The next morning, Nola found her name on a class schedule beside Maika's for the first time.
She broke out into a smile.
Relic Summoning. second floor, Central Tower. Room 7. She tapped the parchment and turned to Maika, who was brushing her hair with one hand while sipping apple tea with the other.
It seemed that all classes took place only in the Central Tower. She had not been to any of the other ones.
"We finally have a class together." She said to Maika.
Maika looked up, eyes bright. "Oh thank the gods. I was starting to think the school was separating us on purpose. You, me, back row—let's go fail together."
"Is that so, Miss Overachiever?" Nola sniggered.
When they got there, the classroom was already filled.
The walls were stone, lined with floating scrolls and glass cases filled with relics of the old, knives etched with runes, tattered cloaks, shattered lenses, hollow flutes, scorched metal feathers.
It didn't feel like a schoolroom. It felt like a vault of memory.
A professor stood at the center of the room, his face was calm and unreadable.
"I am professor Gabriel."
"Your Will once lived," he said, voice echoing softly, "and when it did, it carried or created something important—a weapon, a tool, a token. A relic of the past."
"These relics are not forged. They are called. They represent what your Will left behind… or what they were willing to lose."
Nola swallowed hard.
Taveer stood beside her, leaning slightly against the wall, arms crossed. His eyes weren't cold but they were guarded. Yuna stood to the side, fingers clenched together, her face pale with nerves. Maika looked like she was trying not to vibrate through the floor.
One by one, they were asked to stand in the circle.
"Maika Bell," Gabriel called.
Maika blinked. "Wait, me? First?"
She stepped into the circle hesitantly, then stood still as Gabriel whispered a summoning word.
A deep blue glow poured from beneath her feet, and her body tensed.
Nola watched, holding her breath.
Maika didn't look afraid. She looked… uncertain. Like she was reaching for something she didn't quite remember.
Then, from the air before her—softly, without spectacle—a glass vial formed. It glowed violet, swirling with a faint mist inside. It was delicate but simple.
Maika took it in both hands. "A potion bottle?"
The glow faded.
She looked confused—but not disappointed.
Professor Gabriel smiled faintly. "Not all relics are weapons. Some were made to heal. Or to change."
Maika stepped back, staring at the bottle as though it had whispered something just to her.
"Yuna Hale."
Yuna trembled as she stepped forward. Her hands fidgeted at her sides. But when the light appeared around her, her posture straightened, her breathing slowed.
Something uncoiled in her.
The relic formed midair, stretching into shape: a gleaming bow, smooth and silent, golden as sunlight. It hovered for a moment before landing softly in her palms.
Yuna bowed her head, eyes wide, chest rising and falling like she'd just surfaced from underwater.
"Taveer Ilyan."
Nola felt his tension before he moved.
Taveer stepped into the circle like someone walking into a room he'd rather not revisit.
The glow that rose was red. Really dark red, like dried blood on parchment.
His jaw tightened as a whisper rang through his head.
'Embrace my power. Consume thy rage.'
When the relic formed, Nola saw it before he did.
A stake. It was short, wooden and its tip stained deep crimson.
He stared at it for a long time and didn't take it immediately.
When he did, he held it like he'd held it before.
Not with awe but with memory. He saw a scene of a person getting burned on a stake screaming, "VLADDD!!!"
He stepped back without a word, the stake clutched tightly in his hand. Like it hurt to hold and hurt worse to let go.
"Nola Makinoshi."
She moved to the circle slowly. The air felt different and charged, like something in her chest had been waiting for this.
The light that rose beneath her feet was white-gold.
A warm, fierce and familiar feel. Her eyes closed on instinct.
She didn't see the blade form, but she felt it.
The hilt against her palm.
The weight.
When she opened her eyes, the katana gleamed in her hand. It waslong, elegant, and golden at the edge. The sheath bore faded symbols, old Japanese characters she didn't know but somehow understood.
It felt like it had been waiting.
And when she held it, her chest ached, not from pain. From recognition.
She returned to her spot beside Taveer. Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then he said, softly, "It suits you."
Nola glanced down. "I don't even know how to hold it yet."
He looked over. There was a softness in his eyes.
"You will."
They both looked ahead again.
After class, Maika caught up to Nola, her potion bottle clutched in both hands.
"Do you think we're supposed to know what they mean?" she asked, voice low.
Nola shook her head. "Maybe not yet. Maybe they don't mean just one thing."
Maika nodded, still staring into the swirling liquid like it held a memory she had actually lived.
Yuna stood near the exit, reverently tying a white ribbon around her new bowstring.
And Taveer?
He lingered by the window, his gaze cast outward, the stake now hidden beneath his coat.
Nola stood a few paces away, adjusting the katana's strap over her shoulder, the golden blade humming gently with silent strength.
She looked calm and focused.
Taveer's eyes flicked toward her but not for long, just long enough to notice the way she cradled the relic like it was something precious. It was not just a tool for her.
And something inside him shifted.
It wasn't sharp or sudden.
Just a soft ache. A question.
'Boy. You should be honored to receive me as your will. Vlad III. I will even help you with that girl. I have seen the way you look at her. Hahaha.'
Dracula's voice rang in his mind. His will was completely bonded to him allowing him to have a conversation with Vlad whenever he wanted.
He wasn't tense about that though.
It was her.
The way she'd smiled after training. The way she asked questions like she wanted to understand, not prove herself. The way she stood beside him without trying to draw anything out of him.
It made his chest feel strange.
Like something had started moving.
And he didn't know whether to step closer or to pull back.
He looked away before she caught him watching.
But the feeling didn't go away.
Quiet. Steady.
Unexplainable.