The harder the head, the harder it is to get out of. The expedition was supposed to be a formality, sent to debunk wild rumors of a gryphon colony appearing in Oestrephys seemingly from nowhere. It was obviously impossible—mages the world over knew gryphons had been extinct for centuries. Returning to the ancient Collegium Arcanum with a viable gryphon egg? Not even worth considering the possibility; there isn't a mage alive who knows how to rear a baby gryphon. Certainly not Sunny. She knows horses, and only went on the expedition because there was nobody else. Now she's being asked to overturn her whole life, change her career, disappoint her mother… a year from graduation. In secret. Alone. Who would help her, anyway? Sunny's best friend is a surly Lore student who doesn't think anything is worth learning if it isn't written down. And since there's nothing in mage Lore about gryphons, she would be useless. Right? As the only albino mage in Oestrephys and the Collegium's only remaining Lore student, Raen all but lives in the great library. She's used to being alone—and often goes out of her way to keep it like that. But Sunny is the one person she simply can't say no to. Whether helping her means digging into a heretofore unknown version of the past or even… going outside… Raen will have to decide which version of her future she truly wants. With new life in the balance, graduation looming and the Collegium's reputation on the line, Sunny and Raen can't afford to act on their long-smoldering feelings for each other now, can they? With how their magics interact, they may not have a choice... Beneath the Shell is a sweet, new adult sapphic romantasy that's part of the Alumita fantasy lesbian romance anthology. Though they can be read in any order, the author recommends doing so in the order they released.