Magical Ethics was uneventful. Just a long lecture about forbidden magic and why it was forbidden. Professor Thorne droned on about historical misuses and the ethical frameworks that led to various magical practices being banned.

  At least I got a small piece of interesting information from the students talking around me: Professor Greystar was apparently not allowed to teach first years, and she specialized in forbidden magic.

  I didn't know whether to be sad or relieved knowing I'd have an entire year of learning magic before meeting the other S-rank professor. In a way, having such a long heads up was refreshing. Time to prepare mentally for whatever that would entail.

  After class ended, I'd planned to head to one of the training fields to practice my new spell. But when I was making my way there, I noticed Aurora standing in front of the infirmary door again.

  She was just staring at it, her hand hovering near the handle without quite touching it.

  "Having trouble with the door again?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

  "No. Just considering my words carefully." She answered with surprising honesty that caught me off guard.

  "Where I come from, we call that anxiety," I joked.

  She looked at me with slight annoyance. "When you stand at the top, every word matters. You should be more careful now that you're seen as someone close to me. Your words might start to impact far more than you imagine."

  I nodded, trying not to dismiss her warning entirely, though I had no intention of policing every word I said.

  "Are we going in?" I asked finally.

  "We?" She turned to look at me properly. "Do you plan on visiting too?"

  "Well, I still owe Anya an apology. And it wouldn't hurt to see how her brother is doing."

  "I see." She seemed to consider this for a moment. "Then yes, we are."

  She opened the door and walked in with that same composed posture she always had.

  The infirmary was larger than I'd expected but not excessive. It had fewer beds than I would have thought for such a big academy. Perhaps there were other infirmaries I'd never found, or maybe a hospital somewhere nearby.

  The space was clean and quiet, with tall windows letting in afternoon light. Most of the beds were empty, their white sheets perfectly made. Only two were occupied that I could see.

  We found Anya sitting beside her brother's bed. The kid was awake, propped up slightly against pillows, but he didn't seem to be doing anything. Just lying there staring at the ceiling with empty eyes.

  Anya looked terrible.

  Her light red hair was loose and tangled. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, making the freckles scattered across her pale face stand out more starkly. Her clothes were the same ones I'd seen her the last time, rumpled and creased like she'd slept in them. If she'd slept at all.

  But it was her expression that hit hardest. Not angry, not sad. Just hollow. Like something vital had been scraped out of her and left nothing behind.

  "Hello," Aurora said as we approached. "I'm glad to see he woke up."

  Anya didn't look pleased to see us. She didn't look much of anything, really. Just exhausted. "The corruption always takes something," she said quietly. Her voice was rough, like she'd been crying or maybe just hadn't spoken much in days.

  I noticed Serin was nowhere to be seen.

  "My brother is awake, yes." She looked down at him, and something cracked in her voice. "But he remembers nothing. Not his name. Not mine. Not where he came from or what happened to him." She swallowed hard. "It's as if the corruption fed on his entire memory and left nothing behind. Just an empty shell that looks like him."

  The air felt heavy. I started wondering if coming here had been a good idea.

  The kid on the bed turned his head slightly toward us, those empty eyes tracking the movement without recognition or interest. Like we were just shapes moving in his peripheral vision.

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  "I'm sorry," Aurora said with practiced politeness. "But we shouldn't lose hope. Magical medicine is always evolving. There may be treatments we don't know about yet."

  I could see Anya's jaw tighten at that. The hollow look in her eyes flickered with something sharper. Anger, maybe. Or just bitter exhaustion with platitudes that meant nothing.

  I started wondering how impactful it would be to remake his memories with a rule. Though I immediately worried about unintended consequences. What if the rule restored the memories in a damaging way, like feeding him an entire lifetime of information in a single second? That could break his mind completely.

  Perhaps a better rule would be "Restore him to how he was" or even trying to bring him back in time somehow. But even those felt dangerous. Too vague, too much room for reality to interpret it wrong.

  "I..." Anya seemed ready to give a sharp rebuttal. Her annoyance with Aurora was clear in the set of her shoulders, the way her hands clenched in her lap. But she held herself back, probably remembering Aurora's position, or just from exhaustion. "Thank you."

