The Academy Of Space And Time

It was not as if I enjoyed spending time with Edgar or anything, but that first week there wasn't much else to do. I was beginning to befriend both Jeff and the Scottish girl, Raegan, but Edgar was the one who replied eagerly to all my questions and, even better, sometimes got lost in monologues without me having to ask in the first place.

One day, during breakfast, he told me more of the gods.

"I know humans aren't very forward-thinking when it comes to our gods, so I imagine you only know the basics," he said, even though I hadn't made a fool of myself yet. "People are afraid of what it entails --- powerful beings completely made of magic. In the council of the gods there's always been five of them."

"One for every type of Enchanter?" I guessed. "But then, who's the fifth?"

Edgar narrowed his eyes. "I guess so. The fifth... we'll get there soon enough. Set is definitely the Typhon god, to the point where the black magic practitioners probably got their name from him. In fact, the Greek thought there were many parallels between the two gods, the Egyptian Set and the Greek Typhon."

"Jeff told me Set was not the Egyptian one," I specified.

Edgar seemed even more uncomfortable by my stupidity. "Of course. That jackal you met... do you really believe it was the Egyptian Set, the brother of Osiris, who sent it? No, the gods are named for the figures in mythology that have powers similar to them, as their real names are unspeakable and throughout history humans created myths based on those figures. So, the Egyptian Set takes after our own Set, though our god was named later. And so on.

The healing god, an Enlightener, is named Asclepius. The Jurist one is Tyr and the elemental one, the Hierophant, is Eingana. She has all the powers of the elements, except for light. Tyr and Set are opposites and they always fight, because one is chaos and the other is reason.

Jophiel, instead, named after the sexless angels in Jewish mythology and not after a God, is the fifth on the council. They are non-binary and they are able to create the Void, a space that can keep you out of time and between worlds."

"Did you just say worlds? Like, the plural for world?" I asked.

"Yes," Edgar continued. "I thought you knew there were many worlds, theoretically speaking. It's what space-shifting is about."

"Thank you for telling me," I hadn't figured out yet if Edgar thought I was slow. I wanted to show him that I wasn't. At the same time, he was the only one who was giving me answers of some kind.

"During my interview I said I would have liked to do it in practice, you know, space-shifting and time-changing," I added, happy I had something to contribute to the conversation. "But the Professor got mad."

"I heard that. It would be a brilliant idea. Regardless, it was foolish of you to say that."

"I do read a lot, even if it doesn't look like it," I grinned at him. He frowned, as if he couldn't believe it. "So I am not always saying things just for the hell of it. I really believe that with teamwork and the right sets of rules we could manage to do that."

"I didn't know you were the type to work in teams, or do hard work," Edgar said with a sly smile. He didn't say it in a deprecatory or funny way. He simply stated it matter-of-factly, which somehow struck me as worse.

"Oh yes," I muttered under my breath. "Instead, you're obviously excellent at everything you try to do."

Edgar frowned, but considering the way he had treated me, I didn't think what I said was especially unfair.

"I imagine that my father would like that," he only said, uncharacteristically honest.

I was still furious at Edgar, but I decided to let it go. I knew what it was like to have parental figures who thought of you as a failure.