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"So do I." I smile.

"Because you like it?" She asks.

"Because my father considered ignorance a moral failure."

Nyra laughs softly. It disappears almost immediately, as though she is uncertain laughter belongs in this corridor.

I smile. "It can be both." She looks toward me again. This time her smile stays.

Our second class is Foundations of Magical History. We arrive early. Neither of us intends to repeat the morning. The classroom is narrower than the Hall of Lineage, with long black tables facing a wall-sized map of Varethia.

Borders glow faintly across mountain ranges, forests and seas. Six kingdoms. Six versions of history. Professor Aldren enters carrying no books. He is an elderly fae with pale gold hair and a severe expression. He stands before the map.

"Everything you learned before arriving here is incomplete." Nyra looks at me. I look back. Apparently this is a theme. Professor Aldren touches the map. The borders disappear. Students murmur. "For most of recorded history, these lines did not exist." He walks slowly along the front row. "Yet nearly every modern text begins with kingdoms as though the land itself created them."

The borders reappear. "Vampire texts call the First Division a defensive necessity." The crimson territory brightens.

"Wolf records call it betrayal." Silver.

"Siren histories call it abandonment." Blue.

"Fae scholars prefer to describe it as political inevitability." Gold. A few fae students shift.

"Medusae texts omit nearly forty years surrounding it." White.

"And dragon-blooded accounts contradict all five." Black-gold. He turns toward us. "History is not what happened." A pause. "It is what survived being told."

The sentence lands harder than anything from the first class. Something deep inside me responds to it. Not magic. Recognition. My family has always treated history like inheritance. Sacred. Fixed. Professor Aldren has dismantled that certainty in less than five minutes.

He divides the room into groups without allowing students to choose. Nyra is sent to a table with two wolves and a siren. I am placed beside Selena, my missing vampire roommate, and a Medusa student named Aricia.

Selena's notes are immaculate. So is she. Not one dark hair has escaped the knot at the base of her neck.

"We're roommates," I say quietly.

"I'm aware." Her tone is not rude. Only precise.

"You left early." I continue.

"I prefer eating before the dining hall becomes loud." Aricia glances between us. "Vampire friendship is fascinating." Selena ignores her.

Our task appears across the table. "Compare three accounts of the Battle of Vaelor. Identify contradiction, omission and probable bias." I know the Battle of Vaelor. Every vampire child does.

Our version describes a siege broken by Vaelith forces after the wolves refused assistance. The wolf account says vampire soldiers arrived two days late. The Medusa record claims both armies were present from the beginning and spent more time arguing over command than defending civilians.

I stare at the texts. Selena reads silently. Aricia leans back.

"Well." Neither of us looks at her. "My people think both of yours were idiots." Selena turns a page.

"That appears to be the least biased account." Aricia smiles. I find myself smiling too.

For the next hour, we argue over language, casualty records and whether omission can be considered deliberate without evidence of intention. No one cares whose family won.

Professor Aldren corrects anyone who attempts to simplify the conflict. By the end, I no longer know which version is true. Only that mine is not enough.

Lunch feels less like relief than recovery. Nyra and I find a quiet stone terrace outside the academic wing. Mountains stretch beyond the railing, pale beneath the afternoon sky.

We sit with our books between us. For several moments, neither of us reaches for the food we brought.