That night, a professor came to our quarters to drag Arman out of our room.

He argued that no one was using one of our beds, but the professor, a certain Mr. Whitman, said changing the names in the magic registry would be too much of a bother. I guess this proves what Elliot said earlier about a security system.

A lot of things happened that day, and I couldn’t wait to lay in bed, yet no sooner had I placed my head on my pillow, than countless thoughts entered my mind.

“Do you think the spell would work?”

I turn to my left to face Cat whose bed was right next to mine. I was surprised to see that he was still awake.

“I sure hope so,” I replied. “If it does, then the water I enchanted from the aqueducts will fill the pools, and everyone who bathes in it will be affected.”

“You’re really amazing, Pat,” Elliot said from the bed nearest to the door. “I never would have thought of such a plan!”

“That’s right,” said Cat. “As long as the spell is active, everyone who feels scared or anxious will get red pimples all over their skin!”

“It’s rashes,” I said with a laugh. “It was the best solution I could think of, knowing that nobles look down on anyone and anything different with disgust.”

“Still, a superb plan from the famous recluse!” Elliot said with a loud laugh.

I sat up suddenly on my bed, wobbling a bit due to my low blood pressure.

“That title, were did you hear that from?” I asked him.

“O-oh, I’m sorry, does it offend you?” Elliot apologized.

“No, not really, but it’s the first time I have heard of it,” I frowned. “I’m just wondering why people keep calling me that title.”

“W-well...” I saw Elliot turn around in the half darkness of our room to sit facing me. “I heard this from my father, which he heard from one of his Imperial Highness’ close vassals,” he went on. “They say there was this feast organized by the emperor to welcome a certain royal who reached the age of seven...”

“Ahh...”

I finally remembered.

“What? What is it? What happened?” Cat asked, excited to hear a bedtime story.

“Something I’ve been trying to forget for nine years now,” I sighed.

“Should I not tell it, then?”

“But I don’t know the story yet!” Cat whined, sitting next to me on my bed.

“It’s nothing special, just an embarrassing memory my mother forced on me...”

“Elliot! You tell stories much better, you tell me!”

I gave another sigh as Elliot gave an embarrassed laugh.

“Go ahead,” I told him.

“As I was saying, it was Patrick’s seventh birthday, and the emperor held a great feast to formally welcome him to the royal Indicum family...” Elliot began his tale.

“Emperor Nigellus Vladimir Indicum IV was old even then, but he only had three young male heirs, thus he decided to name Patrick as a possible emperor candidate.”

“Woah, he did?” Cat’s large eyes glittered in the light from the half moon outside. “That means you can be emperor, too!”

“That’s just the problem,” Elliot continued. “They say the festivities were already at full swing when the Grand Duchess Patricia Siccus from the royal Indicum line, came inside the ballroom with her beautiful child in tow.”

The two side glanced me.

“The child was crying while holding a large book to his chest, saying that he was still busy reading it. Then the Emperor went to him and asked, ‘Do you think reading a book is more important than today’s festivities?’

To which the child replied, ‘Of course. Knowledge is forever. There will come a time when I would know more about this world than you ever will.’”

Yes, I still remember that day.

How the whole ballroom burst into laughter.

How my mother stared at me as if I was a piece of excrement stuck to the heel of her shoe.

“Then the emperor asked the child again, ‘Does this mean that you do not wish to be emperor?’ To that, young Patrick stared at the emperor and said, ‘If this is what being an emperor is like, then...’

“...I would much rather become a recluse...” I concluded, burying my burning face in the palm of my hands.

“Oh, so that’s why they call you the famous recluse!” Cat said with a laugh. “I can’t believe you had the courage to face the emperor at such a young age!”

“I think it’s really cute of you, Pat,” Elliot said with a big grin on his face. “I had no idea you were the famous recluse, until Cat told the seniors your family name in the dining hall, and even then, I was too shy to ask you about that famous story. Good thing the emperor found you too cute to be punished! I heard he’s quite the tyrant.”

