"Do not blame yourself, Instructor; I have always held you in the highest respect, and the expression of your actions previously unbeknownst to me has but elevated my opinion of you. I take blame wholly; but I assure you it will not ruin me. My weakness in that moment only serves as motivation to drive me further.

  "The suppression of my pain does not cause so much torment that I cannot control. I attempt to fool others, for their sakes, an act I do seek repentance for, but I do not fool myself."

  If anyone can understand me, Arthur thought, watching the instructor, it is Vigo.

  Arthur let the mask of the grieving brother slip, just enough to reveal the steel resolve beneath.

  "My brother will not be dead for long."

  Comprehension didn't dawn on Sivan Ruarc Vigo; it struck him instantly. The atmosphere in the office shifted violently. The air grew heavy and thick, the pressure plummeting until it mimicked the crushing, lightless trenches of the Water God's own domain.

  "I have a plan to return him to this plane," Arthur continued, his voice steady against the crushing weight in the room. "To bring him back. To right all of our wrongs."

  "You mean to resurrect him?"

  The word hung in the humid air—Resurrection. It was a concept that referred to a single, forbidden field: Black Magic. Yet, Vigo inquired without a flicker of shock, his tone as flat and clinical as if he were discussing the weather.

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  "It is my obligation," Arthur stated, the words tasting of iron and duty. "As the one who lived."

  "And is that the extent of your plan?" Vigo asked.

  Arthur faltered. The question knocked him off balance, forcing a retreat behind his polite facade. "Apologies. I don't quite follow."

  "What of the perpetrators of the murder?" Vigo pressed, his silver monocle catching the lamplight. "What of the safety of your family? What of your own future?"

  The questions hit Arthur like physical blows. It felt as if the gravitational constant of the universe had shifted, placing its entire mass solely upon his shoulders in the form of sheer exhaustion. His mind began to race, seeking answers to variables that he, for some inexplicable reason, had not calculated sooner. Halt. Stop.

  Vigo stood abruptly.

  "Follow me."

  The Head Instructor moved to the stone brick wall. He placed his hand against the masonry, right beside the refined, organized bookshelf that now stood where a chaotic pile of wood had been just the day before.

  Moments passed in silence. Then, a viridian light began to bleed through the mortar of the bricks. It pulsed, each vein of magic moving at its own pace, spreading until every fissure glowed.

  The masonry groaned, the stones shifting and retracting, the entire wall rising upward like a hidden portcullis.

  It revealed a space that defied the geometry of the building. It was not merely a room; it was a cavernous laboratory several times the size of the office. It was crowded with the cold, brass instruments of science, sitting uncomfortably beside the grotesque paraphernalia of horror and the heretical.

  Vigo turned, his silhouette framed by the dim light of the forbidden lab.

  "I made a mistake in our last conversation," he said, his voice echoing slightly. "I am not simply interested in this field. I practice it."

  He stepped aside, gesturing to the abyss of knowledge before them.

  "When I said I wanted to do anything I could to help, I meant it. I want you to continue the legacy your brother left behind. Be my apprentice, and I’ll make you the strongest mage to ever exist.”