accumulated anima, but…generally I do my best to focus so it doesn’t…leak.”

  “Is there a reason why you’re drinking that medicine, then? If your anima replenishes quickly? I see what the wrapper says.” He nodded to the carpeted floor.

  She stopped, putting the medicine in her lap. The warmth was no longer comforting, her stomach churning with unease. “Nullifying two grade IV spells takes more effort than you might imagine,” she did her best to say measuredly.

  Waiting for him to say something else, Ty looked at the blood-red concoction, thinking that maybe school was a bad idea after all. That maybe she really wasn’t ready yet, that maybe it would have been better for her to just stay cooped up at home instead, living her life like…like a bird in a cage. The freest one that ever lived, yet still desiring for something more. A reason to not surrender herself to the world, to keep going. Ty lived to live, it was what she had been told. There was no why.

  “How does it work?”

  Gulping down the rest of the bitter draught, she tried to feel anything other than pathetic. “It’s a feeling…I suppose. Though it comes easier when you know the words to the spell you’re trying to cast.”

  Theo looked thoughtful. “What about the Ex-Annihilate? You were pretty calm.”

  “I told you that it wasn’t me.”

  It was in his brooding silence that she finally remembered getting hit by his last spell, inspecting her leg only to find that the gash had been covered with a neat bandage. An uncomfortable pain proliferated in her chest as she wished tenfold that she could have said something—anything—to Nate after those last few words.

  “Anything else?” Ty muttered after he didn’t assault her with another question.

  “Why are you here?”

  Not this again. “I told you.”

  “No,” he continued, quieter. “I mean…how have you not been taken in?”

  “People don’t know.”

  “So, for your whole life, no one’s asked you?”

  “There’s never been anyone else but my mother.”

  “And now me.”

  “Are you going to tell others?”

  A pause, long enough for distrust to be sown. “No.”

  “Then we’re good.”

  He was insistent. “But how?” he repeated. “With all the restrictions in place with the Ancients—especially with MATS keeping all Ancients under their surveillance—the odds of your existence are so cosmically low that…that…”

  Ty let his unfinished thoughts sink in as she returned her list. Aside from her suggestions, there were only three others who requested additional items: Faris, a dagger. Selene, a bow. Elias, a throwing spear. Why does Selene need a bow? She’s a botanist.

  “I’m told my birth mother worked at MATS,” she started, comparing the written list with her sheet for material allotment. “Which is where she met my birth father.”

  Ah, maybe I can fit in a bow for Selene after all. It doesn’t cost too many materials.

  “…I was given up immediately. Both my birth and present mother forged the paperwork, but my mother—the one I grew up with—left MATS altogether in case I was ever discovered. She kept me a secret and taught me most of what I know.” Ty paused to fidget with her pencil, trying to rid herself of the growing guilt. “I had some tutors, but that was only when I was older and knew the…the consequences of being discovered.”

  “Do you resent your real mother for giving you up?”

  That one was easy. “I resent a lot of things.”

  Theo was quiet, and then shifted in his seat. “I…” he began before drifting off. “I see.”

  A bit begrudgingly, and in a moment of weakness, Ty quietly offered the next fact. “Cyril’s right, though…I…I don’t think I have very long.”

  That caught his attention. “Then why are you spending the rest of your time at school?”

  “I wanted to try and live a normal life. I…I guess I wanted to fight.” When she heard herself saying the words aloud, she wasn’t sure if they were true anymore. Sure, that had been the reason…

  “What if you’re caught?”

  “Then I get caught.”

  “You really don’t care what happens?”

  The truth was far from black and white for her. In a way, attending the Academy was a big gesture of how she did care about how she lived the rest of her life, but she had also lived most of her life following a set agenda. There was no choosing—the path was there, and all she had to do was walk it. Caring was never something she had thought about. Caring wasn’t something one could afford when most paths led to death.

  And yet…yet there was still that feeling. That indescribable feeling that never went away ever since her mother brought her here for the first time, ever since she remembered opening her eyes in her dorm room, all alone, but feeling like there should have been people with her. A feeling that she couldn’t understand or give a name to. A feeling that gave her meaning, that felt like the why she had been searching for.

  “I think…I think there’s something more. Something I’m missing,” she spoke hesitantly, the words coming out of her mouth faster than she could process them. “I think I’m here for something else, not just…not just to try and live a normal life. But I don’t know what it is yet. Maybe I’m looking for someone, or there’s something I have to do.” Her mouth felt dry, and the heat from the fire was muddling her reason. “I keep having these dreams. I don’t know what they mean, or why I feel like I know the people in them, but…I—I can’t shake the feeling. There’s something I need to do. I don’t know what, I don’t know when, but it…I think this is where I’m supposed to be. That’s why I’m here.”

  Feeling tired and deflated after explaining herself, Ty promptly gathered up her sheets and stood up with her mug, giving Theo one last look. “And if nothing works out, then I’ll take responsibility and suffer the consequences.”

  Just as she was about to turn away, though, wanting to have the last word, Theo responded in a calm voice, “You should know better than anyone that your consequences are now more than just yours. Your world consists of more than just you. You can’t take the burden of responsibility for all of us, it doesn’t work that way.” He smiled one of the Headmistress’s fake, forced, thin-lipped smiles. “I hope you find what it is you’re looking for.”

  She maintained eye contact for a few seconds before leaving, hugging her worksheets all the way through the dormitory hallway to her room where she sat at her desk dumbly, not only thinking to herself how much work she had to catch up on, but also how Theo was right. How she wished she could go back in time and have taken back all the words she said. But this time, it was followed up with another, quieter thought.

  Maybe…this is not the wrong path after all.