In my absence more of the servants had returned, and the castle began spring cleaning for the new year of students.

Boar spoke, briefly breaking the long held silence, "Go back and rest." He stopped the cart. I got off. And he lead the horse and cart through the narrow gaps of the fringe of the forest. I walk around to the side entrance as usual, but unlike before a cart ladden with large boxes. stood before it.

I enter the castle and head towards my bed in the servants quarters. Falling on to it i sleep instantly.

"Hey wake up. You can't stay here and expect to be paid if you don't do any work." The restfull sleep ended by the verbal assault of the person standing over me. "Get to the kitchen in five minutes or don't bother being here tommorrow." By the time my eyes come into focus, revealing the sun itself had not risen he had gone. I yawn, i stretch, i avoid being kicked out of castle by going to the kitchen.

The kitchen, which was large enough to for twenty people to cook in, contained four people, and of those four two were cleaning, one was reading and one was stirring a cauldron. The person reading looked up, "what took you so long? Were you attacked by a pack of wolves on the way?" This revealed two things: one, he woke me up. Two, i did not like him. "Students will begin arriving tomorrow." He turned his head, looking at a mid-teen woman cleaning, "Fennel, you can teach him. You can both help in the dormitories." He continued reading as if the matter was no longer his problem.

Fennel is auburn haired and although older is about the same height as me. She leads me to a room filled with shelves filled with various cloths, she passes me a drap grey set of clothes aproximately my size. "Everyone wears the same clothes." She turns around to face away. "Put them on."

I undress slowly due to the fact that i can only move one arm. They are slightly to large for me but function well enough. "Done." I say after five minutes of contortionate exercise.

Fennel turns around, her eyes immediatly drawn to the slightly bloodied makeshift bandage on my arm. "You're injured?" She is shocked. "We should go straight to the infirmary." Pulling me by my uninjured arm she leads me across the castle and up a floor to a hall. The dim light of the rising sun filteres through the windows revealing the contents of haphazardly placed beds, shelves, books, two unopened crates and an old guy drawing a circle onto a large desk. "Hey doctor." Fennel says.

The doctor looks up, "Finaly, someone comes to help me rearrange this..." He sighs staring at my bandaged arm. "..or you just ignore me until I'm needed. It's Temple in either case" He takes his hands of the desk and the incomplete circle fades. "Put your arm on the desk." He says. painfully, i place my arm on a different part of the desk than where the circle was drawn. With a wave of his hand over the bandage somehow splitting it into two, causing it to fall off my arm and reveal my wound. I look away. Fennel gasps behind me. "Impressive that you aren't screaming in pain." He walks to one of the shelves inspecting it's contents. "I've had to treat students who have fainted from a papercut. Ah." He picks up a glass bottle of pills and moves to another shelf. "Although there was this one kid who managed to set himself alight, twice." He picks up a thin black needle and returns to the desk. He removes a single pill. "Here eat this."

I swallow the pill. "Good. This may hurt a little." He quickly stabs the needle through my hand. I gasp in pain. Followed by a dull thud behind me. I turn to see fennel laying on the floor. "She is going to be fine." And intense itching sensation in my left arm, turned my attention to it. The wounds were healing quickly, becoming flawless. The doctor takes out the needle. That wound closes too. Temple picks fennel up and places her on a bed. "If you're not to busy you wouldn't mind helping me, now?"

was i meant to be learning something? "Sure." I replied. Agreeing to spend the next hour organising the room.

An hour later the sunlight was pouring into the castle, and my sleeping cleaning instructor woke up after all the work had been done. "How long have i been asleep?" Fennel says with an urgancy that contridicted her sleepy expression.

"An hour." Temple says, lightly and effortlessly adjusting the position of his heavy desk complete with a complete circle on top of it.

"Breakfast should be being served then." Fennel says as she slowly staggers out of the medicine hall in a sleepy trance. I follow her, the further she walks the more awake she becomes until we finaly arrive at the kitchen. Which is empty. She ladles some of the hot liquid from the cauldron into two bowls, and passes one to me, before leading me into the adjoining dinning hall.

Filled with a couple of dozen people, the room was abuzz with the chatter of recent events. He-who-woke-me-up stood up as if to make an anouncement. We sit down, and begin to eat our soup. "The lady will be giving her speach to us tonight so make sure to make yourselves look presentable and act presentable. And the captain of the gaurds wants me to remind you that although the forest is safe, that does not make it a suitable place for... your... romantic entanglements. That is all."

The conversations of gosip became renewed by this.

The remainder of the day passed cleaning the rooms of the students.

At the end of the day we assembled in the entrance hall of the castle. And ordered into neat rows and columns. In front of us stood a grand staircase. On top of the staircase stood a woman wearing an icy blue dress which matched her expression i had not seen her since my live and die enrollment, next to her stood an elderly woman who i had not seen since she lead me to the servants quarters since she couldn't find me a room.

The lady stepped forward. "I thank you all for taking the time from your busy schedules to meet me here, And i would like to thank you for the hard work you will be putting in to the year ahead. Like any student who comes here to study i wish only that you will try your best in..." Her eyes that were roaming the crowd stopped, just as her speach did, apon seeing me. She started walking down the stairs. "...everything you do, for like the grandest of spells, each piece no matter how small it seems..." She walks towards the crowd who part before her, she stops in front of me. "Can not be out of place." Sensing danger i turn to flee, only to be stopped by the vice like hold on the back of my clothes. "And when you work together you can accomplish things equal to the greatest magic." Currently being dragged up the stairs, the effect of this speach is lost. "And to that end i hope this year brings what your looking for." And with the end of her speach she turns and leaves the hall.