Chapter 652: Ceremony Concluded

“Moony.”

The single word landed in the hall with such familiarity and shameless disregard for ceremony that several students visibly blinked.

Mystica stopped mid-sentence.

Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head.

Magnus Yaer had risen from where he stood among the authoritative figures, clearly having reached the absolute limit of how long he could force himself to remain professional.

He looked completely unconcerned with the fact that he had just interrupted an official closing address before the entire academy.

“Is it about time to wrap this up or what?” Magnus called, sounding almost offended by the length of the formality. “I can’t take it anymore.”

A few students stared.

Some of the faculty looked utterly unsurprised.

Magnus continued as if nothing about this was remotely improper.

“The refreshments aren’t going to utilize themselves,” he declared, gesturing broadly toward the far side of the hall where the prepared tables waited. “And more importantly, the kids are hungry. They’ve seen what they needed to see. They know their ranks. They’re promoted. Wonderful. Excellent. Inspiring.”

He then looked out at the students with exaggerated seriousness.

“So tell me—am I wrong?”

The hall, caught between formality and disbelief, remained silent for a second.

Magnus threw a hand out dramatically toward the refreshments again.

“Do you all or do you not want to eat?”

At first, no one answered.

Most students clearly had no idea whether responding to that question during an official ceremony was a terrible idea.

Then, from the first-year section, Dylan’s voice rang out fearlessly.

“I’m hungry!”

The response cracked through the hall with such timing that it nearly shattered the last of the tension holding the room together.

A few students looked horrified.

Others looked like they were trying very hard not to laugh.

Magnus, on the other hand, lit up immediately.

“See?” he said, pointing triumphantly toward Dylan. “That one gets it!”

He looked back toward the stage with the air of a man who had just decisively won an argument no one else had agreed to participate in.

“I’m right,” he declared. “So things should get moving.”

There was no missing the energy shift that followed. Even some of the tighter-faced faculty members looked resigned rather than displeased. Magnus, by that point, had dragged the ceremony as close to humanity as it was going to get before its end.

Mystica, to her credit, did not look remotely flustered.

Instead, a slow smile spread across her face.

“I knew,” she said with elegant calm, “that you would not remain professional until the end.”

Magnus gave a completely unapologetic shrug.

Mystica turned back toward the students.

“Well,” she said smoothly, “since Sir Magnus has made such a compelling and deeply sophisticated contribution to the closing proceedings…”

A few students shifted with the beginnings of careful amusement.

“I suppose I will conclude.”

Her expression softened into something almost warm.

“To all students advancing today—congratulations. Carry your new standing well. Grow sharper. Grow stronger. And try, when possible, not to make your instructors regret investing effort into your development.”

There was a brief pause.

“This ceremony is now concluded.”

Then, with her usual grace, she added:

“You are dismissed to enjoy what the academy has provided.”

That was all it took.

The hall came alive.

Not chaotically, not at first, but with a rising wave of released energy as students finally began to stand, turn, speak, exhale, and move. The spell of ceremony loosened. Conversations broke out immediately across the rows. Third-years began stepping down to speak with instructors and classmates alike. Second-years and newly made second-years alike turned toward one another with fresh reactions to ranks, promotions, and everything in between.

The authoritative figures themselves gradually relaxed as well. Some remained near the stage. Others began moving among students. Instructors sought out graduating third-years. A few staff members moved toward the refreshment area. Conversations started forming in small circles all throughout the hall.

The far side of Beacon Hall, where the refreshments had been laid out, quickly became one of the busiest spots in the room.

Eventually, after being scattered by seating for the whole ceremony, Liam and the rest of his circle finally found themselves together again.

Dylan arrived first, naturally grinning like he had been personally rewarded by the gods for surviving the ceremony. Maxwell joined shortly after, followed by Charlotte, Ariana, Sheila, Asher, and Liam. There was an immediate sense of familiar ease in being gathered again, even if the topic now hanging around them was one impossible to ignore.

The rankings.

“Well,” Dylan said, looking around the group with a grin that already promised trouble, “this is pretty wild.”

Maxwell folded his arms lightly. “You mean the part where half the hall looked like they were about to collapse when Mystica started reading the top five?”

“No,” Dylan said. “I mean the part where our very own dark and broody problem child is now number one.”

His grin widened.

“And Sheila is number two.”

At that, he looked deliberately between Liam and Sheila with the kind of expression that suggested he was about to say something outrageous.

“Oh, this is gold,” Dylan said. “Liam, how does it feel knowing you just snatched first place right out from under royalty?”

Charlotte let out a soft laugh.

Ariana covered her smile with one hand.

Even Sheila laughed, the sound lighter and more genuine than it had been in days.

Only Liam and Asher did not join in.

Liam looked exactly as unenthused as expected.

Asher looked like he found Dylan’s existence irritating on principle.

