**Chapter 60 – Void Physics & Trickster Math**
September 12, 2029 – 1:00 p.m., The Null Spire**
The classroom is a hole in reality.
Literally.
A black spire that rises upside-down from a floating island made of silence.
Gravity here is optional, time is negotiable, and the chalkboard is a living slice of the void that eats bad answers.
Today's professors?
Kayo and Rowan.
They're standing at the front (well, Kayo is lounging sideways on thin air, nine tails flicking like metronomes, and Rowan is somehow writing equations on the void with a fountain pen that drips starlight).
There are only twelve students in the room.
Because only twelve people in the entire academy are insane enough to take this class.
The rest of us are here for the show.
The void-board currently reads, in glowing gold:
**VOID PHYSICS & TRICKSTER MATH**
**Professors: The Nine-Tailed Chaos Gremlin & The Boy Who Broke Reality With Footnotes**
**Today's topic: How to make the universe apologize.**
Kayo claps once.
The entire spire flips upside-down.
We all fall upward and stick to what is now the floor.
**Kayo (grinning like a cat who just learned tax fraud):**
"Question one:
If a storm queen traveling at the speed of spite throws a lightning bolt into a pocket dimension that technically doesn't exist yet,
where does the thunder go?"
Rowan doesn't look up from his notes.
**Rowan (deadpan):**
"It goes to therapy.
Next question."
Someone in the back (a girl with galaxy eyes and tentacles for hair) raises a hand.
**Tentacle Girl:**
"Does the thunder pay child support?"
Kayo points at her like she just won a prize.
**Kayo:**
"Extra credit.
Now watch this."
She snaps her fingers.
A perfect replica of the Sky King's broken crown appears in the center of the room, spinning slowly.
**Kayo:**
"Yesterday you six turned a throne into confetti.
Today we're going to calculate exactly how illegal that was in thirteen different planes of existence."
Rowan finally looks up, pushes his cracked glasses up his nose.
**Rowan:**
"And then we're going to make the math itself apologize for ever thinking laws applied to you."
He writes a single equation on the void.
It screams.
Then folds in on itself and turns into a tiny origami blackbird that flies straight to me and lands on my shoulder.
The void-board flashes bright red:
**ANSWER: INFINITE ILLEGAL, ZERO CONSEQUENCES**
**CONCLUSION: DO IT AGAIN**
The class loses its collective mind.
Seras is laughing so hard her armor flickers on and off.
Lucian just nods like this is the most reasonable thing he's heard all week.
Remy leans over and whispers, loud enough for everyone to hear:
**Remy:**
"Coyote Club rule number thirteen:
When your friends weaponize mathematics, you take notes and bring snacks."
Kayo bows dramatically.
**Kayo:**
"Final exam will be held whenever the universe tries to arrest you.
Passing grade: make it cry harder than it did yesterday."
Rowan closes his book.
The spire flips right-side-up again.
Gravity remembers its job.
**Rowan (quiet, proud):**
"Class dismissed.
Try not to break causality before dinner."
We walk out floating six inches off the ground, reality still hiccupping around us.
Third period is over.
And somewhere in the multiverse, a very confused law of physics just filed a complaint with HR.
College is officially ridiculous.
I love it even more.
**The Girl Who Swallowed a Galaxy**
September 12, 2029 – after Void Physics, the rooftop of the Null Spire**
Her name is Nerida Vey.
She's waiting for us when we step out onto the spire's roof, leaning against a railing made of frozen screams, eight iridescent tentacles spilling from her back like living auroras.
Her skin shifts constellations when she moves.
Her eyes are literal black holes (tiny, perfect, swallowing light at the edges).
She's wearing the standard Aerie hoodie, but the sleeves are cut off so her tentacles can breathe.
Kayo spots her first and waves like they're old friends.
**Kayo:**
"Neri! You survived Rowan's equations!"
Nerida's laugh sounds like distant nebulae colliding.
**Nerida:**
"Barely. One of them tried to date me."
She pushes off the railing and walks over (tentacles curling politely behind her so they don't knock anyone off the roof).
**Nerida (to me, soft):**
"You're Celeste Valentina Anaca Blackwing.
The one who made the Sky Court kneel."
I nod.
**Celeste:**
"And you're the girl who asked if thunder pays child support."
She grins, and for a second the black holes in her eyes sparkle.
**Nerida:**
"Guilty."
Remy tilts his head, curious.
**Remy:**
"You're not… human."
**Nerida (shrugging):**
"Not for a long time."
She sits on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over a drop that goes nowhere and everywhere.
We sit with her.
**Nerida's story (quiet, like she's telling a secret the void might overhear):**
"I was born on a moon that doesn't exist anymore.
My mother was a deep-space leviathan.
My father was a human astronomer who fell in love with the thing that ate his starship.
They say I was born during a supernova.
That I opened my eyes and the explosion just… stopped.
Froze mid-bloom.
Still hangs there today, a red flower made of fire and grief.
When I was seven (in human years), the Void Court came for me.
Said a child of star-eater and star-gazer was too dangerous to let grow.
They tried to unmake me.
I ate them instead.
Not on purpose.
I was scared.
I opened my mouth to scream and the void screamed back, and when it was over I had tentacles made of the spaces between galaxies, and the court was gone.
Just… gone.
I drifted for centuries (or seconds, time is weird when you're mostly hole).
Then Aerie found me.
