“Do the professors seem a bit more on edge to you as of late?” whispered Simon in the middle of Professor Gee’s lecture on transmutation magic.

  “In what way?” Ethan whispered back.

  “Just like… in general.”

  “Not really.”

  “What are you whispering about?” asked Arthur from behind them.

  Ethan and Simon paused for a moment to see if Gee had caught him speaking in a more normal volume, before relaxing and turning to Arthur. Almost every other student in the class was either having their own conversations, sleeping, or doodling on some parchment. Arthur’s desk, however, had books on the topic of Arcane Studies piled up somewhat neatly beside his notes and his now half-empty bottle of ink. He had taken a liking to the class that no one else ever had before and had quickly become Professor Gee’s favorite student. Where dust had been collecting on the academy library’s section on magic and spellcasting was now a nearly empty-shelf where books once resided. Simon and Ethan had no idea why he was so invested in the subject, but he insisted that it was fascinating. Far more than pathetic melee weapons, as cool as war axes were.

  “You know the school’s provided ink has to come from somewhere, right?” said Simon.

  “So?” asked Arthur. “You write notes on mythical creatures for hours at night.”

  Simon couldn’t think of an argument against that.

  “He has a point,” said Ethan.

  “I know.”

  Suddenly, the Professor’s voice called out from the chalkboard. “Arthur, can you explain what the Philosopher’s Stone is please?”

  “It’s a mythical artifact with the ability to turn base metals into either gold or silver and can create an elixir of life and immortality.”

  “Excellent,” said the Professor, turning back to the chalkboard to ramble on some more.

  “You recite information in this class like you’re a textbook,” noted Simon.

  “How do you know I’m not just quoting the textbook?” asked Arthur.

  “I don’t,” said Simon. “Because I haven’t read it. Neither has anyone else in this entire school.”

  “Except Gee,” corrected Ethan.

  “Right.”

  “Come on,” said Arthur. “You can’t say that magic isn’t at least a little awesome.”

  “Someone sounds envious,” said Simon, turning back away from Arthur to face the front of the class.

  “And you aren’t?”

  Simon hesitated while Ethan stepped in. “Not one bit.”

  “Well you’re missing out,” said Arthur.

  “Who cares?” began Simon, sounding maybe a bit more annoyed than he meant to. “You’re either born with magic or born without it. Can’t change it, like it or not.”

  “I know that,” said Arthur, dropping the conversation.

  Simon’s thoughts didn’t drop the subject as easily. It wasn’t the most comfortable one to dwell on. When you spend a good majority of your time as a little kid waiting for the water in your mug to suddenly freeze over or for fire to shoot from your nostrils one day when you randomly sneeze, and it never comes, one can’t help but feel a little let-down. Everyone’s magical abilities show up before the age of ten, and almost seven years had passed since that day had come and gone. Just as if it were any other.

  “I know that face,” said Ethan.

  “What?”

  “That’s the face you make when you’re thinking about something depressing.”

  Simon blinked for a moment and tried to subtly change his expression from whatever it already was. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do,” said Ethan. “And I also know that you’re probably thinking about the gang cuz’ of what Arthur said.”

  Silence drew out as Simon chose not to respond.

  “Whatever,” finished Ethan.

  “What ‘gang’?” asked Arthur, butting into the conversation once more.

  Ethan turned back to him. “Back when we lived in Sunset Village we had this group of friends that we hung out with.”

  “Really?” asked Arthur.

  “Yup. Good times those were,” said Ethan, somewhat objectively.

  “What happened to ‘em?”

  Simon spoke up. “Everyone but Ethan and I got magic and were shipped off to wizard schools. First Severin with the bolt of lightning, then Lucian froze a pond into solid ice, Damion blocked out the sun for a minute, and right before applications to the Knight Academy were brought up, Logan set a tree on fire.”

  “No surprise there,” added Ethan.

  “Not one bit…” said Arthur.

  Ethan turned back to the lecture. Simon gave Arthur a questioning look.

  “I’ll bet,” finished Arthur.

  Simon turned back once more and began overthinking Arthur’s comment for half-a-second. Then he stopped the train of thought so his brain wouldn’t ramble on about something stupid for longer than it should. Arthur was just being himself.

  The day continued onward, as it always did, and class by class went by, eventually landing everyone back up in the dining hall. Food was the same as it was the day before, so was the conversation they had. Simon began spacing out as Ethan and Arthur got talking a bit more about sword fighting, and found himself listening in on a nearby group of squires who were talking in a more hushed tone.

