Lexie's first official class was Extraterrestrial Politics with Professor Ta-Ron-No, Builder of Brains.

Lexie was curious about the moniker attached to his name and figured it was some kind of nickname.

Upon meeting, however, she realized that her Professor was Fae, and Builder of Brains was most likely his official title.

She walked into class, saw him, and immediately froze in the doorway.

"Move," someone behind her said, annoyed, and she stepped out of the way, still staring at the male who was humming while he neatly organized a pile of books on his table, running his fingers over them and sighing with fond reverence.

He was definitely Fae. He stood at nearly seven feet tall and had the trademark long, white hair and pointy ears. His skin was shiny and stretched smooth, his eyes wide-set and almond-shaped, his nostrils slits. He even had webbed fingers. Rather than the traditional Fae garb, he was wearing human clothes, a tuxedo of all things, complete with a bowtie.

When he noticed Lexie staring, his thin lips stretched, flashing sharp teeth, and he said, "Hello. You must be Lexie Sparrowfoot. I was told I would be having you join my class every one or two weeks."

"Uh. Yeah." Lexie had never been up close and personal with a real Fae before, so she wasn't sure how to act. "At least for the first month."

"Excellent. Well, to introduce myself, I am Professor Ta-Ron-No, Builder of Brains. I am the third of the No lineage, a second-generation Ha-Rit, which means that I'm descended from Fae with a small amount of human DNA spliced inside them. As such, I am a viable candidate for Earth Ambassadorial work, and while the competition is quite stiff this year, I'm aiming high and indefatigably toiling at building my knowledge of human culture, increasing my charm, and maximizing my attractiveness to the human species. In my spare time, I also help to build young human brains to more effectively work with other alien creatures." He took a break. "I could give you more information about my lineage, but I'm afraid that would take the entirety of class time, and I've already been gravely warned not to do that again."

"No, that's okay." That was already probably more information than she needed, but it was nice to know, and she already knew Fae struggled with being too verbose. She didn't want to get him in trouble. "So I can just sit anywhere, then?"

"Yes, of course." He gestured to the desks. "The world, as they say, is your clam."

"Oyster." At least two other students corrected, sounding amused and tired.

"Ah." He slapped his forehead like he'd made a silly mistake. "The other mollusk. I always mix that up. It seems as I build your brains, you must also build mine."

Lexie sat and had a feeling this was going to be an interesting class.

Ta-Ron-No taught the class the Fae way, using stories to make his points. Today, he was telling the story of the First Elven migration, and during the lecture, he also dropped tidbits about himself. From what Lexie could surmise, he attended a prestigious academy on the Fae planet, and teaching here was kind of a thesis project for him, or some form of humanitarian work that would look good on his application to be a Fae Ambassador.

He reminded Lexie of a more enthusiastic and verbose Elvira; however, he seemed very proud of his human side, or at the very least, he was excited to talk about it, given how often he brought it up. It reminded Lexie of a kid at her school in New York who discovered they were one-twelfth Native American and found a way to casually bring it up in every conversation.

Or maybe Ta-Ron-No did that so they could relate to him better?

Whatever it was, he used a lot of human idioms and made pop culture references, although most of them were wrong, and he had to be corrected multiple times.

As far as Lexie could tell, the students liked him, often teasing him and sharing jokes about the stories he would tell. They seemed less interested in the cultural and historical knowledge he imparted and more in seeing how many long-winded tangents they could make him go on before he caught himself and got back to the point of the lesson.

Today, it was six.

All in all, Lexie enjoyed that class. Since she was trying to understand as much about Fae intent as possible, she figured she needed all the help she could get, and decided to attend class the next week too, though she didn't have to.

The second class she had that week was herbology, which she didn't have to go to, but chose to go to anyway.

Once again, she was in for a shock. She walked into the herbology lab greenhouse and came face to face with a huge troll creature standing behind the teacher's desk.

Her first instinct was to scream and jump back.

The troll also jumped back, blinking at Lexie like she was crazy.

"Jeez," it said in a low voice. "Don't scare me like that."

"Sorry." She slapped her hand over her mouth and took another step back, but noticed that the troll was wearing an apron and gardening gloves. It also wasn't as big as other trolls she'd seen and didn't have beady eyes glazed over with rage, even though it was frowning at Lexie.

