Allies & Enemies

Professor Maldric:

The corridors breathe when night falls.

Stone exhales damp air, the sconces gutter like tired hearts, and the Academy tilts toward silence—my favorite hour. It’s when secrets grow loud enough for a man to hear.

I wait in the antechamber of my study, the one buried deepest in the west wing. Only a single lantern burns. Its light is a tarnished coin, throwing long, distorted shadows across the shelves of arcane texts. The room smells of cedar smoke and old parchment.

I feel the air grow heavy, charred almost. I know who is it. It's her.

I wind down the corridors lazily under I find the door I'm looking for.

The scriptorium.

I make a quick rap on the old wood of the frame.

I hear her before I see her.

The hesitant tap of barefeet on stone. A pause outside the door. A breath caught and held.

“May I enter?” I ask, low and deliberate.

The door opens with a sigh.

Isadora steps aside, eyes wide with wonder. She wears fatigue like a second skin—circles beneath her eyes, shoulders drawn tight. Yet the shadows cling to her as if she is their rightful queen. Power hums around her, faint but undeniable, the way a storm announces itself long before the first strike.

“Professor Maldric, what are you doing her so late?” Her voice is quiet, cautious. Good.

“I sensed something wrong,” I reply, studying her. “You’ve been… unrested.”

A flicker crosses her face—surprise that I know, then the quick mask of defiance. “I'm fine, I manage.”

“You are not, young one,” I say simply. “Nightmares leave traces. They trail you like smoke. I can smell them on you.”

She shivers despite herself. “And what is it you think I need?”

“Remedy,” I murmur. “A lesson in how to quiet the mind when shadows will not let go.”

The lantern’s flame leaps as if in agreement.

I move closer—not enough to touch, not yet. The air between us sharpens, a wire strung tight. Her breath catches. I notice the faint gleam along her collarbone where the moonlight from the high window spills down.

“There are disciplines,” I continue, “older than this Academy, older than the High Table’s petty politics. Methods of control. Of power. I can show you.”

“And what would you want in return?” she asks, a whisper wrapped in steel.

I almost smile. “Only your focus.”

I gesture to the heavy chair before my desk. She hesitates, then sits, back straight, eyes wary. Brave, this one. Braver than the four royal predators orbiting her.

“Close your eyes,” I tell her.

She does.

“Listen for the pulse beneath the noise,” I say. “Not your heartbeat. Deeper. The cadence of the world itself.”

I circle behind her, silent as smoke. Her hair gleams like midnight silk. I extend a hand, stopping a breath away from her crown. No touch—just presence. I feel the hum of energy coiling through her, bright and defiant.

“Breathe,” I whisper near her ear.

She inhales, slow. Exhales even slower.

“Good,” I murmur. “Now imagine the nightmare as a shape. Name it without fear.”

Her voice is almost too soft to catch. “Shadow. Fire.”

“Strong symbols,” I say. “But they bow to you, not the other way around. See them bend.”

Her shoulders relax slightly. I let the silence stretch, thick and velvety. The lantern sputters, throwing a ripple of gold across the wall.

“You carry something ancient,” I say at last, voice low. “Do you feel it?”

She swallows. “Sometimes.”

“You are more than you’ve been told. More than those boys circling you like moths suspect. They crave what they cannot understand. But you—” I lean closer, until my breath stirs the fine hairs at the nape of her neck—“you could unmake them all.”

Her eyes snap open. Moonlight carves her face into something fierce and beautiful. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because knowledge is a blade,” I say, finally stepping into view. “And I would rather see it in your hand than at your throat.”

The tension between us thickens, a tide pulling both ways. She stands slowly, refusing to look away. The sigils I’ve sensed on her—those faint scars of fire—flare for an instant beneath her skin, so subtle most would miss them. Not I.

“You’re dangerous,” she says, though her voice trembles only slightly.

“And you,” I answer, letting the truth curl like smoke, “are inevitable.”

For a heartbeat we are two magnets, opposite poles drawn close enough to burn. The room smells of storm and ink and something sweeter—her.

But I do not touch her.

I step back instead, giving her the shadow of a bow. “That is enough for tonight. The remedy will hold until you choose to learn more.”

She hesitates, then nods. “Good night, Professor.”

Her departure is a quiet thunder. When the door closes, the chamber seems colder, emptier. I exhale at last.

The sigils of my own wards flicker faintly along the shelves. They recognized her power; they strained toward it.

So did I.

I press a hand to the desk, feeling the tremor I will never show. There is a war moving toward this Academy, and the girl is at its heart. Whether she knows it or not, she is already choosing allies.

And I intend to be the one she cannot ignore.