The dorm house was taller and more narrow than most of the others around it, giving it the impression of having been hastily assembled, like a tower of cards kept from toppling only by the more solid constructions to either side. The two bottommost floors were made from gray brick, put together without any noticeable mortar, providing a sturdy base for what had to be five or six wooden floors.

  “It’s… nice?” I said, confident that was a lie but unsure if this was a situation where honesty was unexpected.

  “No, it’s not,” Elbexas said. “But it’s where all the grade ones stay.”

  He took the steps up the porch two at a time, forcing me to jog a little to keep up with him as he burst through the front door without so much as a single knock.

  We emerged into what looked a lot like a mundane common room. A dozen younger ellids jumped as the Watchful Magister burst into their dorm, and I winced in sympathy, imagining my leisure time being interrupted by a department head casually strolling into my dorm.

  A handful of them were clustered around a beaten-up wooden table, various piles of cards and chips indicating some sort of poker-esque game that we had interrupted. A few more were sitting in a few ratty old lounge chairs, drinking from earthenware mugs, their conversation stopped dead by our appearance, and I saw a couple more startled heads peek out from a doorway in one corner.

  “Good afternoon, pupils!” Elbexas greeted them, as if this was an everyday occurrence. To be fair, I had no idea if it was or not, but based on their reactions, I figured, no, it probably wasn’t.

  Of course, that could’ve also been because their teacher had escorted in someone between a religious figure and an alien, so it was hard to say.

  “M-Magister Elbexas,” one of the card players stuttered. “H-how can we um…help you?”

  “By not doubling down on a trash hand, Dane. You clearly don’t have much of a bluff.”

  The young ellid, with sandy blonde hair and rich olive skin, looked down at his cards, confused, no doubt, when he noticed that he had put them face-down on the table when we entered.

  “Keep playing,” Elbexas told them, turning to the rough semi-circle of lounge furniture. “Let’s see here… Ah. Calum.”

  One of the ellids stood up as soon as his name was said. He had been sitting at a slight remove from the rest of the group in that corner of the room, the book he had been flipping through already placed aside. His skin was dusty and dark, a few shades darker even than Aoss’s slate gray, giving him the look of a stone statue come to life. His hair was short and spiky, a shade of pale green that made me think of those glow-in-the-dark stars I stuck to my ceiling as a kid. His eyes were similarly green, but brighter, an acid green not so far removed from my highlights.

  “Yes Magister?”

  “Pupil Danielle here is a late entry to the House,” Elbexas said. “She came to us without any supplies of her own. I’d appreciate it if you could help get her settled and comfortable. We still have a spare room or two left in here, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Four of them, actually.”

  “Four?”

  “Galin quit last night.”

  Elbexas rolled his eyes. “Fair enough. Danielle will be taking the usual courses, but she’ll be in Essential Lore for second block.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Elbexas apparently caught something in the young ellid’s tone, and he arched an eyebrow. “Question, Calum?”

  Calum looked from Elbexas to me and back, the question obvious on his face. The Magister had said nothing to acknowledge that I wasn’t just another student, or that I clearly wasn’t an ellid.

  After a moment, he apparently got the message and shook his head. “No, Magister. I’ve got it.”

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  “Thank you, Calum.” Elbexas turned back and offered me a quick wink. “Calum will take care of you from here. Courses are in three days, so rest up and get ready.”

  I gave him a short nod, excitement and anxiety warring in me. “Thanks, Elbe.”

  The Magister’s habitual half-smile widened into something real and genuine for a brief moment. He winked again, gave a broad wave to the room, and then strode out of the house, leaving me alone with my new roommates.

  Immediately, the room descended into hushed conversation, previous topics and games forgotten as the groups of ellids began furiously discussing the appearance of the Watchful Magister–and, I realized after a dreadful moment and a few not-very-surreptitious glances, about me.

  Still, none of the ellids seemed willing to approach me except Calum.

  “Quite the entrance,” he observed with a dry smile.

