"Thea." Liam finally breaks the silence. They are on their way back.

"Hm?" Theo answers, half present.

"How do you keep meeting with Teacher Theo?" Liam cannot hold the question in any longer.

"Hm?" Theo turns to look at him.

"I mean, it seems to me like you already have his knowledge. And yet I have never seen you alone, or left with enough time, to actually learn it from him. How is he doing it?" Liam’s eyes stay on the road, but his mind is clearly elsewhere.

Theo looks at Liam for a moment. Then back at the road ahead.

"Liam. There are things I simply cannot tell you. I have my own reasons for that. But I do not want to lie to you, or to the rest of Rhaenas." Theo says. "Can you accept that answer, for now?"

The light in Liam’s eyes dims slightly. "Yeah. I can do that." He answers quietly. His grip tightens on the steering wheel, but he says nothing more.

Seeing Liam’s reaction, Theo feels the urge to soften it, to explain, to give him something more. But he holds it back. He sinks deeper into his seat, jaw tight.

I’m sorry, Liam.

The rest of the drive home passes in silence.

------------------------------

"Elder Loujt, is Thea really a mage?" Sonia voices her doubt.

Elder Loujt walks slowly, with no particular direction. He is lost in his own thoughts. Sonia is too, though she is mostly just thinking out loud.

"But she has no mana. How can she be a mage? But if she is not a mage, how does she know all of that? Is she making it up? Are you actually going to do what she asked, Elder Loujt?" The questions tumble out of her one after another, faster than she planned.

Elder Loujt does not respond. His mind is still back in the café.

"Elder Loujt, look out!" Sonia shouts.

Too late. He walks straight into a street lamp post, forehead first.

"Oh my Dhaerith! Elder Loujt, are you alright?" Sonia pulls him back quickly and checks him over for injury.

Elder Loujt frowns and rubs his forehead in slow circles.

"Elder Loujt! Elder! Are you alright? Are you corrupted? Has the corruption magic finally gotten to you? Elder Loujt, say something!" Sonia panics.

"Your Highness, please do not yell. We are in public. And what exactly are you yelling about?" Elder Loujt scolds, half distracted, still rubbing his forehead.

Sonia bites her lower lip to stop herself from smiling.

"Elder." She lowers her voice to something conspiratorial. "Are you that taken with Thea?"

"Huh?" Elder Loujt looks at her as though she has switched languages mid-sentence.

"Are you so taken with her that you cannot get her out of your head? She may be a minor here, but in Vaelin, sixteen is considered an adult. Do you like her?" Sonia teases.

"Watch your tone!" Elder Loujt snaps.

Sonia gasps. She looks at him with a flicker of genuine alarm.

Elder Loujt sees it and sighs. "I apologize, Your Highness. My mind seems to be elsewhere. Let us head back."

They continue toward the nearest subway station.

As they descend underground, Elder Loujt speaks again. "Your Highness, going forward, please be more careful with what you say. Especially around Ms. Montrose."

Sonia pouts. "I have manners, Elder. I would never be inappropriate toward her or anyone else. Have you ever seen me be rude to someone?"

"Besides." She continues to sulk. "Why are you on her side? Are you not supposed to be on our side? You looked rather taken with her back there yourself. What was that about?"

Elder Loujt walks in silence for a while before finally answering.

"Thea Montrose is not a simple young woman, Your Highness. I believe she is far more than that. What happened in that café proved it."

"She holds vast and deep magical knowledge, and yet she appears to have no mana at all. Her knowledge rivals mine. Perhaps even surpasses it." He continues slowly.

"Which I would have thought impossible. And yet there I was, completely thrown by the fact that Earth sits at the core of snow. I am Water, Your Highness. I have been Water since my element reading at the Element Awakening Ceremony, when I was four years old."

"More than thirty years as Water. And I never knew that."

He sighs heavily. "I used to take pride in having read nearly every book on magic in our library. I used to challenge Elder Maer on points of magical knowledge. I was proud of what I knew."

"And I was beaten by a sixteen year old girl." He lets out a hollow laugh.

"But — but, Elder, she has no mana. You could still beat her in a magic fight." Sonia tries to soften the blow.

Elder Loujt stops walking and looks at her directly.

"I would never fight her, Your Highness. Not even a spar. First, because she has no mana. It would not be fair. Second, have you not noticed her aura? It is suppressive."

He resumes walking.

"The aura itself is confusing. Contradictory, even. If she were a formidable mage, an aura like that would be expected. But she has no mana. That contradiction is what baffles me most."

Elder Loujt is thinking out loud now. "Which is why I have come to this conclusion. She is, or once was, a mage. Something happened to her. Something that took her magic away."

Sonia struggles to keep pace, her steps shorter than his.

"Elder." She finally calls out.

He glances beside him and finds her missing. Looking back, he sees her nearly jogging to catch up.

"My apologies, Your Highness. My mind truly is elsewhere today."

He slows his pace.

"It is alright, Elder." Sonia catches her breath. "But does it make sense, though? One does not simply lose their magic. Or in this case, their mana. Mana is not an object to be misplaced. It is who we are. How could she have lost it?"

Elder Loujt shakes his head. "That, too, I do not understand, Your Highness."

"I have never seen you this unsettled." She pauses. "Are you going to follow her plan?"

"Yes." Elder Loujt nods. "It sounds perfect. And she even gave us time to prepare. We have the rest of today and all of tomorrow. We will be ready the day after."

------------------------------

That night after dinner, Theo walks the rest of Rhaenas through what they will be doing with Sonia’s group, and asks them to practice in the meantime.

"There is plenty of snow out there for practice. It will be much easier if you all have the method already imprinted by the time the day comes. Then all you will need to focus on is linking your magic together."

Everyone nods.

"Good. Class dismissed. Do not forget to practice." Theo grins.

Everyone gets up and disperses.

The Montrose parents are not present that evening. The Monforts have taken them out for dinner. The plan has already been set, once the snow is dispersed, Julian will return to Arvion with his father to prepare for Arthur’s arrival the following week.

Dr. Bennett and her team have already confirmed that Arthur is safe to travel. The hospital will arrange the air transport, and has even offered help setting up Arthur’s room in Arvion, an offer Maurice and Leila accepted with gratitude.

------------------------------

The clock strikes midnight.

Theo sits cross-legged on his bed, meditating. Ever since learning that Arthur is still alive, he has been meditating whenever he has the time. His goal is simple. He wants to rebuild his connection with nature.

That connection broke the moment he lost access to his mana.

"It is not your mana, Theo. It is Thea’s."

The words from his own soul gave him an idea. A theory. An absurd one. And he has been quietly testing it ever since.

In the dead silence of the night, his stomach growls loudly. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Theo groans.

"Ugh. I ate plenty already. Why am I still hungry?"

He tries to push through and continue meditating, but the hunger refuses to be ignored.

He groans again.

"Ugh. Fine! Fine! I will go get food!"

He makes his way to the kitchen in the dark and pulls something out of the fridge. He sits on the kitchen island, eating in the dark, in silence.

He munches on his sandwich, looking out the window absentmindedly.

And sees a light. Far away. In the main building.

At first it does not register. But the light is moving, the way a flashlight moves when someone is walking with it.

A thief? Is his first thought. He dismisses it almost immediately. No. This is the Monfort complex. No thief would be foolish enough to try anything here.

He keeps watching it.

If not a thief, then what?

Theo finishes his sandwich, eyes still fixed on the light.

Until curiosity wins.

He slips out quietly, pulls on his hoodie, wraps his coat tighter around himself, and heads toward the light, crossing the wide garden that separates the guesthouse from the main building.