***

  The next day we headed to the lecture hall bright and early — we had a lecture scheduled with the Mentor himself. A rare event, actually — at Armarillis almost all study time was devoted to practical sessions. The older we got, the fewer lectures were included in our curriculum, since all the emphasis was on practicing endless spells. We were now at a stage of development where we didn’t really need any lectures, and there was no need to make us study anymore. We now found everything we needed on our own request in the library, which was run by Sirinity. She knew the library’s collection inside and out and, it sometimes seemed to me, had memorized every book.

  But today the Mentor had scheduled an unplanned lecture, combined with other groups no less. The senior sixth group had even shown up — Dayon and Delson waved to us and hopped off to the back rows with Margarita. Calypso and I settled in the front row with our classmates, chatting as we waited for the lecture to begin.

  Adepts kept arriving, and it was getting noisier, as always happens when restless young people gather in one enclosed space. Then at one moment all voices suddenly fell silent, because Zael had entered the lecture hall.

  I immediately thought — what, is he going to drag us all to the training grounds again and came here to pick a new victim for demonstrating combat techniques?! I got so instinctively scared that I grabbed Calypso’s hand before I even processed what was happening.

  But no, Dad didn’t head to the podium but to the back rows, settling in the very back with a bored expression, ignoring the curious looks from the adepts.

  I exchanged confused looks with Calypso, then looked in surprise as my older brother Eric and my sister Agnessa also entered the hall. They were talking quietly to each other, paying no attention to anyone, and quickly made their way to the back of the hall, where they sat down near Zael. But I didn’t even have time to call out to them, because I was staring in confusement at a whole crowd of our senior Fortemin colleagues who had long since finished their training at Armarillis and only appeared at the academy either periodically by the Mentor’s order or extremely rarely for some urgent business.

  Among them was Moris, who was cheerfully chatting with Fury and Belladonna, and Kiara slipped in behind them — I hadn’t seen her in a while either.

  “Kiara?” I waved to my relative, who had left Armarillis years ago.

  “What are you all doing here?”

  “No idea!” the dark-haired beauty Kiara replied cheerfully, coming over to hug me in greeting.

  “I just got a message from the Mentor late last night saying I needed to come to this lecture hall this morning. I was told to put off all business until noon, no matter how important. At first I thought only I was being summoned for something, but talking to some of our colleagues on the way here, I realized that everyone who isn’t currently studying at Armarillis got the exact same message. Even Zael and Moris don’t know what this mass gathering is about.”

  “What about Eric?”

  “Oh, please, you don’t know Eric? Even if he knows everything, he won’t just tell you,” Kiara snorted and hurried to join the senior colleagues.

  “Hmm… Curious,” Calypso said thoughtfully, scanning the packed lecture hall.

  “As far as I can remember, my father has never gathered all active Fortemins in one hall for any lecture.”

  Well, if even Calypso had never seen anything like this, what could I say…

  So-o-o. The million-dollar question: why did the Mentor gather us all here, if even the senior colleagues don’t know?

  Ilforte himself appeared a few minutes later, exactly at the scheduled start time of the lecture. The Mentor always started classes on time — he was a stickler for it, and adepts would be wise not to violate it or risk getting extra work that Ilforte loved giving to latecomers.

  He was always positive, smiling, spoke in a brisk voice, clear and to the point.

  But today he had either gotten up on the wrong side of the bed or something, because he burst into the lecture hall like an enraged fury.

  “Bad morning,” the Mentor greeted everyone without looking at anyone, and proceeded to the podium.

  My eyebrows shot up. Whoa, the Mentor was angry. His aura was pulsing with rage — he wasn’t even trying to hide his irritation, seemingly for the first time in my memory.

  “Calypso, come here,” Ilforte said in a demanding tone, fixing his son with a grim stare.

  I tensed. What was wrong now? Has something happened? The Mentor wasn’t in the habit of publicly dressing down his charges…

  Calypso raised his eyebrows in confusion but silently approached the podium and looked at his father questioningly. Ilforte irritably tossed aside an information journal, grabbed a thick notebook and pen, and himself headed toward the desks.

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  “Start talking,” the Mentor demanded curtly.

  And then… he went and sat down at a desk next to me. And stared at Calypso expectantly.

  “Uh… Talk about what?” Calypso didn’t understand.

  “Everything. About shadow magic. You’re giving the lecture today.”

  Not only Calypso was stunned, but all the adepts. I actually gaped and stared at the Mentor with wide eyes. Surprised whispers rippled through the hall.

  “What do you mean?” Calypso asked cautiously, skeptically surveying the room where about two hundred Fortemins of various ages had gathered.

  “You want me to give a lecture for everyone about shadow magic right now?”

  “Well, who else? Me?” Ilforte said grumpily, irritably opening his notebook and clicking his pen, ready to write.

