The Unskillful Thaumaturge

II

Lillian flopped down on the bottom bunk and sighed dramatically. "Leslieee! Are you going to help me or not?"

"Coming!" came the voice from the other room.

Lillian propped herself up and dropped her head into her hands. "Where's Daria?" A moment after asking, she knew the answer.

"At the café with Brandon," Leslie explained, walking casually into the room and flicking her hair out of her face irritatedly.

Leslie was one of the strangest-looking people that Lillian had ever seen. Her olive skin, bright green eyes, and short stature only added to the absurdity of her hair, so light blonde it was practically white. She didn't seem to notice- or care about- the stares she collected just walking around in the park. Like Lillian, this was her first year at the university, but at nineteen, she was four years Lillian's elder. Leslie was a thaumaturgy major and had aced every class she'd enrolled in so far. Despite this, she hadn't been any help to Lillian in the field.

Lillian cleared her cobwebs and took a breath before spouting a stream of complaints. "I'm pretty sure I failed the individual report in my thaum lab today. I was working with Brandon and he was doing all the telekinesis and transfiguration, and I was recording the stuff, but then we had to describe how we did it in the individual report and I can't describe doing something I can't do."

Leslie sat down on the bed next to her. "I told you that you shouldn't have signed up for Amandi's section. She's just going to torment you. I thought you were going to see Dr. Hests!"

"I was. I did." Lillian's voice was flat.

"Well then you should see Professor Kern."

"You keep mentioning this Professor Kern person. What's she like?"

"He," Leslie corrected. "He's an assistant professor, but he looks like a student, he's really young."

Lillian raised her eyebrows. "How old is he really?"

"Two hundred and five," Leslie answered matter-of-factly.

"Come on." Lillian rolled her eyes.

"No one really knows, but he looks twenty-one or so. It's weird." Leslie shook her head. "He hasn't been at the university for long, only started teaching at the beginning of last semester, and not a lot of people know him, even in the thaumaturgy department. Anyway, I've heard that he's a really bad group teacher, but he has great office hours. Didn't you ask Dr. Hests to give him your email?"

"Yeah, I did." Lillian slammed her face into the bunk, muffling her voice. "But I don't know if he'll help at all."

"You can at least try." Leslie stroked Lillian's hair gently. "Kern might be really helpful. You never-"

Before she could finish, the door swung open. "Hi guys!" Daria squealed, rushing over to the bed. "Hey, Lil, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Lillian answered, sitting up. "How was lunch?"

"Oh, fine," Daria replied, waving a hand. "Brandon had his hands full with this millennial and her mother who couldn't decide whether they wanted their checks separate or together, so he was a little bit late. But..." she lowered her voice, leaning in. "There's a new sign in the park."

Lillian yawned and sat up. "Where? What does it say?"

"It's over by the café. It's really weird. It looks like someone put it there. According to the custodian who was trying to get it out it's thaumaturgically stuck. Short and wooden, and it says something like 'Don't read the sign or sit on the letter J'."