Aster keeps a solid five meters between himself and Lena. It’s not that he’s scared of her. That would be ridiculous. It’s just—self-preservation. His ear still feels vaguely attached, but only barely, and the indignity of being physically dragged up the stairs like a naughty toddler is still too fresh to joke about.

  “I barely tugged,” Lena calls over her shoulder, sounding delighted. “You're being dramatic.”

  “You tried to tear it off like an old sticker.” He already checked—no blood. But that’s not the point. The real damage isn’t physical. It’s emotional. Existential. She lifted him like he was made of packaging foam. And yes, fine, he knows she’s stronger than him, but that much stronger? Unacceptable.

  She laughs. “You screamed like a cat in heat.”

  He doesn’t dignify that with a response—mostly because it’s true. She dragged him by the ear halfway up before his voice went ultrasonic, and she dropped him out of what he assumes was her survival instinct.

  He follows anyway, pride throbbing more than his ear, up the last steps to what she’s been calling “the view.” Which, as he’s gotten to know Lena, probably involves some vertical drop and a lecture about character building.

  Instead, he walks into open sky.

  The space is technically a plaza—terraced walkways looped under silver-leafed trees, benches tucked into the shade, students chatting or practicing runes that leave soft glimmers in the air. Lanterns float overhead, flickering gold across the polished stone.

  But none of that registers. Because beyond the rail, the world ends.

  He isn’t sure at what point the mirrorway moved him here. One moment he was trudging through corridors; the next, he’s in a garden LARPing as a satellite adrift above the planet. Matter mentioned the Archipelago only began around a hundred and fifty kilometres up. This place, this suspended park, must be higher still.

  The thought hits him like altitude sickness. His breath staggers, and the ground suddenly feels less trustworthy.

  “You wont make it long as a cultivator if you cant handle heights.” Lena teases as she drags him to the park’s edge marked by curved silver railings that shimmer faintly with enchantments. Reaching it he can’t help himself from gripping the metal. The wind is sharper here, thin and electric, curling around his wrists.

  Oh.

  Okay.

  He forgets to breathe.

  The drop below is so deep it looks theoretical—like a concept designed to flatten gods.

  Beneath him sprawls a continent. Literally. The main island stretches so far in every direction it bends with the curve of the horizon, stitched together by rivers of light, stairwells of stone, and hovering roads that glitter like constellations. A fortress of a city coils around the school’s heart—towers thick as mountains, laced with gold and fire and something that he could only assume to be pure magic. Seven spires rise like teeth toward the sky, perfectly spaced, their tips bleeding energy into the air.

  Looking past the edges of the main island, just beyond the distant curve of the horizon, enormous landmasses hang in the sky—each one suspended impossibly high, impossibly far, yet still visible. They seem to circle the main island like moons, their silhouettes massive against the clouds. One glows with the burn of open magma, another shimmers with endless waterfalls pouring into the sky, their mist caught in endless suspension. Crags of rock, peaks of thunder, forests like oceans—each drifting, silent, colossal. They move slowly, as if the world itself is turning to watch them.

  “Those are… moons?” Aster asks, blinking hard.

  Lena gives him a sideways look, half-amused. “Elemental islands. They're orbiting the leyline core in Galamad’s centre.”

  Aster doesn’t answer. He’s too busy trying to understand how something so enormous can float—and why it feels like they’re the ones standing still.

  “This place is insane,” he says, half to himself.

  “The main island is about the size of Swaziland,” Lena replies, casually plopping onto a floating bench as if they’re in a park and not orbiting reality. “And the twelve outer islands are each about the size of Mauritius.”

  “I was told I was going to school. This is... larger than a first-world city?!”

  “You don’t even want to imagine how big their Astral Campuses can get.”

  Aster, for once, doesn’t respond. He’s too busy trying to process how he’s gone from a Johannesburg alley to a godsdamned castle in the clouds—and he still needs to consider himself third-world.

  Lena taps a circular glyph embedded in the metal.

