Magiana Imperial Academy - Volume 1: Path to Greatness

Just as Phillip thought, the very next day, everyone was talking about the news Isaiah told the Sloanes. Everyone began whispering amongst themselves in class, and some people even dared to do it in Professor Draut’s class. He didn’t address them in class, but called them to stay afterwards.

The other teachers were reluctant to do so, but they also confirmed the thefts, and apologized for not speaking. Professor Acre actually began to tear up, and had a pair of gloves fetch her some tissues.

As the winter came to a close and spring came, bringing warmer temperatures, greener pastures and the lively cries of woodland creatures, people could think of nothing else.

Some students did indeed begin poking around the school in hopes of finding clues to the identity of the thief. With so many people around, Phillip and Dominique had a much easier time with their own search, but were unable to find anything that would connect Professors Draut or Windsor to the crime. They were with people at all times, and the only times they were guaranteed to be alone would be at night, when the students were supposed to be in their dorms. Even if Phillip and Dominique could be out late, they had no idea where the staff stayed so they could listen to the two when they thought they were alone.

The longer they went without finding anything, the angrier Phillip got. They overheard the two talking all the way in January, but for some reason had come up with nothing.

“There’s no way that they’re only alone at night!” He said, angrily drumming his fingers on table during dinner. “One of these days, they’ll be alone during the school day and we’ll be able to tail them.” He waited for Dominique to answer, but she didn’t say anything.

She was studying while she ate, like all of the others. For a few days, the hunger strike continued, but Miles and his supporters eventually couldn’t take it any more.

“You’re studying?” Phillip asked.

“Well, exams are at the beginning of June. There’s no harm in starting to study now.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“But what you said is very much true. One of these days they’ll be all alone. You remember the recipe for the Simple Invisibility Potion, right? We might be able to make one of them if we find a makeshift cauldron.”

“No, no, too unreliable. We’d have to somehow get the ingredients from Professor Black’s classroom. Even if we could get them, we would have make enough for both of us, which would both mean a lot more work and make Professor Black really suspicious. She might not think much of enough for one potion going missing, but if two potions worth of stuff goes missing, she’d know someone took them. And then there’s the fact that it only works for a maximum of fifteen minutes.”

“You’re right. Then I guess we’d just have to be really careful when we follow them.”

Phillip and Dominique kept a close eye on the two teachers, but as the month went on, they were still unable to get one of their professors alone. Phillip began studying just like Dominique to make sure that he’d be prepared for his exams.

One day during their week long April vacation, he and Dominique were studying together in the school’s library, a large room full of bookshelves. There were several circular tables at the front of the library, and the librarian’s desk was right next to the door.

“I hate to say this,” Phillip said sadly. “But I think we’re going to have to break some rules in order to get our information.”

“Personally, I’d rather not break rules, but in a situation like this, I think it’s justified.” Dominique looked over at his textbook and leaned closer, pointing at a picture of a seed. “The incantation for the accelerated growth spell is supposed to mention something about maturing. I’ve read in my book that you can mention ‘development’ and it’ll do things like make body parts bigger, but you don’t need that for this year.”

“Well, well, what do we have here?” While he was quiet, Reginald still sat down across from the two, smirking at them. “I thought you were better than this, prince. What would Luna say?”

“Nothing.” Phillip said calmly. “She wouldn’t care that I’m studying with someone.”

“That, and according to your logic, we have a lot more reason to tease you about her than you have to tease us. The two of you spent St. Einhart’s together, didn’t you?”

He glowered at them. “What’re you doing anyway?” He snatched Phillip’s textbook. “We don’t have any sort of test anytime soon.”

“I’m studying for my exams.” Phillip replied.

“Your exams?” He suppressed the urge to laugh. “They’re in June! Slow down there, brainiacs!”

He got up from the table and walked away. Phillip glanced after him while Dominique rolled her eyes.

“Ignore him.” She said. “The more attention you pay to him, the more you stroke his ego.”

He looked after Reginald for a few seconds then stared down at his book, studying once more.

The two were speed walking through the halls on the way back to House Sloane. They left the library right before it was going to close, and had to be back in their dorm very soon. They turned the corner and saw Trevor kneeling against a door. He saw them and shushed them.

“What is he doing?” Phillip whispered to Dominique.

“I have no idea, but if we’re going to break the rules to get answers, we might as well join him.”

They knelt next to Trevor and put their ears against the door. They could hear Professor Draut’s voice inside.

