Returning to class after everything felt surreal.
The halls of Genvah were still the same: gleaming stone corridors lit by runes and torches, enchanted vines crawling lazily across the walls, and the familiar scent of parchment, ink, and morning dew that clung to the air. But for Aiden, everything felt a little different. He wasn't the same person who had left them two weeks ago, battered and unconscious on a stretcher.
The wheelchair glided silently above the floor, runes embedded in two smooth karatula stones glowing softly beneath it. Adrian had calibrated them with so much care that the chair now moved as if weightless, hovering just high enough that Aiden felt he was floating rather than sitting.
"I swear," Adrian whispered beside him as they approached the lecture hall, "if anyone tries to touch the stones, I will hex them. This is a masterpiece."
Aiden chuckled softly. "You said that three times already."
"I mean it every time."
