Fortunately, Simon and Ethan returned to their normal routine of waking up two hours before their class began for the day starting Tuesday. Although their classes weren’t as exciting on Tuesday (Mythic Creatures excluded in Simon’s eyes), they pushed through to Wednesday where it became clear that Banks’s first class wasn’t just a one-time thing. Practical lessons that required hands-on field work were his specialty, and while there was a collection of squires who would have preferred your standard lectures and homework assignments, Ethan and Simon weren’t complaining in the slightest.

  Thursday began as the prior two days had, Simon waking up long before the sun had risen over the mountains. He spent the first half-hour of his day at his desk under flickering candlelight, logging some theories about fairies, until he heard some noise coming from the base of the tower. It was vague, but something along the lines of footsteps and a heavy object hitting the floor with a thud. His attention focused on the noise that had uninvitedly come at an hour no one else would have been awake to hear, Simon listened as the footsteps continued up the stairs into the Junior’s level of the tower, when a door opened and closed discreetly. Someone was up during curfew.

  The boy’s tower was categorized by having the youngest students at the top, and the older students at the bottom. It was a method of getting newbies used to constant exercise while letting the older students, who had enough athletic classes to deal with as it was, a little break. At the base of the tower was a small common’s area with a cozy fireplace, couch, armchairs, and tables for playing cards and socializing. The door to enter the boys’ tower was enchanted, same as the girls’, to prevent anyone from entering the wrong dorms, the only exception being the staff.

  But what would a member of the school staff be doing entering the boys’ tower so early in the morning? The maids came in to tidy things up on the weekends, and professors usually avoided the towers unless a student was really in trouble. Maybe that was the case, but Simon’s curiosity got the best of him.

  Cracking open the door to his and Ethan’s dorm room, Simon was met with the stone hallway and staircase of the tower, illuminated by the glow of torches mounted on the walls. His shadow following right behind him, Simon crept down the stairs one step at a time, as slowly and light-footed as possible. He reached the commons area just after passing the Senior’s level, where he came to the sight of nobody.

  There was no sign of life in the commons area at all, nor any changes that stuck out immediately. Ashes in the fireplace still glowed with light warmth, the sofa cushions were in their proper places, and the unfinished game of go-fish on one of the dining tables had been left completely undisturbed. But Simon’s eye fell on an object tucked away by the door used to enter the boys’ tower. A small white and blue satchel. Confused, Simon inched closer towards it, its color undeniable. All satchels in Northridge Knight Academy were distributed by the academy itself, and were all the school’s colors: blood and steel. This was the bag of someone who didn’t belong here.

  Careful to not be as loud as the footsteps he overheard, Simon quickly returned to his dorm room, Ethan still fast asleep. Although he was full of questions, he figured that the staff would explain the situation in the morning, and if they didn’t, they’d at least take care of whatever situation was going on.

  The hours crept by slower than usual, and eventually came the time for Simon to wake his loudly-snoring roommate. Ethan sat up like usual, scratching his beard, before standing up and going to freshen up for the morning. When Simon returned to the commons area with him, he found the outlandish bag from earlier that night to be gone. He didn’t dare mention it to someone, lest he could be caught for sneaking out of his own room at night, and Ethan wasn’t the type to really care about something like that.

  “You’re being quiet,” said Ethan.

  “Oh, just a case of the mornings I suppose,” said Simon.

  Ethan took a chug from his tankard of milk before setting it down on the small side table next to the sofa. He fell to lay against the back of the sofa with a defeated sigh.

  “Why do we have Arcane Studies?” he complained.

  “Because the threats that the kingdom needs knights to defend it from are sometimes people who are born with magic,” explained Simon, for the hundredth time this school year.

  “But it's a stupid class and I don’t like it,” said Ethan.

  “What was that phrase you were using the other day? Something along the lines of ‘suck it up, buttercup’?”

  Ethan gave Simon a look. “We’re knights, we don’t need to learn magic.”

  “We aren’t learning magic,” said Simon, rather annoyed. “We’re learning about magic. It’s two very different things.”

  “Whatever,” said Ethan.

  Simon glanced up at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, the pendulum swaying with each second that passed. There were only a few minutes before breakfast ended and they had to start making their way to Arcane Studies.

  “I’ll give you one thing, though,” said Simon as he stood up, adjusting his satchel that was hung over his shoulder. “The name ‘Arcane Studies’ is a bit misleading. Would be better to name it something like ‘Defense Against the Arcane Arts’ or something like that.”

  “Yeah, but I can see why they didn’t,” said Ethan as he also stood up. “That sounds way cooler than the class is.”

