Callum dreamed of fire.
Not burning cities or hellish landscapes, but a simple kind: a hearth fire, crackling, steady. He could see the light against the stones, could feel the warmth brush his face. For a second, it felt safe.
Then the shadows shifted.
The fire twisted sideways.
And someone whispered his name in a voice that didn't belong to any mouth.
He woke before the fear caught up.
The tower was quiet. That kind of quiet you only find in old buildings—where everything has settled into decay and decided it's not worth the effort to complain anymore. He sat up slowly, running a hand through his hair, then checked the candle stub beside his bed.
Still burning.
He hadn't been asleep long.
They were supposed to get a rest day after orientation. That's what the handbook said. But 9-Z didn't seem to get handbooks that mattered.
By the time he reached the ground floor, Elly was already spinning on one heel in the middle of the common room, eyes closed, muttering some kind of counting rhyme under her breath.
Harlan was by the broken window, oiling a blade that didn't look ceremonial.
"You're late," Harlan said without looking up.
"There wasn't a schedule."
"There's always a schedule," Elly said, still spinning. "We just never get told what it is."
Callum sat on the edge of a half-broken bench. The wood gave a slow, complaining creak beneath him. "So what are we doing?"
"Power theory," Harlan said. "Instructor Mir is waiting."
"That the one who looks like he hasn't slept since the last war?"
"The same. Come on. He hates tardiness more than he hates conjurers."
Callum followed, boots thudding softly on the cracked stone floor. He noticed something as he walked—a faint humming in the walls. Like someone tuning an instrument very far away. It made his skin prickle.
Instructor Mir's classroom was three floors above the library and smelled of salt, ink, and something metallic Callum couldn't place. There were no desks—just tiered stone steps around a central circle etched with glowing runes.
A single question hung in the air, scrawled above the circle in arc-light:
What gives magic its shape?
Elly plopped down on the nearest step and crossed her legs. "This again."
"Silence," Mir said sharply, not looking up from his notes. "You're here to learn, not perform."
Callum sat. The question echoed in his head.
Shape. Not power. Not source. Shape.
He watched the rune circle. Its glow pulsed like a heartbeat—too slow to be human.
"What determines the form magic takes?" Mir said finally. "Not just its effect. Its expression."
Callum raised a hand.
Mir didn't look up. "Speak."
"Context," Callum said.
"Expand."
Callum wet his lips. "Magic reacts to the world around it. A fire spell in a dry field becomes destruction. That same spell in the rain becomes a flash of heat, maybe steam. But it's not just the environment. It's the expectation. What people believe the magic can do shapes how they react—and how it functions."
Silence followed.
Mir finally glanced up. His eyes were red-rimmed, but sharp as frost.
"Name."
"Callum."
Mir's pen moved. "Essay. Two thousand words. On the difference between shape and intention. Due next class."
Callum almost groaned. "Do I—"
"No reward. Just the chance to remain here."
The rest of the class passed in a haze of theory and footnotes Callum couldn't entirely keep up with. He tried. Gods, he tried. But his brain was still half in the ring with Byron, replaying the moment he'd said I can stop time and Byron had believed just enough.
He could still feel the magic snap into place—like a fishing line going taut.
Was that really all his power was?
Words with tension?
No. There was more.
There had to be more.
Training after class wasn't a request.
Elly dragged him to a hollow courtyard behind the dorms, where old trees leaned in too close and the ground was more moss than dirt. Harlan was already there, sitting cross-legged beside a pile of smooth stones.
"I'm going to throw one of these at your head," Harlan said without preamble. "You have three seconds to lie well enough to stop me."
"That's your plan?"
"It's worked for worse students."
Callum stood there, confused, until the first stone came.
He barely ducked.
"Time starts now," Harlan said.
Callum closed his eyes. Thought fast.
"I'm a mimic," he said. "Your weapon Skill? I copied it during sparring."
[Lie] activated.
Target: Harlan
Belief Level: Medium
Effect: Phantom echo of [Blade Form I]
Duration: 4 seconds
The next stone curved—curved—away from Callum's head midair.
Harlan blinked.
Callum exhaled. "Okay, that was new."
Elly whistled low. "You bent trajectory. Indirect manipulation. That's… harder."
"Because I made him believe I could move like him?"
"More because you felt like you could. You started believing your own lie."
Callum didn't like the sound of that.
That night, Callum didn't write his essay. Not at first.
He sat by the window, staring out over the northern quad, where some other class was doing night drills. They looked organized. Sharp. Important.
He watched them for an hour, letting their movements blur, letting his thoughts spiral.
The difference between shape and intention.
He didn't know.
But he thought—maybe intention was what you wanted, and shape was what the world let you have.
And what was [Lie], really, if not intention forcibly shaping reality?
He dipped his quill in ink and wrote slowly, each word pressed hard into the parchment.
"Some spells ask for permission. Mine doesn't. It asks for belief."
He paused. "And sometimes, belief is heavier than truth."
When he woke the next morning, there was a letter on his desk.
Not parchment. Paper. Stiff. Cream-white. Inked in violet.
Callum blinked sleep from his eyes and opened it.
To Callum of Class 9-Z,
You are summoned for evaluation by Archmage Verrin.
Arrive at sundown. Bring your Skill. Bring a reason we should not erase you.
His heart stuttered.
He read it again. The last line didn't soften.
Erase him?
Was that a poetic threat? Or a literal one?
A soft knock at the door broke the silence.
Elly leaned in, still half-asleep and wearing a robe covered in alchemical symbols. "Did you get a letter?"
Callum held it up.
She exhaled slowly. "That's the Death Invitation."
"Helpful," he muttered. "You've seen these before?"
"Two years ago. Kid in 8-V. Had a Skill that made people forget he was ever there. Faculty didn't like it."
"What happened to him?"
"No one remembers."
She left without elaboration.
Callum stood by the window again, letter still in hand. Outside, the day moved as it always did—sun climbing, students chattering, magic drifting through the air like pollen.
He looked down at the Skill mark on his hand.
Three curved lines, like a grin trying not to smile.
He didn't know what Archmage Verrin wanted.
Didn't know if this was a test, or an execution, or something worse.
But he knew one thing:
If belief made the world move,
he'd lie his way into survival.
Or make everyone believe that he already had.