“Is there anyone else like you here?” I asked. “Slaves, I mean.”

Her face changed to slight anger. “Why do you want to know? Am I not big enough of a curiosity for you?”

“I want to know if there's anyone else like us.”

“Like...” She squinted her eyes and leaned forward. “You are not from Fata.”

“No, I was bought in Ester's Village. Are all slaves from Fata pure white like you?”

“Pure.” She said, as if the word didn't sit right with her. “Yes, we are all permanently spelled and potioned to look this way.”

“Why?” I asked, curious.

She huffed. “Isn't it obvious? Our white skin and hair can be easily seen no matter where we are in a crowd. We can be easily found if we try to sneak or run away.”

“Wouldn't your height and long arms and legs do that?”

The woman looked at her arms and sighed. “I was under the care of a mage that...” She shook her head. “You do not need to know what happened to me to make me end up this way.”

“I was bought by the Hag as a baby and grew up as her food.” I said and her mouth made that little 'o' of surprise. “She would fillet my chest and backside at least once a week, as well as drink my blood every few days. At least she did, until I turned ten and her experiments to change me were completed. Then I was a delicacy for her and she savoured the taste of my flesh.”

The woman stared at me and she looked like she wasn't going to say anything, then she spoke in a whisper. “What was her favorite seasoning?”

“Terror.” I said and she fell quiet again. “Are there any more slaves at the academy?”

“No, there's only me.” She said, a bit sadly. “None of the others survived when they tried to...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “They couldn't adapt to this new way of living and succumbed to their old lives and what they had lost before becoming slaves.”

I had to think about that. As I did, the woman's eyes widened and I intentionally let the thoughts of my old family out for her to see and what happened the first time I had confronted them.

“You poor boy.” She said and held a hand out to me.

I took it and she led me around the desk without getting up. In the next moment, I was on her lap and cuddled in her very long arms. She held onto me for several minutes as she spoke about the things her master had done to her and placed several kisses on my forehead and cheek as she did so.

The mage had broken both her arms and legs and stretched them out, then healed her with both spells and potions. That had added a few inches to her height and reach. The problem was that it had succeeded. So, the mage did it again and again, once a week, until her height reached nine feet. He had to stop there, or she wouldn't have been able to walk around the mage's home to perform her duties.

“At least you confronted your family.” She whispered. “I can't even tell mine that I'm still alive.”

“Why?” I asked, and she explained that she had been conditioned to never reveal who she actually was or where she had come from. All she was allowed to say was that she was a freed slave and had to use her slave name for the rest of her life, or she would suffer immeasurable pain. Her slave name was Eludora.

“I was freed as a teenager during one of the battles near the shared border between the Kingdom of Fata and the Eastern Empire.” Eludora said. “My old master was... he was a well known evil man at the time and a bunch of us were rescued when he released us and told us to run... towards the Gulf Kingdom's soldiers.”

“You were sacrifices to let him get away.” I said and she nodded. “Did they kill him anyway?”

“Oh, yes. His particular brand of magic was reviled and he was hated by everyone, even by his own countrymen. He met his end when two fireballs and a ball of lightning incinerated him.”

I knew what that meant, so I put my hand on her cheek and kissed the other. “I'm sorry that he didn't get to suffer.”

Eludora held me tighter. “How can you understand how I felt back then?” She asked me and turned her face to give me a tender kiss on the lips. “Do we have that much in common that you can guess my state of mind twenty years ago?”

“Yes.” I said. “Can we get to work? I need to get back to class before it ends.”

She raised her white eyebrows at me. “You're supposed to be in class?”

“I have Advanced Potions theory for the first afternoon class and then practical potion brewing for the rest of the afternoon. I also have detention and need to stay afterwards.”

“What happened?” Eludora asked.

“I can tell you about it while we work.” I said and she nodded.

Eludora let me go and we both stood up, then she led me across the library to the right section and we started gathering what I needed. It took us nearly the whole class to compile the lists of ingredients and their properties that I wanted and we told each other all about what we went through to arrive at the academy. Neither of us were surprised at the very different paths we had taken.

“You were lucky to find someone to do all of that for you.” I said as I packed up the dozen pages we had written out.

“So were you.” Eludora smiled as she turned to give me a hug. “I also feel lucky that we met.”

I was close to six feet tall and she was nine feet tall, so my head was three feet lower than hers. I felt like a child being hugged by an adult as my cheek rested against her stomach. When I put my arms around to hug her back, the only thing I could hold onto was her backside, so I gripped it and hugged her tightly.

Eludora laughed and held me for several moments, then she let me go. “I think next time we hug, I might have to kneel.” She bent way over to look into my eyes up close. “I'm very glad that you weren't thinking dirty thoughts.”

“Like what?” I asked.

Eludora smiled and bent over a bit more to show me her breasts. “The kind of things a man and a woman do when they are all alone.”

“You mean sex? Are those thoughts dirty?” I asked, a little confused. “I thought it was just something that two people share when they are together.”

“Yes, but...” Eludora put her hands on my shoulders. “They are considered dirty thoughts when you think those thoughts about other women when you are already with another woman.”

“Oh. I get it.” I said. “I wasn't thinking those thoughts about you. We only just met and I'm betrothed.”

Eludora leaned forward a bit to give me another quick kiss on the lips. “How can you have gone through so much and still be so innocently naive?”

“I've only been with three women.” I said.

“Yes, that explains it.” She laughed. “Now I feel very lucky.” She said and let my shoulders go. She formed her magic around herself and her hair color changed to brown with a greenish tint and her skin went back to being a normal skin tone. “Please try to be more careful with how you act in class. People like us... we never come out of any conflict well, even when we win.”

I nodded in understanding. “Could you do me a favor?”

“Of course, as long as I don't have to travel far.” Eludora said and I asked her to meet Selena at the main school building's front doors and to tell her to go to my dorm without me. “I'll head over there just before last bell.”

“Thank you.” I said and left the library while she returned to sit behind her desk and kept reading her book. I left the building and went back to the main classroom building. I used my sneaking technique and entered the classroom silently, barely made any sound as I shut the door, then I crept across the floor as if I was in the deepest part of the marsh and was hiding from the creatures there.

I made it back to my table and no one noticed me as I sat on the stool behind the desk. I glanced at the chalkboard that the teacher was writing on, and I had been right. Nearly half of the phrases written there, in both common and mage language, were phrases and ingredients that I had never heard of before.

I thought about not doing anything, then decided that I had better write down what she was giving me, because once I started studying the things I had access to, I would need to learn what all of this stuff was, too. I didn't want to be too far behind in my learning, considering I would be marked for this class and wouldn't automatically get a pass like the core classes. After a short time, the bell rang and signified the end of the theory part of the class.

“I'm not surprised that he didn't come back.” Jinelle said as she sat back in her chair to wait for the five minutes before the practical lesson would begin. “Jerks like him think they are so special...”

“Are you talking about me?” I asked and they all turned to look at me. Lorna, Jinelle, and Mage Marks gasped while Nick and the other guy just looked surprised.

“David!” Lorna exclaimed, then she took a breath and let it out. “How long have you been there?”

“A lot longer than you all thought I was.” I responded and held up my papers with the things I had written from the board.

Mage Marks had a slightly red face as she saw how much I had written down, probably because she didn't know how fast I could write. “I didn't realize you had come back.”

“I wasn't going to stay away any longer than necessary.” I said. “I always fulfill my obligations.”

“Yes, I heard that about you.” Mage Marks said and glanced at her niece. “Sometimes quite brutally.”

No one spoke after that and we sat there in silence as we waited for the bell to ring again.