Francis's companions behind him grew curious as well and asked, "You know this old guy?"
Francis was not so sure himself. Over the past few months he had run into most of the old acquaintances who had come out of the tower war alive—including that insufferable Elliot and that neither-human-nor-ghost Frank—but for the life of him he could not recall who the man before him was.
"Has Mordo Tower sunk this low? They'll keep even an old relic like this in the academy?" Laughter erupted from the Monte Carlo apprentices.
In truth it was not only them: even among Mordo Academy's newly accepted apprentices, most did not know James. For a long time now James had stayed inside Adam's laboratory and rarely gone out, and he no longer took on any instruction of the new apprentices. In the academy he had become practically invisible.
Francis cut off his companions' jeering. He and the few strongest among them could sense the unmissable waves of energy coming off James. Obscure, yes, and with no elemental aura to be felt in them, but in sheer quantity they were not much weaker than their own.
"Who exactly are you?" Francis asked again.
