Chapter 1164: Student affairs (3)

Lucavion’s mouth curved at her certainty, but the clerk denied him whatever answer he might have offered. "Elowyn Caerlin. Room Seven."

Elara rose and headed toward the corridor. The door opened as she approached, and Cedric emerged with the folder beneath his arm. She searched his face before he had taken two steps.

He gave her a small nod.

Some of the tension left her shoulders. The registrar called from inside before either of them could speak, forcing Elara to pass Cedric and enter. Room Seven closed behind her.

Cedric returned to the waiting area with the uncomfortable certainty that Elara had been calmer upon his return than when he entered. Lucavion was responsible. Cedric had always recognized when her thoughts began turning against her, and assuming control of the danger had once seemed the natural answer.

Lucavion had accomplished the same end by irritating her until she regained control of herself.

Cedric stopped beside the empty chair. "You have an unusual talent for involving yourself in matters that have nothing to do with you."

Lucavion observed that the accusation sounded almost rehearsed. Cedric denied it, and Lucavion praised the delivery with enough sincerity to make the compliment another deflection.

Cedric allowed the humor to exhaust itself. "Elowyn has enough complications already."

"She seems capable of deciding that herself."

Cedric sat and kept his voice beneath the waiting room’s movement. "That is a convenient answer from someone who keeps placing himself where she has to make the decision. You think I’m asking you to stay away from her."

Lucavion’s expression lost some of its amusement. He asked whether Cedric was not doing exactly that.

"I’m asking whether you understand what your presence costs her."

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

Lucavion looked toward Room Seven. "I know I make her life harder. But if she decides the trouble is worth keeping, that part isn’t yours to decide for her."

Cedric could not reject the argument without reaching for the same authority over Elara that he had recently agreed to surrender. Accepting her right to choose, however, did not require him to trust every choice surrounding her.

The board changed overhead.

C-47.

Lucavion rose. "Saved by bureaucracy."

Cedric settled back to wait for Elara. "I wouldn’t count on it."

Lucavion left for the Course Access counter.

Cedric watched Lucavion join the Course Access line.

Would he listen? Lucavion had listened during their conversation, which was not the same as obeying. Cedric could hardly demand more after arguing that Elara deserved control over her choices.

The question of whether Cedric was doing the right thing remained less cooperative.

Isolde was here. Adrian was here. Lucavion kept crossing Elara’s path, and now Gervase had decided her refusal deserved attention. Cedric could warn her about each danger and still become another person pressing upon her from a different direction.

He released a slow breath and looked toward Room Seven.

The registrar had questioned him about dates, tutors, household sponsorship, and minor inconsistencies designed to catch rehearsed answers. Eveline had left almost no openings in the Caerlin identity, and Cedric’s responses had matched the supporting records. Even so, someone had requested a secondary verification immediately after the Rotunda.

That timing required no interpretation.

What Cedric did not know was that Gervase’s refusal had provided only one reason to examine Elowyn Caerlin more closely.

Her written results had already circulated among instructors. Her control during the practical examinations had exceeded the expectations attached to her house, while the silver light within her magic had resisted an easy classification. Her answers had drawn Selenne’s attention, her reasoning had caught Thalor’s, and the Rotunda had placed her before students who remembered both ability and humiliation.

Several separate interests had begun turning toward Elowyn Caerlin.

Most of them had nothing to do with Gervase.

*****

The Course Access clerk accepted Lucavion’s Academy card and pressed it against a shallow crystal inset beside her ledger. Pale script identified him, confirmed his Credits, and displayed his permanent assignment.

PRIMARY BLOCK — MARTIAL ARTS BLOCK

She glanced from the words to him. "Which general lecture are you trying to attend?"

Lucavion explained that he was not looking for an open lecture. He wanted to enroll in Magicians’ Block courses and complete the work as a registered student.

The clerk’s hand remained on his card. "From the Martial Arts Block?"

"That is where they placed me."

She studied the assignment again, perhaps checking whether it had changed during the answer. "You want occasional access to a magical practice facility."

Lucavion corrected her before the request could shrink any further. "I want coursework."

Her professional composure survived, though it required a moment to reorganize itself. She looked toward the categories printed along the wall, then opened the procedural registry beneath her desk and passed several familiar sections without slowing.

"There was something like that," she said, more to the registry than to Lucavion.

The pages devoted to ordinary course changes showed the softened edges of regular use. Residence-linked adjustments and prerequisite appeals carried newer amendments clipped over older rules. The section she eventually found had preserved corners and a title written in a style several administrative reforms out of date.

The clerk read half a page, checked the revision marks, then carried the registry to the neighboring counter. Her consultation remained quiet. The older clerk beside her first shook his head, reconsidered when she pointed to a notation, and directed her toward a narrow cabinet behind Records.

Lucavion waited while she returned with a thin packet bearing three blank seal boxes.