  “Don’t blame me,” I insisted. “That was all him.”

  Calum snorted and held up a fist, knuckles towards me. “Well, I’m Calum.”

  I moved without thinking about it, and rapped my knuckles against his. “Dani.”

  The gesture seemed to help him relax a hair, and I saw the question he had put aside earlier start to rise up again. But instead of voicing it, he hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, ready to see your spacious accommodations?”

  I grinned, the ellid’s easy manner helping me relax a little bit. “Sure.”

  He spun a hand around the room. “Common room. Obviously. These delinquents are the other grade ones in Vigilant House.”

  “Is this everyone?” I asked. Between the cluster gossiping in the lounge chair, the handful playing cards, and the pair of heads sticking out of the kitchen, there were about a dozen ellids total in the common area. That seemed pretty small to me, but I also didn’t know what enrollment numbers were like for a school like Primevus.

  Calum nodded his head side-to-side. “Most. There’s sixteen of us, as of last night–back up to seventeen, with you. Everyone else is either in their rooms or out in the Campus.” He pointed to the doorway I had noticed earlier. “Kitchen and pantry are through there. We’re supposed to get a cooking and cleaning rotation set up at some point, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  In the corner of the room was a rickety set of wooden stairs, which Calum led me up. Behind us, I heard the quiet conversations increase in volume the moment I left the room.

  “Did you see-”

  “-an actual hu-”

  “I don’t get why sh-

  “-kinda cute though-”

  Ahead of me, Calum shook his head, catching the burst of conversation as clearly as I did. “You’re gonna have to get used to that,” he told me.

  I found myself grinning. I liked Calum–he was trying his hardest to follow Elbexas’s implied instructions and treat me as just another classmate. Since there were few things more excluding than being the “special” person in a group, I found that vastly preferable.

  The second floor, like the first, was built from brick, but there was none of the wooden flooring or wall panels that softened the common area. It was also much tighter, little more than a tight hallway with four doors set into the cold gray walls. “Bathrooms,” Calum explained. “There’s one bath, too, but I wouldn’t suggest you plan around using it. I’m starting to think we might need to set up a rotation for it, too.”

  “Uhm…”

  “I’ll show you the Therma tomorrow,” he told me. “That’s the public baths.”

  I swallowed, my eyes widening a little bit. Public baths? Those were a thing here? And the alternative was one private bath for seventeen people?

  Calum led me up another flight of stairs, and things got increasingly creaky as we ascended to the fully wooden levels of the house. “Dorm rooms start here. They’re all identical layouts–bed, desk, wardrobe, chest, window–laid out four to a floor. Mine is that one, second to the left.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “So what do I have for options?”

  He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uhm. The lower floors got taken quickly. We’re gonna have to go up some more for the open rooms.”

  Of course.

  We stopped on the fourth floor, and he pointed at the first door on the right. I couldn’t help but notice what seemed to be a dark stain emerging from under the entrance. “That’s your first option. Upside, it’s the lowest, so less stairs every day. Downside, it has a leak.”

  I frowned. Then I realized something, and frowned harder. “I thought the bathrooms were two floors down.”

  “They are.”

  “And uh… does it rain inside the Grand Dungeon?”

  “It does not.”

  “Then… where does the leak come from?”

  “That’s an excellent question. If you figure it out, can you let us know?”

  “...Okay, what’s my next option?”

  The fifth floor had two empty rooms. “Okay, so what’s wrong with these?”

  “Well, the window in that one is broken.”

  “Can it be fixed?”

  “Emmet tried, and it bit him.” Calum considered a moment, then added, “Extradimensional buildings are weird.”

  “Agreed. What’s wrong with the other one? No floor?”

  “No, it’s fine. Technically.”

  “...Calum, what does that mean?”

  “Well, Senna and Mell live in the other two rooms on this floor.”

  “Okay?”

  “And they recently started seeing each other.”

  “...Okay…”

  “And they can be a bit loud.”

  “You said there’s one more option, right?”