Chương 105: Act 2, Chapter 57: Back to school

18th December (Thursday), past six in the morning. The base looked juicy. My kind of thing to infiltrate and pick apart for once. But dawn was already threatening the horizon, and daylight was never my ally. So I whispered a quiet sayonara to the waking world and teleported back into my Domain, bringing Liora along.

"It's been a long night, Lio. Thanks for all the help." He jumped up and down, chest puffed out proudly, his crystalline horns flaring bright.

"Would you like to go to Peter's Domain of Water?" I asked. His horns flashed red in refusal.

"Mine then?" They flared green in agreement.

"Okay, but I'm heading to Earth for the day. Won't be back until nightfall." He didn't wait for the rest but darted straight through the ceiling holes and vanished into the swirling clouds above.

"Someone's a restless cloud eel," I murmured, shaking my head before shifting focus to the Earth side. Through my old eye-card in Jason's apartment, I could see the room again: Joan, still standing by the window, wearing his face, looking out over the city. I decided to pay them a visit before diving back into whatever passed for my private life these days.

"Have fun," I said to the more to the walls than to Liora and blinked away, reappearing in Jason's apartment still dressed in my full battle gear. Joan turned almost immediately, their voice carrying Jason's warmth.

"Already here?" they asked.

"Yes. I've found EoT's base of operations. They trashed Victor's place, looking for something, or just being mean motherfuckers, but that actually—" I stopped mid-sentence. Something was wrong. With my biological eyes, I saw Jason, perfectly as they meant the world to see. But through the painted eyes on my hood, I saw Joan. Naked again, like the first time I met them.

"Actually what? You drifted, Alexa." They turned fully toward me, both bodies moving the same way, yet my eyes shown two entirely different people.

"Excuse me," I said, forcing my focus back.

"Got lost in thought for a second. The fact that they were there helped me track their base more easily. I intend to survey it tonight and hopefully bring Victor out."

"Very good," they replied, with Jason's calm smile.

"Joan, I've got a question that's been bugging me." I paused just enough to sound casual.

"There was a reflective surface in Victor's workshop. I was wondering, if I'd teleported one of the Shattered inside, could they help me and look through the images stored there? To see what happened?" A beat. Their answer came smooth, but too fast.

"No. Not yet, Alexa. We can't risk our people's lives." Interesting.

"I see. Thought so. Maybe in the future then?"

"For now the answer is no, Alexa," they repeated, their tone a practiced calm.

"But perhaps when we've worked together longer, we'd consider it."

"Okay." I let the word hang for a heartbeat, then pulled the thread tighter.

"Your eyes can only see the past anyway, right?"

"Yes." There it was, the tell. A twitch at the shoulder, the smallest abortive shrug. They caught it before it fully surfaced, but not fast enough. A lie, then. Just like before. And that meant something else too. If my painted eyes could see them as they truly were, then theirs could also pierce shapeshifting illusions of their own kind just as easily.

I couldn't remember what we'd been talking about the last time I caught that same flicker of movement control from them, but it was obvious now, it had been a lie then, too. My caution in placing trust once again proved right. Everyone had their agenda in both worlds; it was my job to make sure I could align them in the best way possible for me.

"It's still an invaluable skill in the right circumstances," I said.

"It is," they replied, their attention already drifting back to the city outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"You like being here?" I asked, stepping beside them.

"There's a certain pleasure in watching how far people have taken their crafts," they said.

"But we prefer nature. This—" they pointed toward the pulsing traffic below "—reminds us more of ants or bees than of people."

"Why don't you spend more time outside the city, then?"

"We can't always do what pleases us most," they said evenly.

"But we spend enough time in nature. You don't have to worry."

"Will you come to the uni today?" I pressed, wanting to know what to expect.

"Yes. We intend to go."

"Have you ever studied before? Will you manage it?"

"We've both studied and taught at universities. Here and in Europe. We can manage pretending to be a student just fine, Alexa."

"I was just worried."

"It seems to us you're probing, waiting for something to slip, while you could simply ask. We rarely lie."

"But there's a possibility."

"Yes. There is."

"Couldn't you just say it's something you can't disclose, instead of lying?"

"Is that your strategy? Jason's memories tell a different story."

"That was a deserved blow. And no, it's not my strategy," I said. At least not with people I don't trust.

"It's easier to lie. And as wrong as that sounds, it's still the truth."

"It's not exactly a trust-building conversation, Joan."