  The words came out flat. Meaningless.

  No matter how I thought about the problem, every rule I could imagine seemed to have issues. Even if I wanted to help, the best approach was probably waiting and learning more about my ability before attempting anything.

  "If you need any help, I would be glad to assist you," Aurora offered.

  "There isn't anything to be done at this point." Anya's voice was still flat, but there was an edge underneath now. "Unless you change your mind about telling me the truth of what happened out there."

  "Unfortunately, I can't."

  "Well, I can," I said before I could stop myself.

  Aurora's head snapped toward me, surprise breaking through her usual composure. Anya seemed to finally really notice I was there, her dull eyes focusing on me for the first time.

  "You..." Anya studied me. "You speak the truth."

  "Yeah, I'm working on that at the moment."

  "Kai, it's..." Aurora tried to stop me, but I was already committed. I wanted to give Anya something, anything. A reason to keep going instead of just sitting here watching her brother exist without living.

  "I made the corruption retreat," I said clearly. "I'm working on eliminating it entirely. If you want to help me."

  Anya stared at me like I'd just claimed I could fly to the moon. Aurora was looking around nervously, checking if anyone was close enough to overhear what I'd just admitted.

  "Made it retreat?" Anya's voice was barely above a whisper.

  "Yeah. I don't want to go into details here, but really, I want to get rid of corruption entirely. No more villages consumed. No more people losing their memories or their lives."

  "Once again you do not seem to be lying..." Anya looked between Aurora and me, confusion replacing some of that hollow emptiness. "But to be able to make the corruption retreat, it's..."

  "He did," Aurora confirmed, looking at me with a serious expression that probably meant I'd be getting a lecture later.

  Anya was quiet for a long moment. She looked down at her brother, at his empty stare, then back at me. Something shifted in her face. Not quite hope, not yet. But something close to it. A spark in the darkness.

  "Then in that case, I have no choice but to accept." Her voice was stronger now, steadier. "The corruption took my brother from me. If you're against it, then I will help you." She paused. "As long as you don't call my companion a pet again."

  I smiled slightly. Even though the tone was still serious, I felt like Anya's face finally showed something other than despair and hollow acceptance. An ever so slight glimmer of determination. Of purpose.

  "Then I'm counting on you."

  When we left the infirmary, Aurora turned to me immediately.

  "I hope you know what you're doing. Your words create expectation and hope."

  "I know." I tried to sound more confident than I felt. "But really, I couldn't just stand there. You saw how she was."

  "You're the kind of person who feels they must right every wrong." Aurora's expression was difficult to read. "It's admirable. But you must be careful."

  "Yeah, I feel like this is the fiftieth time I've been told to be careful just this week."

  "Then perhaps I should find something more original to say."

  She smiled at me.

  It wasn't a big smile, just a slight curve of her lips. But it was genuine, reaching her eyes for just a moment, and it completely froze my brain.

  "Uh—yeah. I mean, no, it's fine." Why was talking suddenly difficult? "I know you're probably just worried, but I promise I'll be fine."

  "The ease with which you make promises still bothers me." But there was something softer in her voice now. "Though I have no reason to doubt your abilities at this point. Not until I figure out what exactly you're hiding."

  "Are you any closer?"

  "Not at all. You're still a complete mystery." She tilted her head slightly, studying me. "I just tell myself that someone hiding something truly evil wouldn't look so clueless at times."

  "Hey, I'm not that clueless," I complained.

  She laughed. Actually laughed, quiet and brief but real.

  "Thank you for coming with me," she said, her expression settling back into something more composed. She turned toward the spire.

  "You're welcome. You can always count on me."

  She paused mid-step, just for a moment. Her shoulders tensed slightly, like the words had landed differently than she'd expected. Then she resumed walking toward the spire without looking back.

  I watched her enter the tall white structure, its surface gleaming in the afternoon sun. I looked up, looking at the dome that housed the two S-ranks.

  Even with all that distance between us, all those floors and walls and years of her keeping everyone at arm's length, for just a moment I felt like I could reach her.

  Like maybe I already was.