Within the Thaumaturgical Hall of Saint Augustine Academy, two girls walked together. The one with long silver hair led the way with confident strides, while her counterpart with shorter brown hair lagged a couple steps behind. 

“Aya, are you sure about this? Taking someone along with you seems like a really bad idea…”

Aya shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, clearly she wasn’t giving the matter much significance in her thoughts.

“It’ll be fine. It’s the House’s fault for dropping a bomb on me with such short notice anyway. So Clara, if his appearance disrupts those old fogeys' plans, who can claim that I’m the one to blame? The bigger the scene he causes, the better!”

Clara wore an expression of helplessness as she listened to her friend’s attitude. The whole situation at the House was a primed powderkeg. And while everyone else was tiptoeing around delicately, she was striking matches.

“You’re crazy! This could seriously damage the relations between House Castille and House Beaumont. There’s already tension with the Blackmore hunters and now you’re about to embarrass two noble households as well? How many people are going to get involved?”

Aya suddenly stopped and turned to face her friend. Her playful smile fell and was replaced by a pout that was full of indignance. 

“I never wanted to be involved with my family’s matters to begin with. It was them that forced it on me. Didn’t they say that so long as I’m in the academy, I’ll be free to focus on sorcery? So why are they suddenly changing their mind now? It isn’t fair! Maybe if I burn enough bridges, they’ll realize they should keep me out of politics.”

“You’re a direct descendant. It would be impossible for them to keep you uninvolved forever.”

That reminder finally cooled Aya’s temper and made her pause. A hint of melancholy appeared briefly in her limpid eyes. She quickly turned her head away and crossed her arms, stamping her foot without caring how spoiled she looked.

“Maybe so, but this is one aspect of my life I’ll never compromise on… I’m going now. That guy should already be on his way.”

Clara breathed out a sigh and slumped her shoulders. She admired her classmate’s indomitable nature, but couldn’t help but be worried about her recklessness.

“Okay.. but be careful. You know nothing about him. I don’t understand why you’re so sure he’ll even show up.”

“Oh he’ll definitely show up. Honestly, I’ve never met someone with such an unprotected psyche. I could lead him by the nose even without using enchantment. He’s probably some old ascetic’s apprentice climbing out of his hermit hole for the first time.”

—

Sayer leaned against the wall outside the academy gate. All morning he had been flipping back and forth between deciding to meet Library Girl or not. Eventually he concluded that he had too many questions about this world, and she was his best chance at getting any answers.

He had a little breathing room to focus on such matters after he pawned his watch. After spending a bit on food, he calculated that a single Elk could cover living expenses for two days, so he had two weeks of buffer time. That wasn’t a lot, but Sayer was used to living paycheck-to-paycheck. At least in Melogos his net worth wasn’t in the negatives.

After he had been waiting for around fifteen minutes, the wrought iron gate creaked as it was pulled open. Sure enough it was her. However instead of the familiar academy uniform, she was wearing a frilly black corset-dress. The dress that flared around her hips left her shoulders exposed and ran down to just past her knees. Sayer thought she could turn heads in her uniform already, so this dress was just overkill. Young miss, are you trying to cause a riot? I don’t need this kind of trouble, okay?

The girl glanced around, and then brightened with a smile when she met Sayer’s gaze. He was already waiting for her.

“How punctual you are. Women like a man that’s reliable, you know?”

Sayer was ready for her teasing this time around. He was determined not to passively fall into her rhythm.

“I can do you a favor so long as it’s nothing too unreasonable, but there’s something I want in return.”

“Oh? But you already promised. Here I was just praising you for your reliability, and you’re already making me into a liar.”

The girl quivered her lip as if she’s been wronged, but Sayer didn’t waver. 

“Nice try. What I want is for you to search your academy’s library for anything to do with portal sorcery or any information about this symbol.”

Sayer handed over a slip of paper on which he had drawn the occult symbol he saw on that book’s cover. 

“Well since you’re being so frank, how can I refuse?”

The girl wasn’t phased when her pitiful act didn’t draw any blood. She instantly perked up just as cheerful as before, then reached forward to take the slip of paper. When she glanced down at the drawing, her eyes twitched with surprise. 

“Interesting.”

She started to inspect Sayer up and down again curiously, circling around him to get a look from every angle. The way she evaluated him was obviously different from before.

“You recognize it? Can you tell me what it means?”

“I don’t know what it means off the top of my head, but I know what kind of symbol it is.”

“That’s great! So what is it?”

“Hm.. but it wouldn’t be any fun if I just told you, would it? What if you decide to renegade on your promise? Plus now I’m very curious about all the shady things you’re up to.”

Sayer was not amused. 

“I do the favor you want and you tell me what you know. Fair enough?”

“This must be awfully important to you.. since you’re agreeing before you even know what the favor is. You won’t regret it now will you?”