Dylan pressed on anyway.

“I mean, seriously,” he said. “Princess Sheila, former number one, dethroned by the academy’s resident menace. That’s the kind of story people tell their grandchildren.”

“She wasn’t dethroned,” Sheila said, laughing softly despite herself. “It’s just a ranking.”

“Spoken like someone trying to cope with losing to Liam,” Dylan said immediately.

That drew another ripple of laughter from the group.

Sheila shook her head, smiling.

Then Dylan’s expression shifted—only slightly, but enough to be noticed.

He looked at Sheila a little more carefully.

“Still,” he said, his tone easing into something more sincere, “I’m really glad to see you smiling again.”

The warmth in the group changed at once.

Dylan scratched the back of his head.

“You had us worried these last two days.”

For a brief moment, the atmosphere threatened to become emotional.

Sheila’s smile softened.

Ariana glanced at her gently.

And right before the weight of it could settle too deeply, Dylan clapped his hands once and grinned again.

“Good thing Ariana worked her magic, huh?”

Ariana blinked. “Dylan—”

“What?” he said. “I’m just stating facts.”

He then raised both hands dramatically.

“Anyway, now that my emotional support duties are complete, I have a feast to attend.”

Without waiting for anyone to answer, he began backing away.

“There are refreshments over there with my name on them. Or at least there should be.”

Then he turned and made directly for the food area.

The rest of them watched him go.

Charlotte smiled faintly. “He really is impossible.”

“And predictable,” Maxwell added.

“He’s not wrong though,” Ariana said quietly, glancing toward Sheila with a small smile.

The group remained together, still talking as the hall around them filled with scattered conversations, movement, and the soft clinking of glasses and serving utensils.

Ariana, Sheila, Charlotte, and Maxwell naturally settled into more conversation with one another, their voices weaving in and out of the atmosphere with an ease that had returned more fully now that the ceremony was over.

Liam and Asher, meanwhile, ended up drifting a little away from the others almost unconsciously.

It was not coordinated.

It just happened.

The two of them stood nearby with drinks in hand, separated from the rest of the group by only a few steps, sharing the kind of reluctant proximity that neither of them openly acknowledged.

Liam took a sip from his glass.

Then paused.

He looked down at it.

“This tastes disgusting,” he said flatly.

Asher glanced at him from the side. “Did you expect it to taste sweet or something?”

Liam looked at him.

Asher lifted his own glass slightly. “It’s sour champagne.”

Liam stared at his drink again, then at Asher’s.

“Yours isn’t sour?”

“It is sour,” Asher said, sounding mildly annoyed that this conversation was happening at all. “Wine and champagne aren’t the same thing, idiot.”

There was a brief silence.

Liam considered his glass once more.

Then, without another word, he set it down on a nearby table and disregarded it completely.

Asher watched that with an unreadable expression.

For about a minute, neither of them spoke.

Then Asher finally broke the silence.

“You better not get comfortable in that number one spot.”

Liam looked at him.

Asher’s blue eyes were steady, sharp.

“Because I plan to take it.”

Liam stared at him for a moment before answering with complete calm.

“If you want it, you can take it.”

That clearly was not the response Asher had expected.

Liam continued.

“I don’t actually want anything to do with it.”

That seemed to genuinely shock Asher for half a second.

Then it irritated him.

His expression tightened immediately.

“You think that’s the point?” Asher snapped. “The rank itself doesn’t matter to me either.”

Liam said nothing.

“My goal is to surpass you,” Asher said more sharply. “That’s it.”

He leaned slightly closer, voice lowering with intensity.

“And when I do, I’m doing it with a single affinity.”

Liam looked at him for another second.

Then gave the smallest shrug.

“Whatever.”

That did it.

Asher’s irritation flared instantly.

“What do you mean ’whatever’?” he snapped. “You irritating, dead-faced bastard—can you not respond to anything like a normal person for once? I’m talking about surpassing you and you stand there acting like someone told you the weather!”

Liam let him talk.

Naturally, that only made Asher more annoyed.

“You are seriously the most infuriating kind of person,” Asher continued. “No pride, no reaction, no proper competitiveness—how the hell do you even function like that?”

As Asher kept going in the uniquely Asher way only he could, Liam’s attention shifted slightly past him and back toward the others.

More specifically—

Toward Sheila.

She was still talking with Ariana, Charlotte, and Maxwell. She was smiling now. More at ease. More present.

But Liam noticed something else too.

Even as she conversed with them, she kept stealing glances.

Not subtle ones.

Toward Percy.

The prince was some distance away, apparently caught in conversation with a few instructors, standing with his usual composed posture as they spoke to him. From where Liam stood, it was easy enough to notice that Sheila’s attention kept drifting there.

And watching that, Liam understood one thing clearly.

Their reconciliation was going to happen.

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