Chapter 36: Master’s Judgment

Lily Nightshade remained floating high above the blackened academy, red eyes fixed on a distant point beyond the horizon that no one else could see.

Her Midnight Realm still covered the entire floating island, but her true sight was stretched thousands of kilometers away, past the empire’s borders, into a barren stretch of cracked earth where the wind tasted like dust.

She could see him.

She watched as the scattered pieces of the violet-lined man stopped twitching. She watched as flesh that should have been dead began to knit itself back together from nothing. Not healing. Rebuilding. Bone connected to bone with soft clicks. Organs bloomed like flowers inside an empty chest cavity. Veins raced across new muscle. In less than a minute, a complete, pale body lay steaming on the cold ground, and a new black cloak with violet linings formed over it on its own, as if the Grimoire itself was ashamed to leave its master naked.

She watched until the regeneration finished, until the man sat up and pressed a hand to his chest and whispered, "I almost died," with that same cheerful smile.

Lily’s small face did not change, but the pressure around her spiked so sharply that two instructors below gasped and grabbed their heads.

So. Not dead. Not even close.

She finally looked away. The distance was too great even for her to intervene again without a proper anchor, and the thing that had rebuilt him was not a spell she recognized.

She lowered her gaze to her own academy. The black stone. The bleeding teachers. The frightened first-years huddled near the dorms.

Her voice carried across the entire floating island without effort, soft and absolute, reaching every ear at once.

"Tend to the injured. Begin repairs on every damaged structure. The treasury will be sealed until I inspect it myself. All senior instructors and first-year captains will meet me in my office tomorrow morning at eight. Do not be late."

The darkness that had covered the academy receded like a tide pulling back from shore. It didn’t fade. It was pulled back into Lily’s small body. Color bled back into the sky - blue returning in a rush. The pale stone of the platforms turned white again. Sunlight, which had been erased, snapped back into existence and made everyone wince.

Before anyone could respond, before anyone could cheer or ask a question, Lily’s small figure vanished. No flash. Just absence.

At the same exact moment, Arthur felt the world fold around him.

One second he was kneeling beside Professor Hargrove on the main platform, his hands still cold from the ice seal he had made over the man’s wounds, checking that the bleeding had truly stopped. Selene was a few meters away, talking quietly with Talia Vane.

The next second the wind, the shouting, the smell of blood - all of it was gone.

He stood inside a large, quiet office.

Tall arched windows looked out over the entire floating academy, which was now smoking in a dozen places. The room was warm. Shelves lined with ancient books, sealed jars containing floating eyes and small storms, and artifacts that hummed faintly covered the walls. A massive desk made of black wood dominated the center. The air smelled faintly of strawberries and old paper.

Selene stood beside him, still in the simple blue dress she had changed into after they were trapped, not her usual instructor uniform. Her expression was carefully, perfectly blank, which meant she was panicking.

Arthur’s heart slammed against his ribs so hard he could hear it.

"Selene—" he whispered.

She gave him a sharp, desperate look and flicked her eyes toward the front of the room. Don’t.

Arthur followed her gaze.

Lily Nightshade sat on the edge of the wide black desk, legs swinging lightly like a child on a pier, a half-eaten strawberry lollipop back in her mouth. She looked completely at ease, as if the massacre that had just ended and the man who had regenerated from nothing were nothing more than a mild inconvenience before tea.

Arthur’s blood ran cold. The image of the violet-lined man’s upper body vanishing into a perfect spherical void was still burned into his mind. This little girl had done that with a pinch of her fingers.

Lily’s red eyes moved slowly between the two of them. She looked at Selene’s flushed cheeks. She looked at Arthur’s early Level 3 mana pool, still resonating faintly with Selene’s own frost signature, a resonance that was obvious to anyone with her level of sight. A small, knowing, terribly amused smile curved around the lollipop.

"So you two had a fun time while I was gone," she said lightly.

Selene’s face turned scarlet in an instant, all the way to her ears. Arthur felt heat rush up his neck so fast he thought he might actually faint. Both of them immediately lowered their heads and stared at the carpet like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

Lily continued as if she had not just embarrassed two adults into silence.

