Chapter 33: I Have Lost People Too

"Mr. Draeus."

Theodore’s voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the wind.

I turned toward the Academy entrance with Arthur and Mary, watching the familiar figure make his way across the courtyard. Draeus looked exactly as he always did at first glance: black coat hanging neatly from his shoulders, strange magician-like hat sitting atop his head, one hand resting on the handle of his cane as the wheels of his chair rolled smoothly over the cobblestones.

There was even a faint smile on his face, the kind that usually appeared whenever he encountered his students outside of class, as though finding a group of first-years wandering around the Academy at an ungodly hour was merely an amusing inconvenience.

"Well," he said as he approached, his eyes moving from one face to another. "How was the trip?"

Arthur didn’t answer.

Neither did I.

Draeus’s smile remained for another second.

Then his gaze moved past us.

Toward the empty space where Eliza should have been standing.

The change in his expression was so subtle that someone who didn’t know him might have missed it. The faint amusement disappeared first. Then his eyes narrowed slightly, moving across the four of us as though counting.

His gaze settled on Arthur, who was still sitting against the stone wall with his head lowered, his hands hanging loosely between his knees.

Draeus stopped.

The courtyard suddenly felt much quieter.

"Where is Eliza?"

No one answered.

Draeus looked at us again.

His eyes passed over Theodore, then Mary, then finally settled on me. I could see the realization beginning to form in them before I even spoke.

"She didn’t make it out."

The words felt heavier than they should have.

Draeus’s expression went still.

For a few seconds, he simply stared at me. Then his gaze lowered, and he released a slow breath through his nose. The cane in his hand tapped once against the stone before becoming still.

"I see."

He didn’t ask what happened immediately.

That somehow made it worse.

Draeus rolled forward until he was only a few steps away from us, then stopped. His eyes lingered on Arthur for a moment longer.

"Was she the one who stayed behind?"

I nodded.

Draeus closed his eyes.

"Then I offer you all my condolences."

His voice had changed. The usual dry amusement was gone, replaced by something quieter and much older.

Arthur finally lifted his head.

His voice cracked as Draeus looked at him.

Arthur swallowed hard, wiping his face with the back of his hand before continuing.

"She said I wasn’t supposed to feel guilty. She said she didn’t want me to repay her or live my life because of what she did. She just..." He took a shaky breath. "She just wanted me to live for myself."

Draeus remained silent.

Arthur stared at the ground, "I don’t understand how I’m supposed to do that."

The question hung in the courtyard.

Draeus’s fingers tightened slightly around his cane.

"I don’t think anyone understands the first time."

Arthur looked up.

Draeus gave him a tired smile.

"I have lost people too, Arthur."

Arthur said nothing.

"More than once," Draeus continued. "And not acquaintances. Not people whose names fade after a few years. I’m talking about people who stood beside me when I was young enough to believe that surviving meant we would all grow old together. People who knew what I was thinking before I said it. People I trusted with my back, my secrets, and eventually my life."

His gaze drifted toward the night sky.

"There was a man named Corvin. We met when we were nineteen. He was an idiot."

A faint smile appeared on Draeus’s face.

"The sort of idiot who would volunteer for the most dangerous assignment simply because he thought everyone else was looking at him. He was loud, arrogant, terrible with money, and convinced that every woman he met was secretly interested in him."

Arthur’s lips twitched despite himself.

Draeus noticed.

"Good. That’s important."

"What is?"

"Remembering that the people we lose were more than the way they died."

Arthur’s expression became still again.

Draeus continued, his voice quieter now.

"Corvin made me laugh. He annoyed me. He borrowed money and never returned it. He once convinced me to climb three floors through a window because he’d lost the key to his own room. And when we entered the realm together, he was terrified."

Draeus paused.

"He never admitted it, of course."

A soft breath escaped him.

"He stayed behind so the rest of us could escape."

Arthur’s eyes lowered.

"Did you blame yourself?"

"For years."

The answer came without hesitation.

Draeus looked directly at him.

"I thought that if I had been stronger, faster, smarter, perhaps he wouldn’t have needed to make that choice. I thought that every good thing that happened to me afterward was something I had stolen from him."

Arthur’s fingers curled against his knees.

"What changed?"

Draeus was silent for a moment.

"Eventually, I realized something."

The wind moved through the courtyard, stirring the edges of his coat.

"Corvin didn’t die because I was supposed to die with him. He died because he believed my life was worth saving."

Arthur’s eyes reddened again.

Draeus leaned forward slightly.

"Those are two very different things."

Arthur looked away.

"I know it hurts. It should hurt. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. But don’t turn her final wish into a punishment for yourself. Eliza chose to give you a future. If you spend that future hating yourself for having it, then you’re not honoring her choice."

Arthur remained silent for a long time.

Draeus straightened and glanced toward the others.

"And the rest of you?"

Theodore shifted slightly.

Mary stood quietly, her hands folded before her.

I didn’t know what to say.

There was nothing clever enough. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Nothing that could make the courtyard feel normal again.

So I simply looked toward the sky.

For some reason, that hurt more than anything else.

Draeus’s eyes suddenly narrowed.

He wasn’t looking at us anymore.

He was looking around us.

At the courtyard.

At the faint traces of energy lingering in the air.

His expression changed.

"What happened in there?"

I frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Draeus didn’t answer immediately. His perception seemed to spread across the courtyard, examining something none of us could see. His gaze moved over our bodies one by one, lingering for several seconds on each of us.

Then his eyebrows rose.

He looked at Theodore.

Then Mary.

Then Arthur.

Finally, me.

"That’s strange."

"What is?" Theodore asked.

Draeus stared at us as though we had suddenly become much more interesting than we had been a moment ago.

"Your cores."

My heart skipped.

I instinctively lowered my gaze.

There was no obvious change. The core inside me was still there, buried within the depths of my body, but Draeus was an instructor who had spent decades studying Awakened individuals. If anyone could sense something we couldn’t, it would be him.

"What about them?" I asked.

Draeus didn’t respond.

Instead, he looked at Theodore.

"You were a Seed Core when you entered."

Theodore nodded slowly.

"Mary."

She nodded as well.

"Arthur."

Arthur wiped his eyes and looked confused.

"Edmund."

I swallowed.

Draeus’s expression became increasingly strange.

He slowly leaned back in his chair.

"No."

His eyes widened.

He sensed us again.

This time, there was no doubt.

Something inside me seemed to freeze.

Draeus stared at the four of us for several seconds before finally speaking, his voice carrying a disbelief I had never heard from him before.

"You all have advanced to a Bronze Core!?"