Chapter 63: Extra Lesson

To confirm it, she slowly nodded. He gestured for her to follow him. Sighing, she said goodbye to her friends and joined the ghost outside.

Without a word, he led her to the main building, all the way to the top floor, into an abandoned wing where a few unused rooms still remained — including the one reserved for disciplinary councils. Rarely used since the school had gone private.

He showed her a sealed door she would have sworn had been purely decorative until now — the kind of entrance everyone notices without ever truly seeing. A heavy rusted chain still hung from it, apparently mostly for aesthetics, since Derek pushed it aside effortlessly before revealing a narrow stone staircase swallowed by darkness.

Of course.

Because a centuries-old boarding school would hardly be believable without at least three secret passages, two forbidden rooms, and an attic large enough to shelter an entire cult.

Blanche followed him, the steps creaking beneath their feet in an atmosphere perfectly worthy of a terrible horror movie. The higher they climbed, the drier the air became, thick with dust and that unmistakable scent of forgotten places: old wood, yellowed paper, and poorly stored secrets.

Then, at last, they emerged at the top.

Blanche stopped dead in her tracks.

The attic was enormous.

Not "large" in any reasonable sense of the word. Enormous. A true cathedral of beams and shadows stretched above their heads, swallowing the space in a golden gloom. Rows of objects hidden beneath sheets bleached by time piled up all the way to the back of the room, ghostly silhouettes arranged in an almost methodical disorder.

Ancient trunks, gutted bookshelves, covered mirrors, stacked picture frames, forgotten crates... It looked as though several generations had taken all their inconvenient problems and simply thrown them in here with the wildly optimistic hope that they would cease to exist.

A single skylight split the slanted roof, casting a pale beam into the middle of the hundred-square-meter space. The light drifted slowly through floating dust particles, as though even they had given up on ever coming back down.

Blanche stood speechless.

She had known the Academy for years. Or at least... she had thought she did. Apparently, the establishment still contained enough hidden rooms to house a small independent civilization without attracting the slightest suspicion.

"How...?" she stammered.

"Kiyan," he answered simply.

Of course. Who better than a teacher to know... everything?

"How were you able to see me?" he asked as the light surrounding him gradually faded away.

"Was that an invisibility spell?"

He nodded, raising an eyebrow. She sighed: he hated repeating himself.

"It's one of my special skills," she explained. "I can see everything people try to hide from me."

"Not bad. A valuable advantage. Every noon, I'll wait for you here. I'll start by teaching you self-defense movements."

"What?! Even at school? Seriously?"

The look he gave her was enough to silence her instantly.

It was not even particularly threatening. Worse: it was the kind of icy calm that made you understand, with terrifying efficiency, that continuing to speak would be a catastrophic idea. Blanche swallowed her remark with wisdom as sudden as it was unusual.

Oddly enough, he was dressed exactly like he had been at the barracks.

Dark military pants, a tight black tank top, an aviator jacket carelessly slung over one shoulder, sunglasses straight out of an old action movie cop stereotype. Honestly, the only thing missing was a slow-motion explosion behind him to complete the image.

The most absurd part was that he was wearing all that... indoors. In near darkness. With the sunglasses.

And despite that, he looked completely serious.

Blanche studied him more carefully. A blade was hidden inside the lining of his pants, strapped against his thigh with only relative discretion. She immediately recognized the strange material it was made from: the same as Kiyan's — Aaron's — rings. A dark surface, almost alive, that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.

Something pulsed faintly around the weapon.

A red glow.

Not a normal light. More like... a luminous presence. Diffuse. Unstable. As though the darkness itself refused to decide whether the thing should be visible or not.

The halo flickered intermittently along the blade, disappearing and reappearing like a live ember breathing in the dark.

And strangely enough, it was not the weapon that worried Blanche.

It was the way Derek seemed to have forgotten he was carrying it.

"What is that?"

"Of course... you had to see that too. Sweetheart, mind your own business. Now take off your coat: we've got work to do."

Pretending she knew nothing thanks to the newspapers, she adopted a bratty expression.

"But I'm wearing jeans!"

Derek attacked her without warning. Blanche dodged at the very last second.

"Good. The week has already been productive," he murmured, taking a fighting stance. "Let's see what you've retained, princess."

She understood that arguing was pointless and got into position. He showed her a movement, and she spent the next half hour repeating it over and over again until perfection. Her new teacher was demanding — even here — and his personality even sharper... if that was possible.

He dismissed her five minutes before classes resumed. Before leaving, Blanche cast "Rest." She had noticed the spell also soothed physical conditions like cramps and reinvigorated her. Sure enough, when the spell ended, she felt fresh, energized, without a single ache.

"The dark mage class is seriously overpowered," the swordsman grumbled.

Blanche tilted her head, unable to disagree. It was true: she had a lot of advantages.

Derek gathered his things and disappeared with a snap of his fingers. The asshole had teleported away without even saying goodbye. She grabbed her coat and hurried back to class.

Her heart heavy, her mind clouded by a day that was still far from over, she almost found herself missing the purity of the Otherworld. And knowing she had lost the only two hours that morning when she could have seen the only person still keeping her standing... she longed for nighttime, for her bed, so she could reunite with her alter ego — the one who seemed far gentler and far more willing to speak to her.

After the first afternoon class, Blanche became convinced she was cursed. Time seemed determined to drive her insane with how slowly it passed. She was unbearably bored.

Which finally convinced her to skip the rest of the day and quietly slip away to the library.

Well... that had been the original plan.