Chapter 24: The Semester’s End
The first semester ended with exams, celebrations, and Jake accidentally creating a minor aurora borealis over the Academy during his Practical Applications final (he passed, but with a note reading “excellent power, questionable restraint”).
Lyra graduated top of the class. Null received a special commendation for “unprecedented void-mana cooperative techniques” and a warning for “consuming three library books that were checked out by other students.” Pi solved six previously unsolvable equations during the math final and was asked, politely, to stop showing off.
On the last night of the semester, Jake climbed to the Academy’s highest point—the Spire of Observation—and looked out at the dimensions. Thirty connected worlds, shimmering in the darkness like lanterns on a vast, invisible web.
He thought about Professor Kael’s warning. The weakening fabric. The Unwritten Realm. The Door with seven locks. Somewhere out there, something was working to unravel reality, and Jake was apparently going to be involved in stopping it.
But not tonight. Tonight was for looking at the stars (multiple dimensions’ worth), feeling the hum of infinite mana in his bones, and being grateful for the people who had turned a scared kid with too much power into something resembling a hero.
Null materialized beside him, silent for once. Pi settled on his other shoulder. Below, in the Academy’s gardens, Lyra was singing an Elvari lullaby that made the flowers glow.
“Next semester is going to be harder,” Null said.
“Probably.”
“There will be danger.”
“Definitely.”
“I’m glad I chose this.”
“Me too, Null. Me too.”
They watched the dimensions shimmer until the Academy’s bells called them home to dinner. Because even at the end of a semester full of rifts and revelations and the foreshadowing of cosmic threats, dinner was still dinner.
And some things are more important than destiny.