The classroom on the other side of the gateway was a teaching theater the likes of which I'd only ever seen on TV, like an old-time operating theater.

The gateway I’d entered through was at the very top of the theater. Stairways led down on all sides, terminating in a small circular stage at the center where Lebec stood waiting. There were probably five rows of seats from the top of the theater to the bottom and about twenty students scattered among the seats, no one sitting next to the other.

Lebec's eyes fixed on me and the corners of his lips pulled into a grimace that I assumed was a half-smile. If it wasn’t a half smile, maybe he'd spoken to the dwarf I’d so offended earlier, and this was something I would have to atone for.

Library.

The thought jumped into my head unbidden. The first chance I got, I needed to find a library and some history books. I needed info.

I walked down the stairs and grabbed a seat. It was only once I sat down that I realized I didn't have a pen or any paper. I didn't have anything with which to take notes.

I closed my eyes and swallowed. Hopefully the first class would simply be a class going over the syllabus for the semester.

From the college classes I’d seen on TV, I assumed that's how most of the classes started off. The first class hopefully wasn’t really anything other than an administrative class. Going over the rules, handing out the syllabus, talking about the required workload, the reading, menial things like that.

As I was thinking through this, I started looking around the theater. The first thing that caught my eyes was the ceiling because there wasn’t one. Above us was nothing but the night sky, filled with stars.

Only the stars had strange colors.

Frowning, I stared up at them, wondering what the colors signified. I stared up at the constellations there. Some of the shapes reminded me of the shapes floating above that infinite hallway I'd been in previously.

This can’t be a coincidence, right?

Once I could tear my eyes away from the sky, I looked around the theater at my classmates. Almost all of them were wearing cloaks. My shorts and T-shirt marked me as an outsider. Frowning, I also noticed that none of the other students had the strange crown of lights that I did above my head.

Why am I marked? Is that how the dwarf in the infinite hallway knew I was a stick? Is that how Grey Eyes knew I was a stick?

I had a good feeling that was the case.

Perfect. So not only do I stand out by what I'm wearing, but also by what's floating above my head, actively marking me as not belonging. Cool. Great. Fantastic.

Lebec glanced down at his watch, frowned, and cleared his throat.

“All right,” he said in a loud authoritative voice. “Let's get started.”

He said this as if all the students had been talking to each other and making noise. The room, however, had been completely silent.

“Welcome to Vanishing 101. I know several of you are sitting in on this class as an elective for your adept training. Others of you are here strictly to learn the trade of vanishing. No matter which track you're taking through Bristlebloom, you will be graded the same. You must attend classes. You must attend magickal crime scenes. You must attend.”

Magickal crime scenes? That sounds a lot more intense than what I was expecting.

Lebec continued. “I think all of you are going to enjoy this class. Vanishers are one of the unsung heroes of the magick world. Vanishers act—”

There was a sudden loud bang at the back of the classroom as a door swung open and hit the wall. A disheveled guy wearing a tweed suit came in. He hustled down the stairs and took a seat next to me. I glanced over at him, at his messy hair, at his circular glasses, at his overly scratchy jacket that rubbed against my arm.

I pulled my arm back so it wouldn't touch me again.

“And that brings me to another point,” Lebec said. “As this is the first class, I kept the gateway open.” He lifted his right hand and his fingers twitched in the air like he was playing the piano but only two or three notes. There was a bright glow that lit at his fingertips and then went out just as quickly. “From this point forward, I will be sealing the gateway to this classroom every time class starts. Are we all in agreement on this?”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There were a few mutters, but mostly just nodding heads at this. The guy sitting next to me, the only person who'd been late, didn't even seem to realize that Lebec was referring to him.

“As I was saying,” Lebec said, fixing the latecomer with the glare, “vanishers are known in the magick world as indispensable. They’re as indispensable as sanitation workers in the stick world. Without vanishers our way of life, our coexistence with the stick world, would not exist. Vanishers remove all trace of any magickal altercation, be it a simple fight all the way up to an assassination. The sticks do not know we exist because of the existence of vanishers. Vanishers interface with the stick world. They talk to sticks directly. They do the groundwork that we cannot do.”

