“Trust is such a curious thing. We give it, we violate it, we return it, but very rarely do we ever understand it.” – a trustworthy philosopher

The moon rises in the sky, and on a desk, two piles of paperwork remain, the one on the right rising tall, while the one on the left dwindling, the few sheets not stacking up against their neighbor. In front of the desk that holds the trays which hold the paper, stand two persons.

Two men, or perhaps more accurately a man and a boy, stand side by side in front of Reynold. They both have their peculiarities, of taller stature and age than the one standing next to him, his bulbous nose, and pointed ears which are enshrined by shaggy brown hair mark professor Bernhart as unnatural; the same could be said about or the one with a shorter stature on the right, horns lead from the back of his head, ending in points leading to the sky, instead of eyes, dark plates face the world, and a red gem gleams from the floating orbs illuminating the room. Alex fidgets under Reynold’s glare, which then turns to Bernhart.

Alex sees Reynold put one hand on his face, and the other on the counter, tapping and thereby destroying the silence that had engulfed the room.

Reynold takes out a notepad and hands it to Alex.

“Take this and write down what happened, give a general overview if you could,” Reynold’s gaze softens, “You’re also welcome to keep it, you need some way to communicate for the moment anyway.”

Alex starts walks over to the bed and starts writing while sitting on it. After a couple of seconds, Reynold sighs, which causes Alex to look up to see Reynold’s now hardened gaze looking at Bernhart.

“To be honest, I’m a bit short on time,” Reynold looks at the large stack still on right side of his desk, “So I’m going to have you Bernhart explain everything that you did that lead to Alex in that room. Start now.”

Alex’s ears perk up.

Bernhart returns Reynold’s gaze for a moment before smiling, “Well, I was working on our organ initiative over in the bio-mage lab, when lo and behold I sense the wards go haywire,” Reynold starts frowning as Bernhart continues, “I was working on lifting the spell, but found it not responding to my inputs when I sense our Alex here outside the door. I let him in fearing that the wards could cause a backlash, and here we are.”

Alex looks over to Bernhart, and the room enters silence once again, before Reynold’s gaze sharpens, “Why wasn’t I notified immediately when you noticed that the wards were going wonky.”

Bernhart shrugs, “I assumed you would have already been notified by the alarm system, and decided to focus on the safety of the student-”

Reynold cuts Bernhart off, “But that doesn’t explain why you showed him the-”

Bernhart gives a lopsided grin, “And why can’t I, he’s not a kid Reynold even if you want him to be,” Bernhart then chuckles a bit, “For that matter, it’s common knowledge how this school powers itself, I think it would do Alex some good to learn a bit.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to show him, he’s not a bio-mage Bernhart,” Reynold sighs in frustration.

“Not yet at least, though maybe not a mage of any kind ever with his constitution,” Bernhart pats Alex on the head.

Alex immediately shivers at the unexpected contact and brushes the hand away. Putting down his pen and ignoring the hurt look that Bernhart is giving him, Alex hands the pad over to Reynold, who reads through it.

Silence envelops the room once more, Bernhart plops down onto the floor and waits along with Alex for Reynold to finish.

“First off, did Jeffrey really leave a new student to ‘explore’ the premises on his own.”

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Alex nods and notices Reynold’s expression, which sends chills down his spine.

“Well, it looks like the candidate needs some remedial training.”

‘I’m sorry, Jeffrey.’

Reynold takes a moment, and his expression returns to normal, before taping the paper with his finger, “Is this true Alex, were you really in there for an hour before you found your way out?”

Alex nods.

Reynold stares at Alex for a moment, “I know this because breakfast is held at eight-thirty, but you must have been in there for at least nine hours for the timeline to make sense…”

‘Wait, what?’

Reynold shakes his head, “Bernhart, magic beasts tend to interfere with formations, don’t they, that could explain the discrepancy. Things do tend to get weird with damaged spells after all…”

Bernhart’s eyes brighten before he responds, “I didn’t know you were interested in that kind of thing, and yes, they do. I’ve heard that it has something to do with their natural ability to intern the magic around them. If you’re interested further, I’d be willing to teach you.”