The existence of the procedure was apparently easier to establish than its continued validity.

She compared the packet against the registry and reclaimed his card. "You may submit a Cross-Block Enrollment Petition. Before I issue it, I need to confirm that you meet the submission conditions."

Lucavion indicated the unopened packet. "Which are?"

Instead of answering from memory, she used the reference number shown by the card to request his examination packet from the file staff. The folder that arrived contained his general results, permanent placement report, and several faculty remarks attached by narrow colored slips.

His magical assessment was missing.

The clerk checked the reference twice before finding a second notation beneath the first. The Mana Control report had been filed under Examination Review because the examiner had requested additional classification. Another attendant disappeared between the shelves and returned with a smaller folder bearing Lucavion’s name.

An Academy capable of suspending entire halls inside layered spatial formations had divided one student’s examination record between two cabinets.

Lucavion found the achievement reassuringly human.

The clerk’s curiosity sharpened as she worked through the reports. His Weaponship and Combat Awareness results supported the Martial Arts assignment without difficulty. His written foundation in magical theory did considerably less for his new request. The Mana Control report complicated both conclusions: exceptional practical adaptation appeared beside incomplete formal method, unresolved Affinity, and a recommendation for supervision during external manifestation work.

"Your practical result exceeds the normal entry requirement," she said, keeping one finger against the report. "Your documented prerequisites do not."

"Can they be waived?"

The clerk returned to the old procedure. Lucavion watched the answer gather conditions as she read. A prerequisite waiver existed, but only the receiving instructor could request it. Remedial study could replace some missing coursework. Practical restrictions remained available whenever the accepting faculty member considered a student’s control insufficiently conventional.

Then she reached one of the colored remarks attached to his file.

Her gaze moved to his name.

Recognition followed slowly. Lucavion had seen the same transition often enough since the examinations: the commoner admission, the incidents around the Rotunda, the irregular flame, and several noble complaints that had apparently travelled farther through the Academy than the people who made them.

The clerk did not become hostile. She became careful.

Requirements described as possible safeguards in the registry entered her explanation as necessary confirmations. His Primary Block would need to acknowledge that the additional study would not interfere with its curriculum. The Magicians’ Block would need to accept responsibility for his placement. Missing prerequisites would require written compensation, and any course involving detached formations would need explicit practical approval.

Each requirement possessed a defensible reason.

Together, they built a door that opened only for someone who already knew which hands could turn its locks.

Lucavion rested two fingers against the counter. "If I had been assigned to the Magicians’ Block, what would this course require?"

The clerk checked the course category he indicated. "The introductory theory prerequisite, or an instructor’s waiver."

"And because Martial Arts is written on my card?"

"You are requesting enrollment outside the academic path approved by your permanent placement." Her answer remained patient. "Student Affairs cannot decide that the placement should be treated as incomplete."

She had not refused him. The Academy had not forbidden him from studying magic, either. It had simply placed the burden upon him to find people willing to certify that his demonstrated ability mattered more than the credentials he lacked.

A noble mage arriving through an established household would already possess recognized tutors, prerequisite records, and recommendations. Their Primary Block would place the same request inside ordinary registration. Lucavion’s interest became exceptional because the Academy had first classified him elsewhere.

"Who can authorize the exception?" he asked.

The clerk appeared more comfortable once the question moved away from whether she could grant it. She turned the petition around and indicated the three seal boxes. The Martial Arts Block needed to acknowledge the additional course load. A receiving Magicians’ Block instructor had to accept him and define any remedial conditions. If that instructor possessed prerequisite-waiver authority, one signature could resolve both the missing foundation and the practical restrictions; otherwise, the petition required another review from the relevant course head.

Only after those approvals would Student Affairs examine timetable conflicts and capacity.

Lucavion followed the chain once, then asked which decision had to come first.

"Receiving faculty authorization," the clerk said. "Without an instructor willing to place you in a course, the remaining reviews have nothing to evaluate."

That was the actual threshold.

The Academy did not require Lucavion to prove that learning magic was permitted. It required someone with recognized authority to decide that he was worth the inconvenience—and to place their own name beneath that judgment.

The clerk stamped the packet as issued and returned his Academy card. "Bring this back after the receiving faculty section is complete. Student Affairs can guide the petition from there."

Lucavion accepted the papers. "You have been remarkably helpful."

She looked at the open registry, the two examination folders, and the empty place where her ordinary queue should have continued. "I may reconsider that after the next student."

Lucavion left the counter before she found reason to begin early.

The petition felt light between his fingers. The authority it demanded narrowed his next step considerably. He needed a Magicians’ Block instructor who understood the difference between his practical control and his formal education, possessed enough standing to waive conventional prerequisites, and had already examined him closely enough to know why his file resisted ordinary classification.

By the time Lucavion crossed the doors of Student Affairs, he knew exactly whose name belonged in the first seal box.

He would begin with Magister Selenne.