She stopped in front of him again and suddenly moved in very close. Sayer breathed in a faint scent of lavender. Their eyes locked while she gave him an impish grin. She was lifted up on her toes so that their noses hovered just a couple inches apart from each other. It seemed like she was provoking him to accept a dare. What Sayer couldn’t see was her hand behind her back moving in a somatic spell gesture and emitting a purplish haze. 

Sayer was so caught off guard by the sudden proximity that his train of thought momentarily halted. He swallowed his saliva. 

‘This is a trap.’ That thought desperately tried to ring in his consciousness, but before it got the chance it was captured and pulled away by a foreign force.

“No, I won’t regret it.”

“Good! Don’t forget you said it.”

The girl slipped away to her original appropriate distance just as quickly as she arrived. When Sayer regained control over his thoughts, she was fluttering her eyes at him and twirling a few strands of her hair around her finger innocently. Why was his heart racing?

Sayer was still feeling a little dazed when a luxurious carriage pulled up directly beside him. It displayed heraldry which depicted a coiled serpent sleeping atop a bed of roses. The horse driver climbed down from his seat and bowed respectfully to the girl before opening the door for her.

“Ah, our ride is here.”

“Our ride? Where are we going?”

The girl had already climbed in and Sayer had no choice but to follow. Moments later the carriage was on its way. 

“I suppose I should explain the favor I need now. It’s very simple. I’m heading to a small family event and I need you to act as my escort.”

“Why would you want to have a stranger as your escort?”

“You aren’t going to be a stranger, you’ll be my date.”

Sayer furrowed his brows as he processed the implications of this request.

“So you mean you want me to pretend that we’re in a relationship? To trick your family? Why?”

The girl let out an exasperated groan and huffed, but she still confirmed his guess.

“The matter is like this; My family has been constantly hounding me to get married while I’m still young. They keep saying that if I wait until my looks fade, no man will want to touch me with a ten-foot pole.”

Sayer nodded solemnly with a look of understanding, clearly agreeing with that assessment. The girl punched his shoulder viciously. She could read his thoughts all over his stupid face.

“Recently they gave me an ultimatum. If I don’t find a partner for myself, they’ll find one for me. And now they want to set me up with an arranged marriage. They want to use me to make an alliance with another house.”

“So you’re from a family of aristocrats?”

“I’m Aya Castille from the main line of House Castille. My father is the Lord Marquis, Aldrich Castille.”

She paused to observe Sayer’s reaction to her identity. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any. Sayer was like a block of wood. He had absolutely no recognition of the significance of the name ‘House Castille’. Moreover, the culture of nobility was something completely alien to him as someone from modern Earth.

Aya found his indifference simultaneously both annoying and relieving. It was annoying because she was hoping to see him get flustered. It was relieving because she was far too used to people turning into fawning bootlickers when they learned her surname.

“I don’t think your family is going to approve of you having a relationship with a commoner.”

“Who cares? It’s not like we actually want to get married. You just have to pretend for one evening so they can’t push an engagement on me without embarrassing themselves. After that I’ll be free to focus on sorcery. At least while I’m still in the academy anyway.”

Sayer felt like there was a flaw in her logic somewhere, but he couldn’t point out precisely where it was. It wasn’t any of his business whether this plan of hers worked or not, all he cared about was getting the information he was after.

“Focus on sorcery.. Saint Augustine is a sorcery academy then?” 

“You didn’t even know that much before breaking into the Athenaeum? Geeze, you really are clueless huh? To be specific, it specializes in abjuration, enchantment, and illusion.”

Although he knew nothing about sorcery, he could infer from her words that those were different subfields of sorcery and that sorcerers likely focused on a single speciality. It was similar to how on Earth you would never find someone who was just a scientist as ‘science’ was simply too broad a subject. Sayer felt like this made perfect sense and learning even this tidbit about the world of sorcery made him more curious. 

“Which of those is your focus then?”  

Aya bit her bottom lip as her familiar playful grin returned.

“At the academy, my focus is on enchantment.”

Enchantment. So she probably does things like enchant objects with spells to create magical items and tools. Sayer felt like he understood, but little did he know that what he was imagining was actually the domain of artifice. Enchantment was used to charm and subtly influence the thoughts of others.

Even though he completely misunderstood what Aya’s field was, he managed to pick up on something else hinted at in her words.

“‘At the academy.’ Does that mean you have another specialty you study on your own outside of the academy?”

Aya blinked as Sayer had once again managed to surprise her. It was completely unintentional on her part to reveal that detail. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and her lips curled up mysteriously.

“Very good, Mr. Thorne. You’re not as dumb as you look.”

She nodded with approval as she ‘praised’ him. Sayer let the provocation slide past. He was more concerned with inquiring further. However before he got that chance, the carriage passed through a stone arch and entered a grand estate.