At that point, she understood she'd offended him and rushed to apologize. "I'm sorry. I'm just…I didn't expect…"

"That your professor would be a troll?" His hurt expression was mingled with a sad smile. "I understand. I get that reaction all the time."

"Right." Lexie felt rotten for inadvertently slighting him. Of course, she knew there were trolls living and working in other parts of Earth, most prominently in Districts 5, 6, and 7. She'd just never expected to meet one of them

"I suppose this was your first time talking to a troll," he asked in a very gentle tone.

"Erm…something like that." She didn't know if Library trolls counted, and even if they did, she didn't want to disclose her association with the less-than-savory organization. "I didn't know that trolls could teach."

The troll's eyebrows flew up, and someone gasped. Lexie immediately understood she'd said something extremely rude. Her face heated. Oh gosh, she just couldn't stop putting her foot in her mouth, could she?

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean it like that, obviously, I know trolls can be very intellectual creatures. I mean, there are Library Trolls and everything–"

He stiffened even more. "Not all of us are like those criminals." He spat out the last word like it was a curse.

Shoot, she'd made it worse.

"Oh yes, of course. I'm not saying that you are, I'm just saying that…you know, I know that trolls aren't all mindless, raging beasts and that they can be teachers or gardeners or librarians or whatever they want really and…I'm so sorry, Professor, I'll just shut up now."

He finally cracked a smile. "It's alright. As I understand it, you're from Hovelton, correct?"

She nodded, sealing her lips together so that she didn't dig herself into an even deeper hole.

"I doubt you meet other alien species in a place like that."

"No, we don't," Lexie said, and it suddenly occurred to her that, right now, she appeared very much like a small-town, racially insensitive hillbilly who just transferred to a school in the big city. There was one of those per year back at her school in New York. Everyone here probably thought Lexie was a big-time racist or an anti-alien conspiracy theorist like Frank.

To be fair, maybe she was complicit in that because she'd often heard Frank say a lot of rude things about other species and she'd rarely jumped in to correct him, because she'd never considered the other species would be hurt by those types of assumptions.

Gosh, I am a small-town, racially insensitive hillbilly, aren't I? Why did I just realize that?

Yeah, that was definitely messed up of her. She had to do better.

"You can have your seat, Lexie Sparrowfoot," the professor said, and Lexie nodded and hurried to sit down. Luckily, there were only four other people in the lab to see that embarrassing display, including Lexie's estranged roommate Clara, and a boy with very oily hair and a silver choker around his neck that looked kinda like a Tilling Band.

Why did he have that?

Lexie didn't know, but when he caught her looking, he blushed and hunched over, like his entire body was trying to crawl into itself.

"Sorry, I'm late," another student walked in. She was a second year, judging by her robes, a very beautiful, dark-skinned girl with her hair in two braids down her back. Her hair bounced as she walked. "Featherworth went on and on during that last period, and I'm too nice to tell him to shut up."

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"Of course." The professor smiled fondly at her. "You sit next to the new girl, Flora. We're working on Pinehearts today, and she's gonna need help catching up. You're the best person for the job."

"Stop. You flatter me."

"Only on Thursdays."

They both chuckled at the inside joke, and Flora came over and swayed onto the stool beside Lexie, swinging her sack-like bag on the counters. She had an earthy scent to her and tiny flowers braided in her hair.

She winked. "Heya. How's it going?"

"Good," Lexie was intimidated by the girl's potent extroversion, especially after what happened. "Um, I'm–"

"Lexie Sparrowfoot. I know. I think everyone at school knows who you are."

"Right." Lexie sighed. "Is it that bad?"

"Well..." She shrugged weakly. "It's good and bad depending on who you ask. You're a popular AFC fighter who saved the day, but also may have been the reason the day needed saving, because you may have helped your dad set up the crime scene in the first place. You can sense dungeons and are probably a genius, but you're also only just a C-Rank Card Mage, so how great can you really be? Additionally, you're a [Hero] student whose dad used to be a [Hero] but is also a [Villain]. Not to mention you won an impressive match, but also tortured a girl half to death." She tapped her fingers. "That's just a few of the conversations I've overheard. As you can see, a lot of paradox."

Lexie sighed again.

"It helps if you pretend to be above it all," Flora said. "Just stick your nose up and ignore everyone. That makes you seem like you own it, and owning it makes you seem cool."