  A section of the railing uncoils like a mechanical flower, petals of crystal unfolding to reveal a telescope grown straight from the marble—sleek, silver-veined, and humming faintly, like it remembers stars.

  Aster raises an eyebrow. “Is that normal for railings here? Or is everything in this school secretly alive?”

  “Only the ambitious ones,” she says, already adjusting the dials. The lens pulses once, then stills, tracking the motion of her fingers with lazy grace.

  She steps back, gesturing him forward like a queen unveiling a gift.

  “Go on,” she says. “Just... don’t lick it.”

  “Why would I—actually, you know what, never mind.”

  He leans in, one eye to the glass, bracing instinctively for disappointment.

  Instead, the world sharpens until it centres on a colossal structure—an arena ringed in shimmering red marble that glows faintly in the sun. It's enormous. Whole city districts could vanish inside it. And those stands…

  They stretch on forever. Layer upon layer of seating carved from red stone, tiered high enough to scrape the sky. Aster does the math in his head and promptly gives up.

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  “That’s the Fight Grounds,” Lena says, grinning. “It hosts tournaments, battles, ritual duels, and occasionally, ego death. It’s reinforced with layered barrier spells—twenty-seven at last count. So technically, it’s safe.”

  “Technically?” he echoes, one eye still on the lens.

  “Well. We haven’t levelled the city recently.” She shrugs. “But there was that one guy who tried to summon a sun. Didn’t go well for him. Or the eastern quarter.”

  Aster’s stomach does a slow, queasy somersault.

  He hasn’t even set foot in the school proper yet, and already he feels like a footnote waiting to happen.

  Lena either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. She’s already sweeping the telescope across the city with practiced ease. The view shifts smoothly to a cluster of spiral towers and glittering rooftops.

  “Scholar’s Quarter,” she says. “Archives, deep libraries, research halls—if it can be studied, deciphered, or accidentally unleashed, it happens there.”

  The buildings shimmer faintly with enchantments, and beneath the surface, strange runes pulse like a heartbeat.

  “Some of the books predate the First Forgotten,” Lena adds casually. “One’s written in a language that no longer exists. Another litigates.”

  He blinks. “Litigates?”

  “Yeah. It’s been trying to organise a class action against the library for wrongful imprisonment.”

  Aster decides to circle back to that later.

  The lens glides again, this time toward a haze of firelight and motion. Massive open-air structures loom below—some look like forges, others like arcane laboratories that exploded and were never cleaned up. Magic sputters in every colour of the spectrum, and golems the size of barns lumber between workshops trailing sparks and steam.

  “That’s the Artificers’ District. If it hums, hisses, floats, or explodes, odds are it was born there.”

  He watches as a floating cart made entirely of gears and lightning shoots across the courtyard, nearly sideswiping a robed figure.

  “They build weapons, constructs, spirit channelers... and occasionally war crime prototypes that get immediately banned. Fun place.”

  Aster eyes it warily. “And I need to study there?”

  “If you want to master your Spirit Typing, yes,” she says. “Navigating that district without losing an eyebrow is part of the curriculum.”

  He starts mentally mapping the layout, committing alleyways and landmark towers to memory, like he’s trying to download the geography before something eats it.

  Then the lens zooms outward, swinging toward a wild swirl of colour and movement. Floating stalls bob in midair, connected by shifting bridges and platforms. Smoke coils from street food carts that seem to run on pocket storms, and a fire juggler is mid-performance while a crowd cheers from a hovering balcony. The whole place pulses with magic.

  “The Market Ward,” Lena says, with a reverent sort of smirk. “Buy anything, sell anything, trade favours with creatures you can’t pronounce. One time I saw a guy pawn his own shadow.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Well, he can’t sleep anymore. The shadow got custody of his dreams.”

  Aster watches a group of vendors haggling with what looked like a centaur over the price of a singing compass. It’s unclear if the compass is screaming or just very enthusiastic over the whole exchange.

