“Are you concentrating?” Vale whispered. 

The noise caused Emery to lose balance. She managed to pull the marble towards her instead by an inch accidently instead of away from her as Vale instructed. 

“I was!” Emery complained. 

Vale giggled as he glanced around the other students all going about doing their practice exercises. 

“Don’t stress, Emery.” The curly-haired teacher said. “Evocation isn’t easy. You’re essentially pulling on, balancing, and shaping a fundamental force of the universe and... you’re not a science fan, are you?” 

Emery winced. “Sorry, that’s my dad’s thing.” 

“Don’t remind me.” Vale said as he shook his head. “Harris always had a way of simplifying magic into mundane. Useful skill, boring table conversation.” 

Emery picked up her textbook off the floor. “Corinne said you two knew each other?

“Ever since our first year at Radiance.” Vale revealed with a smile. 

“Wow, you two go way back.” Emery replied. 

Vale waved her over to Bryant, Sonia, and a few other students practicing magic with a set of curtains by the windows. 

“Friendship is a lot like Artifice magic...” Vale began to say. “No matter what you think you see, hiding the truth of something is a temporary thing. And no matter how much you tinker with it, all you’ve got is an elaborate design that hopefully works the way you want.”

Bryant, wearing a mean smug, managed to weave intricate lines of a special ink over the curtains. The ink floated in air, coating the fabric with an invisible layer of cloth as it disappeared in front of their eyes. 

“Not bad, Bryant.” Vale complimented. “I’d be more impressed if it wasn’t a blatant copy of Alice’s line work.”

“No it isn’t!” Bryant defended himself in frustration. 

“Argue with me all you want.” Vale snapped his fingers to retrace the lines Alice had already placed before him. The echoes of her magic still lingered, trailing towards Alice’s aura from where she was across the room. “I’ve tracked magic across hundreds of crime scenes during my years as a knight. Try again.” 

Bryant fumed quietly as he began his line work again. Vale walked with his hands behind his back as he nodded for Emery to continue following him. The young Lamb was intimidated by her newest instructor. Compared to the other teachers, Vale’s switch between serious and playful was instantaneous and harsh. 

Vale stopped in his tracks and turned to Emery with an apologetic smile. “You don’t have to be nervous. The tough guy routine is an old habit.”

“Good to know. Was I that obvious?” Emery replied. 

“No.” Vale assured. “I used to train knights. It pays to keep one’s sixth sense observant for anxiety. You’ll see once you develop your Attunement more.” 

“My friend Ed wants to be a knight.” 

“Let’s see if he still feels that way when he is one.” Vale mumbled. “I’m more interested in getting to know a student who’ll be in my extra sessions. Corinne mentioned it, right?”

“Yeah, she told me yesterday.” Emery said. 

Vale made his way back to his desk, sitting flat on his own table. “I’m all ears if you have questions.” 

“Actually, I do... it’s not really magic related.” Emery explained. 

“Sorry, only magic questions allowed.” Vale said. 

“Oh, okay. My bad.”

“Emery, I’m joking.” Vale said. “Just because it’s a magic school doesn’t mean that’s all we’re good for. You think mundane kids like you or me would bother getting the invite if that’s all we learned?” 

“You were mundane?” Emery said, picking on the detail he dropped. 

“Normal parents and no magic in my family as far as I know.” Vale confessed. “Probably why your dad and I got along so well.” 

“That’s actually part of my question.” Emery began to say. “I get that my mom dying was hard. Was that the only reason he gave up magic?”

Vale sighed and moved to sit properly in his chair. “Truth is, Emery... your dad never liked magic.” 

“Why not?” Emery replied. 

Vale shrugged. “Probably started with his family. They weren’t your usual, uppity, upper class mages like...” Vale glanced and nodded at Bryant still working. “But magic was like breathing for them. And if you weren’t breathing that air, then you weren’t worth much of anything to them.” 

“Good to know I have family out there that sound like people I don’t want to meet.” Emery lamented. 

“Imagine how your dad felt.” Vale added on. “But they sent him to Radiance to get his act together and be a proper mage. He got the mage part down... and so did a bunch of other kids that only confirmed what he believed.” 

“What did he believe?” Emery probed. 

“That magic makes it easier to be the kind of person who does bad things. Power corrupting human nature and all that.” Vale explained. 

“But he graduated and stayed with magic for years.” Emery noted. “How come?”

Vale feigned shock at her comment. “Objecting against magic is one thing but ditching his best friends; we’d never let him live it down. Me, Emyrah... few others. I mean, come on, who else was going to be his best man?” 

“You knew my mom too?” Emery asked excitedly.

The bell rang, ending their class period. Vale shrugged before saying, “Sorry kid, story for another time.”