"Ground rules," Luka said, the moment Alice caught up to him. "No uniform, and don't call me Mage, Master or Sir."

He was reading through the file while descending the stairs, but she had to wonder how much of it he could actually read, given how fast he was walking.

"Anything else?“ Alice asked, and it might have come out a little too sharp, a little too bold. She was still very, very tired, and it interfered with her self-control. Luka looked up from the file, and watched her. Then the hint of a smile cracked through his expression, only for a second, before he went back to reading.

First impression? She had expected his charisma, and been warned about the hostility, but any doubts about how those qualities fit together were gone now. Luka Lavrin knew how to command a room, and how to make it look entirely unintentional. There was a quiet power to him, that was both off-putting and entirely captivating, as if he knew he was better than everyone else, but it was beneath him to point it out. She had no doubt he could be dangerous, since that kind of confidence didn’t arise from nothing, but she suspected he was mostly content to cut with his words.

He had certainly made a masterful effort to shut down any authority Alice imagined Hadley had over him, and forced her to reevaluate her own perception of him, whether or not that had been a deliberate choice.

While Hadley might have looked like a fallen hero, Luka looked more like the antihero that had risen in his place. He had broader shoulders, a better posture, and a healthy complexion. Thick eyebrows, a sharp nose and hard eyes left his face looking severe, but Alice had seen that glimpse of a smile and thought, or hoped, that he wasn’t all hard angles.

Luka fell behind once they made it to the glass tower, and Alice opened the door for him. He lifted his eyes from the file, as if the colors in the room upset his vision. They probably did. She couldn't imagine reading in this place. Outside, he stopped, flipping through the rest of the file, and offered it to her.

When she reached for it, he flicked his wrist back.

“You’re exhausted, and anemic.”

Her fingers hovered, where the file had been. “Yes,” she said. There probably wasn’t much point in lying to a Healer. Especially one, who had already used magic on her.

“Do you want to sit out until tomorrow?” His pale eyes held the weight of a bored predator, as they regarded her. She felt a little like a wounded gazelle next to him, but she didn’t hesitate on her answer.

“No.”

He tilted the file back towards her. “Read that, hydrate, and for fuck’s sake, eat something. Meet me outside the gate, when you’re ready.”

Alice accepted the file, and nodded. She had to swallow the yes, Sir that was sitting on her tongue, when she remembered his rules.

She watched him walk towards the gates, before she turned towards the food hall. She found a remote corner, where she wasn’t likely to be interrupted, and started reading.

She had grabbed a sandwich and some orange juice, eating in small bites, careful not to spill anything on the papers. The file was surprisingly thick for how little information it managed to hold. It was mostly data; timelines, projections and observations from the Healers. The affected students had described their symptoms, but there was no tangible conclusion.

Before returning to Luka, she went back to her room to change out of her uniform. After five years of wearing it, she had grown accustomed to the style of skirts, blazers and button downs. Her change was little more than a shift away from the school colors — and the strips of green sown into everything to mark her magic type — and into a red tartan skirt and a black shirt with short sleeves.

Luka was sitting outside the gates, smoking. He was on the ground, back against the wall, despite the five additional steps it would have taken to get to the bench. His eyes were closed, and he didn't move when she approached.

"How much did you know," he asked, "before you read that file?"

There weren't many people passing by here, but she didn't know how he could know it was her.

"Not much," she admitted. "I mean, we knew people were disappearing. We just didn't know why, and the teachers wouldn't answer questions directly. It was obvious they were stalling, trying to keep everyone from getting panicked, and honestly, with exams coming up, we just... had other things to focus on, I guess. We told each other that they would do something, if it was serious. Like, maybe people were just leaving. I don't know. We were just telling ourselves lies to feel safe, I think."

She wanted to drop down next to him, still feeling heavy and weary, but she remained standing. Eating had helped, but she felt like she was holding herself up on willpower alone, and if she sat down, she was unlikely to get back up.

Luka nodded. "According to the file, patient zero died about a week ago. This was a couple of days after losing access to his magic. Since then, an increasing number of mages have complained about disorientation, unpredictable magic and, in the end, the same loss of control over it."

