[ENG.] Azazel - Lucifer's Son

12. The colors of magic.

# The Colors of Magic (And Other Things I Couldn't Figure Out)

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"Well, Miss." Stan's voice carried across the classroom at the exact moment I crossed the threshold, still out of breath. "Now that you've decided to join us, we can continue."

Every pair of eyes in the room swung toward me as I made my way down the aisle between the desks, doing my best to ignore the smirks and side glances from my classmates. I found my seat next to Danielle, who couldn't even be bothered to look at me — her eyes glued to the board like it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen.

"We were talking about the different colors and facets that magic can take," Dimithryus Stan continued, turning back to the board.

As he spoke, I watched him roll up his shirt sleeves — slow, deliberate movements — revealing his forearms. That's when I noticed it: black ink on the pale skin of his right arm. A tattoo. I only caught a glimpse — it looked like intricate lines, maybe symbols — before he grabbed a piece of chalk and turned his attention back to the board.

The chalk let out a faint squeak as he started drawing, precise lines crossing each other and forming a diagram.

"Magic, my dear little gnats," he said, and there was that edge of irony in his voice I was starting to recognize, "is widely believed to be the mother of all religions. But, of course—"

He paused for effect, completing a circle on the board.

"Christians and Jews don't quite see it that way."

"Why?"

Danielle's voice caught me off guard. It was the first thing she'd said since the start of class — and she was still completely ignoring the fact that I was sitting right next to her. Not even a *hi*. Not even a glance.

"Because they are so... *devout*."

The word came from somewhere deep in his chest, delivered with a tone that was almost disgusted, like the word itself left a bad taste in his mouth.

"They believe — like the self-centered narcissists they are," he went on, leaning back against his desk with an air of superiority, "that magic is an act of power that holiness can bend to its will. The truth is..."

He paused, dragging a finger along the edge of the book in front of him.

"The truth is, magic claims to impose itself *on God himself*, to use Him as a tool for its own purposes. So — they believe in entities superior to man, and they're convinced those entities can help them bring magic to its knees."

He let that hang in the air, then finished with a smirk:

"What a bunch of egomaniacs."

A ripple of laughter moved through the classroom. Stan smiled too, shaking his head as he went back to writing on the board.

I tried to take notes, but my eyes kept drifting back to him — the way he moved, confident and fluid; the tattoo that kept peeking out when he gestured; the line of his back beneath his shirt.

*Focus, Jolie.*

The hours slipped by faster than I would've liked. As much as it annoyed me to admit it, the class was fascinating. Stan had this way of explaining things that pulled you in, made every concept feel alive, tangible.

When the bell rang, my stomach dropped.

Here it was.

Two hours of after-school make-up sessions. With Dimithryus Stan. Alone.

I watched my classmates gather their stuff and file out one by one. Danielle walked right past my desk without a glance. John and Ezekiel jostled each other playfully toward the exit. Emily shot Stan a smile that was way too sweet before disappearing into the hallway.

And then it was just the two of us.

The silence that followed seemed to fill every corner of the room — thick and heavy. I could hear the ticking of the wall clock, the barely-there hum of the fluorescent lights, the sound of my own breathing, too loud.

No one else in my class had to make up the course.

Just me.

That realization set off every alarm bell in my body, a steady, insistent warning blaring in my head.

Stan was at his desk, leaning back against the edge of it with his hips, arms crossed, watching me.

Waiting.

I stood up, gathering my things with movements I tried to keep casual, and moved to one of the front-row desks. The chair scraped loudly against the floor when I sat down.

"All right, Vladă," he said, and the sound of my last name in his voice did something to me I didn't want to examine. "Let's get started. Any questions?"

I swallowed, trying to ignore the way my heart was hammering.

"Um, actually — yeah." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "What did you mean by 'the colors of magic'?"

I thought back to what he'd said earlier, before I'd walked in, when I'd missed the first part of the explanation. I started arranging my notebook and pen in front of me, just to have something to do with my hands.

Stan looked at me for a long moment. Then he brought a hand to his chin, slowly rubbing his palm across it, and one corner of his mouth curved into a half-smile.

"I thought you were paying attention, *dulceață.*"

*Dulceață.* The Romanian word for "sweetness." The way he said it — soft, almost like a caress — made me blush in spite of every effort I made to keep my face neutral.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"I was," I said — maybe too fast, too defensive. "But since I missed the beginning of your explanation, I didn't quite follow the whole thing."

