A man strode in—no, strode wasn't the right word. He bounded in like a caffeine-fueled gazelle, his bright blonde hair spiked upward in defiance of gravity and yellow-tinted aviator glasses perched on a sharp, expressive face.
Professor Vox wore the faculty uniform like it had personally offended him. His blazer hung open, his tie was loose around his neck, and he sported fingerless leather gloves that matched absolutely nothing else about his outfit.
"Welcome to Gate Theory and Field Communications, the class that will LITERALLY save your lives!" He didn't just talk. He projected, each word fired into the room like a verbal missile. "I am Caden Vox, and by the end of this semester, you will either love me or hate me, but you WILL communicate effectively!"
A blue bird materialized on his shoulder—a Storm Eagle, electric blue and gold, crackling with static electricity. It preemptively ducked as Vox's hands shot up dramatically.
"This magnificent creature is my Anima, and YES, before you ask, he is as fabulous as he looks! B-rank Storm Eagle with 82% compatibility, which means we are practically the same entity spread across two bodies!" Vox's grin took up half his face. "Now, who can tell me what a gate IS? Don't all raise your hands at once!"
Not a single hand went up. Vox looked theatrically disappointed.
"Come on, people! You're training to run these things and you can't define them? How about you, with the nervous expression?"
A girl swallowed. "G-gates are dimensional fractures between our world and the dungeon planes."
"CORRECT! Gold star for you!" Vox snapped his fingers and his Storm Eagle let out a small burst of electricity that formed a brief, glowing star shape above the girl's head. "Gates are tears in reality itself, beautiful deadly doorways to planes that operate on different rules from ours!"
He paced energetically, gesturing so wildly that students in the front row leaned back to avoid being accidentally smacked.
"And when these tears form, what are the two properties we can immediately read? You, Sleeping Beauty in the back row!"
A boy who had indeed been dozing jerked upright. "Uh... color and... break timer?"
"He awakens! Yes!" Vox spun to the board and wrote both terms in massive letters. "Color tells us threat classification. Break timer tells us how long before the gate ruptures and spills its nasty contents all over our nice, orderly reality!"
I found myself halfway between fascinated and exhausted just watching him. The guy had enough energy to power a small city. But as Bram had said, underneath the theatrical delivery was solid information. Vox clearly knew his subject inside and out.
While he launched into a detailed explanation of gate classification by color, I tried to focus. But part of my mind kept drifting back to the Magician, to the feeling of time slowing, to the burning card in my pocket.
I closed my eyes, trying to recapture that moment. The exact sensation when everything shifted.
Nothing happened.
I tried again, focusing on the warmth of the box against my ribs. Calling to whatever had awakened during Hask's beating.
Still nothing.
"And that's why you NEVER ignore a gate's color classification, no matter how pressured you feel by the break timer! The color is telling you something crucial about what's waiting inside!"
Vox's voice penetrated my concentration. I opened my eyes to find him staring directly at me from five feet away. When had he gotten so close?
"Welcome back to class, new guy!" he said with a grin. "Care to tell us what a Purple gate's break timer typically runs?"
"Twelve to thirty-six hours from formation."
Vox's eyebrows shot up above his yellow glasses. "Correct! Someone's been reading ahead!" He spun away, continuing his lecture without missing a beat.
Rafi leaned over. "How did you know that?"
"My father ran gates for twenty years," I whispered back. "I grew up on this stuff."
What I didn't say was that I'd read every scrap of information about gates I could find after my father's... incident. Trying to understand what happened to him. What could break an A-rank contractor so completely.
The box against my ribs seemed to pulse once, as if responding to the thought.
I spent the rest of class in a strange middle state—half listening to Vox's surprisingly informative lecture, half trying to recapture that elusive moment when something impossible had happened.
It remained just out of reach. A shadow. A whisper. The edge of a feeling I couldn't quite grasp.
When the bell rang, signaling the end of class, Vox dismissed us with characteristic enthusiasm.
"REMEMBER! Communication saves lives in gates! Next class we dive into field protocols and why your ability to talk to your team matters MORE than your Anima's raw power!"
As students filed out, I lingered, touching the box through my jacket. Twenty-two cards. Twenty-one blank. One—The Fool—that had always been active.
And now, maybe, a second. The Magician. Almost awakened.
Almost.
"So what did you think of the Vox experience?" Rafi asked as we headed toward the canteen for lunch.
"He's a lot," I admitted. "But he knows his stuff."
"Yeah, the Standard Track kids say he's actually brilliant under all the..." Rafi waved his hands wildly in imitation of Vox's theatrical gestures.
I laughed, wincing as my bruised ribs protested.
"Speaking of a lot," Rafi said, nodding ahead, "looks like you've got an admirer."
Leaning against the wall outside the canteen, arms crossed, was the girl with long brown hair and green eyes who'd intervened during my confrontation with Thessa.
Up close, she was even more striking—the kind of beauty that wasn't just about features but about presence. She carried herself with a confidence that made the air around her feel charged.
She smiled when she saw me looking, a slight curve of lips that suggested she found something amusing.
"Max Sterling," she said, her voice warm. "I've been waiting to properly introduce myself."
She pushed off from the wall with graceful ease and extended a hand.
"I'm Reva Calloway. And I've decided you're the most interesting thing to happen to me in years."
===
A/N: Thanks for reading this chapter! Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. Comment for a cookie!