Gaelira held the notebook in her hands while Octavia remained a few steps away. The red ribbon still had the knot it had been tied with when it was given to her, confirming that the body's previous owner had not even been curious enough to look inside.
Untying it made Gaelira feel strangely uncomfortable. She had not been the one who rejected that gift, but now she had to face the consequences as if she had been the one who chose to ignore it.
"How long did it take you to prepare this?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter."
"If it didn't matter, you wouldn't be looking at it like that."
Octavia looked away and began organizing the books still lying on the floor. "Two weeks. I gathered the topics that would be on the exams and rewrote the explanations you didn't understand. I thought it would be easier if you had everything in one place."
Gaelira removed the paper covering the notebook and opened it. The first page contained a color-coded index. There were sections dedicated to history, mathematics, magical theory, and rules of conduct between noble families.
Octavia had added small notes in the margins, examples, and symbols marking the most important topics. These were not notes copied in a hurry. Every page had been prepared with Gaelira's difficulties in mind.
"This must've taken you more than two weeks."
"I would've finished sooner if I hadn't needed to study for my own exams."
"And I didn't even open it."
Octavia stopped, but did not answer. Gaelira understood that an apology would not change what had happened. The old Gaelira had received plenty of opportunities and had probably made promises she never kept.
Any words would sound like another excuse if they were not followed by action.
Gaelira carried the notebook to her desk, moved several ink bottles aside, and sat down. She opened the first section and tried to recognize the concepts, although most of the names meant nothing to her.
The body's memories appeared as incomplete images: a teacher writing on a board, Octavia pointing at a page, and the old Gaelira staring out a window without paying attention.
"Ask me something," she said.
Octavia frowned. "Now?"
"I want to know how much I remember."
"You just arrived, took part in a duel, and still have half the room to organize."
"Then make it a short test."
Octavia approached slowly, as if expecting to discover some kind of trick. She took the notebook and found a page marked with a blue ribbon. "Explain the difference between internal mana and ambient mana."
Gaelira tried to find the answer among the memories of her new body. "Internal mana belongs to a person, and ambient mana is everywhere."
"Internal mana absorbs ambient mana?"
"No. Internal mana gives shape to ambient mana. Absorbing it directly can cause magical intoxication."
"One wrong answer."
Octavia moved to the next question. "Name the three elements required to construct a spell."
"Intent, mana, and..."
Gaelira watched Octavia's lips, hoping to find some clue, but the girl kept an unreadable expression.
"A wand?"
"A structure. The wand only helps maintain it."
"Two wrong answers."
"I told you I wanted to know how much I remembered, not that I expected to do well."
Octavia continued with questions about history and geography. Gaelira confused two ancient dynasties, placed a port city on the wrong side of the kingdom, and was unable to remember the name of the longest river in the region.
However, when they reached the mathematics exercises, she quickly solved several problems that had been marked as difficult.
Octavia checked the results twice. "You used to need half an hour to solve one of these."
"Maybe numbers are easier to remember."
The truth was that the methods used in that world seemed unnecessarily long compared to what she had learned on Earth. Gaelira avoided explaining that and asked for another question.
Octavia began mixing different subjects, trying to find some pattern in her knowledge. Gaelira could solve complex calculations and still fail concepts any noble should know.
Sometimes she remembered specific details without understanding where they came from, while apparently basic names disappeared whenever she tried to reach for them.
After almost an hour, Octavia closed the notebook. "That's enough. If we keep going, you won't remember anything tomorrow."
"There are still several sections left."
"We'll study them later."
Gaelira looked up. "We'll study them?"
"I wasn't expecting you to."
"And you'll have to take your own notes."
"Agreed."
"Also, I'm not going to remind you that you need to study."
Gaelira smiled. "That's starting to sound too much like another list of rules."
Octavia tried to keep a serious expression, but a small smile appeared before she could stop it.
It was brief and disappeared almost immediately, but it was enough to ease the tension that had filled the room since they arrived.
Gaelira picked up the notebook again to put it away, but several pages slipped between her fingers. While trying to straighten them, she discovered that she had not checked the final section yet.
The last page contained no exercises. Octavia had clumsily drawn Crownspire's three towers and written a message beneath them in red ink: If you ever decide to truly try, I hope we can enter Crownspire together.
Gaelira read the words in silence. The old Gaelira had never reached that page, and yet both of them were now inside the academy Octavia had drawn.
Not in the way she had expected, but they were sharing the same room beneath one of those towers.
"We made it," Gaelira said.
Octavia stepped closer and saw the open page. Her face quickly turned a shade close to her hair. "I wrote that a long time ago."
"It doesn't seem that long."
"It was stupid."
Gaelira closed the notebook before she could take it away. "It wasn't. I'm sorry she never read it when she should have, but I'm going to use it now."
Octavia remained silent for several seconds. "I'm not going to pretend everything is fixed."
"I'm not asking you to."
"But we can start over as roommates."
Gaelira extended her hand, and Octavia accepted it after a brief hesitation. It was not complete forgiveness, but it was something the body's previous owner seemed to have lost a long time ago: another chance.
The next morning, they found two schedules slipped under the door. Gaelira picked up hers and looked at the first subject while Octavia leaned over her shoulder.
Fundamentals of Magic would begin in less than an hour.
"This could be a problem," Octavia warned. "You abandoned three private tutors, and none of them managed to teach you how to produce a basic spell."