Chapter 51: Somebody Else Felt Tired

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Somebody Else Felt Tired

Dante forwarded Honey’s photographs to Professor Bell instead of announcing that he had discovered his family tree inside a mushroom. Honey objected when he asked where the page came from, then sent its cover and shelf label with a message explaining that great scholars were often required to provide unnecessary evidence.

Professor Bell promised to discuss the page at Tuesday’s exercise. In ordinary class beforehand, Dante watched a student trace a barrier three times, getting a weak shimmer, a spilled cup and finally a steady wall.

Dante circled the wrong turn in his notes. He could picture a wall, but the student knew which stroke had made hers leak and how to fix it. He wanted that knowledge as badly as he wanted the easier cast, until Posey paused to record how tired she felt.

He asked to walk Posey to her appointment. She took his sleeve as she stood. "I’d like that, actually. You don’t have to think of anything reassuring to say, either." She smiled a little when he opened his mouth. "You could just tell me about the animal."

After walking Posey to the nurse, he met Professor Bell in the practice room with the readings and Rhea’s copied timeline. Jett came to watch after getting permission to miss a workshop his forearm still kept him from joining.

The familiar ring carried a brass weight that doubled its load, while its stopping height stayed unchanged. The nurse checked Dante’s hand and permitted one brief lift, ending for pain or excess heat.

Posey and Anika had agreed to reserve checks next door. Rhea sent her notes from her room, where she was resting.

"You get one audience member," Jett told him, taking the chair beside the door. "I’ve already seen you catch a foam block, so the standards are disgusting."

Dante chose his mark, then waited for permission before picturing the ring stopping there, remembering the crate’s lurch. Warmth settled in his fingertips as the ring rose, steadied and lowered quietly at the signal.

Professor Bell compared the heavier lift with Friday’s wobble while the nurse checked Dante’s hand. It had felt easier, leaving him desperate to try again.

"I hate becoming reasonable in front of witnesses," he told Jett, who promised to deny it if anybody asked.

Jett asked whether he had secretly started lifting actual weights, nodding toward the shirt pulling across his shoulders. Dante wanted to enjoy the question, but he had barely been allowed to carry his own bag. He checked the shirt seam despite himself. Better shoulders had featured in several private plans for becoming impressive, but none involved getting them while barely allowed to carry a bag. He wrote down Jett’s comment before admiration could turn it into something he understood.

The nurse’s tablet sounded before Professor Bell put the equipment away. Posey’s reserve reading had dipped during the interval, and Anika’s had changed too, although neither had cast a spell during their checks.

Dante began asking whether another lift would repeat the dip, then stopped as the nurse went next door. Professor Bell packed away the ring, leaving Dante with his tidy proof of progress and an audience whose medical update he had to hear through a wall.

"They felt weaker before without me casting," he said, looking at Professor Bell. "That means it can’t just be this, doesn’t it?"

"It means we need to account for both," Professor Bell replied. "You did the exercise we agreed on, and now we stop instead of guessing with somebody else’s health."

Dante asked him to preserve all the earlier drops beside these readings, then requested practice without power before fear became another accusation. Jett stayed when asked, reading the times while Dante compared notes.

He admitted the lift had felt good before the warning, and Jett said it had looked good too. Both facts could remain true, however badly Dante wanted an easier explanation.

Professor Bell provided an unpowered tracing board. Dante practiced the circled turn and stumbled through the Korean words until told his stress was in the wrong place, which Jett claimed was a familiar complaint about him.

The professor silenced Jett without changing expression, and Dante photographed his improved line beside the crooked first attempt before packing both away.

Outside, Posey waited with Anika after their readings settled and asked Dante to sit beside her for a moment before they left. She took his sleeve and told him she wanted the checks to continue, but not at the cost of him disappearing whenever he felt guilty, because she still wanted the ordinary evenings they had been planning.

He promised to tell her before his next exercise. Anika confirmed that the archive had found the regulator reference, then said she had arranged a supervised visit for Honey to discuss the page and the materials she had offered to bring.

"She called herself our senior research authority," Anika added. "I put visitor on the form, which may cause a diplomatic incident."

That evening, he called Rhea from his dorm desk. She showed a protective preparation from her supervised lab before the weekend, explaining that Professor Artemis still needed to check its limits. Dante requested the warning too, before he remembered only the exciting word protective.

Rhea propped a plush turtle beside the label when he smiled. Dante asked whether her lettuce-loving professor approved, and she said his grading remained strict. She sent the warning and had him read it back before asking whether he’d eaten.

He showed his plate and asked about hers. Rhea brought dinner into view, including a dumpling that unfolded little dough legs and tried leaving. She trapped it under her spoon without interrupting him. Dante laughed, then asked her to stay on the call while they ate. He wanted company more than another answer tonight.

When she gathered her hair away from her neck, her loose collar slipped off one shoulder, and his fork stopped halfway to his mouth. "Are you planning to eat that, or should I give you some privacy?" she asked, adjusting the collar without ending the call. He admitted she was distracting, which left her quiet for a moment before she told him he could survive one shoulder.

Honey’s next photograph arrived while the call was still open, and Dante shared it with Rhea before making any guesses. It showed a small cube above a drawn hand, with red lines inside its clear edges and separate figures connected to it by narrow marks. He recognized the shape before he understood the connections.

Honey added that the margin referred to the maker’s blood, although she still needed to check the older terms against another page. Dante showed Rhea the message instead of letting a red diagram become proof. She told him to leave sharp objects alone until Professor Bell reviewed it. Dante wrote that beside the picture.

The shape brought back the assessment room, the trapped door and Professor Vale’s bleeding wrists. Beneath Honey’s confident message, someone had crossed out the printed claim that the device reduced a spell’s cost. Dante enlarged the correction until he could read it clearly beside the record of his stronger lift: it only changed who paid.