The day of my birth, calculated in the Northern form. Two hundredth year, fifth month and third day of the current era.
But it didn’t explain to me why he was certain of my arrival.
“I’ll rename the vault, make it accessible for you. If you stay on campus, the fees will be withdrawn automatically,” he explained.
I nodded and combed through my hair with my hands. “Did today’s courses start already?” I blurted, not wanting to miss out on more than I already have.
“Not until next week. Besides, you didn’t choose any courses yet.”
Back at the desert, I didn’t have a choice, just set courses everyone took. Overwhelmed, I scanned the sheet that the Professor was showing. Art, athletics, history, geography alongside, music, theatre, trade, and many more. Courses that sounded more like activities instead of skills worth studying.
“Three courses corresponding to your magical abilities should be enough to keep you busy. I assume you are a Magician, Mage in this case, like Gerogy? We recommend spellwork,” Harriet said.
Avoiding the question, I thought if I didn’t answer he would take it as a yes, and my real identity would stay hidden. I didn’t know what it meant to be a Mage, how it would reveal itself. I connected everything I knew to witchcraft. The rituals, the amulets, even that I dressed in black. I reassured myself that I wasn’t lying to him but rather withheld information for the greater good.
“Which ones do you teach?” I asked instead.
“Art and ethics. They’re the only ones. I’m sorry to disappoint. You don’t have to choose right away.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Spellwork then, with ethics and art.”
He circled my choices with black ink and squished his lips, suppressing a smile.
“I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning, pick you up for your first day. This week is celebratory, so to say, to get to know the campus and your Professors. You may rest until then.”
“But I’m ready to start today.” I jumped out of the bed and rushed to get my coat. “I feel better already.”
Professor Harriet chuckled. “Of course you do. You slept through the whole day,” he said. “Myrn worked on you for many hours.”
He was standing beneath the doorframe, ready to leave. I didn’t realise yet what a great deed he’d done for me by running errands for paperwork and negotiations with the council.
“You’ll get another chance tomorrow.”
When he left, I fell back into the bed and let the foamy mattress swallow me, wondering if this was the prestige my grandfather was preaching about.
After a meal of fried potatoes, Myrn suggested that I take the nightly bath. I imagine it was difficult to not pinch one’s nose after getting a whiff of my odour. The fresh and earthy smell of the moss couldn’t cover up the weeks I spent among pirates.
First, she showed me a few soaps for different purposes like hair, body and face with intense fragrances and later got rid of my clothing. She wanted to assist, but I insisted that I would manage it on my own. I scrubbed my fingernails clean to prove it.
While I finished the bath, a set of clothes had been prepared for me, which I figured must be the uniform but later found out it was just sleepwear. Its smooth texture seemed too valuable, almost like a gown, and its dark blue colour reminded me of the ocean that had become my home for a little while. I would’ve loved to wear it in front of Deg and wished for a way to send him a letter.
Afterwards, I scouted the campus to get familiar with it.
It seemed huge from outside but revealed itself to be a tight castle-complex of dorms on the west and lecture halls on the east side. Their walls consisted of grey rock, common for the area. The main building connected them and included the entrance hall, the infirmary as well as the break and working rooms for the teaching staff. All together they surrounded the gymnasium. Candlelight inside the buildings illuminated it.
While I made my way up North, the sun was setting. The candlelight didn’t reach further, though a few spheres highlighted an avenue which led to a single building in the North. A library, as the stacks of books inside the windows suggested.
That was where I first saw her. The olive skin and silver hair stood out as she was the optical opposite of me. Especially the length of her locks and her plump body. Her chubbiness spread to her cheeks while I was drained of substance.
I stared at her from the middle of the crosswalk, dumbfounded by her appearance. Still, she didn’t notice me since she was busy scanning the night sky. Her pace was fast, but before she bumped into me, she startled in confusion.
“Oh no,” she mumbled. “I mean, excuse me.”
And without further notice rushed away.
Without revealing her name, or asking mine, she left me speechless and if I wasn’t sweating uncontrollably, I would’ve dared to run after her.
My heart was beating inside my throat. I ended up focusing on the lavender smell she left behind until it vanished and I returned to the infirmary. There, I would sketch a map of the campus into my grimoire.
A grimoire, one of the useful things I learned in the desert, was a collection of rituals, ingredients, or general knowledge about your magical practice. A scientific approach to a diary. Though there were few books left in Urai containing traces of magic, I got my hands on a few pages of an older grimoire at the black market. The rest I figured out myself and wrote down whatever seemed relevant.
Then, I began sketching her.
For weeks my thoughts had been consumed by worry. It was the last night before I would begin my new life—but