"Trapped together in an Aethel-Galdr barrier. No witnesses. Lots of shared body heat. And you come out with a bigger mana pool, Arthur? How curious."

Selene made a small, strangled sound.

Lily giggled, then lifted the black book slightly, and the mood shifted. The seven pages were visible. The second page still held the violent seal of Heavenfall Cyclone. The first page now carried a clean, permanent, snowflake-like mark that pulsed with quiet cold - Frost Sovereign. A permanent ability, stolen and made his own.

"Well," Lily said, her playful tone fading into genuine curiosity. "This is the most interesting Grimoire I have ever seen. It actually generated a book spirit. I have only ever seen Tier 9 Origin Grimoires do that. Even the Imperial Family’s Grimoire doesn’t do it this early."

She tapped the cover. "Come out, little girl. Don’t hide."

A soft pop of pink-gold light filled the air against Mimi’s will. Mimi appeared in full, translucent wings beating in a frantic blur, her small face pale with terror. The moment she saw Lily’s glowing red eyes, she let out a squeak that was half-scream and dove behind Arthur’s back at full speed, clutching the edge of his coat with both small hands and using him as a shield.

"N-no! Bad! Bad Empress! Don’t eat Mimi!" she wailed, trembling so hard her light flickered.

Lily’s smile widened a fraction. She didn’t move.

"Relax. I am not doing anything to you. I just wanted to see what you are. What is this Grimoire, Arthur? It has no tier?"

Arthur forced himself to look up. His mouth was dry, but his voice came out steadier than he expected. He kept one hand slightly behind him, steadying Mimi.

"Even I don’t understand it fully. It appeared during the Choosing. It has no tier, the orb couldn’t read it. It... prints abilities under certain conditions..." He glanced at Selene and stopped.

Lily nodded once, as if that answer was acceptable for now. She closed the book and set it down on the desk. Then her red eyes sharpened, and the temperature in the office dropped by ten degrees.

"But what will we do about what happened between you two?" she asked, looking straight at Selene.

Selene stepped forward immediately, still flushed crimson but her jaw set with determination. She placed herself half in front of Arthur.

"He was just helping me. The frostbite in my core flared inside the barrier, you know it does when I’m stressed. I am the one who started it. I pulled him in. He only responded because I needed him to stabilize me. It’s my fault, Master. Don’t punish him."

Lily’s expression turned almost pitying.

"Now you are even lying to your master for your boyfriend. Selene."

She turned her full attention to Arthur. The playful atmosphere disappeared completely. The pressure in the room increased just enough to make breathing slightly harder, to make Mimi whimper and hide further. Lily’s red eyes were no longer amused. They were evaluating, like a dragon looking at a stray cat that had wandered into its hoard.

"If you really had a Tier 1 Grimoire," she said softly, "I would have killed you already where you stood on that platform. Selene is my most talented disciple. My successor. I do not want her with someone unworthy who will drag her down and get her killed."

Arthur’s hands clenched. The fear was still there, cold and heavy in his stomach, but something steadier, something that had been growing since he had held that ice spike without shattering it, rose beneath it.

He straightened his back. He met Lily’s red eyes directly, even though every instinct told him to look away.

"I will become stronger," he said.

Lily’s lollipop stick shifted from one side of her mouth to the other.

"Just saying it does not work, mister. Words are cheap. Every first-year says that. I will not agree to your relationship unless you prove yourself. You are early Level 3. Selene is peak Level 5 and will reach Level 6 within the year. The gap is disgusting."

"I will do anything," Arthur said without hesitation. "Give me a condition. A trial. Anything."

The office fell silent except for the soft sound of Mimi’s wings trembling behind him and the ticking of a clock on the wall.

Lily Nightshade studied the Fringe boy who had somehow stolen a piece of her disciple’s power, who had stood in front of Tom and Selby when he should have run, who had sealed a man’s fatal wound with first-day ice magic, and who now refused to lower his gaze even while terrified of her.

A slow, interested, genuinely entertained smile returned to her small face. She swung her legs once.

"Good answer," she said.