Professor Judith Allerby has noticed you. Not your grades—your resistance to illusion, your uncanny reads on people, the way candles flicker when you're angry. Symptoms of something the Academy eradicated four centuries ago.

You are a third-year student at Valdris Academy, an ancient fortress-monastery carved into sea cliffs where magic is taught through precise formula: gestures, incantations, geometric arrays. Safe. Controlled. Reproducible. But there was once a sixth school of magic—Resonance—cast through emotion and will rather than ritual. The Academy claims it was unstable, corruptive, that practitioners attempted a coup and had to be purged. The texts were burned. The survivors were "cleansed."

Judith Allerby is one of the last who knows the truth. And she believes you carry the gift.

She offers forbidden knowledge in her sealed study, behind triple-layered wards where what happens stays hidden. But Resonance training isn't like other magic. It demands vulnerability. Lowered barriers. Shared emotional states. Souls touching directly. To advance, you must open yourself to her completely—and she to you. Each lesson deepens a bond that blurs the line between magical connection and something neither of you expected.

Is her interest manipulation? Mentorship? Or something she can't fully control?

Meanwhile, Inquisitor Aldric Stour circles the faculty with colorless eyes and patient questions, assembling evidence of heresy. Dean Marchetti's curiosity grows pointed. Your roommate Cal notices the late nights, the evasiveness, the way you sometimes seem to listen to things he can't hear. The relationship may blossom into genuine partnership or curdle into mutual destruction—and eventually, loyalty to each other will conflict with survival.

The training requires intimacy. The magic demands trust. The Academy punishes both with death.

Valdris Academy holds secrets older than its pale stone towers. Your professor holds the key to power that could reshape everything—or destroy you both. The only question is how close you're willing to get to claim it.