“Was I interrupting another crucial moment in your relationship?” The headmaster asks.I can still feel the emotional tension from our very cramped meeting from last night. I did not want to bring any of that up now, but I felt like the tension was tightened by having the headmaster show up again. Edward on the other hand is clueless to this whole thing. He doesn’t realise the gravity of this whole situation between Claire and I.

“No, we were just talking.” I say before letting the silence linger any longer.

“Hm, from what I heard, I was sure you were talking about some deep stuff.” She says glaring at me.

“If you knew we were in the middle of some deep shit, then why didn’t you wait until after we were done talking?” I annoyingly ask.

“It’s no fun to let you finish what you’re saying, and besides you won’t progress without being pushed.” She says.

“Um, headmaster, what was it you wanted?” Edward interrupts with a very confused look.

“Oh yes, the goblins. I found out how they were able to get through our defenses.” She says.” The thing is we never had any defenses in the first place.”

I stare her and try to comprehend what she was saying. How could someone so incompetent be in charge of the most prestigious school? Surprisingly, I was the only one so shocked by this revelation. The other two seemed like it was normal to not have guards around. I guess this life is completely different to my wanderer ways.

“Okay, but why?” I ask becoming more and more annoyed at this situation.

“Because there hasn’t been an attack like this before.” Claire says.” Ever since cities and schools were built like this, monster were too scared to even try to attack our numbers. So they stuck to the villages and the roads.”

“She’s right, no monster would dare set foot in a place full of mages.” Edward pitches in.

“And I’m the only concerned with being attacked by monsters?” I ask.

“Out of all the students, you’ve lived a life more open to monster attacks like when you’re on a job. We, on the other hand, have always had protection and confidence in our abilities, so the thought of guards roaming the perimeter never seemed like a necessity.” He retorts.

I find myself asking more and more questions, but knowing my luck if I ask them, more questions will flood in. One simple question pops up and I decide to ask it. ” So we don’t have any defenses?” I ask.

“Technically, no we do not, but if you count the students and their abilities, then yes.” The headmaster says with a smile.

I sigh,”Well that’s going to have to change.”

“Sure thing, I’ll go start on that.” Rivers says then leaves. I doubt anything will change, when it comes to her, I’m starting to learn not to trust her. She may have good intentions, but her constant butting in and her mischievous makes me doubt what she says.

The silence lingers and I can feel Claire’s stare. She hasn’t looked away from me ever since I woke up. The tension and emotions from before haven’t left either of us, but I was the only one who didn’t want to talk about that. I thank god that Edward was there to break the silence.

“Why was the headmaster acting so weird?” Edward asks.

“She doesn't act that way around everybody?” I ask with genuine curiosity.

He shakes his head and says,” She usually speaks very little and never has she smiled like that.”

With that the silence and tension arise again. I sit there in awkwardness, trying not to meet Claire’s gaze. Edward, who is clueless to all this, is looking from me to her in confusion. I feel sorry for him having to sit here in silence. Then he decides to get up and grab his notebook. I knew right there I’d make him pay for this.

“Right, I’ll be taking my leave then.” He says walking towards the door and I swear he winks at me before he closes the door.

“Wait” I try to call out but he doesn’t answer. I sit there and slump back into my bed. I know exactly what’s coming next.

“So….?” Claire asks. Her single, ambiguous word could mean anything, the conversation we had before, what we do now, or the whole mystery of the school. But something tells me it’s anything but the latter. The strict composer I had learned to hate was gone, now she was anything but. I could hear her heartbeat and its rapid beat became louder and louder until I broke the silence.

“We should probably figure out what the headmaster was talking about from before, you know with the gem.” I say trying to act as calm and collected as I can.

She sighs and fixes her appearance. Her hair, which was messy because of sleep, was being straightened. Her slightly unbuttoned shirt, which was very revealing, now was being buttoned. Little by little, the Claire I was more used to returned.” I suppose we should.” She answers in a melancholic tone.

“She said something about the founder being a clue. We should start there.” I say with more confidence.

“Yeah, you were doing that before this whole thing happened right?” She says.

I nod,” Beth and Ryan are probably very confused right now. We should go talk to them.” I try to get up but my legs feel very restricted. I forgot that I had used the sword and pushed my body too far.

Claire sighs again and gets up,” I’ll talk to your friends, you stay here.”

She leaves me in silence, and in that silence, I think about what has been going on. The mystery behind the sword that lies next to me, the attack by the goblins, the headmaster’s behavior, and most of all my own behavior. Claire was here desperately needing her knight in shining armor, and what do I do? I push her away, when I could have opened up to her. I feel a deep regret and emptiness feeling in my stomach. Why am I like this?

As if on queue that annoying buzzing sound went off in my head. It snapped me out of my deep thought and almost made me piss my pants.”Goddamn, what now?” i annoyingly ask.

It was a letter from Thu’ane, my friend. “Dear Kyle, I’ve pretty much wrapped up my investigation here, I’ll be headed your way so we can discuss what’s going on.”

“Just great, more shit I have to deal with,” I say laying back.