Christie steadily walked across the silent corridors of the academy. It was the first day in a while that she didn't need to push her body to its very limits at the first hour of the morning, yet the dread still prevailed in her bones. Today, she was going to have a meeting with her homeroom teacher, and that unsettled her, no matter how well he had treated her.

  The sight of the Skyscraper Academy during the early morning was already eerie, but the weekend made it more ethereal. Either people decided to sleep in, or they had gone down to the capital in droves, therefore making the repurposed castle a ghost of its normal self.

  The lithe redhead felt her inner sea protest as if it were suffering from a mighty storm. Restless her agates always were, yet now they felt even more so. This kind of dreaded expectation was different from the one she had suffered during the statal examination, yet no easier on her.

  She made her way up to the higher floors of the academy after going through many flights of stairs. Not that long ago, she would have been wheezing from going up so many steps, yet now she was only faintly panting. Was I in so rough of a shape that a single week could make such a drastic change?

  The answer was probably yes.

  But her effort hadn't been an easy one in any case. She always ended up dizzy and aching from physical education, but if it made such a difference, she was only motivated to keep pushing forward.

  Fortunately, she didn't need to ask for directions as the rooms on this floor and wing of the castle were assigned to the offices of the many teachers, commanders, and researchers at the academy, and the administration had the mindfulness to put brass plaques in front of each door that signaled to whom the office pertained. It took her a bit of backtracking, but she eventually found René Dago's office.

  She knocked thrice on the wooden door. "It is Miss Valasela," she announced.

  "Enter," Teacher Dago's soft voice greeted her, and she complied.

  The man's office was a simple room, one that didn't seem to have much use as most of the bookshelves were empty and the whole place lacked meaningful decorations. Even the corridor outside was more pompous than this room.

  "Make yourself comfortable," he pointed with his open palm at one of the chairs before his desk. Christie calmly walked forward, gathered her skirt, and sat down. "Do you know why I have called you here?"

  "I am afraid I do not," the redhead swayed her head.

  "I am worried about your current state, Miss Valasela…" The grey-eyed soldier scratched the back of his head. "Ah, it feels weird referring to you through your surname in private when I know your father."

  "You can call me by name," she blushed and tensed. "At least in private."

  "I will take the offer, Christina," he smiled at her. "Yes, that is way more suitable. Takes me back."

  "It takes you… back?" Christie added in confusion.

  "You do not remember it because you were young, but we have met before. Alas, you were just a babe, and I was younger than you are now. Ah, simpler times, those were. But we are not here to talk about the past, but the future."

  "I understand that, but…" the girl clutched her hands together. "But if you knew me when I was born, then you knew about my mother?"

  "Of course I did," he chuckled. "Cordellia was a beautiful and smart woman. There was no one who did not look up to her, myself included. Your father certainly influenced your height and build, but for the rest, you are the spitting image of your late mother. But it is not my duty to tell you about her. If you seek such information, it is because your father has failed to tell you much about her, right?"

  "Yes," Christie nodded softly. "My dearest father is… elusive when it comes to my mother. I never knew her, yet he refuses to tell me about her."

  "All the more reason to not tell you about her. This is a matter between you and him. If you are in this academy, it is because you are already a woman, so next time you see Hasel, confront him. I am talking to you here as a man rather than a teacher, and I must admit, we are thickheaded bastards. You will need to beat any wrong ideas out of his mind before he can comprehend, let alone share."

  "I… see." It was shocking to see her well-mannered teacher use such vocabulary, but she found that informality endearing.

  "Now, enough about the past and talking like a man. Time to be a teacher and talk about the future," he slapped his desk with a deafening thud. "Your situation is precarious in the academy, Christina."

  "…Will I be expelled?" She asked sheepishly.

  Which elicited a bombastic chuckle out of the soldier. "Not at all! Hasel can afford to keep you in the academy even if you flunk everything!" His gaze suddenly turned sharp. "But as your teacher, I cannot allow that to happen. Your father is my benefactor, and I want to see you succeed. For that, Christina, you must not only excel in the academics as you have been doing so far, but also in the athletic and Agatecraft subjects."

  "I am… trying," she answered crestfallen. "But it is hard. Very hard. And painful."

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  "The good things always tend to be," René Dago responded with a sigh. "I do not have a perfect comprehension of your lithic affliction, nor did Hasel talk about it in his letters, so could you enlighten me?"

  "Uhm… hehe…" As she tried to speak, an awkward laugh left her lips. "How weird, the words do not come to me."

  "You have not shared this with anyone, have you?" Her teacher looked at her with a tired yet knowing gaze.

  "I have not…" Christie admitted defeatedly. "I… I really did not want to talk about it. It had not been much of a problem until now, though dearest father… I guess he knows in one way or another. It is not that I hid my condition… I just did not want to talk about it. Is that wrong?"

  "Not at all," he smiled. "Everyone is entitled to secrets, especially this personal. But if you want to get over your condition, you need to open up."

  "I know, I know," the redhead closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Eat the world, she told herself. But to eat the world, first you need to eat yourself. Her eyes opened to reveal iridescent agates. "I have too many agates."

  It was a simple revelation, almost comical in its brevity, but the man didn't laugh. He looked at her and nodded, simple as that. Christie's lips curved upward as the scene felt familiar, not different from what Agatha told her yesterday in the mess hall. Just inverted.

