Chapter Twenty-One: Ms. Fritz

"Settle down," she said, in a voice that suggested she'd already said it a hundred times that morning and expected to be ignored regardless. Nobody settled down. "I said settle down." She dropped a stack of papers onto the podium hard enough that it should have gotten some attention. It didn't. A boy near the front laughed, loud enough to carry, saying something to his friend about "the tiny one," and a ripple of quiet snickering spread outward from him, the kind of low-grade disrespect that clearly happened whenever a small, unassuming person tried to command a room full of teenagers who'd been raised on legendary bloodlines and inflated self-importance. The woman's expression changed, tired giving way to a flatter, more dangerous look. "Fine," she said, almost to herself. "We'll do it the other way." The pressure hit before I even registered her moving. It slammed down across the entire room at once, an invisible weight pressing every single body flat against their seats, and

Last Updated : 2026-09-21

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Brief

Bree elbowed me before I'd made it past the heading, nodding toward Ms. Fritz's slack, snoring form at the side desk."Guess we're figuring this out ourselves."I smoothed the paper flat and started reading, the classroom settling into a low hum of murmured commentary as everyone else did the same, whispered reactions rippling outward in waves as people hit different parts of the brief at different times.THE HOLLOW EXPANSE TRIALA joint exercise for first and second year students, conducted in the Hollow Expanse, a sealed region beneath the Academy grounds. The Trial is designed to foster inter-house, inter-race cooperation in accordance with the Academy's founding principles."Beneath the Academy?" Bree whispered. "I thought that was just cloud.""Guess not."I kept reading.Participants will be assigned in pairs, determined by faculty selection rather than student request. Pairings are intentionally cross-house and, where possible, cross-year, in keeping with the Trial's purpose."

Last Updated : 2026-09-22

Chapter Twenty-Three: Finding Him

Ronan caught up to me as I crossed the courtyard toward Vale House, falling into step beside me without asking, hands in his pockets, a tension in his shoulders that his usual directness never showed."Pairings went out today," he said. "Who'd you get?""Nolan Dane."He stopped walking.I stopped too, mostly out of surprise, watching his jaw work through something before he finally started moving again, slower this time, like he needed the extra second to decide what to actually say."Are you for real?""Yes," I replied."That's not great.""Why not?""Because he doesn't work with people. Never has, not that I've seen." He said it plainly, no heat behind it, which somehow made it land harder than if he'd been angry. "It's not that he's dangerous, not to you specifically. It's that he doesn't need anyone else, and people who don't need anyone tend to forget they're supposed to be looking out for someone.""You make it sound like a warning.""It's not a warning. It's just true." He glan

Last Updated : 2026-09-27

Chapter Twenty-Four: First Steps

The entrance to the Hollow Expanse was a stone archway cut into the side of a hill, half-swallowed by ivy that looked older than the Academy itself. Hundreds of students stood in loose clusters across the field before it, waiting for their names to be called, waiting for bands to be strapped to their wrists. Nervous chatter rippled through the crowd in bursts, punctuated by silences that felt heavier than the noise.I found Nolan near the edge of the crowd, arms crossed, staring at the archway like it owed him something. He hadn't bothered to look for me. I'd had to search the field twice before spotting him standing apart from everyone else, as always."You're late," he said, not looking at me."By two minutes." "Two minutes is late."I bit back a response about how he could have done anything to make himself easier to find. It wouldn't have mattered. Nolan wasn't the type to make things easier for anyone. An instructor called our names before I could answer. We stepped forward, he

Last Updated : 2026-09-28

All Chapters of The Academy’s Most Underestimated Student: Chapter 21 - Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-One: Ms. Fritz

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Brief

Chapter Twenty-Three: Finding Him

Chapter Twenty-Four: First Steps