Grace blinked tiredly as she continued to stare at the schematic in front of her. So many names for so many parts, lines drawn from each in an intersecting web that befuddled her to no end. It shouldn’t have, seeing as she was the one who’d drawn them to begin with, but her eyes were betraying her in these later hours.
Everything had started to blur together, names not making sense when she stared at them for a full minute, and calculations meant to have been trivial to do in her head required notes to double-check.
She was, for lack of a better description, spent.
The sight of her desk, riddled with pens and small half-assembled mechanical parts began to fade into darkness as her eyes slowly closed. Sleeping here wasn’t a good idea, but resting her eyes for a minute or two wouldn’t hurt, would it? From the looks of it, she would be working into the night again, so-
“I don’t hear scribbling coming from your side, Grace,” the voice of her mentor said, cutting through whatever delusion she’d tried to trick herself into accepting. Her back strengthened, her eyes focused just a little more than before, and she could turn her head to see Rubeus walking over. Whatever work he’d been busy with sat on his own desk, the schematics beside it infinitely more complex than what she’d been working on. “Should I take that you’re done for the day?”
“Oh, no, not at all!” Grace quickly assured him. “I’m barely halfway, actually, since I’m meant to figure out how to assimilate these pieces together without any collisions in the system when it’s running, and… it’s not as easy as I thought it would be.”
Getting this position had been harder than anything she’d ever done before, so there was little chance Grace would mess it up by not being able to keep up with her own timetable. The due date for this project was progressing, and the required sections that had to be finished before that point were still hardly started on.
Yet that sense of panic wasn’t shared with Rubeus, the old man just chuckling at the wide-eyed pile of anxiety.
“You're tired, Grace,” Rubeus said, using a more fatherly tone. “Any work you’ll do now won’t have the quality you’ll be able to do once you’ve had sleep. Refreshed minds are better than depleted ones any day of the year.”
“I know, sir, but—”
“If it’s about your project having to be completed next month, don’t worry,” the Royal Mage cut in before she could make any form of objection. “More complexity means you should get more allotted time, and, since I’m the one in control of allotments, I can push in another month or two for you.”
Rubeus Hayes was more than just the administrator of student projects, of course. The man was in control of just about everything academy-related, from the library to the curriculum and even down to the prioritized research topics. Everything important that was related to the magical arts went through Grace’s mentor before it could be implemented, both because of his position but also the knowledge he possessed.
The Royal Mage had been one of the founding members of the academy, after all, having stood with many others while their country formed from their hard work. Their practical and theoretical expertise were unmatched by every other mentor that a last-year student could hope to be put under, which was all the more reason why Grace had fought to be where she was now.
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“Thank you, sir. I won’t forget this,” she promised her mentor, packing away her papers and experiments before she forgot how to do even that. The entire day had been spent working on the mechanics and little else, which meant she hadn’t gotten the chance to discuss a certain topic with the one she now worked on. “By the way, there is… something I wanted to mention to you.”
“Oh?” Rubeus said, stopping halfway between his and her desk. The Royal Mage had clearly intended to not heed his own advice and work through the night himself, but her words had put a temporary halt to that plan. “Is it something related to your project?”
“No, sir, it’s…a discovery I made outside of my research while out in the city,” Grace explained, pausing to debate whether to actually say this. Elijah had asked her to be silent, to not tell others about his gift, but this was important. “Please don’t spread it around.”
“If it’s something that you’d rather keep secret from the others in the academy, I won’t tell another soul,” her mentor promised. A very earnest tone, along with the heaviness one would expect in this situation. “What is it you wish to tell me?”
“It’s about one of my old friends, an alchemist,” she clarified. “While he has been knowledgeable about nearly everything I’ve asked him about, he’s never shown any magical ability, yet when I went and met him this morning he was shining with this liquidy green light.”
Even with the massive beard covering half of her mentor’s face, Grace could still see old eyes widen in surprise.
“A close-to-liquid type of green light… My guess is Biomancy,” Rubeus said, Grace confirming it. Of course, her mentor would know from her description alone. “Very interesting. It was from one day to the other?”
“Well, the last time I saw him was a week ago, but he told me it was last night when he awakened,” Grace replied, her mentor encouraging her to continue. “He said that he was down in the dungeon collecting herbs like he usually did when he felt like he could connect to the plants around him, and that he successfully did as much when he got back home. He even showed me his ability when I visited! He was able to make a seed grow into a flower in under a minute.”
“Oh my,” Rubeus commented, brows furrowed. They’d become like that after she’d mentioned the place where Elijah had first felt the change. “To be able to accelerate the life cycle of a flower within 12 hours of awakening is impressive in itself, though… just to be sure, I need to ask how old this alchemist is.”
“He did need to lean against a table to stay standing afterward, so that was likely his limit,” Grace clarified before her mentor became too excited. “And, when I asked, he told me he was 71 years old. Much older than the normal time one would awaken their abilities.”
“Much older, yes,” her mentor agreed, staying quiet for a minute while deep in thought. “Is it because of their age that they didn’t want you to share the good news with others?”
“Yes, sir,” she confirmed. “He didn’t think he would be able to survive the mandated testing for the recently awakened, and… he also feared that the neighborhood wouldn’t leave him alone if they learned of his gift.”
The calm and serene attitude from her mentor was thrown away in a second, as a bark of laughter left Rubeus’ lips. Grace nearly jumped at the sound, not expecting that reaction.
“Oh, to be burdened with such minor consequences. I don’t envy your friend,” Rubeus confessed, wiping away a tear before looking at Grace once again. He didn’t look angry, which was a good thing, but she did fear the next request. “Still, I would love to meet him. Unofficially, of course. If he doesn’t wish to be a registered mage, I won’t force the matter, but such a late awakening is very interesting regardless.”
Grace bit her lip, hoping that Elijah wouldn’t mind too much.