  "There are so many that I feel like they press against one another, and from the sheer pressure of being contained on my body, they meld into an amalgam. A sea of low-quality agates that in turn generates a colossal free-flowing one. But no matter how much I left them out, it still is not enough. I cannot seem to find the bottom of my sea, and the tide always tries to fight, always tries to get out. And it hurts."

  "Thank you for telling me that, Christina," René Dago responded sincerely. "I know it has been hard, and it is for that reason that it pains me to tell you that I have no answer to give you."

  Christie remained unmoving and unreacting like a stone. She had never had her hopes up, so they didn't feel betrayed or collapsed when she heard that. That was the bitter truth.

  She hadn't had hope in the first place.

  "I see," her response was a taciturn one.

  "But I also do not comprehend the full problem," the soldier's eyes shone with vulpine intellect. "Answer me a question. When you speak about your sea of stones behaving like a single agate, are you being literal?"

  "Ehm, yes," she nodded. "The moment I give a single command to an agate, it propagates to the whole, like orders in an insect hive. This is… well, a problem, but it is also what helps me to keep my agates in check as I need to use the Sleep command to calm them, lest they pour out of my body."

  "That is… problematic," he chuckled nervously. "But at the same time, I think you are the first person for whom the Sleep command is useful besides series programming. I had a whole spiel to present in class about it."

  "Series programming? I fear the term is foreign to me." Perhaps it was because of that lack of hope, but she preferred to dwell on that part of his speech.

  "Advanced Agatecraft, nothing you have to worry about the time being," René Dago said that softly, but the way he grimaced and overall made an expression of pain told her that wasn't the whole picture. "Your restless agates are a pressing issue, not future classes. As for a solution… strengthening your body is a good first step. I want to have you ready for lapiloquia, for I feel the solution to your affliction lies there."

  "Lapiloquia? Should not lithorica be the answer?"

  "Agatecraft as a whole is, but lapiloquia is the one that should interest you. It is, after all, the discipline that commands stone."

  "Yeah, but lithorica is the discipline that commands agates, not lapiloquia."

  "Christina," the teacher grinned. "What is an agate?"

  The redhead gasped. "Are you saying that you can control agates with lapiloquia too?"

  "There are many ways to control agates, but my idea is directed elsewhere," René Dago pushed his armchair back and stood up. "You have many agates, a sea of them as you have said, but that analogy is surprisingly suited to lapiloquia. The greatest lapiloquists are able to shape and move bedrock as if it were water, not dissimilar from what you are doing. And your agate amalgamate is already taxing your body, a property well-known and attributed to lapiloquia. Follow me," he added as he encroached the window behind his desk.

  "Uhm… might I ask where?" She asked hesitantly.

  "To the training fields, of course." Casually, the man opened the window. And even more nonchalantly, he jumped out.

  Christie screeched and jumped out of her chair as she saw her teacher defenestrate himself from a fifth floor and ran all the way to the window.

  "Your stamina is lacking, but you certainly have a monstrous sprint," René Dago commented casually as he floated in the air.

  Upon the sight, the nouveau riche's legs gave out, and she found herself on the floor. Christie pressed her hand against her chest and felt her heart develop an arrhythmia. She gave her teacher a deathly look.

  "Sorry, sorry," the man walked toward her on the air with agate platform manifesting underneath his feet as he approached. "I guess you are not accustomed to seeing such displays of Agatecraft. When you start doing them, it is very hard to stop."

  He then offered her a hand. Christie remained petrified looking at it. The teacher gave it a tumble, making an inviting gesture.

  "Uhh… are you not going to grab my hand?" René Dago mumbled in confusion.

  "Are you going to do what I think you are going to do?" Christie asked apathetically.

  "What do you think I am going to do?"

  "You are going to grab me and fly me down to the ground floor."

  "That is exactly what I am about to do."

  "Sorry, but no," the girl stood up on her own and walked away.

  "Oh, come on, do not make us lose time," the soldier grunted.

  "I am afraid I will not use such a way to-"

  Before she could end her sentence, a wall of translucent agates manifested in front of her and blocked her way. The next moment, the wall was pushing against her and toward the door. No matter how much she struggled, the lithic wall easily overpowered her.

  "Waitwaitwait!" She shouted, but it was too late.

  She had been defenestrated.

  "See? It was not that hard?" He said as she grabbed her shoulder.

  "Letmedownletmedown!" But Christie was having none of it. She shook her body, or rather, it spasmed. "IhateheightsIhateheightsIHATEHEIGHTS!"

  The nouveau riche was a ferocious and cornered beast, but as savagely as she struggled, she looked like only a kitten against the raw strength of the tall soldier. Before she noticed, her feet were no longer hanging in the air.

  "We are on land already, you can open your eyes, Christina," René Dago announced. "I am sorry for that, but at the same time, a soldier cannot have such a-"

  Smack!

  The teacher's monologue was interrupted as a mighty hand met against his cheek. Christie couldn't believe what she had done. She had slapped a teacher! Yet her indignation roared far louder than her fear. Also her hand as it trembled from the shock. Fractures! How hard is his neck? She caressed her hand as the man barely reacted to the slap, even if the sound had been deafening.

  "You know what? I kind of deserve that," he added with a sigh.

  "Of course you did!" Christie shouted in indignation.

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