Chapter 155: The First New Class

Chapter 155: The First New Class

POV: Astrid Vale

Ivy and I arrived at our first class under the new system, and the classroom looked completely different from anything I remembered before Elaris. Moonshade students sat scattered among the former Blackthorn transfers, everyone glancing around at unfamiliar faces with the kind of curious energy that felt more like the first day of a new school than anything resembling hostility.

"Supernatural Biology," Ivy said, reading the sign on the door. "Sounds thrilling."

"It sounds like homework."

"That too."

The teacher, a woman I didn’t recognize, began the lesson by explaining how different supernatural species’ bodies interacted with magical energy differently, werewolves processing it one way, witches channeling it entirely another. A few students near the front took careful notes while others exchanged glances, clearly absorbing information about entire categories of people they’d never bothered learning about before.

Partway through the lecture, my senses sharpened unexpectedly, picking up something faint in the room, a slight shift in temperature near the back wall that nobody else seemed to notice. I forced myself to stay focused on the lesson rather than chase the sensation further, managing to keep my reaction contained enough that nobody around me seemed to notice anything unusual.

A Moonshade student near me struggled visibly with a basic magical concept the teacher had just explained, muttering under his breath in frustration. Eliza, seated a row over, leaned toward him quietly.

"You’re overcomplicating it," she said. "Think of it less like casting and more like breathing. You don’t force air into your lungs, you just let it happen."

The student blinked at her, something clicking into place, and he tried the concept again with noticeably more success. Eliza smiled and turned back to her own notes without making a show of having helped, and something about the simplicity of the exchange struck me as significant. This was exactly what Aldric had probably hoped for when he’d merged the programs, genuine cooperation instead of competition or suspicion between different groups.

Criston sat a few seats away, his expression tight with concentration in a way that seemed unrelated to the lesson itself. When the teacher called on him to answer a question, he hesitated longer than usual before responding.

"Sorry," he said afterward, when the teacher moved on. "It’s harder to focus with this many people around. Usually I can filter things out easily, but there’s just so much noise in here."

"Noise?" I asked quietly.

"Thoughts," he said. "Everyone’s, all at once. I’m working on choosing what to actually listen to instead of hearing everything."

The teacher, overhearing part of the exchange, addressed the class briefly. "Mental abilities require consent and discipline," she said. "Just as werewolves must learn control over their shifts, those with mind-reading capabilities must learn control over their range. Neither ability grants permission to intrude on others without invitation."

Criston nodded, jotting something down, and I watched him practice what looked like deliberate concentration for the rest of class, his shoulders slowly relaxing as whatever technique he was attempting started working.

Josh, seated on my other side, leaned over during a brief pause in the lesson. "Everyone in this room has some kind of special ability," he said, loud enough for a few nearby students to hear. "Meanwhile I’m just here, ordinary and talentless."

A few students laughed, and Josh laughed along with them, but something underneath his tone caught my attention, a genuine frustration he was working hard to disguise as humor.

"What exactly is your ability?" someone asked, half joking.

Josh shrugged. "No idea," he said. "Still waiting to find out."

He said it lightly, but I noticed the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and I made a mental note to check in with him properly once class ended.

During the practical portion of the lesson, we paired off to observe basic energy signatures, something the teacher demonstrated using a small device that lit up whenever it detected supernatural activity. When my partner activated it, I caught something before the device even registered a reading, some subtle shift in the air that made me glance toward the corner of the room a half second before the light actually flickered.

"Interesting," the teacher said, noticing my reaction. "Miss Vale, you sensed that before the equipment did."

"I don’t know how," I admitted honestly.

"Unusually sharp sensory awareness," she said, making a note. "Something worth exploring further."

I felt Sapphire stir faintly beneath the surface of my thoughts, some instinctive satisfaction radiating from her at the acknowledgment, though I still didn’t fully understand what exactly I’d just done or how to replicate it deliberately. I let it go for now, filing the strange moment away alongside everything else I still needed to learn about this new part of myself.

After class ended, Ivy and I walked together through halls that felt noticeably different from the ones I remembered before Elaris. Students from entirely different supernatural backgrounds moved between classrooms without the careful separation that used to define Moonshade’s social structure, a werewolf heading toward what was clearly a witchcraft classroom, a witch walking alongside two Lycan students deep in conversation about something unrelated to either of their disciplines.

"We’re going to need a map just to figure out where anything is anymore," Ivy said, glancing at a hallway sign listing classrooms I didn’t recognize.

"Probably," I agreed.

The old boundaries between Moonshade and Blackthorn seemed to be dissolving faster than I’d expected, students mixing naturally in ways that would have felt impossible only months ago. Something about watching it unfold made the uncertainty of everything else, the ongoing investigation, the unidentified kidnapper still potentially walking these same halls, feel slightly less overwhelming.

I checked my schedule as we walked, confirming what class waited for me next, and something in my chest tightened at the sight of it.

Witchcraft Fundamentals.

The first subject directly connected to the heritage my mother had spent her entire life hiding from me, the part of myself I still barely understood despite everything that had happened since that night behind the hidden wall.