“Good afternoon, everyone. I’m Innis Florend. The headmaster asked me to come. I’m not late, am I?”

  The moment Enid finished, Antonio picked up smoothly.

  “Morning, Professor Innis. Your timing is perfect. Go ahead and take any seat you like.”

  Enid chose a spot at the very edge of the room, half swallowed by shadow. While everyone’s attention shifted to Antonio, she rubbed the stiffness out of her cheeks from holding in laughter, then took a careful look at everyone present.

  Caroline had put her noble composure back on, posture straight, face controlled, but the flushed skin and the heat still lingering in her eyes made it obvious she was still furious.

  Howard looked like the shouting had taken years off him. He was still wheezing, dabbing sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.

  Not long after, Antonio gestured for Enid to step forward, to the center dais, beside the plain-looking woman.

  Once Enid stood where he indicated, Antonio explained why he had summoned her.

  “Professor Innis, meet Margot Lefier. She sat in on your class as an observer and brought me some… concerns about your teaching.”

  Margot clearly had not expected the person she complained about to be called in, too. Shock flashed across her face, then surprise, then a thin thread of resentment.

  She recovered fast.

  With a smile that was far too sweet to be sincere, she launched into a speech that made everyone’s skin crawl.

  “Dear Headmaster Antonio, what I offered was not a concern, it was a formal complaint and a request for censure, just as I explained to these distinguished deans earlier. This Professor Innis used fanciful nonsense in class to brainwash and mislead our students, including two young ladies from noble ducal houses. And I have every reason to suspect she used some kind of wicked dark curse to tamper with their minds. If you allow a professor who only talks big and teaches nothing but empty theory to remain on campus, the Natural College, no, the entire Stahir Academy of Magic will be dragged into disaster.”

  The more Margot talked, the more worked up she got. She started waving her arms around, pointing at Enid, then at the ceiling, acting like she was the only person in the room who cared about the students and like Professor Innis was a menace that had to be stopped.

  Enid had only one thought.

  Where did this clown come from?

  It was so absurd that it set off Enid’s strange sense of humor all over again. She lowered her head, covered her face with one hand, and shook as she fought the laugh threatening to burst out.

  Of course, everyone misread it.

  Caroline, especially, did. She knew that feeling, being cornered, being attacked from every direction with no clean way to answer. Between that and Enid’s delicate, almost pitiful posture, Caroline actually felt a flicker of sympathy.

  Just as Caroline was about to prompt Professor Innis to stand her ground and defend herself, Felicité cut in, crisp as a drill command.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You’re claiming Professor Innis cursed the students. Do you have proof?”

  Margot did not look offended at being interrupted. If anything, she leaned into it, theatrics and all.

  “Of course I do. The proof is this, a taint detector.”

  She dug through her shoulder bag, pulled out a pouch, then produced a round tool like a crystal orb.

  “In class, I saw it clearly. When Professor Innis used magic, the readings on the detector spiked. That means a dark caster used tainted power to release a curse. And who in that room could possibly use tainted power, besides Professor Innis?”

  Enid could not listen to another second of it. She had been slandered plenty over the centuries, but this was almost insultingly amateur. It felt like her intelligence was being slapped.

  She steadied herself, lifted her head, and cut Margot off.

  “Before you accuse me of casting curses, remember this. I’m a natural mage. I don’t practice hexcraft, and I can’t curse students.”

  Margot snapped her head around. Seeing it was Professor Innis who interrupted her, she dropped the sugary mask completely and pointed straight at Enid.

  “Shut up, you filthy dark witch. Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing. If you dare harm noble young ladies, I will make sure you’re brought to justice.”

  Then came a flood of ugliness, dark witch, fraud, fake, showpiece, even “slut,” she went for anything that might stick.

  In terms of raw venom, Margot had both Caroline and Howard beat by a mile.

  Just as Margot was really getting into her tirade, she suddenly felt a cold, inexplicable fear closing in on her.

  When she looked at Professor Innis, she found those blue eyes resting on her, casual and almost bored.

  There was nothing overtly threatening about that gaze, and yet Margot was certain the fear was coming from Innis. It was the kind of instinctive terror a sheep felt when a wolf locked onto it. No, not even a wolf. More like a wyvern sizing up prey.

  Margot was not the only one who felt it.

  Everyone in the room sensed an invisible pressure, as if the air had thickened. The deans did not think it came from the “fragile-looking” Professor Innis, though. They assumed it came from the man seated three steps higher at the head of the chamber, the Academy’s headmaster and the Empire’s strongest mage, whose expression had turned grave.

  Antonio knew better.

  The moment that pressure rolled out, he understood it. Enid was annoyed. Not furious, not yet, but irritated enough for the world around her to respond. Even so, Antonio still could not quite get used to it, and his face tightened.

  Enid was, in fact, starting to find Margot tiresome.

  Enid’s temper was famously good, almost too good, but that did not mean she would let a lower-ranking short-lived race stand in front of her, run their mouth, and fling insults like they cost nothing.

  It was the same feeling a human got when a small dog would not stop barking. Annoying. Not worth raging over. Still, it made you want to punt the thing across the yard.

  That was Enid right now.

  She simply disturbed the surrounding elemental flow just a little, just enough to make Margot’s mouth finally pause after running nonstop.

  Then Jules, the dean of the Arts College, spoke up and aimed a question at Margot.

  “That device doesn’t prove anything on its own. We have the best hexcaster right here. Caroline, does that trinket count as real evidence in your eyes?”

  Caroline toyed with a strand of hair, looking unimpressed.

  “Of course not. That kind of toy isn’t reliable, and the worst part is, it’s overly sensitive.”

  She tilted her head slightly, voice cool.

  “As far as I know, Professor Innis taught at the same hour I did, and the Hexcraft Tower sits right next to the Natural College.”

  Her red eyes flicked to Margot.

  “So why didn’t it occur to you that your little orb might have been picking up my tower’s influence? Why jump straight to claiming Professor Innis used hexcraft?”

  Jules kept the pressure on.

  “As Caroline said, if you want to accuse Professor Innis properly, bring decisive evidence or a credible witness. Then we’ll talk.”

  Margot snapped fully back to herself. She gathered her thoughts fast and answered with practiced deference.

  “Of course, Duke Drasco. I wasn’t the only one auditing that class. The Natural College’s Dream Studies lecturer, Cassim Sagres, was there too. If you summon Cassim, he can prove my report was correct…”

  “I WON’T ALLOW IT!”

  A female voice, loud enough to rattle bone, exploded through the chamber.

  The room was tall, wide, built to impress, and the sound caught the space and bloomed into a booming echo that refused to die.

  The person who barged in, shouting at the top of her lungs, was Enid’s student, a second-year from the Natural College, Eleanor Francisca.