"Yes..?" Liam responded, unsure of where this was going. The boy was, like most of the other students here, about his age. His hair reached down almost to his shoulders in light brown curls. The student smiled before pulling out the chair next to Liam and sitting down.

"Hi, sorry. I'm Ben-Ben Carver." He quickly introduced himself and stuck out his hand. Liam shook it slowly, taking a mental note of the amount of hands he shook since he arrived in London. "Do you have a partner for the project?"

"Oh, no. You wanna partner up?" Liam relaxed his body. He was unsure why he was so tense at first, completely forgetting the assignment he had received. Although his thoughts still remained on that encounter he had two nights ago-deciding if he should tell someone or chalk it up to an anxiety-produced nightmare.

"Yeah! Definitely. Do you have another class?" Ben stood up from the chair. He had been clutching a small collection of books to his chest that Liam hadn't noticed before. Liam nodded as he closed up his own notebook, tucking it in between his arm and torso.

"Yes, Modern Magecraft. You?"

"Oh, that's right, I almost forgot about that." Ben spoke to himself as the two began to exit the class room, blending in with the crowd of students now migrating either to other classrooms or to remote locations for study. "Um, yes, I take Curses."

"Ah." Liam said idly. His mind was elsewhere at the moment, still debating his options about his previous problem, not to mention the newly acquired project. One detail did stick out in his mind though.

"How did you know my name?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, you're kind of a big deal with the New Agers."

"The New What?" Liam's expression worsened, his face contorting more and more, although Ben appeared to pay it no mind.

"You know, the magi with young bloodlines."

"Okay," This time, Liam stopped his movement, standing in the middle of the bright stone hallway. "just for the record, I know almost nothing about magecraft."

Ben's expression seemed to mirror Liam's own, although he could make out a tint of amazement inside the boy's eyes.

"Lord El-Melloi recommended you, and you weren't even an actual magus?!" He exclaimed in a hushed tone. Liam gave a shrug in attempt to communicate a message of 'apparently'.

The two continued onwards to their class, talking about their journey to London, and particularly about Liam's first week of magecraft training. However, his mind had attached to a certain topic Ben had mentioned earlier.

"Before, why did you specific 'young bloodlines?'"

Ben made a face of disbelief with furrowed eyebrows, but quickly retracted his inaudible contempt. He reminded himself Liam was a civilian just a week before.

"You see, Mystery becomes increasingly strong and stable as time goes on." He began, while simultaneously keeping an eye out for his next class. "On top of families with older bloodlines having better circuits through strategic genetics, something called a Magic Crest is passed down. Each generation, the former head takes a portion of their magic circuits and passes it down to the next heir."

It made sense in just a moment for Liam, clicking in his head. But before he could voice his feelings, Ben stopped him with a gesture and continued.

"And on top of that, those circuits carry certain spells too, which allows the next heir to utilize them easier, as well as making the Mystery stronger. So for every generation-"

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"Their magecraft becomes more solid." Liam finished the lecture with a nod. "So people like us are at a disadvantage, since our history is so short."

The other boy nodded before glancing to his side and stopping. "This is my next class." Ben sighed before looking back to Liam with a grin. "Wanna meet in the library for the project later?"

Liam nodded before giving a goodbye and pulling out his map for consulting.

- -

"We will be starting this semester with a fairly well known system: Tarot."

El-Melloi stood at the front of the class, which was noticeable smaller than the General Fundamentals that Liam had attended not twenty minutes earlier.

The building itself was within walking distance from his dormitory-although this meant that he had to sprint from the Big Ben section, where General Fundamentals was located, down towards the Modern Magecraft department, also known as the Norwich department.

Only about thirty or so students were in that specific period, with only four rows of long, connected desks lining the back of the room.

"-due to the rise of paganism in the west, along with witchcraft as a whole, tarot cards have become a widely known and commonly used system of divination even for the general public." The Lord continued, drawing four large rectangles on the black board behind him. "This obviously stabilizes them for use in Magecraft. While one might be eager to just to the twenty-two cards of the major arcana, can someone here name the four suits of the minor arcana?"

This time, Liam's hand shot up. He had somewhat of an experience with more typical magic. His mother had been an avid fan of the witchcraft brand of magic-although she obviously wasn't an actual mage. El-Melloi seemed surprised at Liam's eagerness and pointed to him with his chalk.

"Wands, Cups, Swords, and Pentacles."

"Correct. In order, these represent Fire, Water, Air, and Earth." He continued, drawing cartoonishly bad images of the four elements inside the rectangles. "Due to the elemental association, this grounds them deeper into many different foundations, including Angels, which some of you may recall from a previous lecture."

Liam continued to write this down, albeit at a much slower pace. He didn't feel such a need to record this information for later reference. The information seemed to remain in his head-without danger of immediately falling out and rendering him magically useless. The fact that the topic was of a more modern example certainly seemed to help.

Eventually the lecture came to an end, after a small rant about the numerological significance of the major arcana and their connection to the Kabbalah Foundation.

Liam closed his notebook with a sigh, although this time, he didn't seem nearly as drained as from his morning class. The environment was much lighter here, and with a teacher he was already familiar with, Liam could see himself actually enjoying his time here.He collected his notebook and turned to leave his seat when-

"So, how's your first day going?"

He jumped at the sudden appearance of Flat Escardos, who had leapt over the desk behind Liam to reach him. He gave another sigh, this time of relief.

"Why do people keep coming at me out of nowhere?" Liam lamented, noting how this was the second time that day someone came to talk to him randomly.

"Surprises are great! Keeps you on your toes." Flat remarked with a grin. He kept his eyes on Liam, however, awaiting an answer.

"Decent. First class was a headache and a half, but this was more of a relief." Liam said as he stood up, tying his blue jacket around his waist and picking up his notebook. The two boys made to leave, but the anxiety that had been building up in him finally made itself known. "Actually, there's something I need to talk to you about."

Flat stopped and tilted his head, remaining motionless in the doorway of the classroom. Liam gestured with his head to follow, to which he obliged. Once they are out and moving, he explained the odd encounter he had two nights ago.

"You don't really sleepwalk, do you?" Flat questioned.

"No, obviously."

The golden-haired boy scratched his chin for a moment, his expression something other than pure optimism for once. "Well, it's almost certainly either a curse or an illusion."

Liam stopped again mid-stride, staring at Flat with wide eyes. "Are you serious?" He asked, albeit with a more accusatory tone then he would have liked to admit.

"Yeah, although I'm not quite sure who would want to curse you. The semester hadn't even begun yet!" His had casual demeanor returned now, a toothy smile gracing Flat's face. It sent Liam into an even deeper pit of emotions than before, and he struggled to keep himself under control.

"You think it's another student?"

"Well, not necessarily. It's not easy for students to make such blatant attacks against one another." The boy explained as the two resumed their walk through the college town. "It'd be easier to tell if someone could try and analyze the curse."

They continued onwards in silence for a few minutes, walking vaguely in the direction of the main Clock Tower building. Liam's mind wandered to his new project in General Fundamentals, and to his new acquaintance.

"Actually," Liam broke the silence, as a smile of his own came across his face, "I might have someone who could help with that."