Ten years earlier

Luka was squinting up at the sun, silently blaming it for the searing hot summer heat. He longed for a stirring breeze or the relief of air conditioning, but wasn't likely to get either. The Academy hadn't, in their attempt to modernize the institution, prioritized student comfort and so they decided not to splurge on air conditioning. He sighed dramatically and leaned back on his arms. He was sitting on one of the confusing installations designed for modernism and inclusion, he guessed. It was a clean-cut concrete table with organic, but suitably fashionable, wooden benches. Luka had placed himself on the table with his feet on the bench next to Hadley, who was attempting to study. It was supposed to be a study session to prepare for the test Monday, but Luka hadn't been up for it to begin with and his motivation fell as the temperature rose.

When Hadley pointedly ignored him, and he didn't even earn a single annoyed glance away from the books, he started watching the people passing by. His mind idled and he let it wander to the different sensations he felt in the magical energies around him. There was never anything tangible, not on school grounds, but he still enjoyed the feeling of it. In a way, it was like white noise. A quiet, calming buzz at the back of his mind. Meanwhile, his eyes were lazily scanning the crowd, recognizing his peers from class or campus or not at all. There were simply too many to keep track of, and some were nature mages, who he never had reason to interact with.

He finally spotted something that caught his interest, and he smiled at the distraction. He nudged Hadley with his knee, which finally made him look up.

"Fresh blood," Luka said, nodding towards two people walking by.

"What?" Hadley asked, following his line of sight. "Why do you care?"

"They're the transfers. Aren't you interested?" Luka asked, scooting closer towards the edge of the table.

Hadley took his eyes off them and looked back at Luka. "It's because they're twins, isn't it?"

The new students were clearly siblings, and might as well have been a couple of years apart, but there was something about them. Their similarities were too striking, their movements to perfectly synchronized for them to be anything less than twins. They had bronze skin, a shade of brown that spoke of a mixed heritage. The girl's long, dark brown hair fell over her shoulders in gentle curls, while the boy's was cropped short. Luka couldn't see any more details from the distance, but he was positive they were twins.

Luka's smile brightened, teeth flashing. "Obviously. And no one ever transfers. Remember the last time we had a transfer?"

"He's hard to forget," Hadley said and the tone in his voice made Luka turn his head to look at him. There was no mistaking the look on his face.

"I didn't transfer." Luka argued.

"No, of course not. You just cheated and started early at another Academy."

"If you want the orphan perks, you have to lose the parents," Luka said, turning his attention back on the pair and plotting his approach. He didn't have a habit of approaching people. He didn't have a habit of interacting with people at all. It had been Hadley and him for two years now and he was perfectly satisfied with that arrangement. Still, he was too intrigued not to approach.

"I really don't understand your fascination with these things. What do you get out of it?" Hadley asked, predictably changing the subject. He was never fond of the cavalier way Luka talked about his parents, or rather lack thereof, but Luka had gotten used to the idea at some point during the last decade. If pressed on the issue, it was clear how much he loved them. On the surface, though, he had adopted a careless attitude. Because it helped. Because he had gotten tired of the sadness washing over him every time he thought about them. Of course for Hadley it was still a tragedy, a reminder of the mortality of parents.

"Knowledge," Luka answered simply. He found it entirely useful to know as much as possible about mages, any and all kinds. If there was a chance that someone was special, he wanted to know about it. Twins were rare enough to begin with, and magic twins were even rarer. The literature on the subject was lacking at best, full of too many theories and too few conclusions, which meant that a unique opportunity had landed in front of him and he wasn't going to miss out on it.

"Isn't it better to focus on your own powers and limitations? Unless you have a long lost twin somewhere, I still don't see the point." Hadley mused. Either Luka wasn't paying enough attention or Hadley's tone made him sound like he was mostly talking to himself.

"Who says I'm not?" Luka padded him on the shoulder as he stood up on the bench and dropped to the ground.

"Come on," he urged. Hadley shook his head, but ended up walking beside him towards the newcomers after all.

"So, what's the plan? Walking up to them, and asking if they have any special twin powers?"

Luka put his arm around Hadley's shoulders. "You tell me," he said, "you're the one with the social skills. I would probably work up to the interrogation, though."

"You're impossible," Hadley complained, and Luka could practically hear the eye-roll that accompanied the words. He smiled and untangled himself from Hadley.

They introduced themselves to the twins, who no longer seemed surprised by the attention. They exchanged pleasantries, and Hadley offered himself up if they needed anything at all. Luka remained quiet beside Hadley, trying not to look like his socially awkward entourage, while watching them. They had the same bright eyes, peridot green, though he suspected they were really hazel. The brown barely showed, though, while the green shimmered. They were a stunning pair, but that wasn't what drew Luka to them. Instead, he focused on the similarities in their features, convincing himself once more that they had to be twins, and not just siblings. When Hadley asked what class they were in, Luka started paying attention again.

