“Are you not going to come in?” Alira asked.

  Raine loomed right outside her bedroom door, his lengthy shadow cast by the hallway light falling onto her.

  “It’s not appropriate to enter the room of two young women. Last time should be the only exception,” Raine replied.

  Alira just stared straight in the direction where he stood without another word. Raine’s breath hitched. She heard a single leap of a footstep, felt one swish of wind, and the next thing she knew, Alira was shoved down, back slamming onto the carpeted floor with a sharp object pressed onto her neck.

  Alira hissed at the blunt fall. “Really?” she scoffed, her voice tainted in mocking disbelief. “Shouldn’t you start assuming by now that I know almost every little secret of yours?”

  She pressed her finger on the pointed end of the dagger just enough to feel its sharpness. Hand fumbling through the air, she reached out blindly until she felt the softness of Raine’s face under her glove. She brushed her hand across his face until her fingers touched his earlobe, where a simple stud earring was worn.

  An artifact that changed the owner’s gender in a flawless disguise.

  Women weren’t allowed to be many things in this time and place. One being the heirs of noble houses, with very few exceptions, none of which was from the entire history of the Ravon Duchy. Already debuffed for being an illegitimate child, Raine planned to keep it a secret to lessen the fights he would need to win in order to become the head of the duchy.

  Alira could understand how aggravating it must be to have your weakness inside someone’s fist, but still, a blade to her throat was pretty rude when she already considered Raine an ally.

  And here I was thinking we’re cool now...

  Alira rubbed her thumb on the smooth surface of the gem. A small piece of dark amber, unless she remembered it wrong. Alira didn’t know what came over here to give Raine the hint that she knew about him—about her. Maybe she thought Raine wouldn’t catch on to her from a simple look with her eyes hidden behind the cloth. She traced her hand around the golden base of the earring until her hand touched the tiny screw behind Raine’s ear.

  Raine filched. But there was no attempt to stop Alira, none that was quick enough as she took the screw off. The weight pressing onto Alira lessened, giving her much more room to breathe. She sensed the rays of light from the chandelier above getting blocked as silky strands of hair unfolded, slowly extending until the edges hovered just above Alira’s face.

  Alira took a lock of hair and tugged it behind Raine’s ears. For the second time in the day, she wished she could see at this moment and take a good, long look at the protagonist’s legendary cold beauty.

  “I don’t understand you,” Raine whispered. His, now hers, voice was even softer than it usually was, dulled and mellowed by both confusing and shortened vocal cords.

  “Don’t,” Alira said.

  “Don’t what?” Raine asked. The momentary mildness had fully doused.

  Alira stifled without knowing why herself. It made her wonder whether Xia’s strange symptom of constant chuckling was without a reason, too.

  “Don’t try,” Alira replied. “There’s no reason for you to understand me. As I said, I need a strong alchemist, and you’re my best option. All I need from you is to free me from the duke’s bind and maybe one small request afterward if you’re feeling generous. You don’t need to know or understand anything else about me.”

  “There are strong alchemists. Many who are much stronger than me.” Raine snapped back. Why. Alira heard the biting question he didn’t say. Why him.

  Alira shook her head before looking away. A shadow loomed over Alira no matter where she turned, Raine’s fallen hair encircling her to shield the light away from her. “You’re wrong. There’s only one.”

  “You want me to become a Grand Alchemist...”

  Alira turned toward Raine at last. “I need you to become a Grand Alchemist. If we’re talking about want, then it’d be great if you could break through that. Your only limit is time, Raine.”

  “Right,” he said. “Three fucking months, right?”

  She pushed Raine off herself to sit up. The two matched in strength, before only with Raine was a man. Hybrids were made and bred to be much stronger than an average person. Alira had been eating and sleeping well most of the time since she was rescued from the slave dungeon. Raine couldn’t overpower her without the artifact that made her slightly stronger while she had a male body.

  Raine remained still for what felt like a long time, with even her breath hushed to Alira’s keen ears. Finally, Raine moved, and the earring screw was snatched out of Alira’s hands before she knew it.

  “Get up,” Raine said, his voice returned to its usual hoarse harmony. “We’re running late for class.”

  +++

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Alira brushed the back of her hand across her cheeks to wipe away imaginary sweat. This did little to tone down the heat that had crept up her neck, spreading on her face.

  What the hell was that just now? What was I thinking?! Something must have possessed me!

  Alira followed Raine toward wherever their class was supposed to be, exactly ten steps away—the furthest she could lag without losing him entirely. She placed her left hand on the Loch’s soft back, making sure the familiar didn’t ditch her to go back to the room and resume its twenty hour a day of sleeping.

  On her right, from where the row of glass windows should be, streams of sunlight spilled, their touches light and warm on her skin. They faded in and out as students passed by her along the hallway.

  She felt glad that it was daytime, meaning Xia’s side was facing the dead of the night. It was a good thing he was likely sound asleep by now, oblivious to the turmoil on her side. Seeing, though not technically seeing, Raine as a woman made her conscious about the subtle romantic subplot in Dual POV.

