The lecture hall emptied with military precision the moment the clock struck one. Ambition drove the students out; the desperate need to excel tomorrow dictated their movements today.

  Vigo departed soon after, his cape swirling in his wake. Arthur followed, masking a starving, predatory eagerness behind a measured, saintly gait.

  They claimed the same chairs as the previous day, recreating the tableau of their earlier confrontation within the silence of the office.

  "You have done well today," Vigo said, his voice heavy with an uncharacteristic softness. "No one, except your brother, has ever pierced the veil of my words to find their true meaning."

  Arthur drank the syllables like fine wine, delighting in the enunciation.

  "The accuracy. The precision," Vigo continued, leaning forward. "It is almost as if you have spent tens of hours in research, and hundreds in practice."

  The phantom sensation of an interrogation lamp blinded Arthur. Careless, he hissed internally. No novice produces that on a first attempt. Not even a prodigy. He had painted a target on his back with his own competence. There was no logic that could explain away the mastery he had just displayed.

  He raised his defenses—the gentle, porcelain mask of the Hero-Saint.

  "Haha, thank you for such kind words, Instructor," Arthur said, offering a practiced, sheepish smile. "Truly, I just hold a deep love for the subje—"

  "Stop."

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  The command was absolute. It wasn't a request; it was a wall of wind.

  Arthur's mind went blank. Against an 8th-Circle King-Rank Wind Mage, resistance was not a concept; it was a suicide note. He froze, waiting for the strike.

  "You do not have to pretend," Vigo murmured.

  Arthur blinked. What?

  "You must hate me, do you not?"

  The question hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

  "While you and your brother were fighting for your lives," Vigo whispered, his gaze dropping to the floor, "I was down in Varethal. I was savoring aged wine while children died."

  Arthur watched, stunned, as the Instructor's composure fractured. The icy grip of terror in Arthur's chest began to thaw, replaced by a slow, creeping warmth.

  "And Arthur died. If only I had been there…" Vigo's hands, hands capable of leveling cities, shook visibly in his lap. "I have grieved. I have tried to make amends—assisting you in any way I could—but nothing could quell my rage. Nothing could silence the guilt."

  Vigo looked up, his eyes rimmed with raw, unfiltered emotion.

  "In this room, on the day you barged in, I had been rotting in my own wrecked quarters, just as I had for weeks since the incident. But when I saw you? I felt a joy so profound I could not express it if given all the ink in the world. I had not functioned with conscious thought since your arrival, and seeing you alive… it was the greatest bliss."

  Vigo exhaled, a ragged sound. "I could not even begin to comprehend the grief you must be in."

  Arthur remained silent, the machinery of his mind whirring. The tension left his shoulders. The air in the room, once stifling, now tasted sweet.

  "I take full responsibility," Vigo said, his voice firming with resolve. "Direct all of your hate toward me if you wish. But please… do not suppress your pain. Do not ruin yourself for my mistake."

  Arthur stared at the broken man.

  You have got it all wrong, Vigo, Arthur thought, the realization blooming like a dark flower in his chest. This is an act. There is nothing to be suppressed.

  He watched the tears well in the Instructor's eyes.

  But to hear that I—that Arthur, the failure—meant so much to you? That an 8th-Circle Mage would break himself over my memory?

  Arthur felt a vibration in his fingertips, a rush of blood to his head that had nothing to do with fear.

  You have given me the greatest joy.