"But it is. We're telling you of our shortcomings. Do you think a mother stops trusting her child because they lie? Of course not. Children lie often and in unsophisticated ways, yet love remains. Parents still trust that their offspring will make good decisions. There can be no trust without freedom, but trust can thrive even amidst lies."

"Is that some old sage advice?"

"We are no sage. But age does change how you see the world and the people in it. You're young. You still believe you can understand everything. In time, you'll learn that's impossible."

"You're mistaken. Maybe most young people think that way. I don't." Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Maybe. Will you ask what it is you wanted to get from us?"

"It's nothing, Joan. I was just trying to understand you better."

"Do you see everyone and everything as a riddle to solve?" they asked. Did I? …I might have.

"I don't know, Joan, but honestly, I don't feel like having a difficult conversation right now. I'll be going."

"Farewell then. See you later." They turned back toward the window as I focused on the Old Oak's place and teleported there. I took a deep breath, counted to ten while staring at that ancient tree, and reminded myself again, to come back for a piece of its bark when I finally had the time and energy. Then I shifted once more, teleporting to my room on Earth. I grabbed a change of clothes and headed to the bathroom, where I used Usagear's send-off.

As per usual, Performance Art began with silence. It was a silence with a double meaning for me. Not only the one imposed by the rules Professor Marla Dresden had set, but also the one I'd expected to be broken by whispers about my reappearance after such a long absence. Yet no one spoke. The silence held. It wasn't just the absence of sound; it was a silence of gestures and postures too. I was, as I had always been here, just another student waiting for the master. And it felt good.

I was barefoot, wearing yoga pants and a breathable sports top. It felt almost like exchanging one costume for another, but at least this one had more color. The fabric shifted in gradients, indigo fading into orange as it rose from my ankles to my shoulders. Most people sat by their mats, just as I did, ready to turn their bodies into moving expressions of some concept. Cataloging their emotions and translating them into motion. Marla entered without fanfare, her hair tied up.

She wore overalls again, as she usually did, but these were new. Still clean and stiff. She stood in the middle of the room and surveyed us like an eagle in search of prey. But we all knew, by now, that there was a kind heart beneath that stern face.

"Today," she said, her voice soft but cutting through the stillness, "we will remove the constraints art has over us." Her words hung in the air like dust caught in a beam of light.

"Remove the constraints," she repeated, walking slowly between us. The sound of her bare feet brushing against the wooden floor was the only movement in the room.

"You think art is about control, about form, about knowing what you're saying. It isn't. It's about what you lose when you move." She stopped beside me for a heartbeat. Then she moved on.

"Today, you will not think. You will not try. You will let the body do what it wants." Around me, a few students exchanged uncertain looks, but none dared to speak. The air was dense with anticipation and I felt it too, that tremor before surrender. When Marla gave the signal, a ripple went through the room. Slow at first, bodies stretching, finding breath, then a gradual awakening into motion. Someone laughed; someone else sobbed quietly.

It was the kind of chaos that had no music and yet felt orchestrated by something unseen. I let my arms rise, not gracefully but as if dragged upward by a current. My breath followed, and soon my whole body was moving. Not dancing and not performing but just existing in motion. The floor was cool beneath my feet, the air warm on my skin. There was something liberating in being unobserved, even among so many. For a few moments, I forgot about Victor, the ghosts, even Joan's piercing eyes.

It was just breath and pulse, shadow and light. Marla's voice came again, distant yet grounding.

"Don't chase the meaning. Let it find you." And it did. When I stopped moving, I was trembling, and my throat ached as if I'd been shouting all along. My art had been as much a prison as it was a promise of freedom. I looked at the world through a prism of meaning, of hidden concepts and truths—just like Joan had noticed—always searching for an angle. It was good, and it was bad, but it lay within my authority as a human to decide which one it would be. And so far, how had I treated art?

As a wall between me and the dark world, as a pair of lenses, and lately, most of all, as a tool. And those tools had been caging me in more and more instead of offering freedom. This simple exercise reminded me that art doesn't need to do anything but exist. Movements instead of designs. Chaos instead of order. Less verisimilitude, more imperfection. Fewer walls, more windows. I still thought of myself as a thief who made art to survive. I had just changed the thief for a mage, hadn't I?

I used art as a shield when it could have been a bridge, a window or a door. I felt something crack within me after that realization. A good crack, a wall being torn down. I didn't need to surround myself with art to protect myself; I should be the one offering art to the world. I was an artist first, and all the other things second. And I should see myself as just that.