Offered me a dorm room, a meal plan, and a promise:
Here, no one will ever try to unmake you again.
So I came.
I skate the void rails because they feel like home.
I take Trickster Math because Kayo gets it (chaos is just love with sharper teeth).
And I asked about thunder's child support because every time I look at you six…
I see the family I never got to have.
The one that would have fought the void for me instead of feeding me to it."
She looks at me now, eyes soft around the event horizons.
**Nerida:**
"So yeah.
I'm the girl who swallowed a galaxy because it was the only way to keep the dark from swallowing me first.
But I'm also just Nerida.
Third-year.
Void-skate team captain.
Really good at making coffee that tastes like nostalgia.
And if you ever need someone to eat a sky court for you…
I know a girl."
She offers a tentacle.
I take it.
It's warm.
And humming with distant stars.
**Celeste:**
"Welcome to the pack, Nerida Vey."
Above us, the frozen supernova she was born in flickers once (like it's proud).
The void just gained a new sister.
And she's already smiling like she belongs.
**Signal from the Outside World**
September 12, 2029 – Blackbird-Coyote Dorm, late afternoon**
The dorm finally lets mortal cell service through for exactly thirty minutes (probably because it feels sorry for us).
Our phones explode.
First comes the text.
From a number I haven't seen since senior year of high school.
**Julian Bathory**
[4:17 p.m.]
dude.
DUDE.
the entire supernatural internet is losing its shit
somebody leaked helmet-cam footage of you six wrecking the Sky Court
i just watched you surf a throne-ship on a titanium board while your boyfriend turned into a star-coyote
i need new pants
also tell Seras her dad is crying in the dojo again
proud crying
but still crying
tell her to call home before he builds a shrine
- J
I read it out loud.
Seras snorts so hard she almost drops her mochi.
**Seras:**
"Figures. Dad's probably polishing the family katana and naming it after me right now."
Next, my phone rings (actual ringtone: distant thunder).
Mom and Dad, video call.
I answer.
Mom's face fills the screen first (tear-streaked, smiling so wide it hurts).
**Mom (half-laughing, half-sobbing):**
"Mija, the news said the sky changed color over Utah and then the old Sky Court just… vanished?
And your cousin Ana swears she felt your lightning from Across the Atlantic!"
Dad leans in behind her (Romanian thunder in human form, eyes glowing soft violet).
**Dad (quiet, proud):**
"You took the sky, kid.
Your Grandmother Elowene would Be Proud."
I flip the camera so they can see all six of us sprawled across the dorm, Nerida's tentacles draped over the couch like living blankets.
**Celeste:**
"We're at Aerie Academy.
Hidden city.
Lost civilization.
Best skate park in thirteen dimensions.
We're safe.
We're home.
We're… not coming back to normal college."
Mom wipes her eyes.
**Mom:**
"Good.
Normal was never big enough for you anyway."
Dad just nods once.
**Dad:**
"Tell Remy his grandmother felt it too.
Said the wind carried your names all the way to Oklahoma.
She's proud."
Remy leans into frame, braids falling over my shoulder.
**Remy:**
"Tell her I said hi back, sir.
And that the porch swing is waiting whenever she wants to visit."
They both smile like the sun just came out.
We hang up promising weekly calls and care packages of tamales and frybread.
Next, Remy dials the Calder pack house on speaker.
Luna Calder (alpha, terrifying, secretly a marshmallow) picks up on the first ring.
**Luna:**
"Blackwing-Calder-Pack-Plus-Four-Plus-One-Tentacle-Girl, I swear if you don't tell me you're alive—"
Remy laughs.
**Remy:**
"We're alive.
We're in Utah.
There's a hidden mythic university in a lost city.
We accidentally overthrew the Sky Court on day one.
Normal college stuff."
Silence.
Then every Coyote in the background starts howling at once (happy, proud, wild).
**Luna (voice cracking):**
"You tell every single one of those idiots that the Calder pack door is open 24/7.
You need backup, a safe house, or someone to bite a god for you—
you call.
We'll bring teeth and casseroles."
Remy's eyes are wet.
**Remy:**
"Yes, ma'am."
Last call: Seras.
She dials the Nakamura house.
Master Nakamura answers (Seras's dad, ex-oni hunter, current weepy dad).
**Mr. Nakamura (already crying):**
"Seras-chan?"
**Seras (soft):**
"Hey, Dad.
Put Haru on."
A shuffle, then a sleepy ten-year-old voice.
**Haru:**
Onee-chan!
You broke the sky!
It was on TV!
Well, the secret TV.
Are you a goddess now?
Seras laughs until she can't breathe.
**Seras:**
"Not yet, squirt.
Still working on it.
You okay?
Dad treating you right?"
**Haru:**
"He made a shrine.
There are candles.
And your old middle-school photo where you have the bowl cut."
Seras groans.
Mr. Nakamura in the background, yelling:
**Mr. Nakamura:**
"That photo is motivational!
It reminds her to never give up!"
Seras wipes her eyes, smiling.
**Seras:**
"Tell Dad I love him.
Tell him I'm safe.
Tell him… I finally found the place that's big enough for the fire."
Haru whispers:
**Haru:**
"I knew you would."
The call ends with promises of visits, care packages of Pocky, and one very tearful dad in the background.
The dorm quiets.
Six phones go dark.
Outside our windows, six different skies blink once (like they're proud too).
We're a long way from Hot Springs.
But somehow, home just got bigger.
And it still fits in our pocket.