“As they say, ignorance is bliss,” I told my room mates. “Truth be told, that night was the single, most embarrassing memory in my entire life. It still gives me nightmares `till now.”

“Well, I guess, I would be scared out of my wits as well, if I had to face the emperor and see all those nobles laughing at me!” said Elliot.

“Me too!” Cat piped in.

But facing the emperor in a sea full of laughing nobles wasn’t the root of my fear that day. In fact, it helped me build up an immunity towards burdensome situations.

What chilled me to the bone was the event that happened after the ball, when the emperor called my mother and I into his private chamber.

When he looked at me and touched me and told me how beautiful I was.

‘He is your great uncle, Vlad,’ my mother told him. ‘And he is under my protection.’

‘I know,’ the emperor replied with mirthless laughter, ‘but soon enough, he will belong to me.’

I still see that snarl like smile in my dreams.

Still hear his mirthless laughter, chasing after me through endless corridors.

When I think back to it, I guess that was the start of my mother’s indifference towards me. She sent me to a separate building, away from the main house, with only three servants to look after me.

I guess she decided that I was not worth the trouble, since the emperor had already set his eyes on me.

Embarrassing her in front of the whole empire probably played a big part in it as well.

Soon, I was left with only one servant who didn’t even bother to know if I had eaten anything all day. I was left with no choice but to fend for myself and merely survived through secret trips to the kitchen and to our family library tower which I viewed as my real home. It was there that I learned about the world, and about its people, and about a secret beneath the last staircase’s lowest rung that opened into a crawl space big enough for a skinny kid like me to slip through.

After that, I started learning about magic.

I heard Cat stifle a yawn.

“What do you think the time is?” he asked me.

“The clock tower just chimed half past 11.”

“You can hear it from here?” asked Elliot.

“Just barely, we’re at the farthest end of the dorms, after all, and the walls are quite thick.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” said Cat after another yawn.

“Go ahead and sleep, we’ll tell you more stories tomorrow when you wake up,” said Elliot.

I watched Cat’s eyes close completely. His lids began to flutter as he entered the realm of dreams. Elliot’s loud snoring followed soon after. I used an ‘inaudible’ spell to silence him by trapping the sound in a bubble around his bed.

I gently pulled my covers to one side and made my way to the desk by my bed. There, covered with a hiding spell on the second to the last drawer, was a thick old almanac I brought from home. I hauled the big book out and turned its thin sheets to page 20, where the rest of the book’s pages were hollowed out to snugly fit another book bound in black leather. I pry it out of its secret compartment and gently caress its covers, lovingly tracing its edges and gently turning it over to open my tome.

A soft purring sound broke the silence in the room.

Now, I can spend my night in peace.

“Wake up, Pat! I still need to give you a trim!”

I woke up the next morning with Arman shaking my shoulder.

“What time is it?” I asked, stretching my arms.

“It’s seven in the morning, hurry and eat your breakfast so we can get ready for today’s events!”

I looked around the room and saw Cat and Elliot having breakfast on the empty desk in the room.

“We have muffins and eggs with your choice of warm butter, cream, or jam!” Cat grinned at me.

“Really, Elliot,” said Arman with his arms across his chest, “I know your food tastes heavenly, but you should watch your weight and your complexion! All that grease and sugar will make your skin oilier and would only add to your acne problem!”

“All worth it!” Elliot replied, his mouth full of muffins. “Who wants to look pretty in this place anyway? Right, Pat?”

“Right,” I replied with my second muffin.

“What’s there to do today, anyway?” asked Cat. “It’s the last day of vacation since school starts tomorrow, we might as well just stuff our faces. No one wants to see us anyway.”

“Don’t you want a tour around the campus before school starts?” Arman asked us.

“Nah...” said Cat.

“Nope,” said Elliot.

“Not really,” said I.

“My goodness, these people, just what am I supposed to do with you!?” Arman said exaggeratedly. “Pat, don’t you want to know where the library is?”

I perked up and looked at him.