Lexie snorted. "You talk like you're speaking from experience."

"I am." She squared her shoulders and assumed a haughty countenance, looking down her nose at Lexie. "Or did I not formally introduce myself as the great family disappointment, Flora Groundsmage of the District 3 Groundsmages?"

"Aha!" Lexie exclaimed, and it drew the professor's attention again. He raised his eyebrow, and she gave an apologetic wave, for which he only shook his head and went back to prepping his table.

"Of course," Lexie continued, speaking to Flora in a significantly lower tone. "I knew you looked familiar. You look like your brother."

"So I'm told." Flora's brother Thunder was a famous Hero. He was on Theo's team, and they worked together often, so he was in the news a lot.

"You look like your mom," Flora responded.

"You knew my mom?'

"Not really, I just saw her once or twice," she said. "She was friends with Stella, right? My dad and I were visiting Stella when they had their big, blow-out fight. We watched your mom storm out."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Luckily, Flora didn't continue with that thread of conversation since it was obvious that Lexie wasn't entirely comfortable with it. There was a moment of silence, and then she cleared her throat and said, "So, Pinehearts."

Lexie gave her a grateful smile. "Pinehearts."

The class was pretty much free-styled, as the professor gave each person a list of instructions and then left them to explore the concept and the plants on their own with their partners. Lexie and Flora spent the next five minutes talking about Pinehearts, a vital ingredient for making a variety of potions with a complex mechanism that affected muscle coordination. Lexie wasn't necessarily interested in the topic, but she found herself paying attention anyway, just because of how Flora described them. She had a way with words, a natural charisma, and it was clear from the way her eyes glowed that she was very passionate about the subject.

"I wanted to be a healer, but I awakened with an earth affinity instead," she explained. "My grandmother was a healer, and I wanted to be just like her, even though I saw how much it wore down her body."

"I'm sorry," Lexie said.

"Don't be," she said. "Grandma is still alive and kicking, seventy years young. In fact, she's one of the oldest healers ever seen in recent history."

"That's amazing. Good for her."

"Yup, and she did it by being smart." After a single pause, Flora leaned in to whisper the next part. "My grandmother isn't just a healer. She's also a skilled medicine woman. It was a sacred art passed down from her great-great-grandfather, who brewed potions for the sick long before the Fae came and made indigenous potion-making illegal. Grandma still uses those ancient techniques, though, and rarely uses her healing powers most days. Instead, she opts to save people with the sacred potions and prays to the Guardians for help and insight."

"Hold on, isn't praying to guardians...illegal?"

"Yup. It's kind of a family secret. I'm only telling you because I don't think you'll tell anyone because...well…"

"My dad's a villain."

"That and you seem like the open-minded sort. That's the type that usually ends up in this class even though they don't have to be."

"Thanks," Lexie said, pleased at the compliment. "So, you wanna follow in your grandma's footsteps?"

"Yup. Since I couldn't become a healer the system way, I can just do it this way."

"Do your parents know?"

"My mom knows, and she's not exactly happy about it. As for my dad..." She pursed her lips. "I have six brothers, and he's much more focused on them than he is on me. They're all [heroes] or warriors or knights and that's the type of thing my father respects. He doesn't care what I do right now. He'll probably only remember my existence when it's time to marry me off or something."

"Marry you off?"

"Yeah. Arranged marriages are kind of big where I'm from, but I have five good years until I have to worry about it."

"Oh wow." Lexie was awash with sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. As long as he's not a complete asshole, I don't care who I marry. Romance is overrated anyway."

Lexie could agree with that, but she still wasn't sure how she felt about the concept of an arranged marriage though.

"I'm doing something similar," Lexie said. "Not the marriage, but the healer thing. Well...not really that too, but more so finding a workaround even with me not being a healer. See, I'm from Hovelton and there aren't a ton of healers there, so I thought maybe I could help solve that with card magic."

Flora tipped her head curiously. "How?"

"I want to craft healing cards."

Her eyes turned wide as saucers. "You can do that? What the heck are you doing here then?"

"Not yet," Lexie laughed. "Everyone pretty much tells me it's impossible, but I'm not giving up hope. I bet there's an answer there somewhere in the ether."

Flora frowned in thought and tapped the table. "You know I'm shadowing a healer next month for a couple of days. I can ask them if you can come with me."

