The Sapphire Mages (discontinued)

𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 3

"Good morning, students," said a man entering the room. "My name is Mr Romulus and I will be your new History instructor."

Laura and I exchanged a glance.

"That's your guy," she said in a low voice.

"This isn't good," I muttered.

"What happened to Ms Hillery?" Freddy asked.

"Unfortunately, she had to take urgent leave due to her mother being sick, however she will be back to you soon," he said. "I am merely her substitute until she returns."

He clapped his hands, "Now, all of you open your books to page 143, I want you all to do some research on Zarii'ya and have a poster next week."

Laura raised her hand, "Is it a solo project?"

"It can be one to five people," said Mr Romulus. "Can I know your name?"

"Laurel Evans," she said. "Or Laura."

"Or Princess of—," I started and she nudged me in the ribs.

Romulus stared at her for a moment then nodded. "While you plan your project I'll be asking you your names at random, just to know you better."

"Five people?" Micah asked, leaning back in his chair to look at me.

"Definitely," I said.

"We know all this stuff anyway," Paris said, reading through the page. "So let's start planning?"

Laura shrugged, "I'm fine with anything."

"Wait, maybe instead of making a normal one based on the stuff here we could go to the library and do some extra research," Micah suggested.

"Yeah, that could be good," I said.

When the lesson ended we quickly got ready to go to the library. I was the last to leave as I grabbed my bag and ran out of the classroom.

I ended up walking straight into a girl with a long curtain of silky black hair that reached her waist. She was a head shorter than me and looked like she was only in her third year.

"Sorry about that," I said, handing her books back to her.

"Oh no worries – it honestly happens a lot," she laughed.

"Hey, if you don't mind, what's your name?" I asked.

"Bella Romulus," she replied, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. "I know who you are. I'm actually in your class."

"I didn't notice you earlier..." I admitted.

"No worries, I prefer to stay at the back of the class. Drawing attention to myself is the last thing I want."

"So your dad is...?"

She nodded, "I had to transfer here from my old school because he got the teaching position here."

I nodded and saw Freddy waving for me to come on. "I got to go now – nice to meet you, by the way."

"You too," she said, skipping off in the direction of the dormitories. I went the other way to the library.

It was a large circular room that went five floors up and ended with a huge crystal dome at the top. To get the exact books you needed, you would have to answer a riddle from a gnome and they would waddle around the whole library for about ten minutes before coming back down to you with a trail of books following it.

It wasn't the best system because gnomes weren't exactly known for their friendly nature, but they at the very least did their jobs.

A lot of people from our class were there, arguing with gnomes and frantically flipping through books. Micah was scanning through books on the second floor, Freddy was not too far away from him, trying to convince a gnome that "therapy" was a better answer than "knives" to the question "What is the best way to get someone to open up?"