The swivel chair complained whenever Eydis spun, its protest blurring into the background along with the stack of unsorted books beside her.

  Technically, she was here to work.

  Realistically, she watched the traffic that never came.

  The library, usually buzzing with the misery of deadlines, stood half?empty after a flu tore through campus, sealing lecture halls behind yellow tape.

  The media hadn’t noticed, still too busy dissecting the Senate race like it was a murder mystery.

  Wellll… It technically was.

  The Blackwoods, the Van Nassaus, the Whitlocks—three prominent families cycling through headlines with all the grace of vultures circling carrion. No pun intended.

  And in truth, she wasn’t broke anymore.

  The ravens had obnoxiously directed her to bank accounts bloated with so many zeroes she lacked both the stamina and desire to tally them. The irksome corvids had worked Alchymia’s volatile betting pits during the race, intent on winning fortunes, weaving influence, and puppeteering Noah.

  Then she cut the strings.

  One raven sniffed.

  Your?Majesty, my current diction feels undignified, and utterly… fowl.

  More importantly, why are you still grounded here? Shouldn’t you be perched in a villa somewhere coastal? A second raven added.

  More importantly? More importantly?! Luxury is meaningless without respect! We ought to feather our nests with influence, not languish in exile.

  Must I remind you whose foresight saved our feathers when—

  Eydis flicked them away before they descended into their usual bickering, and the resulting quiet was almost pleasant. She smiled, though she had to admit, they had a point.

  Of course, she didn’t need to be here. Because ever since that day in the courtyard, Astra hadn’t returned to their shared dorm.

  With the flu turning Primrose Dormitory into a quarantine zone, eviction had been only a matter of time, and a new roommate would follow, which meant…

  She sighed. She knew she should have moved on. Instead, she waited, out of habit, and out of something harder to name.

  How utterly foolish of her.

  “What are you scheming, Eydis?”

  She looked up to find Natalia leaning on the counter. The spark in her eyes was there, but dimmer.

  “Scheming? No, I am grieving,” Eydis replied.

  “Grieving what?”

  Eydis gestured at empty aisles. “The slow death of academia. Guess which titles are still checked out.”

  Natalia sighed. “I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

  “Tragic romances. People prefer second?hand heartbreak to first?hand knowledge.”

  "Has anyone ever told you that your superiority complex is showing?"

  "Frequently." Eydis smirked. "Though I've always considered tormenting you a perfectly respectable pastime, my dear handmaiden."

  Natalia rolled her eyes, cheeks pinked. “Heartbreaks, huh…”

  Eydis saw the way Natalia toyed with the hem of her sleeve. She had been like this ever since Eydis had returned to St. Kevin’s: flustered one moment, distant the next.

  Natalia took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking…”

  Eydis straightened slightly. “Go on.”

  “About y—Theo! About Theo.”

  “Theo?”

  Natalia nodded too quickly. “Yes! Who else? Tall, brooding, allergic to self-preservation? That Theo?”

  Before Eydis could reply, Natalia steamrolled ahead. “I don’t know if he’ll come back to school. Do you think he will?”

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  “He will.”

  “You sound so sure. Why?”

  “Because the world turns on a steady axis,” Eydis replied. “He will return, untouched in the ways that matter least.”

  “The way it matters least?”

  Eydis’s amber eyes followed the bead of sweat trailing down Natalia’s temple, and she felt the ambient temperature rise ever so slightly.

  “Physically.” Eydis rose, her hand moved toward Natalia’s temple. “The rest depends on his will.”

  Natalia flinched, and took a step back.

  That… was unexpected.

  “Since when do you shrink away like a scandalised maiden in a romance novel?” Eydis asked.

  Natalia quickly adjusted her collar. “Since when are you, like, momming me?”

  “Momming? Perish the thought. If I were your mother, I’d have left you outside a monastery with a strongly worded note about your potential.”

  Natalia let out a laugh. But there was an unease beneath it.

  “That was supposed to amuse you, not confirm my villainy.”

  “Hey! I did laugh!” Natalia protested. She looked at Eydis again, opened her mouth to speak, and thought better of it.

  “So? Flu, existential crisis, or both?” Eydis asked.

  “The flu. Right. But I’m fine.” Natalia perked up a little, forcing some brightness back into her voice. “Fire-affinity Gifted have the immunity and metabolism of gods. That’s what my childhood friend always said.”

  “Logically speaking, you might burn through sickness faster, but that doesn’t make you invincible.”

  “You sound like her sometimes…”

  “Who?”

  Natalia gave a smile, unusually melancholic. “A childhood friend.”

