I spot one or two of the noble blooded friends that Wilder spends time with and then there are a handful of other students,but now that each of the second years are expected to prioritize, I doubt any of the classes will be as full as they were in our first year when we were just trying to soak up as much as possible.
Now we have to be picky.
And not many people will pick water magic.
After all, we live on a peninsula entirely circled by mountains. Very few people here have even seen the coast.
What precipitation we get usually freezes over, and ice magic is a different class altogether.
But still, there are some who are curious enough about water or oddly passionate about it. Perhaps, they grew up admiring Petrov Hansimov and want to excel in the magical field he was known for.
It makes me wonder what classes I would choose to attend if I actually had the liberty of doing so. I’ll admit that I am very interested in this water magic. Father always taught me that people will overlook power because of inconvenience, and I feel as if this is an example of that.
Any less well-known field of magic leaves the opportunity of discovering spells overlooked by others, spells that could be the difference between life and death in a magical battle.
The professor, a man I recall is named Morozov, is standing in the center of the room. The desks are arranged on platforms in a half circle around the central podium. The professor is a Lowlander, which is no surprise, as the only human race capable of wielding magic they make up a large part of the magicker population. He has black hair that is swept carefully back at the nape of his neck and wears blue robes so dark that they almost appear black.
However, it is his pallor I find exceptionally striking. He reminds me of Wilder.
Just as I think that the professor looks up, and I catch a glint of red.
I sit up, gripping the edge of my desk. I strive to keep my face impassive even as my thoughts are racing. What does this mean?
Professor Morozov is a vampire as well.
My eyes dart to Wilder, and I shift slightly when I see that he is watching me. Why are there so many vampires in this academy?
And what exactly are they up to?
Chapter Seven
Bronwyn
Iwill be honest, despite my purpose and who my father is, I never actually expected to find myself breaking into a professor’s locked office in the middle of the night.
Breaking and entering is Corallin’s territory.
Willfully ignoring the laws in place for her own gain is my twin Natasya’s territory.
I like to think that I got Father’s rationality. His penchant for seeing the bigger picture and ability to carefully concoct plans based on that.
His shrewdness if you will.
It normally makes me the calculating one, the one who sits back and gets one of my sisters to do my dirty work. I’m the one who pulls the strings and keeps my conscience clean. But I’m here alone and my sisters are far away, and I have always had a weakness for curiosity.
Which is why I find myself fumbling with lockpicks and cursing my clumsy fingers. The pick tumbles to the floor, and I switch to cursing Corallin. If she wasn’t so jetting good at lockpicking then maybe I would have taken it up, but as itis there were no locked doors that remained that way for long around my sister. There never arose an opportunity or a necessity for me to learn the skill.
I bend over, running my hand across the stone until my fingers knock into the pick. It goes sliding, but I manage to snatch it up before it gets away.
I sit back on my heels and glare at the door before I jam the lockpick into the hidden pocket of my dress that my mother sewed for me to hide the artful tools of my father’s trade.
As I study the door, my hands lower to the spellbook attached to my belt, and I begin flipping through it for a spell that I can use to open the door. If I keep trying to pick that lock, I’ll be here all night.
I thumb through the worn pages whispering a quick spell that I already have memorized for illumination. A small glowing orb appears, bobbing next to my shoulder as my eyes move over the pages of my scrawled penmanship.
So much for the stealth that I was trying to attain, but I can’t very well read in the dark. I just have to hope that everyone else in this wing of the building are sensible individuals and are now in bed. Well, except for the vampire that I’m trying to learn more about, but I am already taking a gamble with him. I only pray to whichever deity might be paying attention that he isn’t here. After all, there is a whole academy for this creature of the night to stalk through, why would he be cooped up in a musty old office?
Besides, no light shines from underneath so unless he is sitting in the dark, I should be in the clear.