I picked up my pen and paper, getting ready to write everything down, dropping my gaze to avoid his.

"Then these sessions aren't entirely pointless."

He pushed off from the desk and began walking slowly along the row of desks. His footsteps echoed in the silence of the empty classroom.

"Every day, one of you shows up here right on cue, to 'absorb'" — he put air quotes around the word — "the material you missed. Either physically or—"

He paused, and I felt him stop directly behind me.

"Mentally."

His tone was amused, almost mocking. I could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Though I don't usually run these sessions myself."

I turned slightly in my chair to look at him. He was just a few steps away, hands now in his pockets, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that knocked the breath out of me.

"So — why are you here now?" I dared to ask, surprising myself with the nerve.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then he ran a hand through his dark hair, ruffling it slightly, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower. Almost intimate.

"Because I wanted to see you. Alone."

My heart seemed to stop — then kicked back into a frantic rhythm. The air in the room suddenly felt too warm, too close.

"If this is about *that*," I said, and my voice betrayed the nerves I was trying so hard to hide, "I think it's pointless, Dimithryus."

I used his first name deliberately, trying to put some distance between us, to reestablish a professional boundary that seemed to be dissolving by the second.

"I'm not who you think I am. You've made one hell of a mistake."

The anger I'd been pushing down rose back up, sharp and stinging. I crossed my arms.

Stan shook his head, his expression unreadable.

"Forget that." He waved a hand vaguely, like swatting the topic away. "It's just — I think I'm the only one who can get certain things to actually *stick* in that head of yours."

He moved closer, narrowing the space between us. I found myself having to look up to meet his eyes.

"Don't you think so?"

And before I could answer — before I could even *think* — his hand lifted. His fingers brushed my temple, so lightly it was barely there, and yet enough to send an electric current crackling through every nerve in my body.

Strangely, the gesture didn't surprise me. Maybe because some part of me — some deep, unconscious part — had already seen it coming. Or maybe because — and this was the more likely and more terrifying theory — I had been afraid of it. Or wanted it. Or both at the same time.

But I couldn't let it happen.

"If *that's* your teaching method," I said, my voice harder than I meant it to be, "then no, I really don't."

I glared at him and pulled away sharply, the movement so sudden the chair nearly tipped over. I stood up, putting physical space between us, my back bumping into the desk behind me.

I didn't know what was pushing me to refuse. There was this constant back-and-forth inside me, a war I didn't understand. I couldn't put a name to the feeling — maybe self-preservation, or something closer to protecting myself from myself.

Part of me wanted to let go. Wanted to lean into that touch. Wanted to find out what that tension between us even *meant*. But his eyes... his eyes were telling me something else entirely.

That was the most confusing part of all.

His body was leaning toward me — open, inviting. But his gaze was cold. Distant. Dark as a moonless night. Something didn't add up. Something was setting off warning signals, screaming at me to watch myself.

Stan didn't react to my pulling away. For a moment he stood perfectly still, his hand still hovering in the air where my temple had been. Then he let it fall to his side, and something in his face closed off, hardened.

"So, as I was saying—"

He turned away from me, and started walking slowly in front of the board, arms crossing over his chest in a gesture that seemed almost defensive.

His voice went back to that professional, detached tone — as if that moment had never happened.

"Magic is identified by a handful of colors, which are capable of classifying it for what it is."

He stopped, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

"We have White magic — positive and static polarity..."

He started walking again.

"Black magic — negative polarity, also static..."

Another pause.

"And finally Red magic — mixed polarity, which makes it dynamic."

He finished by drifting back toward my desk — too close, again too close — and leaning his hips against the edge of it, looking down at me.

I tried to focus on the words, on the notes I should've been taking, but my brain felt foggy.

"What do you mean by 'mixed-dynamic polarity'?" I asked, pen hovering over the page.

Stan arched an eyebrow, and something flashed in his eyes — irritation? Amusement?

"Before you ask questions, you should listen," he said, his tone cool and sharp, "since I hadn't finished yet, Jolie."

The way he said my name — not "Miss Vladă," but *Jolie* — sent a shiver down my spine.

"Sorry..." I whispered, embarrassed, dropping my gaze to the notes I hadn't even started writing.

I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. I felt like a child being scolded. Small. Out of my depth.

"Magic, in reality, has no color at all." He picked up the thread again, his voice settling back into that almost hypnotic, instructional rhythm. "The difference lies entirely in how the practitioner chooses to use it."

He let the words land.

