After enduring the constant chatter of the group for so ti, Liam finally slowed the steady rhythm of his eating. The clatter of utensils, the casual banter, and the occasional bursts of laughter had faded into little more than background noise to him while he quietly observed the others from behind lowered eyes. Eventually, he placed his utensil down with deliberate calm and lifted his gaze toward the table. The question had been sitting at the back of his mind ever since he first sat down, and now that the mont presented itself, there was no reason to keep it there any longer.
"By the way," he said, his voice calm and even, cutting smoothly through the overlapping conversations. "Where's Sheila? I don't recall her ever being the type to miss breakfast."
The mont the question left his mouth, the atmosphere shifted in a way that was subtle yet unmistakable. It wasn't dramatic—no one gasped or reacted loudly—but the mood of the table tightened just enough to be noticeable.
Ariana's reaction was the most obvious. Her hands, which had been resting loosely on the table, stiffened slightly as a faint crease ford between her brows. The worry in her expression appeared almost imdiately, like soone who had been quietly thinking about the sa issue but hoping no one would bring it up. Charlotte, sitting nearby, showed a similar concern, though hers was far more restrained. Her posture remained relaxed, but her eyes flickered briefly downward as if the topic itself had stirred sothing unpleasant in her thoughts.
Maxwell, on the other hand, said nothing. He simply glanced around the table, his eyes moving from Ariana to Dylan and then to the others, as though silently waiting for soone else to answer before he did. His silence wasn't indifference—it was the quiet hesitation of soone unsure how much should be said.
Asher, being Asher, didn't appear particularly concerned about the question itself. Still, even he had paused midway through another bite of food. His expression remained largely indifferent, yet his sharp eyes briefly studied the others around the table, as if he were more interested in their reactions than in the subject itself.
Dylan was the one who eventually responded, though Liam's question had clearly disrupted his usual easygoing rhythm. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly, offering a crooked, slightly nervous smile that looked like it had been forced into place.
"Well…" Dylan began slowly, his tone uncertain as he gathered his thoughts. "Yesterday, after the whole test wrapped up and we were heading to the infirmary, we ran into Percy." He paused briefly, his smile fading a little. "And… uh… he took Sheila aside to have a talk."
'I see,' Liam thought quietly.
His expression didn't change, but his mind moved quickly through the implications.
So Percy hadn't exactly tried to keep things discreet. Approaching Sheila in public, right in front of her friends, suggested a certain level of intention behind the encounter. Liam briefly wondered whether Percy had done it deliberately because she happened to be with them, or whether subtlety had never been part of Percy's plan in the first place.
In the end, Liam pushed the thought aside. Speculation wasn't particularly useful at the mont.
Dylan continued, rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke.
"We didn't see her again until later… probably around dinner ti, I think. At least Ariana and I did." He glanced briefly toward Ariana before continuing. "We called out to her, but she said she needed to freshen up first and told us to go ahead without her. Said she'd catch up later."
Dylan stopped speaking for a mont and looked directly at Liam, his gaze carrying a quiet understanding.
"I'm guessing you already know how that turned out," he said.
"She never showed up," Liam replied calmly, his tone flat and certain.
"Yep," Dylan confird with a small shrug. "She didn't."
He tried to smile again, though this ti the expression looked even less convincing than before.
"We didn't think too much of it at first," he added. "I an… it's Sheila, right? Sotis she just disappears to do her own thing."
The explanation sounded casual, yet the tension in his voice suggested otherwise.
"Ari and Char went to check on her this morning," Dylan continued after a mont. "She said she'd fallen asleep after taking a shower." He shrugged again. "Which, honestly, makes so sense. Yesterday was exhausting."
Then his expression darkened slightly.
"But after that, she turned down breakfast too."
Dylan leaned forward slightly, resting his arms on the table.
"And like you said… she's not the type to skip breakfast. So yeah," he finished quietly. "It's got us a little worried."
"I see," Liam said evenly, absorbing the information without outward reaction. "So she hasn't really shown herself since last night."
"Pretty much," Dylan replied, giving a small nod.
For a brief mont, the table fell quiet again.
Then Ariana spoke.
