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Mars is usless. It was big. And bright. Written on the wall with magic so it shone like little fairies. I couldn't determine if it were supposed to hurt me. It'd be just as easy to write Mars' hair is white. Or Mars is tall. Writing facts on a wall seemed entirely useless and maybe that was the point. Writing it on the wall was as useless as me. As my powers.

Astral frowned. "Usless. Us. Less. It seems counterproductive to write on walls if one can't even spell useless."

"Right," I murmured. I had completely skipped that part of my analysis. A mistake on my part. We were to analyse everything. Leaves. Mountains. Stones. Rings in the water. And now writings on the wall with misspellings.

Of course, Astral noticed. He had The Sight. Not that anyone needed perfect sight for this particular situation, but it probably didn't hurt his spelling abilities. Or abilities at spotting spelling mistakes.

"Well, it appears someone is trying to tell you something," Astral said then and glanced at me.

"Good thing I'm a horrible listener."

He snorted and waved his hand at the wall, the writing changing. Now it read Mars is lovely. "You listening now?"

I couldn't help but smile. "I'll always listen to you."

"Perfect, because I'm rather smart, you know."

"You're not really. You're just silver-tongued."

"I'm intelligent and you know it."

"Intelligent people don't brag about their intelligence, Astral."

"Braggy people brag. I'm merely stating facts here. Like, I'm very intelligent and you're very lovely." He hooked his arm with mine and pulled me away from the wall. He patted my hand as we strolled down the hallway.

"We should go out into the gardens. You need a bit of sun, you're so pale."

"You know the sun won't change anything about that."

"Oh, lighten up, Prince of Death and Gloom and Sorrow."

I wrinkled my nose at that. I didn't think I was that gloomy. I was just serious. A serious person wasn't necessarily gloomy.

We did go to the gardens and sat in the sun. Astral kept talking about how we'd get revenge on those who had written on the wall, and I kept shooting down his ideas.

"How about we write something like... Castus has a small dick." Astral chuckled at his own terrible joke.

"How would you know that?" I asked and arched a brow at him.

He smirked at me. "Maybe he got a little drunk at a party once. And maybe he and I went skinny dipping." He shrugged.

I knew he was lying. He had never done anything without me since we were little. Especially not gone skinny dipping with Castus after or during a party. We were never invited to Castus' parties. He didn't like us, and thought I was utterly useless, hence the writing on the wall. He thought he was clever with that message, and that we might not know he was the author of it, but I could taste his magic all over it.

"You lie."

"Sure, you know that. But will the rest of the college?" He smiled wickedly.

I only snorted in response. "It's dumb to stoop to their level. If we want revenge, we should one-up them and not copy them."

"What're you thinking?"

"Castus really loves that grey rabbit fur of his."

Astral's smile widened. "It'd be a shame if something happened to it."

"A damn shame. Like if you accidentally turned it bright pink."

"Oh dear, yes, that would look quite horrific on him. It's not his colour at all."

"Not one bit."

We both snickered. It'd be fun to watch Castus lose his whole proverbial shit over something like that. But we'd be the ones who got scolded. He always found a way to involve the college staff when we retaliated. Without fail we'd get sent to the kitchen to peel potatoes. We knew the staff quite well now too.

Getting into Castus' quarters turned out to be quite the hassle. First because he barely left them that whole day. Only to go fetch food from the kitchens. He was studying for our final test, something both Astral and I should've done as well, but we needed to get in one final blow. Or Astral did. He was hellbent on getting revenge.

So, we waited. And when Castus finally left his quarters, we slid inside fast. He had a much larger room than we did. I scrunched my nose at some of his notes, detailing how to use necromancy to reanimate small animals.

"So he does play with dead things," Astral noted from beside me. "Gross."

I nodded and then turned to his bed, finding his precious fur laying on top of it. "Come on. Let's get this done and disappear before he turns up again."

Astral came up beside me again and put his hand on furs.

"Catch me," he murmured. Then he gasped and swayed, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. I caught him and lowered him to the floor, shoving my arm in his mouth, so he wouldn't bite his tongue. His visions took a harsh toll on his body and sometimes they'd last for hours. Of course, this had to happen right now. I couldn't very well move him on my own. He was too heavy, and we were too far from our room.

"Please, Astral, please snap out of it," I whispered.

His head kept jerking to the side, his entirely white eyes staring into nothing. He wasn't here. His body was, but not him. He was stuck in whatever vision he was having with no way out until it ended.

He bit down hard on my arm, and I sucked in air between my clenched teeth. That'd certainly leave a mark. A mark as many of the others. It was better to have marks on my arm, than him potentially swallowing or biting his tongue. He could choke on the blood.

I removed my arm, draping them around him instead and tried to pull him out of the room. At least we'd get caught in the halls, which wouldn't be a crime. If only my twig arms could actually haul his body out of here.

I cursed under my breath as I pulled. Astral made a weird groan and I shushed him. I didn't want him to expose us right now and sometimes he'd get loud during these visions. Once he had been singing.

I finally got him out into the hall, completely exhausted. I left him for a second to close the door and then returned to him. I pulled him up, so his back was against my chest. I put my arm in his mouth again, as he started jerking his head again.

And that's when I heard footsteps.

"Astral, please, come back to me," I whispered in his ear. His head jerked harder, and he bit down harder on my arm. I winced and realised I'd have to come up with some sort of explanation why we were even here. It was on our way to the kitchens. So, we could've gotten hungry. It wouldn't be a bad lie.

Castus came around the corner with a sandwich in his hand. He stopped and arched a brow at us.

"What are you doing here?"

"Tired," Astral groaned against my arm, pushing it away from his mouth. "I got very tired." I helped him up and he leaned against me, still groggy from the vision. "So, we took a break."

Castus looked from me to Astral and then smirked. "You got all..." he said and made a bad imitation of Astral's seizures.

"He said, he got tired," I growled through my clenched teeth.

"And then he tried to take a bite of your arm?" He nodded towards my bleeding skin.

I put my arm behind my back. "Just go to your room already."

"And miss the greatest seer's vision? Tell me, what did you see? Something vague and completely useless again? You two are without a doubt the worst mages." He laughed and went to his room stopping by the door. "I'm amazed they didn't just kill you when you were dropped off here. Would've saved them the trouble of housing you."

He didn't wait for us to respond but just closed the door after him. Astral groaned and was about to fall flat on his face, if I hadn't caught him again.

"You alright?" I asked softly.

"Bed," he murmured hoarsely.