  The bell rang not much long after, and the two made their way to the Arcane Arts class with the rest of their class. Professor Gee was an okay teacher. All of her lessons were lectures about the individual aspects of magic and spellcasting. Something about incantation, hand movements, spell components and the like. One time, some guy thought he was being a crack-up when he asked if making out sloppy-style would render a spellcaster useless, which was greeted with the Professor’s stern look and a mumbled answer nobody caught ear of. Most people fell asleep in the class during the lectures, and still averaged out to have the same grades as those who tried to pay attention.

  But today’s class did not begin with a lecture.

  “Please take your seats and hold tight for a moment while I go down to the professor’s lounge to speak with Banks,” said Professor Gee to the incoming class, as she pushed through them to exit the room.

  “This could be good,” said Simon to Ethan as they sat down at their desk. “Maybe Banks is trying to get other teachers in on the practical lessons method.”

  “What would a ‘practical lesson’ look like in this class?” asked Ethan mockingly. “Trying to translate runes from real rocks? Thrilling.”

  It didn’t take long for Gee to return from the professor’s lounge, and following into the classroom directly behind her was a student that neither Ethan nor Simon had ever seen before. He had short brown hair and an athletic build perfect for long sprints, and somewhat of a long face. He looked a bit uncertain about himself and the setting overall, keeping close behind the professor as they entered the room. But the detail about him that Simon’s eye caught most was the white and blue satchel around his shoulder.

  “Everyone, I would like to introduce a new student joining your ranks,” announced Professor Gee as she and the boy stepped in front of the class. “His name is Arthur, and we expect that you’ll make him feel welcomed here at our school.”

  Simon’s eyebrows fell, Ethan’s face beheld a vague look of puzzlement. A new student joining this late in the year was completely unheard of. Especially among the Juniors and Seniors. The only time that a student would be transferred to a different academy is if they were kicked out from another one, which almost never happened. There were always delinquents who caused problems, but schools ensured that the punishments were brutal enough to scare them away from doing anything severe enough to get themselves kicked out. And from the look of this kid, that hadn’t been the case.

  “You can go sit down wherever there’s an open seat,” said Gee to Arthur, the boy moving to sit beside a student with his nose in a book. “Now, I would like everyone to open up your notebooks, we’re going to be going over the method of which children acquire their signature element in spellcasting.”

  Sighing, Ethan and Simon flipped open their notebooks and dabbled their quills in bottles of ink. Professor Gee moved to her chalkboard, holding the powdery white stone in-hand like a sword at the ready. She drew out a single word on the board before turning back to the class: ELEMENTS.

  “Who can give me an example of elements?” asked the Professor.

  The boy sitting directly in front of Ethan shakily and slowly raised his hand after a moment of no crowd participation.

  “Magnesium?”

  Professor Gee smiled weakly. “This is Professor Gee’s Arcane Studies class, not Robert’s Alechemy. Might want to make sure you’re in the right class.”

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  Another student raised her hand and spoke. “Fire.”

  “There we go,” said Professor Gee, turning back to the board and marking down ‘Fire’, connecting it to Elements with a line. “What else?”

  “Electricity?” “Water!” “Air!” “Earth!” “Darkness.”

  “Yes, very good,” said Gee as she marked down each element the class shouted out onto the board, all connecting them with a line. “Each mage that is born has their own signature element. We distribute these spellcasters into subtypes of mages, such as pyromancers, aquamancers, and even more exotic ones such as necromancers and chronomancers. In total, we know of over fifty of these elements that spellcasters use, some more common than others, which we’ll go over through the last half of class today.”

  Everyone in the audience sighed with a lack of enthusiasm.

  “But before we get into that, I want to go over how you can tell a mage’s element without seeing them perform magic,” said Professor Gee. “Anyone already know?”

  The class was silent.

  “It’s pretty simple,” started Gee. “When someone with magic feels a fluctuation of emotion, such as heightened excitement or terror, their veins will briefly change color from the natural blue to the color of their corresponding element. A useful fact to keep in mind should you ever cross your blade with a wizard’s staff.”

  As the class went on it became less and less interesting, though a bit more engaging than most days. Runes were widely regarded as the most boring unit the entire academy even bothered teaching, because the entire class period was spent staring at symbols on ancient stones that even the professors didn’t understand how to translate. So goes the teachings of magic at a school for the population of the country that didn’t have it.

  Ethan and Simon moseyed on through the day, going to their next two classes (Mythical Creatures and Battle Tactics) before finally reaching luncheon for the day. They sat down at their usual seats and began eating away, talking about the obnoxiously large amount of homework they had on their plates. Ethan had just sunk his teeth into the juicy flesh of a chicken breast when their conversation was interrupted by a cough from behind him.