“...getting hectic here. The students are awfully nosey. For weeks they’ve been poking around, trying to find the thief. It’s annoying. Hm? Mother and father are happy as can be; anyone who won the lottery would be. Father is a bit paranoid, which is expected, but he’s managing. They’ve been awful generous ever since they won; been getting me all sorts of things. It’s fantastic.”

“Parents won the lottery?” Phillip whispered.

“Might be the truth, might be code.” Trevor said.

“Anyway, I’d better get back to my quarters. Talk to you later, love.”

They heard him get up from the chair and got away from the door, beginning to walk down the hallway normally. They heard the door open behind them.

“Hold it!” They turned, and Professor Draut looked at them, a brow raised. “What’re you doing out?”

“We just finished studying, sir.” Dominique said. “We’re coming back from the library.”

He took out his phone momentarily. “The library did just close, but first years are supposed to be back in their houses by 7:00. It’s 8:15.”

“Yes, sir, but we lost track of time; we were studying for our exams.”

“In April? Preposterous; the three of you were up to something.”

“We were sir, we swear.” Phillip quickly said.

He studied the three of them. At last he said, “All three of you, detention, tomorrow night at six, my class.” He ambled away down the other side of the hall.

The three of them went back to the house, not letting their sentence bother them at all. When they returned, they sat together at one of the tables.

“You said that Professor Draut could’ve been talking in code?” Phillip asked.

“Yes.” Trevor said. “He says that his parents win the lottery, while he really means his own newfound fortune. He says his father is paranoid while he’s the one who’s paranoid.”

“That’s kind of a stretch, Trevor.” Dominique said. “He might’ve been telling the truth. That sounded pretty normal to me.”

“I know, but it’s the only thing I’ve heard that might be related to this.”

“Then it would only make sense to try and look into that.” Phillip said. “If we find out that his parents didn’t win the lottery, then he really was talking in code. But what about the person he was talking with? If it was code, then they must be in on it.”

Dominique seemed unsure about their words. Phillip could only guess that she thought they were getting ahead of themselves, just assuming that Professor Draut and whoever he was talking to were the culprits.

Even if they weren’t on the right track it seemed like they were made more progress than the others around them, as many of the other groups were making baseless accusations. Phillip could hear some say that it was Professor Draut, but the people who accused him already showed that they held great animosity towards him. No one was safe; not Professors Windsor, Black, Acre, Wilson, Pyke, Rowen, Greenwald, Grove, Coach Frazier or even the headmaster.

Isaiah, who was usually very upbeat and charismatic, was very downcast. Phillip could understand why he felt that way, but unless he said something, the staff might’ve waited even longer to tell the students the truth. The same people that held back the mob were trying to cheer him up, which appeared to have some effect.

The next evening, Phillip, Dominique and Trevor went to Professor Draut’s classroom at six. He directed them to three seats at the front of the class where sheets of paper were. Looking down at the paper, Phillip saw a jumble of letters and numbers. It must’ve been some sort of worksheet, but he had no idea why letters would have any place in math.

“Calculus.” He said. “You are to have all of those problems done, and work has to be shown.”

“It doesn’t matter if the problems are right, does it?” Phillip asked.

“Of course not; you don’t have any idea what you’re doing. But that doesn’t mean you can scribble anything and pass that off. If you’ve done an exceptionally good job, though, five points to your house.” He gave the three pencils and told them to get to work.

As Phillip worked he tried to look at Professor Draut as much as possible. He was just sitting at his desk, reading. He always did that when they worked in class. The only sounds in the room were the scratching of the pencils on paper and the ticking of the clock.

Dominique was the first to get up and approach Draut’s desk, about a half hour later. She handed him the paper and he looked it over. When he was done, a small smile creeped onto his face.

“Better than I’d expect from a 6th grader. Very good, Lyell. That’s one hundred points to House Sloane.”

“Thank you, sir.” She said as he put the paper off to the side. He gave her permission to leave and she moved to the door. After it slammed shut, the room was silent once more.

Phillip spent a lot of time staring at his paper rather than writing on it. He had no idea what to do with the words mixed in with the numbers; ‘ln’, ‘log’, and weird symbols that looked like they’d have a much better place in a book than a math worksheet. Trevor was working seemingly without any problem, as his pencil barely left the paper.

It wasn’t much longer until Trevor went up to have his own paper checked. Draut looked over it, but didn’t show any hint of a grin.

“Typical for someone your age. Sixty-five points for your house.”

Trevor was the next to leave, and Phillip was all on his own. Now that he was all alone, he could faintly hear the sound of Professor Draut turning the pages of his book. Looking down at his paper, Phillip saw only two more problems left for him to complete. Peering at the jumble of letters and symbols he put for the other eighteen, Phillip began to question whether or not his work would be considered adequate. Putting down something for the last two, he stood up, looking over his answers one last time, trying to make sense of them.

