Chapter 38: Secret and Hallway

The door to Lily Nightshade’s office closed behind them with a soft, final click.

The heavy sound seemed to seal off all the pressure, all the midnight, all the terror of the last few hours. The corridor outside was quiet, lit by the warm, steady glow of mana lamps. For the first time since the treasury barrier had fallen, it was just the two of them again, with no invaders, no headmistress, no watching eyes.

Selene walked a few steps down the quiet corridor before she stopped and turned. The simple blue dress still looked perfect on her, falling cleanly around her legs, but the faint pink that had colored her cheeks inside the office had not completely faded. Her arms were crossed, more out of habit than cold.

"You should go back to your dorm," she said, her voice back to its usual crisp professor tone, though a little softer than normal. "I need to check on the other instructors and see how bad the damage is. Hargrove will need a proper healer, and Talia..."

Arthur nodded, but he did not move. He stood in place in the middle of the empty hallway, looked directly at her, raised one finger, and lightly tapped his own cheek.

Selene stared at him, as if she wasn’t sure she had seen correctly.

"What?"

"Kiss," Arthur said plainly, like he was asking for a textbook.

Her eyes widened. The pink on her face, which had been slowly fading, deepened into full red in an instant.

"Don’t act like a child," she said, trying to sound stern. It didn’t work. Her voice wobbled.

Arthur said nothing. He simply kept the finger pressed against his cheek and began whistling a quiet, tuneless, deliberately annoying sound, eyes fixed on her with clear, shameless expectation. The same look a kid gives when he knows he’s about to get away with something.

Selene glanced up and down the empty corridor. No footsteps. No open doors. The mana lamps buzzed faintly. She let out a long, defeated sigh that was half exasperation, half fondness she didn’t bother to hide anymore.

"This is not appropriate in the hallway," she muttered, but she stepped forward anyway.

She leaned in to give him a quick, polite, professor-approved kiss on the cheek, intending to get it over with as fast as possible.

At the last possible moment, Arthur turned his head.

Their lips met.

The contact lasted only a second - soft, warm, a little clumsy - but it was enough. Selene’s entire body froze mid-motion. Her eyes went wide, so wide Arthur could see his own reflection in them. When she pulled back her face was scarlet, all the way down to her neck.

For a second she just stared at him, unable to form a sentence.

Then she smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand - light, more embarrassed than angry, her hand lingering a fraction too long - and spun on her heel.

"You—! Pervert!" she hissed in a whisper, and walked away at a pace that was almost a run, her blue dress swishing sharply with every step. She didn’t look back, but her steps were uneven, flustered.

Arthur watched her disappear around the corner, one hand still on the spot she had hit. A quiet laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

She really was cute when she got flustered. The Ice Queen of the academy, the woman who could freeze a Level 4 monster solid with a glance, completely undone by a stolen kiss in an empty hallway.

He turned and started the long walk back toward House Dawn, the Eros Codex warm against his side, Mimi snoring faintly on his shoulder after all the excitement.

The academy still showed clear signs of the earlier battle. It was eerie to see it like this. Cracked stone on the floating bridges, hastily patched with earth magic. Long scorch marks where fire spells had hit the walls. The occasional lingering scent of blood and ozone that the cleaning spells hadn’t fully erased. Most students had already returned to their rooms on strict orders. The usual evening noise - laughter from the common rooms, practice spells crackling in the yard - was missing. Only repair crews of senior students and a few golems moved in the distance.

When Arthur finally reached the Dawn dormitory hallway, it felt almost too quiet. The warm light from the common room spilled into the hall, but no one was inside.

Milo Sterling stood near his door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, clearly waiting. His usual neat hair was messy.

The moment Milo saw him, relief flooded the other boy’s face. He crossed the distance in a few quick steps.

"Arthur! You’re alive," Milo said, grabbing his arm and looking him over. "What happened out there? People are saying the headmistress turned the whole sky black. Some of the third-years swear they saw a man in violet get erased into nothing and then heard he came back to life somewhere else. Are you hurt? Did you fight anyone? Where did you disappear to after the treasury alarm?"

Arthur raised both hands, overwhelmed by the rapid-fire questions.

"Inside. Let’s talk inside. You’re going to bring the whole house out here."

He unlocked his door and stepped in. Milo followed immediately, still talking. Arthur closed the door, dropped the Eros Codex on the desk with a soft thud, and sat on the edge of the bed. Mimi immediately floated off his shoulder and face-planted onto the pillow, asleep.

He gave Milo the clean version. He kept it factual, leaving no room for speculation.

The barrier in the treasury falling. The cloaked invaders who called themselves Equinox. Norman returning after fifty years, stronger than before. The four barrier spheres over the platforms. Tom and Selby entering the treasury and taking something from the deepest vault. Lily Nightshade’s arrival and the way the entire academy had turned black under her Midnight Realm. The violet-lined man who had broken her domain and escaped even after Lily’s Piercing Horizon attack. He left out every single detail that involved the hours he and Selene had spent inside the sealed space. That time, that conversation, that resonance - that belonged to the two of them alone.

Milo listened in silence, eyes growing wider with every sentence, his mouth slowly opening.

When Arthur finished, Milo leaned back against the wall and ran a hand through his hair, his voice low.

"Equinox... I’ve never even heard the name. A whole organization that can break the academy barrier, fight the vice principal to a standstill, and then just... walk out after fighting the headmistress? That’s insane. That’s not a normal enemy. That’s something the empire should know about."

Arthur nodded. His gaze drifted toward the closed door. He had felt it for the last minute - faint breathing, shuffling feet, mana signatures trying very hard to be quiet.

"You can come in," he said clearly, raising his voice just enough. "I know you’re listening. The door is not that thick."

Silence held for two seconds.

Then the door cracked open.

A group of Dawn House first-years filed in one after another, looking half-embarrassed and half-curious, led by a girl with short brown hair who had been in Arthur’s practical class. A few second-years followed behind them, pretending they had just been passing by. Within a minute the small room was crowded with students sitting on the floor, the desk, the windowsill, and the edge of the bed. Someone had even brought extra cushions from the common area.

Questions started immediately, overlapping.

What did the headmistress look like when she arrived? Was it true her eyes glowed?

Was Norman really the same student who disappeared fifty years ago?

How bad were the injuries among the instructors? Is Professor Hargrove okay?

Arthur answered what he could without revealing anything private or classified.

The conversation shifted rapidly from fear to excitement and back again as the students tried to process the fact that their first year had already included an open attack on the academy itself - something that hadn’t happened in decades.

Someone produced a bag of dried fruit from their storage ring. Another student passed around a flask of watered-down juice that tasted mostly of sugar. The atmosphere slowly turned from a tense debriefing into something closer to a late-night gathering, the kind that happens after a disaster when everyone realizes they are still alive.

Arthur sat near the head of the bed, the black book resting against his side, and watched the room fill with voices. For the first time since the Choosing Ceremony, House Dawn felt less like a collection of strangers assigned to the same building and more like a group that had survived something together.

Outside the window the academy lights slowly returned to normal, warm and steady. Somewhere far above, repairs had already begun, stone floating back into place under earth mages’ chants.

Inside Arthur’s small room, the conversation continued late into the night, one by one they drifted back to their own rooms, leaving only Milo asleep on the floor cushion and Arthur awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about a tournament a year away.