"Mum is going to be pissed," Nicholas laughs.

"I'll apologise to grandma later." Luca has his wand out, scanning the entrance room, which also has a Transverse gateway and a warding circle for people to teleport into. There's no high mage, no cranes, not even a servant of some sort.

"The high mage doesn't really show up," Nicholas explains. "I'm only here for the rumours that start, for the overseas families that Haochen is trying to recruit. I talked to him like three times total before."

Luca lowers his wand but doesn't put it away.

"Maybe we won't even see him," Nicholas offers. "But to be honest, he's not that bad. I haven't even been tortured yet."

"That's a very low bar to set, Nicholas."

Luca stays paranoid all the way up to Nicholas’ room, which is kind of earned because he spent several years messing up Haochen’s plans and then almost dying to the man himself.

“I think he’s still pretty chill right now,” Nicholas offers up, tossing his bag onto the bed. “For whatever that’s worth.”

Luca is searching the room for spy spells or anything malicious. “I have had zero conversations with the man that didn’t result in him trying to kill me. It’s all death threats, all the time. My version was clinically insane.”

“That’s going to suck for us to deal with later when he does go off the deep end,” Nicholas sighs, flopping onto the bed.

“Us?” Luca asks, pausing.

“You don’t seem to understand how this father-son thing works, huh?” Nicholas muses and then coos when Luca makes a cute face. He rolls up to his feet. “Come on, let me show you around the place so you can do your perimeter check thing.”

“I don’t…do that,” Luca tries but follows anyway.

----------------------------------------

The next day, Nicholas wanders the huge library with Luca following like a little duckling as always. And yes, Nicholas is aware it's more like a dragon guarding its nest but Nicholas likes the duckling metaphor because it reminds him he's a dad.

Nicholas passes the etiquette section and laughs.

"Did you have to learn that kind of thing?" Luca asks.

"Everyone does," Nicholas scoffs and slips into the aisle. "Wow, I think it might be literally the same books Ayad Manor has. You see this?" Nicholas slaps the shelf in front of him filled with etiquette. "It's all trash. Most of it is history of why we do something, but you don't need context to actually do it.”

"Are you sure you didn't skip a few books?" Luca muses.

"I didn't," Nicholas insists. "I used a spell to summarise it all and then compiled it further. Made cheat sheets and colour-coded family lines, everything." He pauses. "Well, the spell is slightly not good, but only because it uses blood.”

"I'd still use it," Luca says immediately, half trying to comfort Nicholas. "Imagine essays."

"I know!" Nicholas cries. "It's so much easier, right? I'm willing to sacrifice some blood – probably the same amount caused by the paper cut I'd get flipping through however many books I'd need to do it the normal way."

Nicholas is already turning away so he doesn’t see Luca wince.

Luca, ever since he stepped foot into the magical world, has hated Dark magic and the people who use it. He’s been told horrible things about the cost, about how illegal it is -with potentially getting your magic stripped from you- and how it’s a perversion of the natural order. He believed it when people told him.

Turns out he doesn’t give a shit when his dad does it.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

It’s not so bad though, really. Luca knows Rafael is a Dark creature and shouldn’t even be allowed to go to school where vulnerable children are. Hearth is illegal too, Stavros is an InCore using a NatCom spell – it’s not right, it magically should not be natural to do that, so it’s Dark.

Luca mentally waves it off. He’ll save that conversation for when Nicholas does something morally wrong, not just against the laws of magic…

Nicholas gestures to the bottom of the shelf. "Dining etiquette is summarised into 'use the utensils outside-in'. The best thing about etiquette is that it's generally circular and keeps itself in check – for instance, no matter what family you go to, they always have the same amount of courses in the same order. So go outside-in, you can't go wrong."

"Even with history," Luca allows, "there is no way you need that many books."

"All the books are copies of each other, sometimes verbatim." Nicholas points out one near Luca. "Look, authored by all the big heritage families. The only reason you have these many books is because if you don't have a Lambros one and a Lambros comes over, they'll throw a fit."

