Chapter 10 Control Is An Illusion.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clovis said smoothly, his voice flat and perfectly steady.

He stood in the center of the Grand Magister’s chambers with his hands clasped behind him. The room was lit only by a circle of candles on a long table.

The Grand Magister had called another meeting, and half a dozen of the academy’s highest-ranking magisters were now seated around the room, their eyes boring into the librarian.

The Grand Magister leaned forward, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. “Tell me, Mr. Dupond… where did you say your hometown was again?”

“Aethelgard,” Clovis replied without blinking.

A collective breath was drawn across the room as one of the magisters rose, “But Aethelgard went down alongside its citizens.”

Clovis offered a weary shrug, “Then I suppose I was just lucky. I managed to crawl through the drainage canals and escape the Mage’s wrath before the city collapsed into the earth.”

An awkward silence followed his words as the magisters exchanged uneasy glances.

Breaking the silence, a female magister at the end of the table leaned forward. “Have you heard about the attack on Magister Paul, Mr. Dupond?”

Clovis nodded slowly. “The entire academy has heard, milady. A tragic, brutal business.”

“Then let me ask you this,” the Grand Magister countered, “What is your take on the doom that has befallen us?”

Clovis let out a hum, adjusting his fraying cuffs. “My take? I think you are looking for an intruder when you should be looking for a mirror. The ‘doom’ isn’t an invading army, Grand Magister. The sky is fracturing because this entire pocket dimension was built on a stolen foundation, and the weight of your own ambition is finally cracking the floorboards. Magister Paul’s death was horrific, yes, but perhaps it wasn’t a warning to the school. Perhaps it was a targeted removal of a piece on a board you don’t even realize you’re playing on.”

The Grand Magister’s suspicion flickered in his eyes as he sat back, his voice dropping an octave.

“You speak with an awful lot of certainty for a man who claims to just read books,” the Grand Magister hissed. “How exactly did you know that our mana channeling was ripping the fracture further? We have the finest arcanists in Vaelenor on our faculty, and we have never seen the sky rip itself apart like that. Yet you walk in and claim to know its exact geometry.”

“I think all of this connects back to one source. The Mage of Ruin.” One magister spoke from behind.

A low murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered magisters. They nodded, their faces twisting with a mix of fear and hatred at the name.

The Grand Magister silenced them with a raise of his hand. He kept his eyes locked onto Clovis, trying to catch even the slightest tremor in the old man’s posture.

“Tell me, Mr. Dupond,” the Grand Magister whispered, the tension in the room reaching its peak. “Do you think the historical texts are right? Could such a horrific monster truly blend in so perfectly right behind our own walls without us ever noticing?”

“It is indeed possible,” Clovis agreed, he sounded almost pleasant.

He met the Grand Magister’s gaze without a single tremor. “After all, we are talking about the Mage of Ruin,” a chuckle escaped his lips.

“The master of all mana channeling. If a being of that caliber wanted to hide right under your noses, he wouldn’t need a grand illusion…he would just need to let you believe what your pride already tells you: that you are entirely in control.”

×××

Meanwhile, down in the medical bay, Lexi sat quietly on the edge of a cot. She ran a hand over the fresh stitches on her palm, the sting a dull throb compared to the ache in her chest.

Beside her, Chadwick let out a groan, as his eyes came open, looking up at the ceiling. He looked incredibly frail, his skin almost translucent, completely spent from the residual shock of the dual siphoning.

“Hey,” Lexi whispered, “You feel alright?”

He nodded in response, rubbing his temple.

“The… the ritual,” Chadwick croaked, “Did we… did they stop?”

“Technically, Clovis did,” Lexi said softly, “He broke the central altar runes and stood right up to the Grand Magister forcing them to cut the connection before the feedback loop killed anyone.”

Chadwick’s eyes widened slightly as he tried to push himself up on his elbows, “I need… I need to see him. If the Grand Magister knows he interfered, Clovis is in danger. We have to—”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Lexi interrupted, gently pressing her hand against his uninjured shoulder to force him back onto the mattress. “You can barely breathe, Chadwick. Rest. Clovis can handle himself.”

Suddenly, the door clicked and swung open. Lexi froze as Belle walked into the room.

Belle stopped dead in her tracks, blinking. “Lexi…”

“Sorry, I… I didn’t expect you to be here.”