“I heard they’re serving a Sunday special in the dining hall today.”

Elliot dropped the muffin he was lathering with butter.

“And don’t you want to look for your best friend Lycan?” he asked Cat.

“Well... now that you mentioned it...”

“Now, I have the perfect outfits chosen for my new friends!” said Arman who pointed at the empty bed, now laden with different pieces of clothing.

“Where did you get those?” I asked.

“Oh, I just whisked up some stuff from your wardrobes and added some of my own!” he said with a haughty laugh.

I did notice my dressing shirt mixed with a gray cloak and a roughly knitted dark purple scarf.

“This is so cool! It’s just like a dress up party!” said Cat. “My sisters loved to dress me up as well!”

“I chose this lovely coat for you, Cat, your clothes all seem to fit you so well already! I’ll just lend you this thick ocre scarf to make you look cuter!”

He handed him a pale blue shirt, royal blue pants, and a navy blue blazer with an over-sized scarf.

“For Elliot, I picked this plain green shirt as opposed to your usual floral prints, and this moss green scarf which you could drape over your shoulders to get that vertical look to make you seem slimmer!”

I looked at Arman’s outfit.

He was wearing a long red dear skin coat over a cream colored satin shirt whose front was lined in double ivory buttons. He completed the outfit with cream gloves and a red hat.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to call everyone’s attention with our outfits?” I asked him.

“Of course, not! It’s a Sunday, we’re required to attend the service in the prayer hall at the back of the dormitories. Everyone is supposed to wear their Sunday’s best!”

“And it never passed your mind that the seniors might use this opportunity to scout out more apprentices?”

The proud smile in Arman’s face froze.

“But my face is covered in burn marks!” he tried to reason out.

“They can just cover it with your hat.”

His smile completely disappeared.

“Look Pat! Don’t I look cute in this outfit!?”

I looked at Cat and had to agree. The over-sized ocre-colored scarf covered half of his face, making him look even more adorable with his big blue eyes peeping out.

Even Elliot looked grand in the outfit Arman chose for him. He could hardly hide the silly grin in his face as he checked himself in the full length mirror.

I gave a sigh of resignation. Arman took this as me surrendering.

“Now come here for a second so I can trim your hair.”

Yesterday’s bath and oils did wonders to my hair. The usual brittle strands that split at the ends looked slightly shiny today. Arman took a small pair of scissors and expertly snipped around my head while I held a sheet of cloth tightly around my neck.

“There! All done!”

Arman brandished proudly at my direction as Cat and Elliot clapped their hands and stared at me in wonder. He had trimmed my hair close to my scalp with the back a bit longer that it covered half of my nape.

“I guess it’s true when they say the hair makes the man!”

“You don’t look like an upside down bush anymore!” said Cat.

“Now put on your clothes and we’ll be on our way to the prayer hall!” said Arman after dusting loose hair from my neck with a horse hair brush. “Really, why does it look like you get more eye bags when you sleep?” he mumbled. “I’m gonna have to give you a complete facial later this evening...”

“Um, are you really sure it’s okay for us to dress this way?” I asked him.

“Of course, my dear Pat!” Arman gave me a big smile, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “I know you may not be used to it, but remember, this is a school for children with noble blood,” said he. “It is only proper to dress like one.”

I later found out that Arman wasn’t exaggerating.

We found nobles decked in their Sunday’s best as soon as we left our room. It was like a fashion show where young heirs could strut about to proudly showcase their family’s wealth.

Of course, not everyone felt the same.

We saw several students staying back or lurking in the shadows. They wore simple tunics and quietly made their way towards the prayer hall with us. Others, still, had the haunted look of the victims of the apprenticeship forced on them by the seniors. They, too, had worn simple, thick clothes that closed around their necks and almost covered their entire body, as if they were trying to hide from the world.

Everyone was required to attend the prayers on Sunday.

Everyone, including the crown prince who mostly kept in his private residence.

And we silently prayed, that Cat’s friend Lycon, would be there as well.