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The weather was hot in September, almost as hot as it had been in the summer. The sun was quickly burning the dark stone of the Academy's blackened walls, and it was unbearable to be indoors with the windows closed.
The heat was especially maddening in the room of Spellcraft, whose high windows faced south and were not shielded by thick branches; that was where the trees were planted some distance away.
From the first day professor Konstantin Vasilievich, who often came with the last students, asked from the threshold to open the windows for airing. The request was strictly fulfilled. The students rushed to open the creaky old sashes to get a breath of fresh air. The wind already carried the light trace of fiery autumn, but it was still caressingly pleasant, filling the chest with the tart aromas of burning herbs.
The stuffiness had established its own rules in the classroom with the arrival of damp October. The sky was covered with fat rainworms of clouds. As soon as the cold insides burst from their voracious bellies, they smoldered before the eyes. The sun peeped through, and now the flaming disk shone in the sky like a polished gold coin, demanding the lost moisture back. Thick, soupy mist billowed from the saturated ground, turning the building filled with students into a molten bathhouse.
When the windows were open, the wind gusts brought the cold breath of the mountains with them, making us squirm with a palpable chill. When the windows were closed, the humid air trapped inside heated to be suffocating, melting away the remnants of thoughts and causing the eyelids to droop in a dull slumber. The windows were open again.
November was getting cooler. The sun showed itself less and less often, letting the darkness slowly weave its web high beneath the whitewashed ceiling, dropping the tiers of curtains lower and lower along the walls, plunging everything into gloom. Warmth was welcomed in such weather, but the thirty two breathing bodies quickly burned the air fit for study and the window had to be open again.
'Phillip, would you be so kind to open the sash next to you? Just one, thank you.' The professor asked shortly after the class began.
It had been like this for the last couple of weeks.
Phillip rose, fulfilled the request, and sank silently into his chair, continuing to take notes of the lecture. His thin, pale fingers with short, clean fingernails held the quill neatly. His head was tilted slightly to the side, his other hand supporting his chin. Soft light oozed through his blond hair, covered in a patina of frayed gilding, touching his perfect shoulders. Not too broad and rounded like a strongman's, but not narrow and girlish either. It was visible even beneath the cloak that concealed the outline of his figure.
It was short after he barely moved, pulled down the cuff of his uniform blue shirt, and put his foot behind his leg.
A chill spread through the room. It penetrated deeper and deeper, enveloping the students amid the measured clinking of writing quills.