My text in art professor, Emilio Harnett, was electrified today. He must have read something that positively set his mood, because he was smiling when he entered the book-filled space. I disregarded my usual seat by the window. There was no reason to always think of protection, to always be careful. I wasn't a common thief anymore. There was a light of creation within me now, giving me strength for once, and a willingness to open myself, to offer my insight and creative process to the world.

It was a seed newly planted, but one that had to be carefully cultivated whenever I could. So I moved closer to Emilio's desk, toward the seats that usually remained empty for fear of drawing his attention. Today, I didn't care. I'd faced worse than the interest of an old artist who dealt in truths wrapped in words.

"An unexpected change, Alexandra. I thought you'd seek shelter after such an absence, not the spotlight," he said as his very first words, opening his notebook and adjusting his glasses. It felt good that someone had noticed my absence.

"What say you in your defense?"

"It will sound pretentious, Professor, but I'll say it anyway. The world called and I answered."

"Did you set it right?" he asked, curiosity and a restrained laugh in his tone.

"No, but we're still on speaking terms." And he laughed, fully this time.

"You see?" He turned to the rest of the group.

"That's what I call a good use of words. Not a common 'I was sick, Professor Harnett,'" he said, focusing on a guy named Joshua, who tended to skip classes now and then.

"I hope you'll enjoy today's task, my dear pupils," he continued.

"It's a difficult one. Very much so. I am a blind man today, but I have reached out to each of you for help. I want to see, just once, before I'm gone from this world. Help me understand the colors, the spectrum, white and black too. Let me see them through your words." A murmur moved through the class like a wave across a stadium. I held my ground. I liked the task. It was something that would challenge me without forcing me into my usual mediums.

"You have half an hour," he said.

"Then we'll read, recite, or talk. One by one. The form is up to you. You can share ideas, you can ask me how I feel, how my dog is doing. Whatever you need. Just have it done when the time is up." Shadowlight expressed itself in colors of many hues, each one connected to my emotions as closely as the paints I used to create. There was no point in describing colors to a blind man through the prism of objects, they had to be metaphorical, bound to emotions, memories, sounds, and states of being.

I felt poetry was the only honest way to go. Something simple. Words could never carry the full meaning of an image. Whether there were thousands of them or just ten. So pretending otherwise would be dishonest, even insulting to the listener, to the blind man.

I was the last to recite. The most difficult position, since everyone else had already had their turn, and presenting something truly new now was nearly impossible. And I had to admit that there were some good interpretations today. A girl at the end sang a song that built not only on words but on tone, warmth, and distance. I liked it. Many others went the emotional route as I had, weaving connections between feeling and color. But that didn't matter to me.

Art wasn't a competition, there was no medal to be won here, only truth to be shared. The truth of what I saw, that could be given voice. So I stood up and began to read: Red The heartbeat's fire, the spirit's start, a flame that speaks the will of heart. Orange A laugh of warmth, a fearless hue, where courage burns, yet kindness grew. Yellow The spark of thought, the golden spin, where joy begins and thoughts begin. Green A breath between both sky and ground, where calm and endless life are found.

Blue A song that drifts through mind and air, a peace that aches, yet keeps you there. Indigo The dreamer's ink, the soul's retreat, where silence hums and shadows meet. Violet The final sigh, the mystic's tone, where endings bloom and seeds are sown. White The waiting page, the breath before— it holds all light, yet asks for more. Black The hush when every voice has gone, where light sleeps deep, yet still lives on.

Emilio stood in contemplation as I finished the task he had given us, but I wasn't done, not entirely. Colors are how we see light, but light itself has more to it than we humans perceive. So I continued, offering him the colors unseen: Infrared A warmth that whispers through the air, a secret glow that's always there. Ultraviolet Too pure to see, too fierce to name, it crowns the dark with hidden flame. X-ray It knows the bones beneath the show, the truth of forms the eyes don't know.

Radio A drifting song through time and space, a voice that lingers, lost in grace.

"A touch of poetry to make an old man's heart flicker a bit at the end? I liked it, Alexandra. The last four especially. I asked for a spectrum, didn't I? And you delivered. But the white spoke to me the most. White. Always asks for more. That is the truth. Never enough words to satisfy that beast."

"No colors either, Professor," I answered.

"Indeed. Maybe one day, my dear students, you'll invent new colors then. I wish you that. That'd be an achievement, wouldn't it?" He said it with equal parts wonder and mockery, and yet I found myself wondering if it could ever be possible.