Thinking that they were fine, he handed them to Draut. The man scanned them over, and another smile appeared on his face.

“Well, you did the worse of the three, but not by much. I expected better of someone like you, with your private tutoring and all. Fifty points for your house. You can go.”

“Thank you sir.” He walked outside and was faced with the orange light of the sunset.

He moved through the hall towards the main entrance. Walking outside, he saw a few students resting on the grounds, talking and joking around. Some of them called out to him and waved. He greeted them as well and got back to House Sloane in slightly higher spirits after his detention.

Substance Magic was the only class in which Phillip saw both Dominique and Trevor. They were all together during lunch as well, but it was much harder to move around and talk.

They were reading about the fundamentals of Substance Magic, and Phillip had a piece of paper placed in front of him. He looked at it curiously and then the person who gave it to him. They just shrugged.

He opened the note. Dominique was going to be spending some time after school with one of her teachers, and was unsure of when she’d be able to get back to House Sloane. She went on to say that now, while everyone was distracted, would be the best time to discuss the case more.

Phillip scribbled a reply on the note and tapped Miles under the table and asked for them to get it to Dominique.The two of them went back and forth, but didn’t make much more progress. Professor Draut didn’t act out of the ordinary at all and they hadn’t heard anything else. They were thinking of ways to get more information on him when Phillip opened the note and heard Reginald’s voice.

“Professor Acre, the prince is passing notes!”

Phillip glanced over at him, and Reginald looked back at him innocently. Professor Acre walked over to his desk and held out her hand. Phillip placed the note in her hand, feeling the eyes of his classmates on him. She looked at it for a second and went back to the front of the class. Phillip was dreading the end of class, sure that she’d give him detention.

At the very beginning of the year, Professor Acre told the students that there were two large panels of glass separating the desks and forming a lane down the middle of the class to avoid spells accidentally affecting spectators. For the first time Phillip saw the glass be put to use.

A Lychester was practicing the growth spell they were studying and accidentally shot the ray of light at the glass, and it began ricocheting. It ended up hitting the apple that was on Professor Acre’s desk. She quickly pushed it off as it began growing at an alarming rate. When it was finally done, it was as tall as her desk was.

She looked at it from beside the table the orange they were supposed to hit rested on.

“Well, wrong target, but that was perfect. Ninety points!” She graded them out of one hundred whenever they used their spells. “You just need to fix the aiming.”

Everyone practiced the spell, some doing it superbly and others accidentally shrinking it instead of enlarging it. When class ended, Professor Acre called Phillip and Dominique to stay behind just as he feared. Several people chortled as they left, only making the event more embarrassing.

“I can’t blame the two of you for discussing this.” She said calmly. “We all want to catch the thief, and I’m quite grateful to you for trying to help, but please refrain from doing something like that again. You might get found out by someone who will take it much worst next time. Like Earle.”

The two of them looked at each other; did she know that they suspected Professor Draut, or did she suspect him as well? They never referred to him by name. She smiled at them and offered the note back to the two, who looked at her in awe.

“I looked at it for a second, so I don’t know if you put down something of importance. Just in case, take it.”

“Thank you, ma’am!” Dominique exclaimed, taking the note from her.

“Have a nice day, you two.”

Outside of her class, they were caught off guard by Miles.

“Okay you two, what was that about?” He asked.

Phillip handed the note to Miles, who grabbed it and began reading. When he was done, he beamed at them.

“I didn’t know you two were looking into this too! What’ve you got?”

Phillip divulged their information to Miles, not caring whether or not any of their classmates overheard. Since they all were after the same thing, it might actually be helpful if someone heard.

“Draut?” Miles looked very impressed. “And unlike the others, you actually have a reason to think he did it. Hey, let me help you guys out. Having another person should be a big help!”

“Thanks for the offer, Miles.” Phillip said. “You okay with that, Dominique?”

“Of course. If he could help us, I don’t really care.”

“Great!” Miles began stroking his chin, even though it was bare. “So, all you have is a phone call, eh? If we can’t get our hands on his phone to see who it was, this’ll be a lot harder.”

“You’re right, but that might be nigh impossible.”

“‘Nigh’?” Miles chuckled, finding Dominique’s use of what he called ‘sophisticated words’ amusing.

“Yes, nigh. So, do you have any idea how we’d get his phone?”

“Once we find out where he stays, I might be able to sneak it out during the night. I already know a way out of the house.”

Neither of them questioned him, and the three moved on, looking for Trevor so they could inform him of their new addition.