Reynold holds his hand up while closing his eyes, “I’ll have to pass Bernhart…” He then opens them and looks at Bernhart, “but you do realize what this means.”

Bernhart nods, “It means that Alex here won’t be with us in the academy for much longer.”

Alex’s face grows puzzled.

‘So, they’re kicking me out, is it something to do with the wards from earlier?’

Reynold looks over to Alex, sorrow clearly in his eyes, “Alex, from what I can gather your new ‘constitution’ if you can even call it that mat interfere with long term spell formations. For now, you simply lost some time, but there’s no telling the effects that you could be exposed to. We’ll need to do some tests to make sure this is you and not some freak occurrence, or that you weren’t simply lost somewhere else, but if it comes through and we’re unable to mitigate it, we may have to ask you to leave… but I’m sure we’ll find a solution, and I’ll have someone escort you if need be…”

‘…’

Bernhart’s expression grows dark, “Hopefully, it is just that someone messed up with the spell structures for the wards…”

Reynold nods, “It definitely could be, which is why we need to do some tests, the sooner, the better. For the time being, we’ll need to put up an avoid warning around the forbidden research sector, and it would probably best if Alex doesn’t spend too much time around important systems.” Reynold turns to Alex, “If it turns out that you are interfering with the spells, we’re going to relocate you off campus for the time being, if nothing else this incident demonstrates that it would be a danger to your wellbeing.”

Alex looks at the two of them and takes back the notepad before writing.

Reynold reads it for a moment before talking, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t suggest an immediate return to the manor Alex, I’ve sent a letter to them upon your arrival here, and I’m going to wait for its return before I send you off, even if that means you will be in the city instead of on campus…”

Reynold yawns, “It has been a long day for me, so if you have any more questions, Alex, we should do them now and maybe meet again tomorrow. Also, it probably isn’t safe to have you here for the moment, I have formations here as well, and even though they’re stronger than the ones in the research sector, that also means any errors in them could cause catastrophic effects…”

Bernhart starts to speak.

Reynold’s gaze switches over to Bernhart, “And I mean Alex Bernhart, not you. We can meet in private later.”

Reynold hands the pad back to Alex and taps his fingers as Alex scribbles something down.

Alex then holds his pen up for a moment.

‘This whole situation sucks… Maybe though we can end this on a high note?’

Then Alex continues writing.

Reynold reads it for a few moments, “Well, it has been something I’ve been pondering for a while, and there are no real easy solutions… What do you think Bernhart?”

Reynold tosses Bernhart the pad, which Bernhart quickly reads.

“It definitely wouldn’t be simple with normal magic, especially if your condition really does interfere with long-term realms even if they’re not wards… We might be able to do something with a conductive metal to save money on paper costs, but the easiest way would be with a type of wind magic… but I don’t see that as something that’s going to be easy.”

‘I guess not then…’

Bernhart looks over to Alex, whose expression is slowly falling, “I’ll see what I can do.”

‘Well, that’s better than nothing,’ Alex thinks as his expression brightens a tad.

Reynold then stands up and shoos them out of his office, “Okay, that’s it for now. I need to get onto my paperwork so anything else can wait for tomorrow.”

‘But I don’t know where my room is!’

Alex takes out his key before showing it to Reynold.

“You’re room key… Do you not know where your room is?”

Alex nods, and Bernhart decides to take his leave.

Reynold turns to face Bernhart before yelling after him, “Tomorrow morning, I expect you here.”

Alex can hear a faint response, but nothing more as Bernhart disappears down the corridor.

“Well, I guess I can lead you there. It’s not fair, you know,” Reynold gives Alex a confused expression.

Reynold leads after telling Alex to come to his office to begin the testing and gives Alex a friendly wave before returning to his own room.

Alex then quickly falls asleep after the events of the day.

…

Elsewhere in a tube filled with liquid, a dessicated corpse opens its eyes.