Nicholas pulls out a massive, old leather book. "This book -human skin of course- is the 'sword in the stone' basically." Nicholas flips it open and shows Luca just a massive wall of text. "Written by an illiterate in already bastardised Latin, a single sentence stretching for over two pages, rubbish handwriting, circular reasoning-"

"Let me guess," Luca sighs because this seems to be a theme with heritage. "Everyone has to read it to be considered educated."

Nicholas flashes a grin. "If you see this, ever, you are socially obligated to brag about how young your child was when they memorised it." Nicholas leans in. "When I was six, I memorised two of the most unintelligible sentences, and every time someone asked me a question, I'd recite it aloud. I was lauded as a genius."

"So you're an expert in etiquette," Luca teases.

"Ain't no one better than me," Nicholas brags, shoving the book back in. "Stick with me, Luca, I'll get you gala-ready in no time."

Nicholas loops around the end of the shelf and passes the heritage history section. "This is also garbage. Not because it isn't good to know, but because you don't need to read to hear all about a family's history. Come within a ten-meter radius of a Manjate, it’s all 'my father is doing some-such political whatever' or 'my ancestor was thiiiiiis close to being a high mage seven centuries ago'."

Luca follows, a fond smile on his face.

Nicholas scoffs, diving back into the aisle. "The school is full of heritage who think they're so sly, skittering around collecting information and blackmail, pretending they’re making connections with people their family already knows, but they don't know when to shut up with their bragging. I've been all over that citadel, I can ruin people. They don't know half of what I've got."

Nicholas tosses a smirk over his shoulder. "I mean, if I really wanted to know what High Mage Xia was doing, I'd just ask that self-absorbed year-eight with the mum that's a Crane Sect disciple. Honestly, they're lucky I'm not gunning for high mage."

Luca grabs Nicholas’ wrist and jerks him to a stop, staring with wide eyes over Nicholas' shoulder. Nicholas' smile drops off his face and he whips around.

Haochen Xia stands with a book in hand, leaning casually against the end of the shelf. "No, I'm quite certain you wouldn’t last the day."

Luca tries to edge around Nicholas and push his dad behind him, away from a stranger who carries such familiar magic. Twenty years doesn’t change a man that much, does it? The high mage looks the same but carries himself so differently that Luca almost thought he was a young Wei instead, waiting impatiently for Luca after class.

Luca spots the jade focus hanging from the man’s waist and refocuses. Haochen doesn’t have some of the weaknesses that Luca remembers because most of his injuries happen in the future after the heritage and other high mages fight back. It also means the man doesn’t have a lot of the strengths that made him so impossible to pin down in a fight. Luca needs to reassess this as though Haochen is a stranger.

The high mage has a string of jade beads as his focus and his usual duelling style is overwhelming power. As an InCore -or a physical cultivator- Xia is designed for adaptation so he has an immense breadth of spells. He favours complex spells that can be manipulated to do many things rather than simple one-shot tricks, like summoning a crane made of fire instead of throwing out a firebolt.

The man’s favourite is a whip made from threads of the void and when it lands a hit, the injury is devastating. In this library though, the high mage is far more likely to move them somewhere else to protect the books. Luca knows how to hijack a teleport and even if they get caught up in a fight, Luca can-

“Luca, this is High Mage Xia,” Nicholas says casually. “Haochen, this is Luca.”

Luca hesitates. "You must be our host.”

Haochen peers down at Luca and purses his lips. "Why are there two of you now?"

"He's my cousin," Nicholas chimes in.

Haochen hums and doesn't seem to care all that much. "We'll be going to Sweden tomorrow, dress well."

Luca and Nicholas share a confused look.

"I didn't exactly pack dress robes," Nicholas says.

"Send a letter to your family then," Haochen dismisses and pushes off the shelf gracefully.

The two boys wait in silence as the high mage leaves.

"Was he listening the whole time?" Nicholas whispers.

Luca grabs Nicholas and they race out of the library.