Professor Welkinton was shuffling in his seat when the door opened. The scritching of professor Knolocia stopped then as she looked up from her student’s copies.

  “Apologies for the delay. I came as fast as I could once I was freed from my burden”, professor Prulinward said, bowing deeply. A fond chuckle echoed in the private room.

  “You’re very much excused. It’s more than understandable considering the circumstances”, Emperor Alberon said from where he was leisurely sitting at the head of the table. “Take a seat, we were about to begin.”

  Professor Prulinward quickly sat on the only remaining free seat. Her arrival had been expected by all sat at the table, as their god wakening from his trance had been its telltale sign. The divine aura surrounding him had dimmed while white roots that had been interconnected with their liege’s arm and staff returned fully to the ground, tiles slotting back into place and leaving no hint of their presence.

  “I thank you all for your participation, even more to those who were only warned shortly in advance of all the different factors at play”, their liege said, and all bowed their heads in turn, appropriately answering in time. “This was a difficult situation to handle for all and I congratulate you warmly for successfully keeping control of it.” Professor Welkinton swallowed down and stared down at the lacquered table and the way the cold light reflected back on it. He didn’t think he’d been in control of much to be here. He had to keep his left hand under the table. It had restarted shaking intermittently since lunch. He thought he’d been successfully healed from that illness. He’d have to make an appointment to the wards.

  “You may raise your heads”, their liege said, hands now jointed together as his staff remained planted in place alone. “You are all here to discuss the stay of a potential honorary student named Victorya and share with me your opinion of her character after welcoming her in your respective classes.”

  “Impudent as it may be to ask, your Eminence”, the bishop asked quickly, head lowered, “I have pondered on it quite much as I worked on the essential talking points I was given to write my lesson, but my imagination was lacking as I studied her behaviour during my lecture. She may have tremendous power at the tip of her hands as we’ve all the horror of witnessing during that terrible day, but his Eminence hasn’t seen fit to try quelling her…” the bishop smiled. “…temperament. A humble servant only contemplates why such preferential treatment is being offered to this newcomer, and if perhaps… that newcomer may have been, in the past, a known acquaintance to his most holy…”

  He stopped, as the emperor had slightly raised his open hand.

  “All will be revealed, in time”, he answered. “Her behaviour is being left unchecked for now as her mind is still healing from the mind-control that she was being put under. She is merely winding down for now. I apologize in her stead for any strain and stress she’ll have caused. She was not like this before.”

  Many gulped. Professor Welkinton had never witnessed once their Emperor apologizing this way.

  He didn’t belong here. The Dantonian theory was misconception at best. What had he done, during all his life? He’d taught students that a falsity was absolute truth. He’d believed it was true. How complacent had he grown in his own knowledge?

  “Are we to assume that she is meant to be enrolled under your patronage?” Principal Lunbumster kindly asked. The God Emperor nodded.

  “I believe it would be for her own good”, their liege said in a slightly questioning tone. “Finding normalcy after all she’s gone through would help anchor her back to her newly found haven. Hopeful as I may be, I would like you to inform me sincerely about the opinion you’ve made of her flaws and the barriers there are as of now between her and her assimilation in the school’s ranks.”

  Professor Knolocia, on his left, tapped the side of her graded sheets to assemble them properly. She tilted her head to look at their liege.

  “To be very blunt, my lord, she seems to have behavioural problems with authority”, she said. His mask was now turned towards her. “She cannot bear it. Whoever mentored her and taught her their ways of the arcane must either have encouraged that behaviour or crushed fundamentally her spirits, which would have in turn made her reject any sort of authority once enough time and distance was put between her and her previous caretaker.”

  She marked a brief pause, and put down her neatly arranged pile of graded papers.

  “Even with my methods, I think it unlikely to get some sense of obedience from her. If I were not to temper my words, Your Eminence, I’d say that she is a lost cause when it comes to being assimilated in a group. She has a high opinion of herself that will make her disregard even her teacher’s teachings but also the will to propagate her way of thinking”, she said. Their god hadn’t moved. “I am certain of my judgment, and doubt that even my colleagues will have had different experiences.” Professor Welkinton saw a few nod.

  “I concur”, said the bishop, smiling with nearly closed eyes. “I can attest it. She did try to catapult a booger at me during my history lecture. Most amusing, that girl is, your Eminence.” He chuckled lightly. Their liege did not react.