  “Excuse me,” began Arthur. “You are Ethan Smith and Simon Wilson, right?”

  The two dumbly stared at the boy for half-a-second.

  “Yeah,” answered Ethan.

  “You’re Arthur, right?” said Simon.

  “Yup, that’s me,” he said.

  Arthur sat down next to Ethan, placing his platter with a chicken drumstick and ranch dressing in front of him. He let his white and blue bag fall to the ground and kicked it underneath the bench.

  “Just to be sure, you're Simon and Ethan from Sunset Village?”

  Ethan and Simon tilted their heads slightly to the side.

  “How do you know where we’re from?” asked Simon.

  “I’m from Sunset Village too,” said Arthur.

  “...Really?” asked Simon, skeptically.

  “Sure am!”

  Simon and Ethan exchanged a glance. Although it had been years since they had visited home, the village was pretty small. It was unusual to come across someone you haven't met yet when you lived there yourself, and neither of the two had any memory of a boy named Arthur who was around their age.

  “Man, I am so tired,” said Arthur, stretching his arms high into the air. “I hardly got any sleep last night.”

  “I know,” started Simon. “I’m pretty sure I heard you coming into the boys’ tower last night to drop off your stuff.”

  “Oh, really?” asked Arthur.

  “He’s an early riser,” Ethan said with his mouth full.

  “Oh. Well anyway, I’ve been trying to find some people who I could hang out with for a while. You know, help me get things figured out, being new and all.”

  “Us?” questioned Ethan.

  “Why not? You two seem pretty grounded here after all.” said Arthur. He spoke notably louder than most people, and was operating a bit faster than Ethan or Simon were, but not quite enough to be overbearing.

  “Well, you’re perfectly welcome to hang out with us if you want,” said Simon. “I don’t know why you would, but you’re welcome to.”

  “Great to hear,” said Arthur.

  “You can’t be any worse than the girl who used to hang out with us,” said Ethan.

  “Peyton?” Simon clarified.

  “Yeah. Me an’ her used to argue all the time about the dumbest things.”

  “What happened to her?” asked Arthur, a bit concerned.

  “Oh, it’s actually really funny,” said Simon, unable to contain a chuckle. “He and Peyton were arguing about whether something on an old map was red or pink, and eventually it got so heated that Professor Ellsworth sent her to the headmaster. Afterwards, I think she went to the staff and had them change her schedule so she never had any classes with us anymore.”

  Arthur blinked. “Don’t argue with Ethan, duly noted.”

  The duo, now made into a trio, finished their meals and continued onto their last class for the day, History. Professor Rawlings was the class instructor, and while he wasn’t disliked, the material he taught was never the most engaging. Not as bad as Arcane Studies, since they occasionally went over the various wars the north continent had gone through, which Simon and Ethan always found fun to read about. Arthur was a bit more interested in the weapons, shown in sketches and diagrams in their textbooks, such as catapults and the Da Vinci tank (a high-speed rotating vehicle that was near-impossible to penetrate with an arrow, and made sure no one could get close enough to strike it down with a melee weapon). Overall, the day ended as a moderate success. It didn’t feel as long as it usually did for the bell to ring, signaling the end of the school day, and the trio began to make their way back to the boys’ tower.

  “Chilly, Arthur?” asked Simon, noting Arthur’s poor attempts to hide shivering.

  Rounding a corner in the corridors, rising moonlight illuminated half of Arthur’s face as it glanced up to look at Simon.

  “A little,” he admitted. “I’m not that used to the cold.”

  Ethan and Simon indulged their senses for half a moment, only just barely noticing the chill of the air that Arthur was talking about. They hadn’t really noticed it before, but they couldn’t say it hadn't been that way previously. Both were pretty sure that the oncoming night was the main cause of the temperature drop.

  “It’s not that cold,” said Ethan.

  “Easy for you to say,” said Arthur, obviously bringing their difference in body composition to light.

  They pressed through the door to the boys’ commons area, already full of other students who had also finished their day. Seeing as the couch by the fire was taken by a group of seniors, the trio took to sitting down at the dining table.

  “So what do you guys do in your free time?” asked Arthur.

  Simon paused to think for a moment as Ethan answered for the both of them.

  “Homework.”

  Arthur looked taken aback. “That’s it?”

  “Yup,” said Ethan. “That, eating, and sleeping is about all there is worth doing around here.”

  Simon stepped in to clarify. “There’s a few other things you can do. The dueling courts are open for a few hours every day after classes let out, but nobody really uses them because practicing extra can wear you out more than you can sleep it off. And of course, you could always visit the stables to brush your horse or whatever.”