Alice had tried to make sense of the case, while she was walking back to Luka, setting up the data in her head and trying to find the missing pieces, but it kind of just looked like a disease. Not like any magical disease she had ever heard of, but nevertheless, a disease. Some illnesses had build up a resistance to magic, and some conditions could cause magic to degenerate or act up, but those were all well-documented and treatable.

This was something else.

Whatever this was, it appeared to be infectious. They had tried to track the infected as much as possible, but the problem was that these were all students and their paths crossed more times than could be counted. The Agents assigned to the case had interviewed everyone who had been infected after patient zero, but had failed to find anything meaningful they had in common.

"What do you think it is?" Alice asked.

Luka lowered the cigarette from his lips, and exhaled smoke. "I need more data." He shrugged. "I agree with Thomas, that it’s probably a spell, but I need to verify it.“

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Why would anyone do that?" If it was a spell, it meant someone had deliberately written it for this purpose.

"Why does anyone do anything?" Luka countered. "There are plenty of people out there with reasons to resent the Academy, not to mention the Council."

"Like you?"

He smiled. "Like me." Luka dragged himself up off the ground. "Before you start thinking that I did this, let me tell you why I didn't."

"I wasn't—" Alice started to protest. It might have occurred to her, if only for a second. Luka was the best spellcaster anyone knew, and this kind of thing would require talent, she assumed. It was easy to dismiss, though, as the idea of Luka as a hero was still ingrained in her, and she couldn't imagine that someone who had risked his own life to save hundreds, would now start taking those lives.

"If I was going to take down the Council," Luka said, ignoring her. "I would take down the Council, I wouldn't take it out on everyone else."

"You've thought about it," she said, surprised.

"Of course I have," Luka said, as if he assumed everyone considered taking down a government at least once in their lifetime.

"I don't want to pry, but..."

"No," Luka said immediately, as if he had anticipated the question, which he most likely had. It had been lying in wait between them ever since they met, even if this was the first obvious opening. It wasn’t the first time she had wanted to ask. "I'm not going to be one to tell you what happened."

"It is important, though, isn't it? It's why you're here now."

Luka dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his shoe. "I'm here because Thomas thinks I can fix this, and because I can't turn my back on people dying. None of that is because of what happened ten years ago. I realize it's a novelty to you, that it's an exciting story you tell each other, but I lived it. I don't need to talk about it."

"Of course," she said, but it was odd that he didn't seem proud at all. They had done something remarkable, and he acted more like it was one of the worst things he had ever done. She understood that it had come at a cost, that they had all lost something, but they must have known the risk when they walked into it. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's fine. We needed to address this."

He walked past her, back towards the Academy, and she followed. He seemed to hesitate before passing the gate, breathing deeply, as if he was bracing himself for something.

She watched him step across, and saw him wince.

"Are you okay?"

He rubbed two fingers against his temple and closed his eyes. "The wards are giving me a headache," he explained. "It'll take time to acclimate."

"Really?" The wards were supposed to be harmless, but she knew that coming back to the Academy after a vacation could feel faintly like something between jet lag and a hangover. She hadn't attributed it to the wards, though, only thought it had something to do with the concentration of magic, but it made sense.

"Turns out it gets worse the longer you're away," Luka said. "And ten years is a long time."

"Are you sure we should be doing this now?"

"Yeah. I need to get through this. Might as well get something done."

They were heading for the hospital. From what Alice had gathered from the file, that was really the only data source available. If they wanted to find out what the Agents and Healers had missed, they would have to start there.

"I have one question," Alice said. She didn't know if she should leave him alone with his pain, or if answering questions would serve as a distraction.

"Is it about the case?" Luka asked.

It wasn't. She almost lost her nerve (she had plenty of questions that were actually about the case, and could have asked any of them instead) but she carefully rephrased it instead. "Sort of. If this is a spell, and someone created it, doesn't that narrow down the suspect pool quite a lot? Isn't there only like a handful of people who would have this kind of skill with spells?"