  Professor Knolocia nodded in turn. “Yes, I believe she will poison the group she stays in”, she said. “I am firmly against her stay in any class of this most distinguished establishment if its peace matters in the balance of the greater good.”

  Professor Welkinton swallowed down discreetly. The girl had shown… a bit of disdain and been uncooperative, but… wasn’t it well-founded, considering how she’d been shown how deficient their knowledge was? That child, at her young age, had surpassed him, had surpassed these teachers, had surpassed them, who’d spend years perfecting their craft.

  He still could see her expression of disgust when she stared down at that equation on the board.

  Professor Knolocia took out a piece of paper. Her finger pointed to the answers, which were a collection of strung dots and traits. Their liege tilted his head.

  “Case in point”, the teacher said, handing the piece of paper as their liege extended a hand. “Here, she shows a will to miscommunicate for attention. My opinion is that she yearns to be a disruptive element. If learn she must, I’d advice to have her have personal classes with a firm tutor. If she is surrounded with classmates, she’ll feel the need to make a spectacle of herself.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Was someone in this room not going to defend this student-? No, no, she couldn’t be called a student. This wasn’t… a plea for attention… Surely… Professor Knolocia hadn’t understood what that girl expressed. It was something else… It was pity. It wasn’t mockery. It wasn’t just mockery.

  “Oh my oh my!” the bishop chuckled with mirth. He was sat on the left of his god. “But social pressure is a great tool. Hasn’t it worked with most students? She might, with enough time, copy her classmates behaviours.”

  Professor Knolocia shook her head after sighing. “Doubtful”, she said. “She’s also shown distrust with their way of behaving and looked with disgust at the students who are people-pleasers. I witnessed it.” The bishop also nodded slowly but meaningfully, showing he agreed with what she’d experienced. “She will not conform easily. If it’s better compliance that’s desired, I’d advice a prolonged stasis in the pods.” She looked then at their liege. “Only if it’s an acceptable proposal of course.”

  …The pods always made him uneasy. Even when he’d once shared his thoughts with the upper echelons, nothing had been done as they’d proven their use on difficult cases. At least he’d never had to send students there himself when they required… self-reflection.

  Their liege let out a light, short chuckle.

  “I thank you for your honesty. It’s what I need”, he said. He spoke with amusement then. “But a stay in a crowned serpentine blue cocoon has already been tried while the veil on her mind was being broken off. She is, to cut it short, immune to it. She cannot be moulded.”

  “Immune??”, nearly all whispered with disbelief.

  Professor Welkinton was one of those voices. A depth of unease kept digging in his chest.

  No one… had ever been immune to those. And a crowned one too? How… How?

  Was there no end to the gap between a mage and that… prodigy?

  A one in a million prodigy.

  “To be more precise, her mind was… quite well protected against any intrusions, perhaps from her many attempts at resisting her previous state of mind-control”, their liege sighed, “and even more than that, when she was recovering in a deep slumber, she unconsciously broke the pod from the inside by growing a full magic body shield around herself and making it burst outwards”, he said. He sighed once more. “Quite a lot how frozen water ends up breaking a glass container if there is no way for the air to escape its enclosure. We lost the entire cluster connected to that cocoon’s branch.”

  Professor Welkinton gulped down.

  “…That is… unheard of”, Principal Lunbumster said, slightly frowning. “Incanting in one’s own sleep? Even an arcmage suffering from sleepwalking wouldn’t manage to formulate correctly a full spell, and yet- she did so, with a spell that fit her situation. Ah. Maybe she is also a sorceress after all. I cannot think of anything else.”

  “Mages from the remnant of the sun cult have recently been said to be capable of that feat, have they not?” Professor Prulinward said. “Is her mind truly safe?”

  Professor Welkinton froze. Huh? Since when mages had been- wait, had the prodigy- been brainwashed by the sun god’s cult? Wasn’t that cult nigh extinguished to the point of irrelevance? Huh?

  Emperor Alberon, who was sat next to her, slowly snapped his head to her.

