More incantations float outside the sphere, forming a secondary layer of protection that speaks to Professor Eternalis's considerable skill. These are written in languages older than the Academy itself—some I recognize from texts I've studied, others that predated even the libraries I've haunted across millennia. They pulse with slow rhythms that match Gwenievere'sbreathing, linked to her life signs in ways that will alert us immediately if anything changes.
An induced coma.
The clinical term doesn't capture the reality of what I'm observing. This is more like hibernation, like the deep sleep dragons enter when the world becomes too tedious to endure consciously. Her body rests while her spirit—which has been causing so much trouble lately—is anchored firmly in place by magic specifically designed to prevent the kind of involuntary astral projection she's been experiencing.
Professor Eternalis nods at my question, her eternal features carrying the particular serenity of someone who has witnessed enough crises to know which ones require panic and which merely require patience.
"She'll need to stay in that for at least a few days," she confirms, her voice carrying harmonics that speak of power older than my considerable lifespan. "Or the fainting spells are going to keep happening."
A few days.
The timeframe settles into my mind with weight I don't fully want to examine. A few days of watching her float unconscious. A few days of not knowing when—or if—she'll wake. A few days of the men outside this room growing increasingly agitated at being separated from their bonded mate.
A few days of me pretending I'm not as worried as they are.
I observe Gwenievere for another long moment, cataloging the slight movements of her floating hair, the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way the incantations around her pulse with her heartbeat rather than their own rhythm. Everything suggests stability. Everything suggests she'll be fine.
So why does my dragon want to tear through this conjured space and carry her somewhere I can protect her properly?
I turn away from the sphere with effort that costs more than I'd like to admit, focusing instead on the woman who apparently knows more about our situation than she's been willing to share.
"Are we going to get an explanation?" The question emerges sharper than intended, centuries of patience wearing thin against the accumulated frustrations of recent events. "Or are you going to leave us in the dark, just like you're leaving us in this chartered space that's not exactly in the Academy?"
Professor Eternalis smiles.
The expression transforms her ageless features into something almost playful, as if my irritation amuses her rather than offends. She moves toward the door—a door that exists only because she willed it to exist, leading to the larger space where the others wait with varying degrees of patience.
"The best things come to those who wait," she says, the platitude carrying weight that suggests she means it literally rather than figuratively. "But it would be best to account for your teammates, yes."
Teammates.
The word makes me pause.
Is that what we are? Teammates? The designation feels simultaneously too simple and surprisingly accurate. We started as strangers competing in trials designed to kill most participants. Somewhere along the way—through blood and fire and shadows and frost—we became something else.
A team.
Bonded to the same woman.
Fighting toward goals we're only beginning to understand.
I can't help the slight pout that crosses my features—an expression I'd never allow if anyone else were watching. But Professor Eternalis has seen enough of me to know that scholarly composure is armor rather than nature, and some part of me has stopped caring whether she witnesses the cracks.
We've come so far.
Through trials that should have killed us. Through revelations that restructured everything we thought we knew about the Academy, about our pasts, about the woman floating unconscious behind me. This is the final stepping stone, the last stage of a journey that no one else has completed.
Year Three.
The year that's rarely spoken of because most don't make it this far.
Before Professor Eternalis can open the door, I speak again.
"I need to ask a question."
She pauses, hand on a doorknob that shimmers between solid and suggestion. Her head turns, profile illuminated by the soft light emanating from Gwenievere's stasis sphere.
"If this has to do with your position as the Seven, then?—"
