Page 10 of The Witch & the Dragon

Still… he had her number. She’d also seemed interested in contacting him again. He grinned. They’d even taken a walk around the gardens just to escape his annoying friend, who now, of course, smirked at him from the other end of the classroom.

“Dickhead,” he mouthed to Silas, who blew him a kiss back. It was hard to stay angry with Silas, honestly. That man was unflappable.

“Remember,” Professor Viktan said, pacing around the room, his yellow eyes scanning the students, “the coursework you submit by the end of the week will count for a significant portion of your grade. If I suspect that any of you are using certain…tools to write the work for you, I will give you a zero.”

Viktan seemed to have a dislike for shapeshifters in general. Though he never quite said anything out loud, all of the men who were able to shapeshift, whether they happened to be wolves, bears, dragons, lions, or more – this teacher reserved a silent, negative attitude toward them. But since he’d never said anything actually questionable, no one could find a way to complain about him.

“Sir,” Silas said, raising his hand.

“Yes?”

“My friend Paul said that in another class, he’d completely written an assignment, but the teacher thought that he’d cheated and failed him. If you’re using those AI detectors, they don’t really work.”

“It’s true,” Viktan said, “since I’ve read enough essays and thesis in my miserable lifetime to know there’s only so many ways they can be written. But I do know your writing styles, so if something feels… off. If it is not your own knowledge… then why should I pass you on the basis that this is something you researched and wrote yourself?”

A couple of the students shuffled uncomfortably, but the rest remained rigid as if trying hard to prove that they were not guilty.

When the lesson finished, Viktan continued to hold his piercing stare on each of the students as they left, as if he could peer right into their minds and fish out their will to cheat.

While Dreadmor Academy had a high focus on magical studies, there were still some studies and essays to be written that required research and writing – and the professors were gradually learning to adapt to this new technology that was interwoven with normal school life. It meant a shakeup. It meant teachers changing the way they taught and students learning who was genuine or not.

All interesting stuff, for sure, but not quite as interesting to Tiran as finding another reason to interact with Chloe. The looming, unpleasant stuff about needing to find an updated version of the will – looking to see how feasible it was to challenge his Randall on the claims of family land without being dragged through the grinder when that second uncle also yielded far more financial power…

“Hey,” Silas said, walking beside him while another friend, Alaric, also sidled up, causing half of the corridor to be blocked as they walked down it. “That AI crap sure is getting everywhere now, isn’t it?”

“I think everyone should go back to quill and parchment, personally,” Alaric said, sweeping a hand through his permanently floppy blonde hair. No matter how many times they urged Alaric to actually cut that fringe since he pushed it aside several times an hour without fail, he insisted on keeping it. Absolutely insisted.

When asked why, it seemed he believed that this particular look was attractive to women. Okay, then.

“Quill and parchment? Just kill me now, then,” Silas said before nudging Tiran in an entirely too aggressive way. “Our boy here is finally getting some, by the way, Alaric. Can you believe it? He’s all grown up now.”

“Really?” Alaric asked, dark eyes suddenly bright. “You have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t,” Tiran said quickly. “She’s a friend. Women can be friends.”

“Yes, but this one, surely there’s a bit more than just the willingness to be friends, there?” Silas grabbed him around the shoulder and ruffled his hair, causing a mini fight to break out in the corridor as Tiran bucked.

“Look! I swear if you’re going to keep speculating like this and stating embarrassing shit in front of me and her, I will literally disown you as a friend.” He fixed the coldest stare ever personally mustered, but Silas still grinned in that insouciant way of his.

“Relax, bud. If it’s really that important to you, I’ll try my best to keep things cool for you. But… we want updates. Have you texted her yet? Are you going to meet up again?”

“Why the hell are you so interested in my personal life?”

“It’s exciting. And it’s better than… whatever’s happening over with that lame-ass uncle of yours.”

Right. Tiran’s heart clamped at the notion. Silas was, in his own way, trying to cheer him up. Maybe Silas wasn’t perfect at it. But at least he tried. Alaric, on the other hand, now folded his arms, frowning.

“From what you’ve told me about the whole situation… is it possible they might have found an updated will and just destroyed it?”

“People tend to make multiple copies for that reason,” Tiran said. “And there would usually be a record kept of such a will being updated. That’s difficult to find out, though, when you don’t know what attorney might have been used or who the executor was. It’s possible my parents updated it and went to a different notary. It’s even possible that a notary has an awareness of where the will is, but if there was an executor there, they haven’t emerged. But… the current notary and executor for the will that has emerged is firmly in my uncle’s favor. Uncle Max suspects it has been like that for a while.”

“Family politics,” Alaric spat. “I’m still convinced that some funny business happened to your parents. More than an accident.”

“Hard to prove,” Tiran said bitterly, “when they have all the hallmarks of a classic accident.”

“But they’re dragon shifters. It takes a lot to actually get them down.”

“Yes, and several thousand tons of rock did, indeed, get them down.”

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