  “You remember last week when Harwood’s class was attacked by those skeletons?”

  “Of course I do, how could anyone forget about that?”

  “Not without some Juniors over exaggerating how dangerous it was or something stupid like that.”

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  “Apparently they called over a group of skilled knights to deal with the monsters in the woods so that they didn’t attack the school or something like that. But from what I’ve overheard Professor Hobbs and Professor Rawlings saying to one another, none of the knights came back from the forest. Neither did any skeletons.”

  “Well duh. If the skeletons were left alive, they would have come here by now.”

  “But if the skeletons were all taken out by the knights, what took them out?”

  “We don’t know they were killed.”

  “The staff doesn’t seem to know if they survived either.”

  “You’re all just making a big deal out of something you probably misheard. C’mon, what’s out there in the woods that’s going to kill not one, but multiple knights? It’d take a monster of far more scary proportions to accomplish that than what we’ve got room for right outside the castle walls.”

  Simon watched as the group stood up, threw away their lunches, and then took themselves and their conversation out of the dining hall. He turned slowly to look at his bandaged arm. It didn’t hurt anymore, and the injury from the skeleton bit was mostly healed by now. He just liked the look of the bandage on his arm. It also acted as a reminder of Friday. Even though it was the next Wednesday, the sight of the half-decayed undead swarm in the woods hadn’t yet left his head. Neither did the image of the corrupted forest.

  Simon turned back to Ethan and Arthur, who had come to a silenced break in their conversation that needed filling. “Do you guys remember that part of the forest we saw last Friday?”

  “Hard to forget,” said Ethan.

  “What part of the forest?” asked Arthur.

  “When Ethan and I were looking for you in the woods, we found this corrupted part of the forest,” explained Simon. “It was a violent clash with the rest of the environment. The leaves of the trees turned a sunset orange, the grass was a deep purple, and the bark of the trees were silver-colored. Even just the shade of the trees seemed darker.”

  Arthur looked at Simon as he explained, his eyes widening slightly.

  “I think I remember seeing something like that,” he began. “Not too well though. I was preoccupied finding you two and then booking it out of there.”

  “Same,” said Ethan.

  “Yeah…” agreed Simon, half-heartedly.

  Arthur’s gaze fell down and slightly to the right as his face scrunched in thought.

  “Something wrong Arthur?” asked Simon.

  He shook his expression. “Nah, just spacing off.”

  Arthur scratched the back of his head with a simple grin.

  “Let’s get headed in the direction of class,” said Ethan, grabbing his things.

  The other two stood and followed Ethan as they disposed of the remains of their meal. Pushing past the massive wooden doors to the dining hall, they turned left and began to walk down the hallway. Although the day had not yet ended, the faint glow of the desert sunset was visible beyond the windows, giving the clouds a pink and orange tint. Torchlight gave an almost nostalgic glow to the gray brick of the wall.

  After climbing the stairs to the second floor the triad of friends reached a small windowed part of the hallway to pause at. Each boy leaned against the far wall, staring out to the fullness of the vast kingdom. Beyond the small woods that encompassed the whole school sat Lay Town, where cottages and huts plumed smoke into the air from their chimneys. Beyond even that was the salt planes at the edge of the Great Salt Lake. A staple in the region of the country. Some who had gone there said that you could effortlessly float on its surface. Ethan and Simon wouldn’t have known it to be true themselves. And finally, just at the horizon, past the distant faded mountains and above the lake, was the radiant light of the world, weighing down into the coming evening. It was calm and peaceful. One which none of the boys wanted to disturb.

  BAM!

  A door slammed open against the wall as three men exited the professor’s lounge. All three of the boys quickly turned to look at them. Storming away down the hall in their direction was none other than Madame Petro, the lady mayor of Lay Town. Behind her, standing at the opened door was none other than Professor Harwood and Headmaster Smith, both of which looked a bit appalled. Petro stormed right past the three boys as she made her way to the stairwell and down out of sight. Smith said something to Harwood, and they both walked different directions down the hallway, the Headmaster going after the mayor. He glanced at Simon, Ethan, and Arthur for a brief second.

  “Boys,” he acknowledged in his passing.

  Before he was then too, down the stairs and out of sight. The three looked at one another.

  “What’s the lady mayor doing here?” Simon rhetorically asked.

  “Is that who that was?” asked Arthur.