"Not necessarily," Luka answered. "Most Rogues learn spells. Some even get good at them."

"You learned spells before you became a Rogue." She slipped in the personal question, closer to the question she had wanted to ask.

"I learned in Russia, while growing up. The Council there isn’t afraid of spells."

"But the Council here is."

"This Council is afraid of things they can't control," Luka said. "It's not just spells."

"Okay," Alice said, "but if it's such a weakness, why don't more people exploit it? Why hasn't this happened before?"

"It's not that simple."

It wasn’t really an answer, but he didn't elaborate.

They had arrived at the hospital building, and Luka stopped outside, putting a hand into his pocket. Alice thought he was going to pause to smoke again, but after a moment he sighed and continued walking. On the outside, the hospital was the same as the other buildings, all gray brick and gothic spikes, although it was perhaps more squat and pragmatic in its stature. A small glass cube had been annexed around the entrance, not unlike the glass tower at the administrative building, which had sliding doors to allow for easier access. On the inside, it was less like the other buildings at the Academy. Everywhere else, the gothic style had been preserved and there were a lot of arches and muted colors and elaborate carvings. Here, everything was white and clean, with glass and metal as the primary materials. Passing through the small arch that used to be the front door, was a little like stepping into another world.

Alice hadn't actually spend a lot of time here. Usually, the Academy deployed Healers when needed, like at the exams. They were also often present at training sessions, or would be called in if needed. You really didn't go to the hospital unless you were sick, and even then, it had to be fairly complicated for a mage to actually be admitted. She had heard about shortages of Healers, but had often wondered how busy they could really be at the hospital.

They faced the reception desk, where a young woman was smiling politely at them. There was a waiting area to the right, where a couple of Agents were bleeding and waiting for their turn. So, the hospital was perhaps more of an Agent thing. She followed Luka to the reception, where he leaned forward on the counter. "I need to see Dr. Garland," he said.

"Dr. Garland isn't available," the receptionist said.

"Of course," he said. "I imagine she's busy with the infection that's inexplicably killing mages."

"Um," the receptionist said. Her smile faltered and she looked around her uncertainly. It was obvious that she didn't think they were supposed to know about that, and she had no protocol for it. It made Alice wonder how much the Council were actually attempting to cover this up. Luka obviously wasn't an Agent, and neither was she, but the receptionist had barely glanced at their arms to look for the crest. Instead, she had looked to the Agents sitting in the waiting area. Alice had imagined all the Agents knew what was going on, but maybe not.

"Right. That's supposed to be a secret, isn't it?"

He dropped back and pulled his phone out of his pocket. She registered that he was calling Hadley, and then turned back to the receptionist. "Sorry," she said, smiling. "We really are assigned to the case, though. Mage Thomas arranged it, and it's cleared by the Council."

The receptionist shook her head. "All we were told is that the Healers dealing with it need to be left in peace. That includes Dr. Garland." She lowered her voice. "You're not Agents, and he... Is that who I think it is?"

Perhaps she was old enough to have been here ten years ago. Perhaps she had some idea what he looked like, and his faint Russian accent was another clue (along with the weird communist party shirt he was wearing, even if it seemed so at odds with everything else about him). Of course, it was also true that no one gossiped more than junior Council members, so perhaps word had already been spreading among the Academy staff.

"Luka Lavrin?" She nodded.

The receptionist bit her lip, thinking. "I can take you to Dr. Garland, but she's not going to talk to you until she knows you're supposed to have access."

She glanced at Luka. "That probably won't be a problem much longer. Thank you."

Alice walked into Luka's field of vision, and he paused in his conversation. "She's taking us to Dr. Garland."

"Oh, look," he said, aimed at Hadley. "The apprentice is more useful than you." He hung up, and followed Alice and the receptionist to the elevators. Apparently the floor was restricted, because after pressing the button for the third floor, she placed her fingers on a panel, and called her magic. It was yellow, Alice noted. A Summoner, rather than a Healer. The doors closed, and the elevator started upwards.