The dorm lights had dimd.
Their room buzzed faintly with the Essentia-infused glowstone strips lining the corners—just enough to see, not enough to study.
Towan sat cross-legged on his bed, drying his hair with a towel after a quick nightti wash. Elliot, already under his blanket, scribbled a few notes before setting his pen down with military precision.
Silence.
Then:
“So…” Towan began, eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling. “A bird told sothing interesting.”
Elliot blinked from his pillow. “…A bird?”
“Yeah,” Towan nodded solemnly. “Feathers. Beak. Very talkative. Might’ve been Alira. But she had snacks so I trusted her.”
Elliot rolled over. “What did the… Alirabird say?”
“That you’ve been seen…” He stretched the pause dramatically. “…with a girl.”
A long beat.
Elliot blinked. “Ah. That’s Lyris.”
He said it with the tone one might use when identifying a genus of tree.
Towan turned his head slowly, raising an eyebrow. “And what’s with her?”
Elliot sighed, already regretting this. “She’s just a friend, bro. We share reading interests. That’s it.”
(Lie. Half-lie. Mostly true. But still a lie.)
Towan wasn’t convinced. He narrowed his eyes like a detective who knew the witness was hiding the juicy parts.
“Hmm. Just a friend. Right. So the smiles? The multiple afternoons? The way your hand hovered above hers when you passed her that corruption book?”
“I was adjusting my grip—”
“And the part where you walked her out of the library like a gentleman scholar?”
“I was being polite.”
“You don't walk out of places politely.”
Elliot turned to face the wall. “Because you leave by falling out of windows.”
Towan grinned. “Still counts.”
He tossed the towel aside and flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling again.
A quiet mont passed.
Then softer, more thoughtful:
“…You like her?”
Elliot didn’t answer right away.
Then: “I don’t know.”
Another pause.
“She’s smart. Curious. Easy to talk to. Doesn’t treat like a background note.”
Towan humd. “That’s rare.”
Elliot nodded into his pillow.
“She sees the world like it’s broken too. But instead of giving up… she wants to study the cracks.”
That hung in the air longer than either expected.
Towan exhaled, folding his arms behind his head. “Just promise you’ll tell if she’s secretly evil.”
Elliot snorted. “We hang out in a library, not a villain lair.”
Towan yawned. “That’s exactly where evil people hang out, bro.”
Towan didn’t expect to find her there.
He’d co looking for Elliot again—swore the nerd owed him a sparring session or at least so lunch coins—and found instead a girl sitting alone at the open-air courtyard table behind the library, flipping lazily through a book on battle theory.
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She looked up.
“...Towan, right?”
He blinked. “Uh. Yeah. And you’re... the book girl.”
She smiled. “Lyris.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “You one of Elliot’s notebook friends or actual people?”
“Actual person,” she said, closing her book gently. “We’ve been studying together.”
Towan narrowed his eyes just a little. “Right. That explains the late afternoons and suspicious levels of smiling.”
Lyris tilted her head. “Jealous?”
Towan choked on nothing. “Excuse —”
She laughed. It was soft.
“I’m kidding,” she said, voice warm. “Mostly.”
Towan squinted. “You’re… not what I expected.”
“Neither are you.”
(She had reviewed his profile. Strength stats. Essentia flow instability.
Emotional trigger patterns. Yet here he was—smiling like a golden retriever with a fist made of steel.)
They stood there, the air awkward but not hostile.
Then—
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” ca a new voice, smooth as silk through a blade.
They both turned.
Sera walked toward them, dressed in her uniform as usual—perfect posture, hands behind her back, smile warm enough to lt the frost on the stones.
Towan waved. “Hey! You two know each other?”
Lyris smiled sweetly. “We do. Sera helped prep for the entrance exam last year.”
Sera nodded, returning the smile. “Lyris was a fast learner.”
(You weren't supposed to contact him without telling first, Sera’s eyes said.)
(You weren’t supposed to show up, Lyris’s said right back.)
Towan, completely unaware, blinked between them. “Huh. Small world.”
