Neither of them managed to find a way to open the secret passage over the next hour of tinkering, despite their best attempts—or despite Cale's best attempts, anyway. Damien mostly sat back and watched, fidgeting with one of the relics he kept with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. Even with proof that Cale wasn't about to just collapse from overexposure to his mana, he flinched away any time his power drifted too close.
It was getting tempting to ask him about it, but Cale was pretty sure that would level [Blabbermouth], and he'd mostly resolved to only do that with people he didn't like.
"We're probably not going to be able to open this," Cale said eventually, leaning back to examine the enchanted section of the wall critically. "I'm pretty sure this is an academy manifestation and not something Brightscale built intentionally."
"A manifestation?" Damien asked blankly. Cale glanced at him, then remembered that the dreadshade apparently couldn't attend most of the academy's normal classes. He wondered if Akkau was doing something about that. There was a rather interesting-looking cloak hung up on a hook near Damien's bed.
"Magic academies have a lot of those," Cale explained after a moment. "They happen whenever you gather too much magic in one place. Basically, parts of it start to come to life. Manifested secret passages are pretty common and usually have weird opening conditions, like the presence of some kind of Chosen One."
"Oh," Damien said. He seemed to absorb this for a moment. "I can't sense this one."
"Yeah, it's pretty well hidden." Cale shrugged. "We could force it open, but there's no point, and it'd ruin the magic of the whole thing anyway. This one's probably going to open when we need it most! Something to look forward to."
He beamed, making his way to his side of the room and flopping back onto his bed. Damien sat in front of the secret passage still, staring contemplatively at the enchanted section of the wall; after a minute or two of this, Cale decided he needed to make sure he hadn't broken the poor guy.
"So why are you here, anyway?" he asked. "I'm assuming you need to get control over your mana, but your control's pretty good already."
Damien looked over at him, hesitating. "You won't laugh?"
"Why would I laugh?" Cale scowled. "Are you getting bullied?"
"N-no!" Damien denied immediately, and then he sagged. "I mean, um... maybe? But it's nothing serious, it's just..."
"What, people think you can't do magic because you're a dreadshade?" Cale snorted. "One of the best mages I've ever known was a dreadshade. She did some crazy things with her mana, let me tell you."
Damien looked, for a moment, like he wanted to believe him. Then he glanced away and shook his head. "I've never heard of anyone like me becoming a real mage," he mumbled. "You don't need to lie to make me feel better."
"You're here, so clearly some part of you thinks it's possible," Cale pointed out, making Damien flinch slightly. "And I'm not a liar, thank you very much. Not about stuff like this, anyway."
"Does that... mean you lie about other things?"
"Oh, all the time," Cale said cheerfully. "That's not the point! The point is, you can do magic."
"Magic beyond decay," Damien said. "I don't want to just turn things into dust. I want to do what other mages can. I want to use my magic for life."
"You want to heal?" Cale asked curiously, and Damien nodded. "Well, I don't know if Sheriya had any healing spells, but she could definitely do things other than just decay."
"Like what?"
"Teleportation," Cale said easily. "Sort of, anyway. She came up with probably the most mana-efficient set of teleportation spells I've ever seen. I've seen it used to teleport entire city populations. And she did it with decay mana."
"With decay mana?" Damien frowned, clearly surprised. "She didn't have to attune?"
"She was a very clever mage," Cale grinned. "In more ways than one. I can tell you how she did it, if you like. She did want me to pass on her legacy on the off chance I ran into a dreadshade that wanted it."
"Pass on..." Damien shook his head. "She couldn't do it herself?"
Cale's expression darkened slightly. "No," he said. Damien waited, but he didn't say anything else.
"Um," Damien said. "How did she do it?"
"Glad you asked!" Cale said, mood instantly lifting. "Partial attunements. That was her trick. You don't need to shift your mana all the way into something else to make it do what you want—that's incredibly hard for decay mana. But if you get it even halfway there, you can get a usable spell out of it. With the Gift, it might be easier for you than it was for her."
"Wait, are you saying she didn't have the Gift?" Damien asked, looking increasingly confused. Cale ignored him.
"Teleportation, for example," he said. "She did a partial attunement to the space aspect, then decayed the space between her target and its destination."
Damien's eyes went wide. "You can do that?" he asked.
"Yup." Cale grinned. He could see Damien's mind working its way through the implications. "She said it was one of the easier applications of decay magic, if you can believe it."
Damien seemed like he was about to say something, then stopped, looking more carefully at Cale. "Who are you?" he asked after a moment. "You're immune to decay mana, you were assigned to the Astral Wing, and you know about a dreadshade I've never even heard of. One that apparently doesn't have the Gift but is still an incredible mage."
"That's the question, isn't it?" Cale chuckled. "Right now, I'm just like you. Someone that wants to learn magic."