The Academy was a strange blend between high school, college and magic school. Generally kids were ready to be trained at sixteen, and someone had decided five years was the appropriate time for learning control. So, because of that, the students at the Academy graduated at twenty one, twenty two if they wanted the mentor year. Some were permitted to start college at an actual respectable school, but it was a privilege that had to be earned. Most people were just delayed in their education, if they wanted to go to college. This also meant that the class structure was more like high school, and that most classes were taken with the same people.

The twins answered almost in unison, and Luka was pleased to discover that not only were they in the same year, but they were also in his class.

"Perfect," Luka said, settling his expression on his most charming smile. "We can fill you in."

One of the twins, Abel, had been glancing at Luka throughout the conversation, but now turned the full attention of those dazzling eyes on him.

"Great," he smiled, and Luka felt his own charm pale in comparison. "Maybe you'll have lunch with us?"

"Absolutely," he agreed, and they made plans to meet by the cafeteria at noon.

Walking away, he felt Hadley's eyes on him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"What?" he asked.

"Explain to me again why we're doing this," Hadley said, sounding exasperated. Luka suspected it had something to do with how things usually turned out, when he got excited about something, but this was different. He was only getting to know other people, which should be a good thing.

"Shouldn't you be loving this? Meeting new people. Interacting with someone who isn't me," Luka asked with a smile.

"Huh. Yeah." Hadley paused. "I think you're making me unsociable."

They walked for a moment, with enough seconds ticking by that Luka allowed himself to think that Hadley was over it, but then he ruined it.

"Just, please explain to me why this is so important to you," Hadley said, and Luka sighed. His inability to let things go really was annoying.

He prepared to turn to the truth, even though he never really liked telling Hadley his true motives. He somehow never seemed to approve.

"You should know your enemy," Luka answered.

"Enemy? What enemy? The threats aren't coming from the Academy, Lavrin. It's all wild, untamed magic and old legends."

"You can't possibly believe that."

Hadley looked at him, mouth open, struggling for a comeback. Luka smiled at the win, feeling superior. "It's almost adorable how naive you are."

"No, but... it doesn't happen. It hasn't happened."

"How sure are you about that?" Luka asked.

"You think we're corruptible. You think we're all corruptible," Hadley said and the pure shock in his voice surprised Luka. It was true that he was naive, but this was bordering on denial.

"Of course we are. Everyone has their limit, Thomas. Do you really think they would tell us about the cases where one of the Academy Agents snap? Do you really think they wouldn't do everything in their power to bury that? The way we live, the way we're taught, it's too clean. Too neat. It's unnatural."

The conversation halted, along with Hadley’s steps. He was looking into space and wringing his hands, as he did when he was avoiding an uncomfortable topic. Luka walked in a slow arch around him.

"You never told me how your parents died," Hadley didn't refocus, he didn't move at all. Luka shook his head, and bared his teeth in a smile. He always found it tragically funny how people managed to blame the death on his parents on every issue he had.

"No," he said. "It wasn't corrupt mages. That would have made for a better story. An ally turning on them? There's something poetic about that."

"So, what happened?"

Luka shrugged. "An accident waiting to happen. The Academy shouldn't have sent them in, but they did."

"That's not an answer."

Luka went silent as fragments of the past flooded his mind. The coping mechanisms were considerably less effective when he was actively thinking about his parents. He closed his eyes against the painful memories, only to see them more clearly behind his eyelids.

"It has occurred to you that I don't want to talk about this, right?" He said, finally. He cleared his throat, afraid that his voice had come out unsteady.

"I just want to understand," Hadley said quietly.

"Understand what? Me? Becoming an orphan is something that happened to me. It doesn't define me."

"I know that. But you can't deny the fact that it has shaped who you are."

"Okay," Luka said, in the end. Hadley turned his head towards him, surprised. There was a question on his face, left unspoken, as if he wasn't sure if the conversation was over or just beginning.

"Yeah. Okay," he repeated, nodding his consent at Hadley. "But not here."

They were out in the open, too exposed, too crowded. This was a personal matter to Luka, and it would be handled personally.

"So where?" Hadley asked, and he followed him as Luka led him across the Academy grounds. Luka could easily have taken him to their room, enjoying the privacy of a closed door, but it was too warm and too casual. There was one place, the only place, where Luka had figured out how to get to the roof. The hospital had roof access, but there was too much personnel in the hallways, too many questions raised. The other place was incidentally also the tallest building at the Academy.

