***

I’m so excited it’s hard not to bounce, as I ride the tube to the University. Except, of course, jumping in an undignified way is something childish Korentis would do.

While I look forward to my University lessons, I want to use my time productively, instead of daydreaming on the tube. So, I review my notes about Precursors Studies. I was always fascinated by the topic, and yet I feel my preparation is not on the level required by a prestigious university.

For example, I only recently learned that the Awakening as I studied it in high school - a specific day where humans first entered a precursor ruin, and people suddenly started manifesting magical power - is considered a massive simplification by modern historial, and possibly a complete fabrication.

There are obvious logical problems with it, after all - variations of the Awakening are recorded in Karesia, Zelenia and Taer, even if there was no contact between the continents back then. And it’s obviously impossible that in every continent, people first entered a Precursor ruin on the same day.

The true history of the Awakening is a fascinating puzzle, and the standard academic model for it, Voigt-Levistan chronology, leaves a lot of open questions. With so much freely available literature about it, why didn’t Korentis ever study it seriously? To think xe wasted so much time reading comics! Xe just wasn’t cut for serious academia. Xir mothers were right about that.

Unfortunately, I barely had time to skim the notes I downloaded from Intro Precursor Archaeology when my train reaches the University stop. It’s early in the morning, snow falls in a drizzle, and the cold bites despite my new, sensible gray coat. It’s cold even inside the station, despite all the people crowding it, and as soon as I walk into the square outside, I shiver. I walk quickly toward the main University building. I hope they’ll have proper heating inside the classrooms.

“Can you hear me?”, a voice whispers inside my skull. I startle for a moment - but of course, Iketek told me she’d wait inside a train station cafè and keep watch on me.

“Yeah, but that’s really creepy,” I say - I can’t do the head-whispering shit by myself, but she taught me how to answer when she calls me. Annoyingly, her whisper yanked me back to being Korentis - Tharvais isn’t a mage, and wouldn’t be able to use this channel.

“I’ll be watching through your eyes,” Iketek says, “it will give me useful information and I’ll be able to help if something goes wrong. But be careful anyway.”

She sounds nervous.

“Chill, I’ll be good,” I reassure her. “Even if making a Lie where the professor becomes a giant penguin halfway through a lecture would be amazing.”

“Surprisingly, I’m not concerned about you acting improperly,” she says, “I’m mostly worried about the Else. Something is… increasingly unusual. Secondarily, I’m starting to worry about the nature of your Lies. We’ll need to talk about it, later.”

“That will definitely help my mood! Now I’m fully at ease! Also, don’t mind-speak to me if it isn’t super important, okay? You make me break character on the inside.”

“Your power is fucked up. Over and out.”

Did she really say over and out in mind-speech? Lost stars, Iketek’s weirder than me at times.

But I’m already past the University’s doors, so I close my eyes for a moment, and become Tharvais again. The visual illusion was still there - it’s bound by magic, and won’t fade unless I change it consciously - but I must be Tharvais inside as well.

I check the time on my phone - ten minutes to nine. I should have left a little earlier, I don’t know the university’s layout, and I hate being late.

I feel a brief pang of worry as I walk across the atrium, packed full of students, with confusing posters and unhelpful information screens scattered everywhere. I expect someone to stop me, to frown and ask questions - but of course, that doesn’t happen. The bored security guard doesn’t even glance at me. As I check my timetable and try to understand where I’m supposed to go, I can’t remember exactly why I’d been worried at all. I’m not that late.

The hallways are full of chattering students, talking in small groups and wolfing down sandwiches in the corners. They’re mostly my age or a little older, and you can tell the University attracts people from all over Refuge - I catch snippets of three different languages, and there’s a dizzying variety of clothes, hairstyles and tattoos. I pass two dark-skinned students wearing long, flowing taerish robes, and two visibly shivering boys with half their face covered in dense, permanent tattoos - a Konish custom I usually see only in movies.

The students, the research posters, the grim statues of scholars lining corridors - I feel a buzz of excitement, I want to be part of this. I can’t wait to start my classes.

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Even if this is a small university compared to the Landfall Center for Precursor Study, where I did my first year.

I try to remember the university in Landfall, except of course I can’t, because I’ve never been there, and it’s like suddenly missing a step in my mind - I stumble, and I remember this is a Lie, and I’m here to commit a crime. The thought is surprisingly repulsive.

Couldn’t I do this for real? Big Sis was right, as always. If not for magic, I’d have enlisted in this university, despite all my doubts. Maybe in this place, I could have been myself and still have fit - plenty of students look a little weird.

But I made my choice. I remember touching the Art of the Veil, I remember the infinite possibilities of the Else unfolding. I gave up a normal life, for good or for ill. I can’t ever be a real student, let alone a real scholar.

Tharvais, however, could. And I can be xem for a while.

I’d like to spend some time just exploring the halls, but I can’t be late to class. I’m already joining mid-term, due to the unfortunate bureaucratic requirements of my transfer, so I should work on catching up as fast as possible.

I check on the screens - Introductory Vorokan History is in lecture hall D.