  “I don’t understand a damn thing about this damned shadow matter, and nobody here understands it deeply. Moris knows a few things, but it’s not enough his knowledge and skills in this area are superficial and unsystematic. The knowledge and skills of all supreme mages I know are superficial, because there’s nowhere to learn shadow magic, there are no guides in this field, no textbooks either. There’s nothing!”

  “I’ve talked to hundreds of mages about this topic in the last month and once again reached a disappointing conclusion. I’m tired of scraping together bits of confusing information from everywhere, and I have zero practical experience in this field. I feel like a stupid idiot, a little child encountering magic for the first time and not knowing what to do with it… This won’t do. But you,” Ilforte pointed his pen at Calypso.

  “You, you insufferable brat, brazenly ignored my bans on experimenting with shadow magic. And for several years now you’ve been secretly gathering information bit by bit and experimenting a lot, especially in recent weeks when I officially gave you permission because of the latest events in our world. You understand this topic better than anyone else; you’ve advanced very far in studying shadow magic. Further than any living supreme mage. Now tell us everything you know about it, everything you can share, everything that might be useful to us. How to counter shadow creatures, who can safely awaken their shadow sides and who shouldn’t go there at all, what spells can be combined with shadow magic and which are strictly forbidden, what the differences are… Tell us everything. Today we’re listening to your lecture. And I will skin anyone in this hall alive who treats this carelessly and doesn’t listen attentively.”

  Whoa! I did not expect this turn from the Mentor. My mouth fell open — from both surprise and embarrassment at once.

  I looked with interest at the stunned Calypso, who had frozen like a statue near the podium.

  He had always loved being the center of attention and felt very confident in public, but right now his eyes clearly showed he’d been caught off guard.

  “Well… Okay,” Calypso said uncertainly, picking up the chalk and approaching the blackboard.

  “I suppose… We can start with this…”

  However, within a few minutes his uncertainty had vanished completely when he got caught up in writing formulas for shadow spells and talking about shadow matter. He spoke very enthusiastically, passionately. About the different ways energies moved, about the specifics of shadow matter…

  He explained everything clearly and understandably, organizing the information systematically. Calypso really knew his stuff about shadow magic and spoke about the nuances of shadow spells like a professional who had tested everything on himself, not just an amateur who had read the right books.

  It was very strange to see the Mentor sitting next to me and, like an obedient student, taking notes on everything Calypso said. He even raised his hand dutifully to ask questions. You should have seen Calypso’s expression — he would momentarily lose his composure and, well, get flustered, I guess… At first the adepts were laughing at all this, especially loudly the Rodinger brothers and Margarita in the back rows. But then the lecture picked up steam, Calypso really loaded us with information, and all the adepts quieted down, barely keeping up with taking notes and occasionally raising their hands with questions too.

  There was a lot of information, a lot. Calypso filled all three blackboards several times over, erased them, and wrote new formulas and diagrams showing how shadow energy interacted with the dark and white magic we were familiar with. Thanks to our joint practices with Calypso, I was already partially familiar with some of the information — but it turned out to be just a tiny part of it, the very tip of the iceberg.

  Calypso lectured non-stop until lunch, pausing only to drink water from a tall glass or to demonstrate this or that shadow spell in action.

  “Tomorrow you’ll lead a practical session,” Ilforte said at one point, addressing Calypso but not looking up from his notes.

  “Today everyone should spend the second half of the day carefully studying their notes, and tomorrow we’ll see who among us has an aptitude for shadow magic. Those who do will be put in a separate group for intensive training. I strictly forbid anyone from attempting shadow spells without Calypso’s permission and his strict supervision. I will punish any Fortemin who does with a week in solitary confinement.”

  While the other adepts were digesting this, I quietly giggled, biting my lip and looking at Calypso with amusement. He was eyeing his father with an expression of “are you feeling okay?!” but kept quiet, afraid to jinx the sudden happiness that had fallen into his lap.

  Yes, happiness — I could clearly see and feel that Calypso was happy right now. That he was in his element, that he was an expert on the topic at hand, and that he really knew how to convey information to others clearly and competently. He was practically floating on air with happiness, like a butterfly spreading its wings. His eyes burned with a fanatic fire, and I found myself gazing at Calypso as he enthusiastically explained the nuances of shadow protective barriers and their fundamental differences from all other protective shields.

  My silly smile of a girl head-over-heels in love, of course, didn’t escape the notice of Ilforte sitting next to me.

  “Lora, pay attention,” he chided me, bringing me back to earth.

  “You can admire your warden later, outside this hall.”

  “Ah, sorry, Mentor,” I said, embarrassed, returning to my notes and hiding my flustered smile behind my long hair.

  “But I can’t help it that you and Mrs. Brandt produced such a drool-worthy son!”

  Ilforte burst out laughing, unable to suppress a broad smile.

  “That’s a new way to suck up to me,” he replied cheerfully.

  “Quiet in the hall!” Calypso said without turning around, continuing to draw runic diagrams on the board.

  “Sorry, Professor, I won’t do it again!” Ilforte said in a thin, mocking little voice, triggering an explosion of laughter in the hall.