Lexie's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Sure. I don't see why not?"

Lexie grinned. "I think you just became my new favorite person, Flora Groundsmage."

Flora chuckled. "You're not so bad, yourself."

And just like that, it was a date.

Lexie was in a good mood for the rest of the week, and during the start of the next week too. She had a dungeonology class and a hero helper session, but those were less interesting than her first two classes. Dungeonology was currently teaching stuff Lexie already knew, the origins of dungeons and ongoing safety. Hero-helper relations were like an extended HR course. She paid attention, just barely, to ensure she didn't miss anything important.

But she looked forward to her next Extraterrestrial politics class with Ta-Ron-No the most, and it didn't disappoint.

He came to class that day, sighing, his unconventional features twisted in melancholy.

"I am sorry I can't be my usual jovial self, class," he said. "I have received terrible news."

"What is it?" A first-year called Isobel asked.

"My cousin twice removed Ash-Ran-No teaches at Warwick College, and reportedly, the humans like his class immensely. He has gained more charm and likability points than I. He might level up before I do and steal the ambassadorial spot right from my nose."

"Wait, that's not fair. Warwick folks are impressed by anything," Ian, a boy with a backward baseball cap on, said.

"Yes, but it doesn't matter. All human joy is measured on the same scale. Our Fae overlords are exceedingly happy with my cousin."

"We like you a lot too," a quiet girl called Dani said. "Tell them we like you more like Ash-Ran."

"But you have not met Ash-Ran."

"We'll probably meet him at the next inter-school games," Ian said. "And we promise not to like him more than you. If you want, we can put laxatives in his coffee."

"No. Sabotage is not allowed by the Fae court."

"Yeah, that's why you're not sabotaging. We are."

Ta-Ron-No appeared to think about it and said, "But if I know about it, and don't report it, that would make me an accomplice to the sabotage, no?"

"No. Just don't say anything."

"That would be deceitful."

"It's not like really lying if you think about it," Isobel said. "It's selective truth-telling."

"I see."

They discussed it for a long time, but Ta-Ro-No ultimately vetoed it because they couldn't find a way to assure him that he wouldn't be complicit, and ultimately, the deceit would be too heavy a burden on him.

Following that, they discussed the establishment of the ambassador system after the first Fae-Orcan war, and Lexie went up to Ta-Ron-No after class to seek more information about the experiments they did, splicing Fae with other species in order to create these ambassadors.

"Why was that necessary?" she asked.

"Oh, simple," he said. "To ensure interspecies goodwill, to simplify communication between other species and the Fae, and to streamline intent."

That last one got her attention. "How?"

"Hmm. That's too long to discuss in the short time we have. You better go now, you don't want to be late for your next class. You know what they say, the late dog catches the worm." He frowned. "No, that's not right, dogs don't eat worms. I meant to say that the late dog catches the…bone?"

"Close enough," Lexie said, grinning at him as she walked away.

Mostly, even with Torin's psychotic training regimen and the occasional whispering behind her back, Lexie had a good enough first week. The only problem was that she still had the constant feeling of being watched and talked about wherever she went. She was tired of it, but she resolved to take Flora's advice, to stick her nose in the air and ignore it.

Naem had not appeared in her dream again, and she didn't know if it was because it was taking him that long to draw up the contract or if he got busy again.

The bullies hadn't bothered her either, but Lexie knew better than to think they'd given up on her.

She was proven right on Wednesday when she was getting lunch in the dining hall.

As she scooped her peas, she wasn't paying much attention to the conversation around her, but then it got obnoxiously loud. They were talking about an end-of-the-year party that Rufina was throwing, and it was supposed to be the best thing ever. Lexie hadn't been listening until she heard Rufina's name, and when she looked up, she understood that they'd been talking specifically so she would hear them.

And now that she had, a mixed group of five girls and boys also in line for the peas stared at Lexie in anticipation, as though waiting for a response.

Lexie blinked at them because she wasn't sure what response they wanted her to give.

Then she shrugged and turned to walk away.

"Where are you going, murderer?"

Irritation prickled down her spine.

Someone grabbed her hand tightly, and she felt the skin-like substance wrapping around her hand again.

Oh no, you don't.

This time, she was ready.

Before it could cover her palm, she drew her card and activated it.

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