"Honestly…" she said softly, her fingers fidgeting with the edge of her sleeve. "I think it might have sothing to do with her brother. Percy."
Liam turned his attention toward her, his expression still calm and unreadable.
"Why do you say that?" he asked. "Do you think Percy said sothing to her?"
Ariana hesitated. It was clear she was choosing her words carefully, as though she feared saying the wrong thing.
"Well… probably," she admitted after a mont.
Her voice remained gentle, but there was a heaviness behind it.
"It's just… yesterday and today, when we saw her… she was smiling," Ariana said slowly. "Or at least trying to."
Her fingers tightened slightly around the fabric of her clothes.
"But even though she smiled… I could tell sothing was wrong. She looked…" Ariana paused briefly, searching for the right words. "Broken."
Her voice dropped quieter.
"It was like her eyes… even though they were still that sa bright blue… they felt hollow. Empty."
The others glanced toward her as she spoke, but after a mont their gazes drifted away again, each of them silently processing what she had said.
Liam, however, continued watching Ariana thoughtfully.
'If what she's saying is accurate,' he thought, 'then it lines up almost perfectly with what Mabel told .'
Percy had apparently revealed sothing significant to Sheila—sothing heavy enough to destabilize her emotional state entirely.
'With everything Percy must have told her,' Liam continued thinking, 'it makes sense. Anyone would struggle after that.'
"Then if what you said is true," Liam said calmly, breaking the silence, "whatever Percy told her must have hit her harder than we thought."
He paused briefly.
"And if she stays alone with those thoughts for too long…" he added quietly, "there's no telling how bad it might get."
His words lingered in the air.
The table remained silent for a mont as everyone considered the possibility.
Maxwell eventually spoke up.
"You're not wrong," he said, leaning forward slightly. "We don't know exactly what she's dealing with, or how serious it is."
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
"I'm not exactly the best person when it cos to stuff like this," he admitted, "but I feel like it might help if she opened up to soone."
His gaze drifted across the table.
"You know… just having soone she trusts listen to whatever happened with her brother."
Before anyone else could respond, Asher finally spoke.
"So what," he said bluntly, leaning back in his chair. "You want all of us to surround her and start pressuring her to talk about it?"
"Well, I don't—"
"That wouldn't help," Dylan cut in before Max could finish.
He leaned back slightly in his seat, crossing his arms as he spoke more thoughtfully.
"If anything, that'd probably overwhelm her even more," Dylan said. "Imagine everyone crowding around you demanding answers when you're already barely holding yourself together."
He shook his head.
"That'd just push her further away."
After a brief pause, he added,
"If she's going to open up… it should probably be to just one person for now."
His gaze drifted around the table.
"She can talk to the rest of us later," Dylan finished quietly. "When she's ready."
The others took a mont to think over his words, the table growing quieter as the idea settled among them. For a brief while no one spoke, each of them turning the thought around in their heads, weighing what had just been said. Eventually, Asher was the one who broke the silence.
"So if that's the case," he said as his eyes drifted across the group, "then who's actually going to be the one to talk to her?"
Dylan rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about it, his expression shifting into the kind of uncertain smile he usually wore when he was about to say sothing he hadn't entirely thought through. Still, he cleared his throat and spoke anyway.
"Well… honestly," he began, glancing around the table before his gaze finally settled on Liam, "I'm thinking Liam. You know how it is with him. Our guy sohow manages to talk to people even though he barely says anything most of the ti."
As he said it, he subtly gestured toward Liam, which naturally caused the others' attention to drift in the sa direction.
"And besides," Dylan continued, sounding far more confident now that he had committed to the idea, "don't forget that he and Sheila already had one of those random conversations that night we ca back to the academy. They were talking for a while, rember? So if you ask , he's actually a pretty solid pick."
He finished with a strangely proud sense of certainty, as though he had just proposed an excellent solution to the problem.
Asher imdiately stared at him with a flat, unimpressed look.
"Let get this straight," he said slowly, pointing a finger toward Liam as if presenting a piece of evidence. "We're talking about sothing emotional here. Sothing that actually requires understanding how people feel."
He paused briefly, then continued in a tone that made his skepticism painfully obvious.
"And sohow you think this guy"—he gestured again toward Liam—"is the right person for that job."
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