Lexi forced a tight, tense smile, her eyes darting away to the floor. “Yeah. Just… checking on people.”

Belle’s eyes narrowed slightly as she took in the scene—Lexi sitting so close to Chadwick’s cot and to her everything seemed to click. The weird dynamic was impossible to ignore as Belle cleared her throat, holding up a small glass jar.

“Right. Well… the nurse asked me to bring some cotton balls from the supply cabinet.”

“It’s… it’s over there. Second shelf,” Lexi said, pointing toward the back corner.

Belle walked over and grabbed the supplies. Before she left, she hesitated at the threshold. She gripped the glass jar tightly, then turned around to face Lexi. “Can we talk?”

Lexi nodded slowly thinking Belle would say whatever she wanted there, but then Belle gestured with her head toward the hallway outside. “Like, right now?”

“Oh yeah,” Lexi scrambled up from the stool and followed her out, the door clicking shut behind them. Belle began to pace the corridor with her arms crossed, clearly trying to find the right words.

“Look, if this is about what happened the other day,” Lexi blurted out, “I apologize, Belle. Truly. I was just… I’ve been completely overwhelmed with everything going on in this place.”

Belle snapped. She stopped pacing and spun around, her eyes flashing with a sudden anger, “Aren’t we all?!” She stepped closer, her voice rising.

“How could you just throw away our friendship? Years of looking out for each other, and you toss it in the dirt because of some new transfer student?”

Lexi’s brows furrowed in confusion as she let out a sharp, incredulous huff, “Belle, you can’t be serious right now. This is what you’re mad about?”

“I’m not blind!” Belle yelled, her face flushing with anger. “Ever since that new kid walked through those gates, you have been everywhere but with me! You skip classes, you hide in the library, you’re almost always with him.” Belle pointed a finger directly at Lexi’s chest.

“Are you dating him already, huh?”

“Yeah you need to calm down Belle,”

“Calm down? Have you already thrown your legs open for him?”

“Stop it! Just shut up, what’s all this?!” Lexi finally snapped, her face burning with humiliation and rage.

But Belle was relentless, “I mean, look at you… so fragile. I bet you just melted into a pathetic little puddle the second he told you he liked you—”

“I said STOP!” Lexi screamed and a sudden shockwave of mana erupted from Lexi’s body. The force of the kinetic wave slammed directly into Belle’s chest, lifting her off her feet and throwing her backward as she hit the stone wall with a sickening thud, sliding down to the floor.

The rage in Lexi’s eyes vanished instantly, replaced by the horror as she realized what she had done. “Belle! Oh my god, Belle, I’m so sorry!” Lexi ran forward, dropping to her knees and reaching out to help her up. “I didn’t mean to—”

Belle aggressively slapped Lexi’s hands away, refusing her touch. She raised her head, and Lexi recoiled. Belle’s eyes had turned blood-red.

Belle’s family came from a long-extinguished, ancient lineage of vampires from the eastern regions. While she wasn’t a full vampire herself, she carried the dormant traits of her bloodline and those traits only flared when her adrenaline surged or when she was pushed to fury.

Before Belle could strike back, the door of the medical bay creaked open and Chadwick, swaying on his feet, dragged himself into the hallway, immediately putting his body between both girls, placing himself squarely in front of Lexi and gently pulling her back, shielding her.

Belle slowly stood up, brushing off her uniform as a thin line of blood trickled down from the corner of her mouth where she had bitten her lip from the impact. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, staring coldly at Lexi through her bloodshot eyes.

“Yeah, Lexi,” Belle hissed, her voice dripping with disdain as she looked at Chadwick protecting her. “Coward out behind him. As you always do.”

Chadwick turned his focus to Lexi, whose breath was coming in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. He grabbed her by her shoulders, forcing her to look at him through her tears.

“Lexi, look at me,” he commanded.

“I didn’t mean to,” she sobbed, her hands shaking as she stared at the empty space where Belle had just stood. “I don’t… I don’t know what got into her. She was saying such horrible things, and I just… I didn’t mean to hurt her, Chadwick.”

“I know. Hey, I know,” Chadwick murmured, trying to pull her closer, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay!” Lexi yelled, her voice cracking as she shoved his hands off her shoulders. She pushed him away with enough force to make him stagger backward against the bay door, his legs barely keeping him upright. “None of this is okay! Stop telling me it is!”

She looked at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror, guilt, and exhaustion, before she turned on her heel.