  Xia was kind of, though not officially, the main love interest. Alira would hate for him to know her being all touchy-feely with Raine. She had knowingly and willingly messed up both of their fates the moment she snatched Hollowed Mirror. The ‘event’ just now simply amplified her guilt.

  The moment her attention faltered, Alira slammed right into someone’s back. She was about to apologize until she caught a wisp of familiar scent.

  “Why did you suddenly stop?” Alira asked. Her voice came out sounding more pissed off than she intended.

  “I stopped walking like minutes ago. Why are you falling off?”

  Not wanting to make more of a scene than they already were, Alira urged Raine to hurry and lead the way until the two made it to the training hall just in time.

  Professor Sigor made his entrance with a burst of fluttering wings, no doubt as glamorous as always, right on mark as Raine slammed the door closed behind them.

  “Let us start,” he said. “I don’t want to be with you lots any more than you people appreciate having an extra class.”

  Raine proceeded to walk to the front of the group while Alira stayed where she was, right before the door at the very back. She petted her hand down the Loch’s back. Someone approached Alira, and she knew it was Maria before the girl spoke.

  “Have you had your lunch?” Maria asked. A rumble sounded from her the moment she finished her sentence.

  “I have. And it sounds like you haven’t,” Alira smiled.

  Maria laughed, her voice colored with embarrassment. “I headed her right after my last class.”

  The two girls’ conversation was cut short when Professor Sigor’s voice came again.

  “Raine,” he called even though Raine was most likely right in his face, at the front row, eager as always, she imagined. Alira didn’t hear Raine’s response when Professor Sigor continued, “Maria.”

  “Pre—”

  “Ilran Frostil.”

  “—sent.” Maria finished quietly to herself as the professor promptly called out one name after another. This class was specifically for test evaluation. That and the fact that he started with Raine and Maria, Alira put two and two together to guess that he was announcing the pass list arranged by the best performing student.

  Alira patiently waited for her name to be called with the evidence of her passing, the Loch, on her side. After saying the sixteenth name that still wasn’t her name, Professor Sigor’s steady reciting came to a stop.

  Oh, no.

  Alira had a really bad feeling.

  “That’s all of you who pass. The other three fail. You may apply for a retake, failing which will truly lose you your seat at the Academy,” Professor Sigor’s words only confused her further.

  Sixteen passed while three failed. That was only nineteen, even after excluding Lillian. Professor Sigor distributed papers to the three aforementioned students, likely instructions regarding the retake, and as she expected, he had none for her.

  “Professor,” Alira said, putting her hand up.

  Professor Sigor approached her with his hoard of rustling wings nearing. “Yes, Miss Ravon. Before you ask, it has been decided that you neither pass nor fail.”

  “What?” Alira blurted out. She cleared her throat to fix her demeanor. “I mean, could you explain why? How can I neither pass nor fail?”

  “Because you contracted with your familiar at the same time you were disqualified. You managed to do almost everything you were told not to. Quite impressive.”

  Alira felt the heated gazes on her. She was glad she couldn’t see them, or this would be much worse. Disqualification... It seemed she must have drifted beyond the boundary that crossed the lake at the same point during the heated, literally, negotiation with the Loch.

  Now what?

  “Now I have to come up with how to deal with you,” Professor Sigor answered as if he’d read her thoughts. “We will see what I have by the end of the class. Let’s get to today’s main agenda. Anyone who has no clue what a Spirit even is, put your hand.”

  Alira heard some shuffling, and Professor Sigor exhaled more heavily than usual.

  “Spirits are, well, spirits. But, not really,” he said. A pause as everyone presented, already well aware of the professor’s expertise when it came to explanation, waited for him to continue. “When the lives of Staywes pass on, their soul leaves the body to Staywes’s embrace. Some souls, when too heavy to dissolve, tainted by too much Corruption during the living period, become Spirits to linger on, unable to return home. They must pay for their sin and serve their Telos to rid themselves of the Corruption.”

  Alira paid full attention to him since Dual POV never really mentioned the details on Spirits and Spirits Familiar other than Raine’s own Griffin. At least nothing she could recall.

  “As the purest form of existence, even low-level Spirits have higher mana affinity than most living with gold and low mana affinity. They offer this to the living and act as the living’s Familiar. In exchange, the contractor must share their Telos. That’s the basics of it. Now, get in line in order of the names being called. I will have about ten minutes of one-on-one with each of you.”

  Students stomped across the training ground, shoes scuffing against the rough floor, as they murmured low among themselves. A few inhuman footsteps followed them, familiars moving alongside their contractors.

  Alira stood where she was after shooing off Maria, who was reluctant to leave her by herself. The hall they were in was likely bigger than the ones she had booked together with Raine and Lillian, who often invited themselves. The structure should still be the same, meaning that there was no seat for her other than the floor.

  To give her etiquette teacher some face, Alira refrained from sitting on the floor with everyone around and waited standing for the entirety of the class with the Loch shamelessly sprawled on the ground, fast asleep.

  Professor Sigor dismissed the class after the last student had been evaluated. Alira was up next, as everyone else, apart from Maria, left the training ground.

  “A Loch,” Professor Sigor remarked. “I haven’t seen one before in my years.”