21 21 Settling In
The twins stormed away, nursing their wounded pride, leaving the audience in shock.
“Look, he has a Family tattoo. Do you think one is the houses is trying to circumvent the new rules and bring in their own servant?” a girl whispered.
“Maybe, but it wasn’t House Abilene, even though their older daughter is here as well.” Another one snickered, then quickly silenced as a tall blonde woman glared at her.
She looked at Wolfe with a mixture of curiosity and longing but quickly looked away to talk to someone in the crowd.
Wolfe grabbed his shirt and covered up before any of the Witches could come up with an excuse to touch his bare skin and give him away. The action made a number of the first-year girls boo him, but they had their show, and they would find other men to drool over, he was certain.
“You wouldn’t want a servant like that. He’s a brute and a gangster from the lower floors. I mean, just look at what he did to Luke Abilene’s beautiful face. What sort of monster would want to destroy that perfection?” Wolfe heard a few second-year girls telling their friends.
“You should write a book. How to Meet Witches and Make Friends.” The instructor laughed, breaking the tension in the area and then guiding Wolfe away to the staff dorms, or perhaps it was a prison compound since the windows had bars on them.
That could be a precaution against monster attacks as well, though, and once they were inside, Wolfe realized that the building was every bit as luxurious as the Noxus Family home. The academy didn’t seem too concerned with him attempting to run away or damage the property, that was for sure.
“Don’t worry, with skills like that, most of them will overlook you damaging the boy idol’s face. His kind finishes their training, goes home to their parents, then brags about their skills and how far they could have gone in life if only they didn’t leave the military to accept an arranged marriage for their noble family’s sake.”
Wolfe knew the type, spending their lives riding on one moment of faded glory. The lower levels had their fair share, though they were usually drunk and divorced, not wealthy sons of noble houses.
“Here you are. Change into the uniform. It’s mandatory inside the school, as Professor Ashcroft told you on the way in. You’ve got a whole day off, so learn the layout and meet some people. There is a map in your Academy-provided supplies.”
The instructor left, and Wolfe headed for the small shower in his room. He had Luke’s blood all over him, and he was sweaty from a hard fight and a day’s travel, hardly a fit state to go looking for ladies or Witches as the case may be.
The black pants and silver shirt with a black vest that marked the employees of the Academy looked good on him like they were made to match his black hair and gray eyes. It was a shame it was a servant’s uniform. Wolfe was rather fond of it, and he would happily wear it all the time.
He was about to head out to find some food when an insistent knock sounded at his door. If it was that idiot Luke looking for revenge, Wolfe was going to beat the stupid out of him right in the hallway.
“How might I help you?” He asked through the closed door.
“School Council President Kara wishes to speak with you.” A male voice answered politely.
Wolfe opened the door and found himself in front of an incredibly curvy ginger-haired Witch with glowing green eyes and a suspicious look on her face. Behind her stood a butler, dressed identically to Wolfe but with a sword on his hip, presumably the one who had knocked.
“You are the one that defeated the Dueling Champion of the Abilene family? You don’t look like much. But there are proprieties to be followed.
I am Kara, the Student Council President, and I welcome you to the Academy. There have already been requests from the staff to meet you for a personal assistant interview, so I must ask, what are you looking for in a partner?”
‘Is this a dating service?’ were the first words through Wolfe’s mind, and he could see the man whom he presumed to be the President’s Guardian hiding his amusement at her choice of words.
“I was under the impression that I would be at the Academy for an extended period of time, under their supervision, so I don’t know how to answer that.” Wolfe replied.
Kara nodded, then made a few notes in her day planner. “I will have them rearrange your duties. Having you on security detail around Campus would cause many unnecessary problems, as well as distractions for the students. In the mornings, you will be either on duty or training in combat and etiquette. In the afternoons, you will be the practical training volunteer for First Year, Class A.
Most of the first years students do not have Familiars to assist their casting at the moment, and with the Servants banished after last year’s incident, the teachers are all looking for talented replacements to be their teacher’s assistants. Becoming a magical punching bag isn’t the most glamorous of jobs, but the teachers will cast armour spells on you, so there is really no risk of actual injury, unlike your brawl this morning.”
He had heard a lot about this big incident and the changes it brought to the academy. It must have been bad, but it didn’t seem to be a secret.
“What exactly was the incident? That sort of news doesn’t make it to my ears back in the city.” Wolfe asked.
It was the butler who answered. “The First Years were on a field trip, and from what we could determine, a jealous servant had placed a curse in the bag of a student who had rejected her advances. But it went off early and burned out the bus, killing over twenty Candidates.
Then the accusations started, with curses thrown, attacks on sleeping Witches accused of being the guilty ones, and finally, one desperate first-year candidate getting herself pregnant to try to claim a position in a Noble house through the family’s younger son who had been sent here as a servant.
It was a huge mess all around, and it was determined that for the time being, it would be wise to prohibit all servants from the ground and eliminate all intermingling between the Witches and the Squires training nearby at the military academy.
Senior Class Applications have been down for a long time, but they’re terrible this year, none of the Nobles wanted to send their daughters back to the academy after the break, and the Commoners who failed out are telling horror stories on the lowest levels of the city where we get most of our less talented recruitment from.
From what I have heard, they are even forging documents so that when the Academy comes to pick up those who have been identified as potentially talented, the recruiters will believe that they are still underage for the Academy and, therefore, ineligible to be enrolled for this semester.”
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Missing Servants could be replaced by staff or by having the candidates do things for themselves, but if the Witches didn’t want to return to the academy and build their power and status, it would be a tragedy both for the Coven and for the City.