  “Professor Prulinward. Dear runemaster, most respected researcher and deeply appreciated colleague of mine, some knowledge is not meant for sharing as of now”, their god lightly said in a cold tone while professor Prulinward briefly apologized. Professor Welkinton swallowed as he noticed that the other teachers and the principal seemed similarly shaken at the news. Their liege’s tone turned more serious then after a sigh. “Nonetheless, I count on all here present to make a blood-oath of secrecy by promising not to spread that knowledge until I have done so myself in the public eye or until I give you explicit permission. Panic can’t be allowed to be spread, I hope all here understand that”, he said, pointedly looking at his left.

  He felt the pulse across his wrist. Oh. As all five of them put a hand over their runemark, he also injected the magic to accept the oral agreement. No one noticed that his left hand was slightly shaking, and he quickly pulled his sleeve over it afterwards while they all bowed their heads.

  Their liege nodded in ascent.

  “Good, good, no need lingering on it for now”, their liege said. He brought back his hands together, squeezing them. “Back onto the subject of this reunion. Have any of you observed cracks or weaknesses in her personality to better understand how much her mind has healed? It’s of great importance.”

  Principal Lunbumster cleared his throat. Professor Knolocia, the bishop and Professor Prulinward looked at him. He breathed in and then spoke.

  “The very first time I saw her at the Academic hall…” he said, “she reacted vindictively to mockery. I think… even if that wasn’t the effect of the brainwashing… She is still a very sensitive teenager that detests being looked down on. When she perceived being mocked by a good few during the Novel Spell Contest, I at first assumed that she overdid it to prove all wrong… However, considering what she proved to be capable of in the major fight that took place afterwards… She wasn’t overdoing it. The girl can be reasoned with. She did not use her most powerful spell there, as we came to know after she nearly split the sky with a single magic spell.” He marked a pause, and breathed deeply in again. He smiled.

  “It’s my belief, even though she antagonizes people as though her life depends on it, that with enough patience, and by showing a good measure of good will, and reassuring said child that she will not be mocked or used, and that she is being taught with good intentions…” he said, looking away, “…I believe that trust can be achieved. It will be a lot of work, but it is doable, and I admit that if it were not for your hopes for that youth, my liege”, he said, looking back at their god, “…I wouldn’t even try.”

  “Gentleness hasn’t proved to work with the worst cases”, professor Knolocia said, then. “Growing children usually do yearn to please the people they respect or admire, but that girl will not respect any teacher for the simple reason that she has nothing to learn from them.”

  Professor Welkinton startled out of his numbness. She had noticed that the girl had nothing to learn from them? But… But then why… How come… none of them felt the tremendous gap that simply was? There was nothing they could do about it. It would be insane. There was no point trying.

  “…She might have” their liege said, “…shown interest in runemaking. She did speak to me of wanting to make her own staff.”

  Welkinton suddenly shivered.

  Oh.

  The girl didn’t even have a staff. Right.

  He stared at the table.

  “Oh!” Professor Prulinward said. “She did show interest in my course, your Eminence, although she never once asked questions regarding staff-making, even when I broached the subject. She had a fairly veiled way to show interest. The girl was difficult to entertain, for sure!” She smiled a little painfully then. Professor Knolocia nodded in sympathy. “She didn’t openly show interest, although it was there, my lord, and I had to pull the questions out of her mouth. Only to a classmate close to her age did she ask for precisions regarding a rune, once. All I can say about her character is that her trust will be difficult to acquire if she smells deceit or manipulation of any kind.”

  “…She refused my help, too.” Their liege quietly said, lost in thought. “She will not ask for help from anyone.”

  There was a small silence, then. He did not look away from the table. When he did, he caught a glimpse of Principal Lunbumster, professor Knolocia and the bishop lightly staring at their liege.

  Principal Lunbumster cleared his throat. Meanwhile, Welkinton decided to return to staring at the table.

  “…Then she might want to learn independently, my liege. If she values being freed from the shackles of her previous divine patron, she’d of course be hesitant to be dependant on anyone”, he softly said. “Sometimes, a softer, slower approach is all we can hope for.”

  Emperor Alberon hummed back.

  “My liege, she also has… very keen senses”, Principal Lunbumster continued. “She knew of my meddling during your previous fight.”

  There was a noise like disbelief, chairs lightly scrapping along the ground as some shuffled.

  However, there was not much to be surprised about. Welkinton was the only one not to shuffle.

  “Did she, now…?” Emperor Alberon said, like in a dream. “How difficult, how difficult…”