Principal Albrecht stared at the pile of pulverized granite as if it were a personal insult.
"Jasper," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. "What happens if I write a report to the Regional Ministry stating that an eight-year-old boy destroyed a floorstone by sneezing on it?"
Jasper adjusted his spectacles. "The Ministry would send a Preliminary Investigative Team. Followed by a Secondary Assessment Squad. They would seize our ledgers, occupy the faculty lounge, and likely requisition your private tea cellar for 'strategic interrogation purposes.'"
Albrecht shuddered. "Exactly. And then there are the Inquisitors. Men in red robes who smell like ozone and burnt hair. They don't just ask questions, Jasper. They look for 'Anomalies.' Do you know what an Anomaly does to a school's insurance premiums?"
"It makes them fluctuate, sir. Violently."
"It ruins them!" Albrecht slammed his hand on the desk, sending a cloud of granite dust into the air. He coughed, waving it away. "No. No reports. If the Empire finds out we have a child who can turn masonry into sand, they'll turn this Academy into a military research outpost. I'll be replaced by a General with a scarred face and a penchant for discipline. I won't have it."
He stood up and began pacing the small patch of rug that wasn't covered in scrolls.
"The boy didn't break the floor," Albrecht declared, pointing a finger at the ceiling. "The floor was… defective. A victim of a dishonest contractor from the Southern Provinces. Yes, that sounds plausible. We've been complaining about that contractor for years."
"We haven't, sir," Jasper noted.
"We have now, Jasper! Back-date the complaints. Make them look indignant."
Albrecht paused, looking at the window. "And as for the Courier... if he asks again, tell him the Verne children are remarkably, almost aggressively, mediocre. Tell him the boy's greatest talent is getting his head stuck in railings and that the girl spends her time counting her own fingers to make sure she still has ten."
"And the stone-dust, sir?"
"Sweep it into the garden! Tell the groundskeeper it's 'experimental fertilizer.'" Albrecht sat back down, looking much happier with himself. "I will not have my peace disrupted by a child who refuses to obey the laws of physics. If the Vernes want to be boring, I will help them be the most boring family in the history of the Empire. It's my duty as an educator."
Jasper sighed, already mentally preparing the fake contractor complaints. "Very good, sir. I'll tell Instructor Kael to stop writing 'impossible' in the margins of his reports and start writing 'poor posture.'"
"Exactly! Poor posture. A tragedy, really, but hardly an Imperial concern." Albrecht reached for a lemon tart, finally relaxing. "Keep the Empire away from my school, Jasper. I have a retirement to think about."
Albrecht leaned over the desk, his eyes gleaming with a light that had nothing to do with educational passion.
"And Jasper," he whispered, "think of the prestige. If those children are what I think they are... if they have that kind of potential... I am not handing them over to the Imperial War College on a silver platter. Why should the Emperor have all the fun?"
Jasper paused, his quill hovering over the fake contractor complaint. "Sir? Are you suggesting we... keep them?"
"I'm suggesting we cultivate them," Albrecht said, a slow, greasy smile spreading across his face. "If the Empire finds out, they take the children, they take the credit, and they probably take my pension for 'failing to report a high-level asset' immediately. But if we keep them here? If we let them grow under my supervision?"
He tapped his temple.
"Imagine the funding I can secure if I 'discover' a new branch of kinetic theory. Imagine the private donors. Arin Verne isn't a 'security risk,' Jasper. He is a gold mine. And his sister? She has the kind of focus that makes me think she could solve the Three-Body Problem before lunch if she felt like it."
"They are very young, sir," Jasper reminded him dryly.
"Which makes them moldable! If I report them, they become weapons for the front lines. If I keep them, they become the foundation of a new Golden Age for this Academy. My name will be on the front of every textbook for a century. 'The Albrecht Method for Prodigal Management.'"
Albrecht stood up, looking at the map of the Empire on his wall. He looked less like a Principal and more like a man planning a very polite, very academic heist.
"The Empire is a beast that eats talent and spits out soldiers," Albrecht murmured. "I'm doing these children a favor, really. I'm protecting them from being used... so that I can use them. It's practically humanitarian."
"And if the Courier finds a 'missing number'?"
"Then we make sure the numbers add up to zero, Jasper. We make the Vernes look so unremarkable that the Courier would rather audit a turnip farm than spend another minute here. In the meantime..."
Albrecht looked at the pile of granite dust on his desk. He didn't see a broken floor anymore. He saw a down payment on a villa in the Southern Isles.
"In the meantime, tell Instructor Kael to give Arin 'specialized tutoring.' Tell him it's for 'remedial coordination.' But tell him... to push. I want to see exactly how much granite that boy can turn into dust before he breaks a sweat."