  “Never seen her in the school before,” said Ethan. “Or like, seen her in general.”

  “Do you think it’s because of the attack last week?” wondered Simon.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Ethan.

  “Things must be getting pretty bad,” noted Arthur. He looked a little concerned, but perhaps about something more internal than external.

  Without any warning, a voice rang out through the school.

  “This is Professor Harwood,” it began. “All squires are to return to their dormitories early today. There will be no fourth-period classes. Any squires caught in the halls may receive detention and a swift escort to their dormitories where they are to remain for the night. Thank you.”

  The voice stopped suddenly, and the trio exchanged a look. Rather than question how they heard their horseback riding instructor’s voice resonating from the very walls of the school and why it had never happened before, they subconsciously assumed it to be magic and decided to make their way to the boys’ tower without any discussion. Climbing down the stairs on the other side of the school, they found the hallway littered with boys filing into the tower all at once from the dining hall. The entire crowd roared with overlapped conversations. Simon, Ethan, and Arthur paused for a moment halfway down the steps, not exactly wanting to push their way into that same mosh pit. Despite this, they wedged themselves in-between their classmates and pushed through the enchanted door into the commons area, which wasn’t any less crowded than outside.

  Ethan said something over the roar of the crowd that no one could hear, and began heading for the stairs leading up to their individual rooms. Arthur and Simon followed him, the crowd slowly getting quieter and quieter as they walked further up the spiral tower. Reaching Simon and Ethan’s room, the three stepped in and closed the door, locking the noise outside their room. All three released a pent-up sigh, sitting down on their beds, Arthur electing Simon’s desk chair as a fill-in.

  “This ever happened before?” asked Arthur.

  “No,” said Simon with absolute certainty. “I didn’t even know we had communication runes in the academy. You, Ethan?”

  “Nope.”

  “Honestly, this day feels a bit more weirdly-paced than usual,” noted Simon. “Maybe it’s just my paranoia.”

  “I feel that too,” said Ethan. “Maybe a bit more rushed or slow at random moments.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Simon.

  Silence fell in the room for a moment, the hum of the outside sneaking through the walls.

  Ethan sat up straight in his bed and began digging through his satchel. “Don’t know about you two but I’ve got homework I’m going to be doing.”

  “Not the worst idea,” said Arthur. “Take advantage of what time we get.”

  Simon silently agreed with himself to do anything but homework. Ethan moved to his desk and the two began ruffling through papers and scribbling things down with their quills. Simon instead did what he was so rudely interrupted from doing earlier, and began to gaze out the smaller window of their room. A different angle than previously, Simon could see the detail of the rocky mountains in the near distance. Snow from the previous winter lingered on their rugged edges and peaks. As long as he could remember his whole life, there had always been the mountains. Most people who lived in the kingdom had grown so accustomed to them being there that their natural beauty and wonder had become lost to them. But when someone took a moment to just sit and admire them, the world felt more real than it ever had just going about daily life.

  A while passed as Ethan and Arthur scribbled away at parchment and Simon relaxed on his bed. The school bell rang to signal what would have been the end of Professor Rawling’s class, and they could hear every one of their peers climbing the stairs up into the tower. Arthur eventually stood up from his chair and got his things together, slinging his white and blue satchel around his torso, before waving goodbye and returning to his own room. Ethan set aside his quill and ink and copied Simon’s position on the bed before putting out the candelabra and placing the room into a state of darkness.

  Simon turned over onto his side, hugging his feathered pillow between his right arm and his head. It wasn’t long before Ethan’s snoring began to measure on the richter scale. Their wall, floor, and ceiling neighbors had complained many times about it, but there was nothing they knew to do to prevent the snoring. Simon, even though he laid only a few feet from the epicenter, had grown accustomed to it and allowed the monstrous roaring to begin lulling him to sleep.

  His eyes closed, his mind winded down, and last but not least, Simon’s head succumbed to the hooks of dreams.

  Yet it didn’t last as long as he'd liked.

  “Simon! Wake up!” cried Ethan.

  Simon’s eyes snapped open and he squinted as his back rose from the mattress of the bed.

  “What the crap is going on now?” asked Simon, as annoyed as possible for one who had just been woken up.

  “They’re telling us to evacuate the academy,” said Ethan. He already had his chainmail and boots on, and was fastening his helmet to his head.

  “Why?” asked Simon.

  “If a passing word is true, the academy is being attacked by monsters.”