“How is it possible that we are lost right now?” Each of the halls was as nondescript as the last. It didn’t help that he’d woken up in the middle of it and then teleported to another part by Lady Lar. From the beginning, he’d had no clue where he was, but at this point, he’d be hard-pressed to make his way back to Lar’s garden.

‘I thought you were paying attention.’ Tar accused.

“You can read my mind! You know I wasn’t paying attention!” Cael was not having it. They hadn’t seen another student for ten minutes.

‘I thought Tar was paying attention.’ Ava offered.

“I thought so too. Tar, you’re outvoted. We’ve decided this is all your fault.”

The cat grumbled unhappily but accepted the council’s decision with little real complaint.

Cael had even tried knocking on random doors in the hopes that someone would answer and take pity on him so he could ask for directions.

They had already checked to see if a campus map was included in the class calendar. There wasn’t one, but there were coupons for local shops and restaurants. Somehow, he was sure he'd be using those at some point anyway.

With his box-on-wheels and aimless wandering, it would be easy to mistake him for a tourist instead of the indentured student he really was.

He’d long since dumped the sharp and heavy metal bird onto the top of his box. He refused to carry her around for however long it took for them to unlose themselves. Tar was perched on top of his head as the acting lookout. As a prop obviously. Cael was the only one among the group with a working set of eyes.

Ava’s were just for show, and if you looked into the abyss that was Tar, it could only pretend to look back.

Until they fatefully bumped into anyone, Cael would continue to wander aimlessly. It wasn’t possible that he wouldn’t eventually find his way.

‘I think we’re underground.’

“Why’s that?”

‘We’ve been walking in circles for the past ten minutes. I think we would have noticed a building this big near the dungeon entrance.’

Cael wasn’t so sure about that one. In the grand scheme of things, he was pretty short. A nearby fence could hide a building of this size from his sight. And if they’d been walking in so many circles, then how was it that he’d yet to find a single staircase, window, or clearly-marked exit?

‘By the time we find the exit, we’ll probably have mapped out the entire campus.’

“Don’t make jokes. That won’t be funny when it actually happens.”

‘Ava and I have already started drawing a map in the mud here.’ Tar reported.

It still baffled Cael that the two elementals were so happy to just leave notes in the dirt.

“Hey, do you think we can use our mud notes to cheat on tests?”

‘I’d wager a magic school would have methods to prevent magic cheating.’

Oh yeah. That was a good point.

“Hey, look.” There was that staircase they’d been looking for.

If he was being honest, which he was generally forced to do, then he was actually kind of enjoying this. Just exploring with his two closest friends and seeing new things. He could do without the box, but you can’t win them all.

Now all he had to worry about was dragging the heavy box up the stairs. He’d have preferred to be going down, but this specific staircase only went up.

“Tar, go scout. By the time I make it up there, I want the whole floor mapped.” Obviously, Cael didn’t expect the whole floor to be mapped, and Tar knew that too, but the number of stairs certainly made it a possibility.

It just kept going.

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Tar snickered and slid up the metal handrail.

He would have sent Ava too, but she was a little wobbly. She’d never really had to contend with a physical body before this and the concept of winged flight had been sorely underestimated. Even her walking was more of an awkward hop; hence the box ride.

‘In my defense, you walk on two legs. I figured it couldn’t be that hard if you were doing it.’

That assessment of his abilities was rude but not wholly inaccurate.

‘Oh. That’s odd. Ava, can you get up here?’

‘Maybe. What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not sure. Something’s messing with the mana up here. I think it’s the sound, but I don’t have a clue what might be happening.’

Tar transmitted his impressions to them through the bond.

‘Definitely not sound. It’s mind magic but I’ve never seen it do something like this. It looks like it’s forcefully imitating the shape of sound waves.’

Was that a thing? Mind magic, as in magic that messes with people’s minds? Cael stopped on the stairs and waited for the two elementals to decide what to do.

Actually, no. The two of them were always deciding things for him. Cael could come up with a solution for this himself.

“Tar, get back down here. I need you in incognito mode.”

The cat rolled back down the steps like a big feline slinky.

Of course, they could both read his mind, so there was no dramatic reveal of his grand idea. Tar just melted into Cael’s shadow and the world became muffled before fading even more to complete silence.

“Ava, can you see Tar?” How funny. He was talking but only the internal vibrations were audible.

‘Obviously. I’m an elemental who sees through elemental means. It would be concerning if I couldn’t.’ Cael didn’t need the sass but understood it was a stupid question.

“Can you show me so I can check for myself?”

Ava paused before unfolding like an origami crane into a flat sheet of polished metal.

Cael looked himself over in Ava’s mirrored surface and was caught a little off guard to see his reflection. In the back of his mind, he was aware he wasn’t human, but it just didn’t come up in conversation a lot with the elementals.

Cael’s eyes were still pure-black, but that was the only thing that remained the same.

His skin had lost all color and grown much tougher. His limbs had become ball-jointed, which he actually thought was kind of interesting. If he bent his fingers, it was even more apparent.

The limbs were pretty thick too. Did he have an exoskeleton?

He opened his mouth and laughed. That was pretty cool. When closed, the mouth was a flat and relatively featureless estimation of a normal mouth with thin colorless lips, but when he opened it, his face split in a sharp line all the way across to reveal dark flesh.

As if his face was really some kind of mask that covered something terrible.

The inside of his mouth was pitch black with the exception of a sharp set of teeth.

He closed his mouth and the line disappeared without a trace.

‘You look like a monster.’

“Isn’t it awesome?” When he spoke, the white lips of the mask moved without splitting the rest of the face. The sharp teeth were barely visible beyond his outer face. “I have different modes.”

He opened his mouth fully again and traced a finger across the split edge of the outer face. It was sharp and rigid. Entirely at odds with the soft flesh of his inner face.

Even the outer face’s lips were rigid and solid. Cael wondered how they moved when he spoke. Probably some kind of muscle that was restricted when the lower mouth was in use.

The outer edges of his ‘mask-face’ were hidden by a thick curly mane of obsidian-black hair. He ran his fingers along the outside of the mask and traced it upward into his hair. The edge continued around his entire face.

At least his initial question was answered. The hair covered any evidence of Tar.

“I can’t decide if I look cool or horrifying.”

‘It can be both.’ Ava pointed out.

Cael shrugged. Both were fine, he just had a slight preference.

“Are we ready to go?” Cael was as ready as he could be and the other two didn’t really have minds to affect with magic, so he started making his way up the stairs again.

It was still slow-going, but at least it was uneventful.

The box did not break apart and nobody came careening down the stairs toward him as he’d almost expected to happen.

It wasn’t until he reached the very top that the magic Tar had mentioned hit him.

Despite having made his own preparations, the barest hint of the song still managed to wiggle its way in, using his own bones to conduct the vibrations all the way to his ears.

The effects were presumably dulled by the song’s muffling, but it still flooded his head with ideas that were not his own. They called for him to draw closer and relax. To let down his guard? An undertone of mania and danger crept into the song before he managed to wrestle back complete control.

‘Um, Cael?’ Tar sounded worried.

Cael panted slightly, “I’m fine. I can't hear it anymore.” he reassured the cat.

‘I figured… You got rid of your ears.’

“What?” He couldn’t hear his own voice. His hands shot up to the sides of his head and combed through the hair where his ears should be.

Nothing. What the hell? Was this another changeling thing? Well, he’d try to fix it later. Now that he had no ears though, he was really curious to see what was going on. In theory, it couldn’t be as dangerous anymore, now that the mind-affecting aspect had been removed.

Cael switched on [Mana Sight] and began to follow the song back to its origin.