“Just woke up,” Aldric answered. “And yes, I’ll be fine. Not the first time Kedrin has had to patch me back up. Just follow Zas—Professor Glory’s lessons for now. I’ll think up what we should do in the future later.”

“Also,” Lilianna continued, “two of the participants from Rainer’s class asked to join ours. It seems they wish to learn from the person who so easily bested their professor. They were very brave during the chaos. I think they’ll be a good fit.”

Easily, huh? Aldric decided not to point out that he was currently hospitalized after being in a three-day coma. Then again, Rainer was dead. “Exactly what I needed. More responsibility.”

Lilianna looked amused. “For what it’s worth, they seem to get along fine. That girl and Codrin appear to be butting heads quite a bit, but I think it’s more rivalry than hostility.”

“Yeah, they would. Just make sure they don’t destroy the classroom while I’m—”

“Professor, you used summoning magic,” Nadrina interrupted, almost accusingly. The room plunged into awkward silence.

“... I see,” he said carefully. “And what makes you say that?”

“Are you saying you didn’t?” Nadrina challenged, looking him directly in the eye. She usually got uncharacteristically pushy when she got carried away with learning something new, but this was different. She sounded like she was daring him to lie to her. Lilianna looked shocked and worried, but had said nothing to stop her.

Great, so they both knew. And for the umpteenth time, Zasia was right.

Aldric simply nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

His own honesty surprised him. Maybe it was the fact that these were two very smart girls who knew what they saw. Maybe he just didn’t feel like balancing lies with truths for the entire school year. Or maybe he was just tired of keeping everything to himself.

Both girls just blinked at him, like they’d expected more of a fight than that. “Um,” Nadrina started, looking less sure of herself, “How is that possible? You’re not a summoner. Using magic outside of your magic class should be impossible.”

Aldric scratched his head as he debated how much to tell them. “Anyone else know about this?”

“As far as we can tell, no,” Lilianna answered. “At the very least, we haven’t mentioned it to students or staff.” She paused for a beat, then seemed to come to a decision. “Professor... just who are you really? A sorcerer, an extremely well-learned sorcerer, with a talent for enchanting that I’ve never even heard of before, who can also perform magic not of his own mage class, and is acquainted with Lady Glory and Headmaster Elmaris. I asked some contacts in my family if they were familiar with you, but—”

“You did WHAT?” Aldric shouted. He’d been getting more and more nervous the longer she talked, but now he was full-blown panicking.