Ander Plact, Headmaster of the Cylas Mage College, sat behind his desk in a huff. Just a few hours ago he had finished is work for the day and returned to his home to rest. Now he sat in his study filling out forms and signing checks. Not even a few minutes after he arrived there was a knock at his door and a courier handed him a letter. He was “gifted” a request from one of the High Magisters, from none other than the recently relevant Ferdinand Delerous.

The uncontestable order, which read more like a polite request, was to grant special enrollment to the college after standard enrollment had already concluded. A mage that had caught Ferdinand’s eye by the name of Andromeda Noelle.

This was a monumental task. The College only accepted the exceptionally talented to begin with, and even then there was a large barrier to entry. This request stated that this special enrollment must be accepted no matter the marks. To accept a mage with no proofs or certifications, that was unthinkable.

The only given reason for this unprecedented exception was… that the prospective student taught themselves mending in a few weeks. What was this madness? Mending?

The most basic form of magic, a skill that is literally only above breathing and ingesting food in terms of difficulty. It was passingly interesting that they taught themselves, but that wasn’t any more impressive than some of the menial accomplishments that other students had accomplished.

It didn’t matter.

If the situation had been a little different then this request would have been rejected soundly. But in an event that absolutely could not have been a coincidence, Ferdinand had declared that he now had an Arch Mage. Ander had no interest in waking up with his skin flayed from his body by a shadowy figure just for refusing an enrollment request, so he went to work. The current problem was where to fit this person.

The college worked with a Master/Apprentice system, where a student from the previous year would educate a student from the current year, that way the flow of information always evolved, but could remain somewhat controlled. Failing that, a student from two years prior would come back a second time. This was rare as the number of students per year rarely exceeded four. This year it would be five with the new student.

It was too late to recall a past student, and the willing backups from two years previous were already taken by the class this year.

This meant either retroactively dismissing an already selected student, which would be a controversy the likes of which he might not survive, or entering this person as a self-study. Not having a teacher would drastically reduce their progress, but that was something he couldn’t control. Just as long as he was fulfilling it, he should get to wake up alive. He would only hope that it was good enough.

As he filled out forms and wrote letters of apology, Ander pondered the state of the world. Dying kings, needless wars, peaceful men employing monsters. Behind it all a plague masqueraded as an institution of healing. It made him sick.

There was no place for healing in this world. It just made people beg for help rather than find it themselves. There is no need for healing if you never let yourself be injured.

Even the name wasn’t right in his mind. Can you really call it healing when it takes corrupting the form of a person to even give them the ability to perform it?

The pen stopped. A crack formed on the side and ink leaked out and onto the page.

His grip was so strong that he broke it. He dropped it and his hand was shaking.

The stress of the day was getting to him. This was unlike him. He stood from the desk and turned toward the window behind him.

It was a peaceful night. The moon was high above and full, blanketing the world in an ethereal light that made all faintly glow. Though the window was closed he could see the breeze pass through the leaves of the trees. From any outside perspective, it might seem like this city was peaceful.

The feeling in the room shifted. He in abject terror turned to see nothing.

The room was empty.

Did he imagine it? Or was he being watched.

He had no idea what this mysterious “White” was like. Everything about them was an unknown. They might be here, now, in the room with him. Maybe they took the sudden pace away from the desk of a mark of no faith? Or possibly not. As far as he knew, this was White’s current objective from Ferdinand. Make sure this “Andromeda” person gets in.

Did he already lose their favor?

No, that was the stress talking.

It was just a pen breaking, he had done nothing wrong. He had done nothing wrong...

He returned to his desk. Taking the pen into hand he focused on it, despite its simplicity, mending took a minute or so to perform, finding the flow was still a considerable task. Finally with the pen repaired in his hand, he tossed inked page away and grabbed another one to replace it.

The room as still tense. As he wrote he felt a nameless and formless force gazing at him, as if provoking him to work quicker.

The silence was deafening. Only the sounds of his own heartbeat and the scratch of his pen kept him company. Then it happened again, the pen broke from his grip.

He only thought of standing up. But the moment the idea crossed his mind, a book fell from a nearby shelf. Ander practically jumped from his skin. His heard thundered in his chest like a violent drum, his breathing took the form of panicked wheezing, his eyes watered and his mouth dried.

…

Ander had heard stories.

Arch mages had two forms. The one they held in the public eye, and the one that aligned more closely with reality.

There were now nine Arch Mages. Each one was a hand chosen by the High Magisters for the purposes of taking care of the better interests of Legoria. Each one’s identity was kept a secret, instead they were given code names to operate under. If they didn’t then the enemies of Legoria would target them and their loved ones.

They said that every shadow in the dark was an enemy the Arch Mages had removed, that every whisper in the dark was the Arch Mages giving advice you could never understand until you needed it, some even joked that the sun would not rise if the Arch mages didn’t hold it to a schedule.

This was what the public heard.

Unfortunately, public images were secondary to what they really did.

There were nine Arch Mages, that much was true, but calling them all “Mages” was incorrect. One was a Medea, one wasn’t even human, and one was dead. The others were unknown. They were spies, assassins, murderers, thieves, and rebels long before you might call them mages.

Their locations, their names, their goals, even whom they worked for at any given time was never clear. Even if one person knew all this information it wouldn’t be long before they “misremembered”. They were a combination of the boogeyman meant to scare you straight and the real threat the boogeyman was warning you about.

It shouldn’t be misunderstood, their code names are very real. They are there to protect people, but it wasn’t protecting the Arch Mages, it was protecting against them.

…

He had to finish his work. He would not risk White’s ire again. He mended his pen once more and wrote with such a fury that he was afraid he would etch his pen into the wood of the desk. Nothing would distract him again. Not his shaking hands, not his rapid breath, not his pained heart. He would finish this tonight.

He would not risk anything.

He would not risk anything.

He would not risk anything.

He would not-