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“We’re newly mated, yes,” Arthur replied in a calm tone. I didn’t like how easily he hid his feelings. It was from years of training and the thought made anger bubble up within me.

Silas nodded his head. “Makes sense.”

None of us spoke for a few seconds, making the awkward and tense atmosphere grow until he finally spoke again. “I teach you as a bonded pair. Consider me your guide to working together, even in tough situations.”

I almost snorted. Just how many would willingly want someone outside their bond to “help” them? I doubted Nym had taken to this class lightly. I also couldn’t understand how to pass the class… would he judge our relationship? If he did, I would likely shift and attack him. No one was allowed to know what happened between my mate and I, and I certainly wouldn’t allow him to judge us.

What happened instead was Silas explaining a grand tale of creatures from other worlds visiting ours and how we were trained to protect our world from whatever they wanted. I barely listened to most of it, trusting The Magic had everything under control in our world.

“Any further questions?” Silas asked once he was done talking.

I only had one question, “How do we pass your class?”

He smiled at me, but it was tense, like he was judging me for not reacting to his tale of horrors. “I teamed up with Willa for your test. You need to pass that to graduate from both classes.”

Arthur held up his hand tentatively, then asked, “Have any students ever failed to graduate?”

“Some,” he said, keeping it at that.

The awkward silence returned, so I figured it was up to me to stop it. Clearing my throat, I asked, “Were you a student here once?”

Something flashed in Silas’ eyes before he shook his head, a tense smile forming on his lips. “No, I was not.”

This time I let the silence fester.

“Silas is like that,” Myve said, agreeing that our class with him was a tad weird. “He’s like, strangely intense sometimes, then others, he’s all casual and cool.”

“We just got the intense part,” I grumbled, not looking forward to his next class.

“Good news is that you rarely see him from week to week. We’ve only been in his classes four times since we mated,” Nym said. It helped to hear that, but I doubted that would be the case for us. We needed to be taught the same things, and because we mated so late into the school years, that meant more of Silas.

“But the good news is that Niels is gone for good,” Ryn declared with a wide grin, joining us at the table.

“Really?!” Myve demanded, eyes wide and hopeful.

Ryn nodded gleefully. “We were told during our class. It should’ve been with Niels but instead we were told to go outside and play.”

Nym snorted at that.

“I don’t think the headmaster plans on doing a huge speech about it, just letting us know class by class,” Damon said.

I was just glad we got rid of him. Hopefully the students that came after us would have a much better teacher.

“He wasn’t even a shifter,” Ryn said, but that wasn’t news to anyone, just a reminder that he shouldn’t have taught us shifters how to live with our forms.

“It’s sort of sad, really,” Myve sighed. “Having the ability to shapeshift sounds so cool! The power is wasted on someone as horrible as Niels.”

I shrugged. “At least he’s not going to be here anymore, causing other students trouble.”

“Yeah, Onyx could be chosen next,” Ryn reminded us. Onyx was our cousin, his father was our father’s twin brother.

“He would be going here alone,” I whispered, realizing just how awful that would be. I couldn’t have survived here without the others, and we’d started as five and were now ten. Poor Onyx would not only need to find his mate, he’d also be forced to make friends quickly or end up all alone for two years.

“He’ll be fine,” Myve said, waving off my concern. “Most come here alone, remember that.”

“I did,” Arthur said, his hand warm in mine, a comfort I needed as I recalled just how lonely his first year here had been.

“As did I,” Hans said, bumping Myve’s side gently.