Chapter 2: Embracing the Rot
The east duelling wing wasn’t just drafty; it was a tomb for ambition. Rosalinda pushed open the heavy, iron-bound door and was met with a gust of air that smelled of cold stone, damp earth, and something faintly metallic—old magic, or maybe just rust. The chamber was vast, a cathedral of neglect. High, arched windows were grimy, filtering the morning light into dull shafts that illuminated swirling dust motes. At the far end, the Abandoned Dueling Platform loomed, a great circle of cracked marble and slate sunk a few steps into the floor, its edges worn into soft curves by centuries of boots and spilled power.
She walked across the echoing floor, her boots tapping a solitary rhythm. The air hummed, a low-grade vibration she felt in her teeth. It was the residual echo of a thousand spent spells, a psychic tinnitus left behind by anger, fear, and triumph. She could almost see the ghosts of them: students with shaking hands, professors with grim mouths, the electric flash of hex and counter-hex.
The weapons racks lining one wall were empty, just naked pegs and a film of grey dust. The protective runes carved into the surrounding pillars were faded, their grooves packed with grime.
“Right,” she said to the empty room, her voice swallowed by the space. She pulled a small, leather-bound notebook and a charcoal pencil from her pocket. She began to walk the perimeter, dictating notes under her breath.
“Primary reinforcement of perimeter wards… total collapse likely. Need Aetheric quartz for recalibration. Floor surface unstable—crack here, major tripping hazard. Slate needs replacing, not patching.Lighting insufficient. Overhead luminescence orbs all shattered.”
She stepped onto the platform itself. The humming intensified, a whisper against her skin. She crouched, running a finger along a deep, blackened scar in the marble. A Killing Curse that hadn’t quite connected, maybe. Or a wild Fiendfyre. The stone remembered the violence, held the shape of it.
“Defensive glyphs on platform edge… obsolete. Pre-Grindellian era. Useless against modern piercing spells. Will need engraving from scratch. Sanding first.”
She stood, looking up at the vacant viewing galleries. Empty benches stretched into shadow. This place needed noise. It needed the grunt of effort, the crack of practice spells on shields, the shouted corrections, the gasps, the sweat. It needed to be useful again. Not a museum.
She scribbled a final note: Supplies: Practice staves (40), weighted blades (20 set), reactive target orbs (shifting patterns), reinforced medical kit (burns, fractures, psychic shock), noise-dampening curtains for adjacent classrooms (will complain).
She tucked the notebook away. Claus’s budget would weep, but he’d pay. She knew how to apply pressure. A public demonstration of the safety hazards, perhaps. An “accidental” containment breach of a minor illusion during a faculty meeting. He’d find the money.
A smile touched her lips, not from the thought of budgetary warfare, but because her mind had drifted, unbidden, to the staff hall. To sandy hair and glasses slipping down a nose. To a flustered, honest expression when she’d called him a friend.
Alistair.
He was just as pretty as she remembered. The years had been kind, layering a professorial steadiness over the sharp, anxious brilliance of the boy he’d been. The glasses suited him. The way he pushed them up, a nervous tick that had survived two decades. It sparked something warm and mischievous in her chest.
Their rivalry had been the defining texture of her academic life. It had been exhausting and exhilarating. She’d hated him sometimes, the way he could unravel a theoretical problem she was still punching her way through. She’d watched him, constantly, relentlessly. Studied the way he bit his lip when concentrating, the precise angle of his wrist when stirring a potion, the way his laugh was always a half-beat too late, as if he had to process the humor first.
The graduation ball. She’d worn emerald green. She’d seen him across the room, looking unbearably handsome and completely lost. Her coven had been chattering around her, but her attention had been a needle fixed on him. She’d waited. She’d given him chances, clear sightlines, spaces in the conversation. He’d just stood there, talking to the potions master, his gaze skittering past her again and again. The disappointment had been so sharp and private she’d let it calcify into disdain. She’d left early, the taste of champagne gone sour.
And now he was here. In her new, crumbling domain. The thought made the vast, cold room feel suddenly smaller, more manageable.
She needed a coffee. The abomination he’d warned her about. The idea of seeking him out, of continuing that stilted, charged conversation from the hall, was suddenly the most appealing task on her list.
Before she could move, the main door creaked open again.
It wasn’t Alistair. It was a student—a young man, maybe nineteen, with a thatch of dark hair and the pale, pinched look of someone who spent too much time in the library. He hovered in the doorway, clutching a scroll to his chest.
“Professor Evermore?” he called, his voice echoing uncertainly.
She shifted her weight, the friendly thoughts vanishing, replaced by a patient, assessed stillness. “Yes?”
He hurried forward, stopping at a respectful distance from the platform. “I’m Elias Thorn. From Advanced Defensive Applications? Headmaster Claus said I might find you here. He said you might… need an assistant? For setting up?”
She looked him over. Nervous, but his eyes were quick, scanning the room, the cracks in the floor, the empty racks. Not just a bookworm, then.Observant.
“Did he,” she said flatly. Claus was already meddling, planting a spy or a helper, maybe both. “And what do you know about dueling platforms, Elias Thorn?”
“Theoretical history, mostly,” he admitted. “But I’m good at runic transcription. And I can lift things.”
A practical answer. She appreciated that. “Theoretical history is what got this place into this state,” she said, but she gestured him forward. “Come here. Tell me what you feel.”
He stepped onto the platform, his face instantly registering the hum. “It’s… loud.”
“It’s angry,” she corrected. “Unfinished business. We’re going to repurpose that energy. Make it useful.” She pulled out her notebook again, tore out the supply list, and handed it to him. “Your first job. Take this to the headmaster’s office. Don’t just hand it to his secretary. Wait. Give it to him directly. Look him in the eye and tell him Professor Evermore said the structural integrity failures present an ‘imminent liability.’ Use those exact words.”
Elias took the paper, his eyes widening slightly as he scanned the extensive list. “Imminent liability. Got it.”
“After that,” she said, turning back to survey her new kingdom, “find Professor Fairmont in the herbology wing. Ask him, politely, where one finds a marginally drinkable coffee in this place. Tell him I sent you.”
A small, genuine smile broke through her professional mask. She was here. She had work to do. And, for the first time in a long time, she had something to look forward to that wasn’t just a battle.