Fortunately, there are signs on the walls, because the building is old, probably rebuilt several times, and it’s a snarl of corridors, stairs and locked doors. Also, lots of modern schools expect students to have implants and follow StemLink directions. I’ll have to carefully study the floor plan, when I’ll… do the thing.

Finally, I reach the lecture hall, half-full with about forty students. The lesson hasn’t started yet. I sit in a free spot on the front line, next to two students who are watching something on a tablet and chatting intently. Again, for a split second I expect someone to stop me, challenge me, but why would anyone?

I’m a Liar, I think, briefly back to being Korentis. I can be whomever I want. After this job, I could be a student for a while if I so wish. In a different city, maybe.

The thought is surprisingly thrilling. Like the time I found out I could make people pay for my lunch, sit by me, briefly consider me a friend. But this is so much more, so much better - I can live an entirely different life, for as long as I wish. I can be… well, not me.

The professor comes in, and I take out my tablet and stylus, plus a phone to check lecture material while I take notes. I slide back into Tharvais’ identity - it’s time to focus on my lessons, not silly daydreams.

After cursory greetings, the professor plays an incredibly ugly slide show on the big screen behind her desk - she must be using StemLink commands, because she didn’t touch anything.

She greeted us in Vorokan, but she switches to Ship Standard - even if her accent is dreadful - as she launches enthusiastically into a lecture about twelfth century Thaumocracy politics, and how it is related with precursor ruins. She’s obviously passionate, but she tends to ramble, jumping between topics with no rhyme or reason, and her lecture is a snarl of names, dates and obscure titles.

However, I have an easier time than usual focusing on her words. When Korentis tried to take notes in high school, they devolved into doodling butterflies or fractals pretty soon - spiral fractals, like the way my magic manifests. When did I start doing that?

Not important. The point is that I can focus on the lesson, unlike Korentis. Soon my notes are full of stuff like What the Abyss is a Dux-in-pectore and what was wrong with Count Verenantis?

I barely had time to touch Thaumocracy history in my crash course during the last two weeks, so I can’t really follow all the intricacies of their politics. But I feel like I could learn this, given some time. Lost Stars, I want to learn this, it’s very interesting! When talking about the Thaumocracy, everyone tends to focus on its mysterious, catastrophic end, or the evil of the mage-lords.

But of course, there’s more than that. And with my new understanding of magic, the way the Lords jostled for political and magical power at the same time is utterly fascinating.

When the professor calls for a break, though, I realize I’m missing so much background, I absolutely need to read some introductory books in my spare time. Of course, I don’t really need to pass any exams, and I’m here for the Precursor stuff, so I could technically ignore Thaumocracy history. But that would leave a huge gap in my education!

As students queue in front of the professor’s desk, to ask the professor some questions, I almost go ask if we can be sure that Duchess Avertha, a noted Liar, and her mysterious court scholar were two different people at all – apparently, the scholar was reclusive and no one knew where she came from, and given that her works paved the way for Lady Avertha’s ascension to the ducal throne, I wonder....

But sadly, that’s not the kind of information I’m here for. Even if I wince every time I remember the truth. What I actually need is to learn how the university works, and for that, my best source are my fellow students.

I always sucked at breaking ice with strangers - I usually say something awkward, talk too fast, or get nervous. But I don’t see the problem, right now - I’m just going to ask some basic information to a student, it’s not that complicated.

“Hey,” I say to the young person next to me. “Can I ask you something?”

Xe turns to me, surprised for a moment, then xe smiles. Xir light brown skin is covered with too many colorful tattoos - agender, gynosexual, looking for a relationship, student, scholar, archaeologist, spin-ball player. Xe must have run out of face, because I glimpse even more tattoos down xir neck. They look like those silly fandom tattoos some kids in my high school liked. Good thing is, people who enthusiastically display information about themselves are usually friendly.

“Of course, shoot,” the student says. I can’t place xir accent, but xe’s definitely not a Vorokan native. Judging by the tattoos style, fashionably colored, xe may be a Rivelander.

“I’m new here,” I say, “and I didn’t take Thaumocracy History in the City. Are there class notes online?”

Xe nods, as if I just confirmed xir suspicions. “I thought you were new, I’ve never seen you before, and we’re always the same bunch of nerds in the front lines. As for the notes, there’s the official course material but it’s shit - professor Vaich-Fell goes into a million weird tangents, and then she expects you to remember it all. However… we do a study group thingie in the afternoon. You can come, someone will definitely pass you their notes!”

“Oh, that’s great,” I say, “thank you!”

“I’ll…” xe begins, then frowns, looking at me. “No Stemlink? Gimme your handle, I’ll text you.”

Xe offers xir tablet, and after a moment I remember what I’m supposed to do and let xem scan my wrist. It’s a while I haven’t had a working datasphere profile.

The professor clears her voice, and the lesson resumes. I smile, though - the offer to join the study group was clearly more about socialization than about passing me notes, since xe could have simply texted them to me.

A pity I’ll join the student’s group to get information for my heist, and not to make friends. But I squash away the thought - that’s a Korentis problem. I’m going because I need some good notes to catch up with this course, and because it’s nice to get to know one’s classmates. I’ll need some new friends in this frozen, Officer-forsaken city!