  The telescope dips lower, toward quieter, more residential areas nestled among trees and courtyards. The architecture is elegant but dense—like a dozen styles were shoved together and somehow made to cooperate. Lanes wind through gardens and meditation pools, and students wander between buildings, each dressed wildly differently.

  “Residential Districts,” she explains. “Initiates come and go between their material and astral forms, but after the Severing, you live there full-time.”

  He catches sight of what looks like a sword fight on one rooftop and a floating tea ceremony on another.

  “Of course,” she adds, “if your family has money or influence, you don’t stay there.”

  She gestures at the sky again, this time toward several small, floating estates. They orbit the seven towers like jewelled satellites—stone homes and elegant halls encased in glowing wards, walled gardens hanging in midair with impossible grace.

  “Those are pocket dimensions,” she says. “They look small, but inside? Entire estates. Forests. Some have lakes. I heard one has a full opera house.”

  He stares, mouth slightly open. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Not everything here does,” she says simply. “You’ll get used to it.”

  The telescope finally retracts into the railing with a gentle sigh, the glyphs dimming to a soft pulse.

  Aster steps back, eyes still fixed on the city below—on the massive arena, the towers, the storm-lit floating moons on the horizon.

  Standing on a floating garden a kilometer above a school that defies the natural order, he can’t help but feel unbelievably small.

  Lost in thoughts of his own insignificance. That’s when it happens.

  A voice.

  Loud, lilting, and horribly cheerful.

  “HELLO, YOU TENDER, VULNERABLE PIECE OF VERTIGO BAIT!”

  Aster jumps, turning to what seems to be an ordinary ledge.

  “YES YOU, STUDENT OF POTENTIAL AND POOR DECISION-MAKING! WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULD ACHIEVE POWER, FAME, AND A SICK ASTRAL TAN—ALL FOR THE LOW, LOW PRICE OF A ONE-WAY DIVE INTO THE MAELSTROM BELOW!”

  He turns to Lena, deadpan. “Why is the ledge talking to me.”

  “Ah. That’s Gaslighting-Gary.” She doesn’t even look up from adjusting her cuffs. “Don’t engage.”

  “YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO, MY FRIEND. THAT’S NOT MY TRUE NAME, IT’S GLORE… UHM, GARY? YES, GLORY GARY. THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH. BUT I DO. JUST LEAN A LITTLE CLOSER—YES, THAT’S RIGHT—”

  “It’s shouting.”

  “Yes. He has no inside voice. It’s part of his curse.”

  “THERE ARE DEALS TO BE MADE, A LADDER TO TRANSCEND. WHY WALK THE PATH WHEN YOU COULD SWAN DIVE INTO DESTINY?”

  “You’re a railing.”

  “I’M A GATEWAY.”

  “Is he always like this?”

  “Only when new students show up.”

  “YOUR SOUL’S IN A MID-LIFE CRISIS! DIVE NOW AND REINVENT YOURSELF AS A CONCEPT!”

  Aster steps back from the railing with all the calm of someone avoiding radioactive toast.

  “People don’t actually—?”

  “Once or twice a year. Usually first years. He’s very convincing if you’re emotionally fragile.”

  “MY RESUME INCLUDES SIX HEROES, THREE VILLAINS, AND AN ENTIRE DEBATE CLUB.”

  Aster glowers. “You’re a guardrail. Your job is literally to not kill people.”

  “AND YET I ELEVATE THEM.”

  Lena gestures down the path. “Come on. Before he starts monologuing about ‘the transformational power of falling.’”

  “IT’S VERY MOVING!”

  Lena rolls her eyes. “Come on. Let’s grab lunch before the ledge starts begging.”

  “YOU’RE JUST MAD I REJECTED YOUR APPLICATION!”

  She flips it off without looking.

  Aster casts one last glance at the horizon—at the school, the city, the sky-born islands, and the promises drifting just out of reach—and laughs, breathless.

  This is either the start of everything he’s ever wanted, or a very elaborate death trap.

  Possibly both.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

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