Elya took exactly six steps into Classroom 9-Z and broke three unspoken rules.
First: she didn't bow to Instructor Rask.
Second: she sat on the stone table, not the seat.
Third: she spoke before being spoken to.
"Where's the one who broke the sky?" she said.
Her voice wasn't arrogant. It was precise. Like she'd already measured the reactions and found none of them interesting.
Everyone turned toward Callum.
He looked up from his notes.
"I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"Not yet," Elya replied. "But I know your Lie. I walked under it this morning. The clouds were arranged like false hieroglyphs."
Harlan coughed softly.
Rask raised an eyebrow. "Miss Elya, this is not—"
"I'm not staying," she interrupted. "I'm auditing. The Department of Meta-Integrity approved it. Ask the Chancellor if you need to confirm."
She produced a tiny parchment from her sleeve and flicked it into the air. It hovered. Shimmered once. Then vanished.
Callum stared at her.
Not because she was strange—everyone in 9-Z was strange.
But because her aura was silent.
Not weak. Not absent. Just void. Like a song that refused to be heard.
After class, Elya found him by the glass fountain.
She didn't ask permission before sitting beside him.
"You rewrote a layer," she said.
Callum nodded once.
"You remember the sky before?"
He nodded again.
She studied him.
"I can't believe in things. It's a condition."
"That's not a real condition."
"It is now," she replied, echoing his own words from days ago.
Callum narrowed his eyes. "You're not from the Core."
"No," she said. "I was born in the Mindless South."
"That's a myth."
"Exactly," she said. "You lie things into existence. I lie things out."
He looked at her hand.
There was no mark.
But a strange shimmer followed her fingers as she moved—like light refracting through disbelief.
"You're a Null?" he asked.
She smirked.
"That's what they call me. I prefer Denier."
They walked the northern path together, past the overgrown vaults and broken illusions that students no longer trusted. Elya moved like a shadow, always slightly behind him, never startled by the random bursts of magic that triggered around the training halls.
"You know what happens to your kind," Callum said quietly.
"Do you?"
"You unravel systems. You kill belief. You erase spells just by standing near them."
"Correct."
"That's dangerous."
"Also correct."
Callum stopped walking.
"So why are you here?"
She turned to him, eyes flickering violet for a breath, then returning to grey.
"Because something worse is coming. And I need someone who lies better than I erase."
Later that night, he asked Elly what she knew about Nulls.
"Nothing official," she said. "Because all the official documents forget themselves."
"That's not helpful."
"Exactly. Nulls aren't immune to magic. They're allergic to certainty. If something's too established—too trusted—they can tear it down just by not believing."
"Sounds like a curse."
Elly looked away. "The Academy exiled three of them last year. One unmade the East Stairwell."
Callum winced. "That's why it loops now?"
She nodded. "You go up and end up earlier. I climbed it once and was late to class before it started."
He tapped his mark.
"She said she can't believe anything."
Elly shrugged. "Maybe you're the first lie strong enough to stick."
Elya met him again the next morning with a question.
"Do you want to break the Rulebook?"
He blinked. "Which one?"
She held up a copy of the Student Codex, leatherbound and glowing faintly.
"Page one," she said. "Line one."
He opened it.
Magic is the will of the world shaped through understanding.
He looked up. "You want to… rewrite that?"
"No. I want to disprove it."
Callum sat down slowly.
"That's a Foundational Principle."
She nodded. "Exactly."
He stared at her.
"That would unravel half the spells on campus. Including the ones holding the wards together."
"And?"
"And it's a bad idea."
She smiled.
"You think too much like someone who believes in consequences."
The truth came two days later.
Elya didn't just want to challenge a principle.
She wanted to remove it.
Completely.
They met in the Echo Chamber, a disused spell-practice dome that refracted sound into endless patterns. Elya stood in the center, hands behind her back.
"I found the anchor," she said.
Callum stepped closer. "Anchor?"
"Every principle has one. An object or phrase or moment the system uses to reaffirm itself."
"And this one?"
She held out a shard of dark crystal.
"It's a Thought-Knot. Bound in the Founder's own handwriting."
Callum felt sick.
"That's dangerous even holding it."
She shrugged.
"I need you to lie."
"To what?"
"To this."
Callum swallowed.
"Elya… if I lie to that and it believes me, the system breaks."
"I know."
"And if it doesn't—?"
"It'll break you."
He held the Thought-Knot in both hands.
It pulsed with ancient memory.
Words flared in his head—understanding, shaping, command.
He whispered, "Magic is random."
[Lie] activated.
Target: Conceptual Artifact — Thought-Knot
Belief Level: Resisted
Conflict detected…
Secondary source present: Denial Field
The mark on his palm screamed.
But something else… held.
Elya stood beside him, aura flaring with absence.
The Knot shuddered.
Then cracked.
A single line split the core.
And Callum saw, for the first time, what a world without certainty looked like.
Spells twisted in the distance. Runes inverted. Lights flickered between realities.
A few students screamed.
Some remembered.
Most did not.
And in the middle of it, Elya stood with a smile so small it felt almost real.
"We broke it," she whispered.
Callum swayed.
"Was that… the right thing to do?"
Elya didn't answer.
But the sky, for the first time in weeks, clouded naturally.