"Red magic is often called 'neutral,' but that's wrong. It needs to be understood as something completely separate from both black and white magic — because red magic can be used for good *or* for harm."

He leaned slightly toward me, close enough that I caught his scent — that cedar and bergamot I already knew by now.

"The choice belongs entirely to whoever uses it."

His grey eyes were fixed on mine. Penetrating.

"Consider this: it's the only form of magic with no built-in limitations — but with a very high cause-and-effect ratio. Which means whoever uses it has to be *very* careful about how they apply it."

He explained it all matter-of-factly, like he was talking about the weather, not forces capable of creation or destruction.

I started scribbling notes, trying to focus — but caught myself chewing on my pencil, a nervous habit I'd had since I was a kid.

"So it doesn't belong to any one category because it already contains all of them?" I asked, the pencil still between my teeth.

Stan looked at me, and for one second — just one — I thought I saw something like approval in his eyes.

"Exactly."

That was all he said, with an almost imperceptible nod.

Silence fell between us again. I looked at him, waiting for him to go on, but he seemed lost in thought, his gaze fixed somewhere on the wall.

"Will you be the one to teach us how to use this kind of magic?" I asked, breaking the quiet.

The question seemed to pull him back. He looked at me, and his expression shifted — closed off, hardened.

"Absolutely," he said, but his tone was cold, distant. "Though I don't think I want to. For reasons you wouldn't understand."

He paused, and a thin, plastic smile crossed his face.

"Now, if you could refrain from asking me that again — I've already answered."

There was something final in those words. A wall had just gone up.

But I couldn't let it go. Not yet.

"Can I at least ask who you mistook me for?" I ventured, my voice wavering slightly. "Who were you actually looking for?"

The shift was instant.

Stan's eyes went ice cold. His jaw tightened. His whole body went rigid.

"I don't think sticking your nosy little face into other people's business qualifies as a hobby."

The words hit me like a slap.

*Nosy little face.*

It came out of nowhere and knocked me completely sideways. I felt myself freeze in place, stuck in that small chair, unable to move, breathe, or think.

Then the fury detonated.

"I hate to remind you," I snapped, shooting to my feet, "that the one who screwed up here is *you*, Professor!"

My voice came out louder than I meant it to, loaded with an anger I hadn't known I was carrying.

"You mistook me for someone else. *You* touched me. *You* wanted to be alone with me — today too."

I slammed both palms flat on the worn desk in front of me. The sound cracked through the classroom like a gunshot.

"You are not in any position to tell me who made the mistake!"

Stan didn't flinch. He looked at me with an expression I couldn't read, then — slowly, deliberately — he spoke.

"Two little touches were enough to get your head spinning, Miss Vladă?"

His voice was calm. Too calm. Which made it cut even deeper.

"No — you are absolutely not the person I was looking for. I was *very* wrong."

A pause. The next words came out like blades.

"Girls who act like children aren't really my thing. My attention should have stayed far away from you from the start."

He gave a small, forward bow — fake deference dripping with pure sarcasm.

"My mistake."

Tears burned behind my eyes. I felt them building, ready to spill, but I wouldn't let that happen. I would not give him the satisfaction.

I clenched my jaw so hard it ached. I pressed my brows together, fighting to hold everything in — the rage, the hurt, the humiliation.

Because yes. He'd hurt me. *Deeply.*

And yes — I'd let myself believe in something I'd sensed, something I'd felt floating between us, something that clearly had never existed. It had all been in my head. Only in my head.

I stared at him with every ounce of cold fury I could pack into a single look, grinding my teeth.

"GET OUT!"

The shout made me jolt so hard I nearly fell backward.

Stan had slammed his fists down on my desk with a force that made the wood shudder. His face was inches from mine — close enough that I could see the veins in his grey eyes, now stormy, furious.

"**GET OUT!**"

My heart was hammering like it was trying to break through my chest. My hands were shaking.

I grabbed my things in a frantic, clumsy rush — notebook, pen, bag — without even looking at what I was picking up. Some papers fell to the floor but I didn't stop for them.

I ran for the door, my legs moving on autopilot, my breath short and ragged.

As I crossed the threshold, I felt his gaze burning into my back like an open flame. Heavy. Almost physical.

I didn't turn around.

I couldn't.

I ran down the hallway, the tears finally breaking free — warm and salt-stung, blurring everything in front of me.

And as I ran, one single question kept echoing in my head, over and over and over:

*What the hell had just happened?*