By morning, the Academy felt quieter than it should have—like a room where something had broken and no one dared to mention it.
The testing hall was sealed. The shattered prism was gone. The runic array scrubbed clean, as if nothing unusual had happened. Students gathered in clusters along the colonnades, whispering in half-voices that carried farther than they should have.
"He destroyed a relic."
"No—he didn't cast anything."
"They say the Magister intervened."
Luke Ardentis walked through it all without stopping.
He felt the stares before he heard the words—measuring looks, uneasy pauses, the way conversations dipped when he passed. No one confronted him. No one congratulated him. Fear, he realized, was quieter than ridicule.
A pair of wardens waited at the academy's inner gate.
"Candidate Ardentis," one said, not unkindly. "This way."
Luke followed.
They led him not to detention or infirmary, but to a narrow passage beneath the administrative wing—stone walls etched with suppression sigils, old and overused. The air grew dense, mana flattened into something inert. Luke's steps slowed as if the corridor itself resisted momentum.
Containment, he thought. Notpunishment.
The door at the end opened into a small chamber with a single table and three chairs. Magister Vaelor stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back. Examiner Halvrek was already seated, jaw tight.
"Sit," Halvrek said.
Luke did.
Vaelor did not turn. "Before anything else," he said, "understand this: no charges have been filed."
Halvrek's eyes flicked up. "Yet."
"No charges," Vaelor repeated. "No commendations. No classification."
Luke absorbed that. "You're deciding whether I exist."
Halvrek bristled. "Watch your tone."
Vaelor raised a hand. "He is not wrong."
Silence settled—thick, deliberate.
Vaelor finally faced Luke. "You introduced a rule without authority."
Luke nodded. "Briefly."
"Briefly," Halvrek echoed, incredulous. "You collapsed an Academy instrument."
"It rejected the formulation," Luke said. "That was expected."
Halvrek slammed a palm on the table. "Expected?"
Luke met his gaze. "The environment wasn't prepared. I kept it minimal."
Vaelor studied Luke's face, searching for bravado and finding none. "You're saying," he said slowly, "that with preparation, the result would differ."
"Yes."
Halvrek laughed—short and sharp. "You hear that? He thinks this is a matter of calibration."
"It is," Luke replied. "Just not the kind you're used to."
The warding sigils along the walls pulsed faintly, as if listening.
Vaelor exhaled. "Luke Ardentis. You are hereby placed under observation."
Halvrek stiffened. "Magister—"
"Observation," Vaelor said again. "Not arrest. Not expulsion."
Luke felt something loosen in his chest. Not relief—time.
"You will continue attending classes," Vaelor continued. "You will not perform independent experiments. You will not attempt to 'write' anything."
Luke considered that. "And if I do?"
Vaelor's gaze sharpened. "Then we will know."
Halvrek leaned forward. "You will submit to assessment. Psychological. Theoretical. Structural."
"Structural?" Luke asked.
Halvrek smiled thinly. "We want to know how deep the problem goes."
Vaelor added, "You are not to discuss yesterday's event."
Luke nodded. "I wasn't planning to."
"That," Halvrek said, "is not reassuring."
The meeting ended without ceremony. When Luke stepped back into the light of the courtyard, the Academy felt different—quieter, as if it were holding its breath.
A figure detached from a pillar ahead.
"Elowen Frostveil," she said, falling into step beside him without looking. "Mana Regulation Division."
Luke recognized her—top of the cohort, precise, unflappable. "You followed me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
She glanced around, then spoke softly. "The regulators flagged a disturbance last night. Not a surge. A pause."
Luke stopped. Elowen stopped too.
"That shouldn't be possible," she continued. "Mana flows. It doesn't hesitate."
Luke said nothing.
Elowen met his eyes. "What did you do?"
He chose his words carefully. "I asked it a question."
Elowen's breath caught—just a little. "And it answered."
"Briefly."
She studied him like a dangerous instrument. She wasn't offering help, Luke realized. She was offering a warning.
"They'll try to measure you until you fit," Elowen said. "Or break."
Luke nodded. "I know."
"If they put you in a controlled casting room—don't comply."
"Why?"
"Because regulators stabilize," she said. "They erase variance."
Luke understood immediately. "They'd flatten the language."
Elowen's eyes widened. "So you do see it that way."
A bell rang across the courtyard. Classes resumed. Normalcy asserted itself with practiced ease.
Elowen stepped back. "Be careful, Luke Ardentis."
As she turned away, a ripple passed through the air—so faint only Luke noticed. A constraint settling into place, like a footnote appended to reality.
Observation, he thought.
The Academy wasn't trying to stop him.
It was trying to define him.
Luke resumed walking, jaw set.
If they wanted a definition—
—he would make sure it was unfinished.
End of Chapter 2