One of the Academy libraries had a book tower. Luka wasn't sure whose brilliant idea that had been, but he wasn't about to complain. This particular library mostly consisted of grand study halls and small group rooms, while other libraries were better stocked on books. The book tower held the only books, but it was tall. Bookshelves rose from the floor to the top of an impressive seven stories. All the floors were open in the middle, leaving a dangerous fall down through the entire tower, but admittedly, it was a very nice view. They reached the top. Getting to the roof required a bit of maneuvering and exiting through a window, which was only slightly reckless.

"Really?" Hadley said with heavy judgment, once they were finally on the roof, and Luka enjoyed the breeze that only seemed to exist on higher altitudes. "You are dangerously dramatic, do you know that?"

"Do you want the truth or not?" Luka asked.

"I'm here, aren't I?" Hadley muttered, sounding none too pleased about the situation.

Luka grabbed a cigarette from his pack and flicked his lighter open.

"Those things are bad for you," Hadley sighed, automatically. He knew the effect on a healer was meaningless, and yet he insisted on pointing out the damage every time.

"Hardly," Luka answered.

"Well, they're bad for me," Hadley countered.

Luka smiled, as he inhaled deeply, enjoying the smoke burning his lungs. He could feel the damage it did to his system, even though it was minimal, but had yet to heal it. He tried once, about a year after he started smoking, just to make sure he could, and hadn't done it since. He glanced at the faint lines of scars on his arms. It was hardly the same, but he had come to terms with the more socially acceptable method of harming himself. In a way, it was more of a challenge, because it was all internal, but it was also more subtle and so painfully slow. Despite the nicotine flooding his system, it didn't calm him in the same way healing a deep cut did. He enjoyed the flash of pain, the spilling of blood, the dramatics of it all. He enjoyed watching the flesh and skin close up before his eyes. It was an instant fix, while smoking was a slow burn.

He still felt tempted every time he held a knife, to lower it to his skin and watch the blood well up beneath it, but he was done filling his body with scars that had no better story attached to them than, it calms me. He wanted scars he could point to and say, I've battled monsters, and I'm still here.

He leaned on the low wall surrounding them, and based on the look Hadley gave him, he thought the brick might crumble at any minute. Luka was considerably less worried.

"I don't talk about what happened to my parents, because to be honest, there isn't much of a story."

"If you brought me up here to—"

"Thomas," Luka said. "I'm telling you everything. It might just be worth it."

Hadley settled in, choosing to sit on the ground, leaning his back precariously against the brick work.

"My parents were the top Agents at the Kovalevsky Academy, and they were always going on some job or another. When I was nine, it was the first time I ever heard them argue about an assignment. My mom didn't want to go, but my dad managed to convince her that she had to. That they were doing it to keep people safe, to keep their children safe. At the time, I didn't understand. I always thought my parents were invincible, that nothing could harm them. Not until something did."

He swallowed around the sorrow lodged in his throat.

"They didn't come home that night. We were used to the long nights, of course, but when night turned to morning, the only ones who showed up were representatives from the Council expressing their regrets. It was a meaningless exchange. I was nine, I didn't understand, and they wouldn't explain it to me. It never managed to feel real without an explanation, without facts, but of course they never came home, and at some point I had to accept the truth.

“My sister and I were allowed to stay at the Academy, even after our parents were dead. It was highly irregular, but no one actually cared as much about the rules as they did about us. The Agent who took me in told me the truth eventually. It took years, but I finally convinced him to explain to me why this was different, why they had argued, why they had been reluctant. If there is any one thing, that has shaped my view of the Academy, that was it. They were sent on a suicide mission, and everyone knew it, even if they didn't want to admit it. The Council was desperate, so they sent their best Agents, with plenty of backup, and it wasn't enough.

“The threat, whatever it was — I didn't care then, and I don't care now — was brought down, barely. My parents completed their mission, but in the end they were alone. Their backup was all gone, their magic was all gone, and they were left bleeding out. By the time anyone else got there, there was nothing left."

He paused, trying to steady himself. Trying not to get swallowed up by the memories.

"And before you say anything," he added. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that. The threat was dire enough that they obviously had to use their best Agents. What else were they supposed to do? But they were gathering forces from nearby Academies, Agents better equipped to deal with it, only the Council got impatient. They didn't want to wait, or didn't want to waste the resources, or whatever other excuse they could come up with. So, they changed the plans. My parents, alone, with low-ranking Agents for backup. Maybe they hoped they would make it, but it doesn't change the fact that they effectively killed them. That was when I realized two things about the Council: They don't care, and they are cowards."

Hadley hadn't been looking at him while he talked, but now he turned his head towards him. Luka watched him out of the corner of his eyes, but didn't want to see the pity in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Luka shrugged, and put out his cigarette. "I hope you're satisfied with that piece of insight."