Sera turned to him. “Have you seen Elliot?”
“I was looking for him too,” Towan said. “But hey, I found her instead.”
He grinned at Lyris. “You’re kind of terrifying. You fit right in.”
Lyris smirked. “I’ll take that as a complint.”
Sera’s expression didn’t change. “You two getting along already?”
“Barely,” Towan said. “I think she was about to disarm with a paragraph.”
Lyris tapped the book’s cover. “Just theory. No combat today.”
A beat passed.
Sera’s eyes lingered just long enough.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s keep it theoretical.”
Then she smiled wider.
“I’ll walk with you, Lyris. It’s nearly ti for curfew.”
Lyris nodded. “Of course.”
Towan watched as they left together, chatting pleasantly like old friends.
But sothing…
Sothing felt off.
He didn’t know why.
Lyris walked away from the garden with her hands folded neatly behind her back.
From behind, she looked perfectly composed.
Second-class uniform pressed. Hair in place. Calm, crisp steps.
The image of obedience.
Inside?
She was boiling.
“Don’t touch him,” she said. Like he’s hers.
Like everything she breathes near belongs to her.
She knew better than to challenge Sera.
No one challenged Sera.
Even the corrupted whispered when she passed.
But it still burned.
All of it.
The way Vaeren looked at her like she was so kind of delicate relic.
The way the Circle bent around her presence.
The way she carried herself—untouched, uncorrupted, and still adored.
We gave her everything. Power. Safety. Tools. And she walks around like it ans nothing.
Lyris paused under an archway, fingers curling slightly at her side.
She’d seen the look Sera gave her.
Not anger. Not suspicion.
Pity.
That was worse.
She breathed out slowly. Controlled. Re-centering.
Fine.
You can have whoever you want.
but I’m taking Elliot.
And when I do, she thought,
we’ll see who Vaeren favors then.
The library was quieter than usual.
Late afternoon sun filtered through the high stained glass, painting the marble floor in soft tones of amber and indigo. Dust motes floated like lazy specters between the towering shelves, and sowhere in the distance, a clock ticked patiently. Only two people remained in the east wing.
Elliot sat at his usual table, one leg tucked under him, chin resting on his hand as he flipped through an old text about Essentia decay under corrupted influence. His brow furrowed in concentration. He didn’t notice Lyris until she sat across from him, silently sliding a different volu toward his elbow.
"That one," she said, voice gentle, "has actual recorded observations from post-Collapse zones. More firsthand detail."
Elliot blinked, then smiled in surprise. “You’ve been hunting for this?”
She tilted her head slightly, offering a small shrug. “I like being helpful.”
(That was a lie. She liked watching him. The way he devoured information like it could save the world. Maybe because... he really believed it could.)
“Thanks,” he said, flipping open the book. His shoulder relaxed the mont he did, and Lyris realized she’d learned the cadence of his tension without aning to.
They read for a while without speaking.
Occasionally, Elliot would point sothing out—
A margin note. A theory.
Lyris would lean closer, offer her interpretation.
Their heads almost touched once. Neither moved away.
“You ever feel like none of this should be real?” Elliot asked suddenly.
She glanced up.
“Essentia. Corruption. All these systems. It’s like we’re all chess pieces in a ga soone else stopped playing centuries ago.”
Lyris’ lips parted.
Not with the usual response.
Not with doctrine.
But sothing softer.
“All the ti.”
He looked at her then.
Really looked.
And she wasn’t the elegant girl from second class anymore.
She was soone tired of pretending she knew all the rules.
“It’s strange,” he said. “I don’t talk like this with anyone else.”
Lyris turned the page, eyes skimming the text without seeing it.
“Maybe we just… see the board from similar angles.”
The quiet settled again, but it was different now.
It wasn’t absence—it was comfort. A pause. A breath.
Until—
“Elliot?”
“Hm?”
“Would you... like to go for tea soti?” she asked.
It ca out before she could stop herself.
She instantly regretted it.
But Elliot, ever kind, simply nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
In another life, she might have smiled for real.
In this one?
She did anyway. Just a little.
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