Elias adjusted his scarf for the tenth ti, then double-checked the official-looking papers under his arm.
"Do I look like a responsible guardian?" he asked.
"No," Revantra said without looking up from the oversized bow she was pinning in her hair. "You look like soone who lost his child in a hedge maze."
"I'm literally standing next to you."
"Still feels accurate."
The Arclight Academy gates lood before them—tall, white stone frad by gilded iron, gleaming with enchantnts designed to keep out anything chaotic, disruptive, or demonically resurrected. In other words, exactly the kind of place Revantra didn't belong.
Or, as Elias called it, "a fresh start."
He exhaled, glanced down at the girl beside him, and muttered, "You ready, Rina?"
She scrunched her nose at the alias. "You're really sticking with that?"
"It's a cute na."
"It's a cow's na."
"Then moo gracefully. Let's go."
The admissions office was housed in a tower that leaned slightly to the left, like even the architecture had once considered a career change and given up halfway through. Inside, polished marble floors t drifting motes of magically-filtered light, and behind a carved desk sat a woman with the sa expression as soone perpetually slling sothing suspicious.
"Na?" she asked, not looking up.
"Rina Ashwood," Elias said, sliding over the papers. "Twelve years old. Transfer from—uh—private tutoring. With a family friend in the provinces."
Revantra tilted her head. "Is that what you're calling a demon castle now?"
Elias coughed loudly. "She's very... imaginative."
The woman finally glanced at Revantra, and her eyebrows twitched upward, ever so slightly. "Age twelve?"
"She's small for her age," Elias said.
"I'm compact," Revantra corrected.
The clerk, used to strange students and stranger guardians, simply stamped the forms with a heavy thump and waved them down the hall.
The first test was magical aptitude.
They led her into a training room filled with runes, polished stone dummies, and walls charred just enough to suggest past applicants had not been gentle.
A teacher in a navy robe stepped forward, eyes narrowed.
"Rina Ashwood?" he said.
Revantra nodded, hands behind her back, hair ribboned to perfection.
"Please demonstrate your control over elental magic."
"Which elent?" she asked sweetly.
"Whichever you feel comfortable with."
She gave Elias a side glance—just long enough for him to send her a subtle nod of encouragent.
And then she raised her hand.
A tiny fla burst to life in her palm.
It flickered, delicate. Controlled. Dancing between her fingers like it was alive. She twisted her wrist, and the fla curled into a spiral, shrinking and intensifying into a sharp, needle-like thread of heat.
She pointed a finger.
The stone dummy across the room exploded.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Silence fell.
The teacher stared at the smoking rubble.
Elias coughed. "She, uh... skipped a few grades."
"I see," the man said, voice cracking slightly. "Rina, was it?"
Revantra gave a curtsy. "Yes, sir."
He opened a notebook, scribbled sothing fast, and motioned them out the door.
Next ca the interview with the Headmaster.
Principal Gellivar was a sharp-eyed man with a beard that defied logic and gravity, sitting beneath a portrait of himself that looked slightly disapproving of whoever entered the room.
He steepled his fingers as Revantra sat, legs crossed at the ankle like a textbook noble child.
"You did well on the aptitude test," he said.
"Thank you," she replied, posture perfect.
"But there's sothing unusual about your aura."
Elias's back stiffened. "Unusual how?"
Gellivar didn't answer imdiately. He just studied her, like a jeweler inspecting a gem that looked too perfect.
"You've never been registered before," he said.
"We lived in isolation," Elias said quickly. "Family circumstances."
Gellivar nodded, but his eyes didn't move from Revantra. "She's powerful. Too powerful for her supposed age."
"I drink my milk," she offered helpfully.
"I see."
He tapped a finger against his desk. A magical sigil flared faintly in the corner of the room—a lie detection rune. Elias felt it crackle against his skin.
"Why enroll now?" the principal asked.
Revantra gave a perfect answer. "I want to learn control. I want to understand what I am before I beco sothing dangerous."
The rune glowed green.
The principal raised an eyebrow.
Elias blinked. That wasn't scripted.
"Very well," Gellivar said at last. "I'll approve her admission—on probation."
"Of course," Elias said, relieved.
"But I'll be watching closely."
His gaze lingered on Revantra a second longer before turning to his papers.
"You start tomorrow, Miss Ashwood."
They walked ho in silence for a while.
The city was busy again—brooms zipping by overhead, shopkeepers peddling floating crystals, kids practicing cantrips behind alley corners. Everything glimred with enchantnt. It felt like a different world entirely from their mountain town.
Revantra walked beside Elias, arms folded.
"...That wasn't so bad," she said finally.
"You incinerated school property."
"Which ans I've made my mark."
"You almost set the principal's drapes on fire."
"He looked flammable anyway."
Elias snorted.
But then she slowed, footsteps dragging slightly.
"...Do you think I passed?" she asked.
He looked down at her. For all her bravado, the question was real. Vulnerable. Tightly coiled in her voice like sothing too fragile to ask aloud.
"You didn't just pass," he said. "You stunned them."
"I didn't an to show off," she muttered.
"I know."
He reached down and tousled her hair—gently.
She squawked. "Elias!"
"You're gonna be fine, Rina."
"Don't call that."
"Then don't light up the drapes next ti."
That night, as they sat on opposite ends of the bed with the pillow wall between them, Revantra hugged her knees and stared at the ceiling.
"Do you think they'll find out?" she asked quietly.
"About the demon stuff?" Elias replied.
She nodded.
"...Maybe," he admitted. "But if they do, we'll deal with it."
She didn't reply for a long ti.
Then, in a soft voice: "Thank you for enrolling ."
"You're welco."
Another pause.
"...And also for the muffin."
Elias blinked. "I didn't get you a muffin."
"Oh. Right." She rolled to her side. "Then that's tomorrow's bribe."
He chuckled. "Noted."
As sleep crept in, Revantra whispered into the darkness.
"Tomorrow... I'll make a friend."
It wasn't a threat. Not a boast.
Just a hope.
Elias smiled to himself.
"Goodnight, Rina."
A pause. Then:
"...Fine. Goodnight, Dad."
He froze.
Then slowly, quietly, smiled.
To be continued...
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