“Yeah,” the guy sitting next to me muttered, “because sticks are so—”

He glanced up to the lights above my head and the look on his face told me everything I needed to know.

Okay. So, the crown of lights designates me as a stick. Confirmed.

“What I mean to say,” the man tried to course correct, but couldn't seem to get his thoughts back on track. “What… what I mean…”

“Sir,” Lebec called out from the center of the theater. “Do you have anything to add?”

The guy kept his focus on me, completely ignoring Lebec.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “What I was about to say was insensitive.”

I didn't acknowledge this in any way shape or form. If I was the outsider here, I wasn't going to make myself even more of an outsider by ignoring Lebec.

“Sir?” Lebec called out. “Did you have—”

“No,” the guy called out to Lebec, still looking at me. “Nothing to add. Thank you.”

Lebec grumbled but went back to his speech. “Vanishers serve a dual purpose though.”

His fingers traced several shapes in the air and above him the outline of a human materialized. It was like seeing a hologram only it was more real. There was a three-dimensional quality to the image, but it wasn't entirely three-dimensional. It was just the idea of the shape.

Lebec twirled his fingers and a second human shape appeared. This second human lifted their hand and held it out in the shape of a finger gun. Their thumb twitched and bright light shot from the point of their finger at the first person.

The person who got hit with the bright light fell to the ground to form the chalk outline of a dead body.

The shooter with the finger gun placed his hand back at his side, but now, at the point where his finger gun had been pointing, there was a shimmering green color.

Lebec continued his lecture. “When magick is used, lume is left behind as residue. Vanishers trap this lume, collect it, and dispose of it. Lume, and yes, I know some of this is not groundbreaking or even new for a lot of you, powers the Lumaverse. Our magick comes from lume. The gateways are powered by lume. Other plaines have different ways of using lume, different magick as we call it, but whenever we use magick, lume is expended.”

I can’t believe I didn’t consider bringing paper and pen.

“The lume consumption process is always imperfect, however, and some is always left behind as a residue like this lume right here.” Lebec pointed up to the green shimmering where the man's finger gun had been pointed. “This is evidence that magick has been expended. Anytime magick is used, lume is left behind. When lume is left behind in the stick world, away from magickally warded and enclosed areas like Bristlebloom, it can be discovered by others.”

I frowned. So many new words, so many new things I was clueless about.

“Others such as witches, those from the Shadow Vaile, etc.”

Witches? The Shadow Vaile?

I had no idea what he was talking about. I had to get a book, or five million books, and soon.

“You following all of this?” the man sitting next to me asked.

“Sort of,” I muttered back.

He pulled out a weird sort of tray that was attached to my armrest and folded it over my lap. The surface of the tray was slate black and had those same witchstone channels running through it that I had seen at the stations in the infinite hallway. Light sparked to life and glowed above the surface.

It was a keyboard and above that was a tiny translucent screen through which I could see Lebec.

The man whispered, “Type in any words you don't understand. It'll tell you what they are and give you links to other articles, deeper reading. It’s a Lumadex. It’s kinda like Wikipedia, but for magick.”

A magickal Wikipedia. Thank God.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I typed in the word witch.

The screen spit back a long answer at me, but it all boiled down to one idea.

Witches eat magick.

I frowned at this. In all the stories I'd ever heard, witches had never been those who ate magick.

I typed in the word wizard and got an opposite sort of answer.

Wizard: those with an absolute mastery of one of the four magick abilities.

I was about to tap ‘magick abilities’ when Lebec clapped a single time.

“Dismissed for two hours,” he called out. “Go check in at your dormitory if you haven’t already.”

I looked over to the guy sitting next to me. “Do you know where I can get a Lumadex? Are these readily available?”

“Yeah,” he said. “All the libraries have them. Your room should even have one built into the desk. Where are you staying?”

I opened my mouth to respond that I wasn't sure, that I didn't know where the library was, that I didn't even know what his name was.

Before I got a chance to say anything though, the bracelet on my wrist clamped down and then relaxed.

I glanced down at the bracelet and a strange little map shimmered into existence above the witchstones. I could tell that I was the arrow at the center of the map and there was a line leading away from the theater.

“Thanks for your help and it was nice meeting you,” I said. “Gotta get to work.”