we smile at the moon

FOUR | THE BOYS OF AESIR

"HONORIA," SEB GREETED as he slid into the seat next to me during Artefacts class the next day. The Artefacts classroom was one of the more unique ones, a large, spacious chamber with shelves on all four walls, displaying all sorts of artefacts, talismans and other magical objects. It was meticulously decorated and made of a light wood, giving a spacious and comfortable feeling to the classroom. Three massive, arched windows allowed sunlight in, casting the room in a soft glow.

"Seb," I replied, arching my head to turn to him. The Artefacts classroom had tables of three to four people each, and our teacher, Mr Dawson, didn't really care about where we sat each lesson. I practically knew no one else in the class, so I tended to sit by myself until someone else sat next to me because they ran out of seats.

But today, Seb had randomly decided to grace me with his presence. And he wasn't alone. "Hope you don't mind me and this fool sitting here with you," Seb said, flashing a bright smile, gesturing to the familiar dark-haired boy next to him. Theodore Yu. The Artefacts genius himself.

I offered a grin. "As long as you two agree to carry me through this lesson." We were going to be enchanting our talismans. I didn't find it difficult, but if you could get carried, why not get carried?

"Oh, I don't have any hope of being able to do it. Theo here, though..."

Theodore rolled his eyes. "Seb, you're just as good as I am at this class. At least last year you were."

"Don't believe him," Seb fake-whispered to me. "I'm shit. He's the god."

"I've realised," I replied, taking off my black uniform blazer and hanging it on the back of the chair, revealing the cotton white shirt underneath, fully buttoned up. "Major respect, Theodore."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "My family does this stuff for a living. I'd be damned if I weren't good at it."

I huffed. "Tell that to Adelina."

Seb frowned. "She's damned good at combat, isn't she?"

"Her parents made her study Healing and History of Magic, let's just say she's this close to dropping both."

"How many subjects does she do?" Seb asked, tilting his head.

"Five. She could drop it, but her parents wouldn't let her."

"To be fair," Seb admitted, "it is literally September. Would look quite bad if she dropped half her subjects now."

"Yeah, that's what I told her. To wait."

Theo said, in Cantonese, "If she's bad at it, she really shouldn't take it. It would reflect really badly on her if she applied for university or the like."

"Yeah," Seb snorted back in the same dialect, "but her combat skills and her family name are more than enough to get her through."

I stayed quiet, not wanting to comment. It was a bit of a strange subject, families and last names, here at the college. Thing was, a lot of the student population didn't put much effort into their academics because they knew their parents' names would get them anywhere in life, as well as their money. Apparently a kid in our year was caught smoking weed or something in his dorm last year, but was allowed to stay in school after his parents made a few hefty donations.

I didn't approve of it. But if I wanted to avoid and scorn every student who got in here or was still here because of nepotism and their family name, that would be half the student population.

And, well, it's their money. They decide what to do with it. And they weren't necessarily all bad people. Adelina, for example. Her academic grades were a mess, and her skills in combat magic and the Roche name were the only things that secured her a spot in this school. But she was genuinely nice, and brutally honest about how she thought she was accepted in the first place. She could be a bit spoiled, a bit immature, but she had a good heart.