Eric knocked once and pushed the door inward.

  Paper filled the room before anything else did. Neat piles rose from the desks, squared and leveled, edges aligned with a care that suggested they had been corrected more than once. Ink lingered in the air, dry and clean.

  A woman stood near the center, lifting a bundle of worksheets in both hands. She tapped their bottom edge against the wood, adjusted the sides, tapped again, satisfied.

  Soliana recognized her immediately.

  She was the one who had stood at the registration table on the first day, the one who had looked at her clothes, her hesitation, the way she held herself like someone waiting to be allowed to exist, and dismissed her with a politeness that had felt final.

  Soliana had replayed that moment more than once since then. The angle of the woman’s chin. The efficiency of the refusal. How quickly the line had moved after she stepped aside.

  There were people in Inferna who turned you away loudly.

  She had not needed to.

  Recognition came with posture before thought. Her shoulders set. Her breathing changed.

  Eric shifted half a step aside.

  “I’d like to introduce you to my Aunt, Elsa.”

  “It’s Mrs. Elsa,” she said. The correction was automatic, already finished before the papers touched the desk. Her gaze moved to Eric. “And why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be training with Instructor Leon?”

  “I uhh… I’m still on break…”

  She continued to look at him.

  Eric’s back straightened.

  Soliana felt her own follow. Her hand rose to her chest without permission.

  “I— I am Soliana.”

  Mrs. Elsa inclined her head once, then moved past them.

  “Let’s talk while walking,” she said. “What do you both need?”

  They went with her.

  Their footsteps found a rhythm whether they wanted one or not.

  Mrs. Elsa moved with purpose, not fast, not slow, but at a pace that refused adjustment. People noticed and cleared space without being asked. A courier flattened himself to the wall. Two junior clerks rerouted mid-whisper and vanished down another corridor.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Eric tried twice to enter the conversation and abandoned both attempts halfway through, each false start swallowed by the sound of their shoes on stone.

  “You see,” Eric began, matching her pace, “my friend Soliana has a little problem.”

  Mrs. Elsa continued forward.

  Three steps.

  “Well?” she said. “What’s the problem? I don’t have all day.”

  Eric opened his mouth, then found that finding the right words would be much harder than he though.

  “I uhhh… how do I explain this?”

  Soliana watched the back of Mrs. Elsa’s collar, the straight fall of fabric, the way nothing about her suggested spare time. Every second they occupied had clearly belonged somewhere else first.

  If they were going to ask, they would have to take it.

  Soliana stepped in before the pause stretched too far.

  “Can you help us pass the Apprenticeship Qualification?”

  Mrs. Elsa glanced at her, brief but complete.

  “The Apprenticeship test? You must be quite determined if you are already starting to learn when you still have a full year.”

  Eric made a small sound.

  “…You see,” he said, “that’s the problem…”

  They had reached another door.

  Mrs. Elsa halted and lifted one finger.

  “Hold on a moment.”

  Mrs. Elsa angled her head toward the wood.

  Eric and Soliana copied her without instruction. The three of them stood in a small, accidental line, conspirators against whatever waited on the other side.

  At first there was only the faint drag of chairs and the scratch of paper being moved without purpose. A whisper rose, fell, reorganized itself into something pretending to be productivity.

  Eric folded his arms.

  Soliana tried not to breathe loudly.

  Time lengthened in uncomfortable increments. Long enough to hope they had misjudged. Long enough to fear they had not.

  Then the voices arrived.

  “Roland! When are you going to finish?”

  “Shut up,” a boy hissed. “If Mrs Elsa finds out, I’m going to blame your loud mouth!”

  Mrs. Elsa’s expression did not change.

  “I knew it,” she said, and opened the door.

  Inside, movement rearranged itself too late.

  Anastasia tipped backward in her chair and disappeared with a crash.

  Roland jerked upright and swept a page across the gap between desks. It landed crooked.

  Mrs. Elsa stood in the doorway.

  “I told you two to stop cheating!” she said. “I only left to grab some materials and this is what I found. Unbelievable!”

  “I’m not cheating,” Roland replied at once. “Anastasia threatened me to finish her work.”

  “Hey!” Anastasia shouted from the floor. “No I didn—”

  “Quiet!”

  Anastasia stopped.

  “Anastasia. Start over. I’ll give you a new paper.”

  “What?!”

  A small sound escaped Roland.

  “Heh.”

  Mrs. Elsa looked at him.

  “You too, Roland.”

  “What?! Me too!? But—”

  “No buts. You two start now and no talking.”

  She gave them one good look.

  “Now.”

  Roland and Anastasia bent over their papers at once.

  Their eyes did not.

  Their glances met in the middle of the desk, outrage passing between them in violent, silent paragraphs while their hands began to write

  Mrs. Elsa remained long enough to see it continue, then stepped back into the corridor and pulled the door closed.

  The latch settled.

  Silence returned, thinner this time.

  She stayed where she was for a moment, eyes on the wood, as if listening for relapse. Her shoulders lowered by a degree that would have been easy to miss.

  When she turned back, the sharpness had not disappeared. It had simply found its usual place.

  “My apologies,” she said. “You can ignore these brats for now. Let’s take a seat over there.”

  She indicated the long table against the wall.

  She kept her hand on the handle a moment longer than necessary.

  Inside, pens continued moving. No one tested the boundary.

  Only then did she release it.