  Arthur nodded his head, a mix of confused and a bit disappointed. They sat in silence for a minute before Ethan spoke up again.

  “Like I said, not much worth doing around here outside of classes.”

  “Not what my old school was like,” said Arthur.

  “Oh yeah?” said Simon, leaning forward in his seat a bit. Arthur’s prior school was a topic he had been waiting for the right opportunity to bring up the whole past two hours.

  “Yeah,” said Arthur. His face fell slightly, almost sadly.

  After a few moments of silence Simon fell back against his chair, disappointed that Arthur hadn’t taken the conversation bait. Ethan could see that he wasn’t exactly keen on the topic and didn’t say anything either. They just sat quietly in the darker part of the room, light from the fireplace nearby casting an orange glow on them. Simon turned back in his chair to look out the window behind him into the starry night.

  “So,” began Arthur, breaking the silence. “Does everyone have their own horses here?”

  “Nah,” said Ethan. “They’re all just what the school provides us to use during class.”

  “Most of us use the same horse each class,” explained Simon. “Once you get to know each other, they’re significantly easier to ride in my experience.”

  “Which do you ride?” asked Arthur.

  “Ethan’s got a black stallion that the school named Ebony, and I ride a chestnut mare that I named Chai.”

  “He’s a lot better than me in that class,” said Ethan.

  Simon looked at Ethan skeptically. “Not by a lot. It wouldn’t be such a skill difference if you gave Ebony an apple every once in a while.”

  “How is that supposed to help?” asked Ethan.

  Simon sighed, cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and lifted his head up, which Ethan met with a face that spoke a voiceless ‘why did I bother asking’.

  “If I recall correctly, legendary poet Charles MacEnstein once said that ‘The bond between man and beast is what matters most when trying to strengthen your skill in the art of riding horseback, and all who aspire to be great knights must learn to gain the favor of their steed if they are truely to serve their country well’ or something along those lines. Obviously your horse is not going to put his all into the class unless you choose to do so as well, which you clearly aren’t doing. Ebony probably has the potential to run circles around Chai and I if you just treated him like the beautiful and revered creature that he is.”

  “Your faith in your horse is astounding,” noted Arthur.

  “I didn’t mean-” started Simon, cutting himself off. “I’m just saying that Ethan isn’t committed like I am.”

  “Sure I’m committed! Somebody has to lift those sacks of flour into the kitchens every Saturday morning,” said Ethan in his defense. “How else are we supposed to get fresh bread each week?”

  Simon fell his face into his hands. “You only do that because you like the workout of lifting heavy bags.”

  Arthur yawned, interrupting their back-and-forth.

  “Not that this hasn’t been fun,” he started. “But I think I’m going to go hit the hay and pass out for a few hours.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Ethan.

  The three made their way up the tower, Arthur stopping at his room not that far from the other two’s, before Simon and Ethan returned to their dorm. Ethan moved to flop onto his bed like he always did, while Simon took a seat down at his desk. He reached his hand out to grab his notebook, noticing the position he had left it in that morning, and suddenly remembering when he overheard Arthur arriving. Something didn’t quite feel right in his gut, as his hand fell short of the journal and placed itself on the desk surface.

  “Arthur’s satchel…” he started, not sure how to continue the sentence.

  “What about it?” asked Ethan.

  “It’s a different color than the ones the academy provides.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “Wouldn’t they just give him his own bag, like they did with us?” Simon wondered aloud, turning in his chair to face Ethan, still on his back in bed.

  “Maybe they did and they just changed the color or something.”

  “From our school colors? Not likely.”

  “Well maybe he just decided he wanted to bring his own bag.”

  “But why? And why is he joining so late in the school year?”

  “I don’t know.” said Ethan, obviously beginning to enter some level of sleep. “Banks is new too.”

  “Which only makes it more suspicious.”

  “You think too much.”

  “Maybe,” started Simon. “It’s just weird.”

  Silence followed, as Simon cycled through his thoughts for a moment.

  “Eh, you’re probably right,” he said, moving from his desk chair to his own bed. “I’m just overthinking things.”

  Simon put out the candle on the nightstand, falling into bed and pulling his sheets over him. He turned over on his side, facing the wall, as his mind began to quiet itself. His eyes began to like staying closed more than open, and he eventually let them shut completely. But his thoughts, even dying, still remained. Coming into the school year so late, having a bag that was different colors than the school provided, and being reluctant to talk about what school he was coming from. And the fact that he was from Sunset Village too. Something wasn’t adding up.