  “Why the sudden mention of a childhood friend I have never heard of?”

  “Whenever I felt lost, she always knew what to say. The water to my fire… But she’s no longer here.”

  No longer?

  Eydis picked up the choice of words instantly. But rather than push, she stepped back. “And what are you so conflicted about?”

  “I—You’re right. I should take the day off. I’m, uh, not feeling well.” Natalia turned and walked away.

  Before Eydis could follow, a boy spoke. “I’d like to check these out, please, Eydis.”

  Adam Sapphire, black-haired tousled, more so than usual. His brilliant blue eyes looked dull, like he hadn’t slept in days. He juggled tomes on arcane theory instead of his usual coding bibles.

  She scanned the titles: Arcane theory, Mana stabilisation.

  Eydis expected him to exchange his usual friendly smile but he only muttered a quick thanks and left. She leaned back in her chair, lips pursing. Natalia had fled. Adam had stormed out. Something dangled loose in the weave.

  Fire-affinity Gifted didn’t fall to sickness so easily. And yet… Natalia had looked tired.

  “A childhood friend, huh?”

  Through cathedral windows, wind shook the last leaves from skeletal branches. Eydis searched memory for a friend of her own, a face that refused to surface.

  Eydis drifted into grayscale woods where ancient trees, bark peeled and skeletal, stood frozen in an eternal, lifeless winter. The world had been reduced to shades of gray that bled between reality and memory.

  A brittle leaf cracked. A soft giggle followed, chased by a lazy exhale: a girl with rich brown waves brushed a stray strand of black hair off another’s cheek, then threaded those silken locks into a quick braid.

  Their laughter scattered the hush, a bright, innocent sound.

  Eydis’s chest tightened. She stood inside her own memory, yet the other girl’s identity dissolved whenever she tried to focus.

  Ebony hair, silk-dark. A child of Mythshollow, no doubt. One of her kind, one of the Shadows, cast away from the Light. Their hair, dark as an omen.

  Had she forgotten her? Had she let this name crumble into dust, just like Archmage Swan?

  The scene changed.

  Heat.

  It rushed through her, slow at first, like embers stirring. Then it swelled, licking up her spine and coiling at her fingertips. Honey perfumed the air, drowning her senses.

  Her fingers tangled in strands of hair again.

  Crimson eyes.

  Dark, burning, piercing, vivid.

  Astra.

  Of course, it was Astra. Who else could it be? Who else made her pulse stumble, her mind unravel, her breath shudder like this?

  The dream fused with memory: Astra’s hands, the hiss of water reaching a boil, her measured voice repeating coffee steps Eydis had memorised yet pretended to forget.

  She wanted Astra’s voice, quiet and husky. Wanted Astra’s hands, sure and precise. Wanted Astra’s scent, the complexity of sandalwood. Though the dream offered only honey.

  Yet everything else was the same.

  She was consumed by the phantom sensation of lips—cherry-sweet, velvety. Time slackened, space contracted, inhale braided with exhale.

  Tempting beyond reason.

  Her pulse fluttered wildly, fingers itching to press against softness. Somewhere in the haze of it all, a voice reached her, breathless, fragile and breaking apart at the edges.

  “Eydis… how are you doing this to me?”

  The voice was slightly off.

  She didn’t care.

  Because this was her dream. And she could do whatever she wanted with it.

  No boundaries.

  No divide.

  No expectations...

  Eydis should pull away. But she let herself sink into the feeling, let the warmth overtake her, let the weight of another body press against her own until the dream blurred into something almost tangible. In this space of half-dreams, the imagined sensations were fiercely, unbearably real.

  A moan vibrated against her neck. It didn’t come from her.

  Emboldened, her fingers brushed lower, skimmed fevered skin, and dipped close to—

  A door creaked. The dream collapsed in an instant.

  Amber eyes flew open, locking on crimson ones, pupils blown wide. Not Astra’s.

  “Natalia?" Eydis's voice emerged sharper than intended. "What are you—"

  Natalia sagged against her, heat radiating like a forge. The scent of honey was everywhere. Too suffocating.

  Eydis became acutely aware of her own hand, still resting where it had been in her dream. Her fingers grazed the silk at Natalia's waistband. She could feel the frantic rhythm of Natalia’s heartbeat.

  "Eydis, I… something's wrong with me," Natalia gasped. "I can't... control it... anymore."

  Before Eydis could even begin to move, the temperature in the room dropped. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

  Astra.

  Standing there, sharp-eyed and silent, her gaze dragging over the fevered, panting mess that was Natalia. Then, lower, to Eydis’s incriminating hand.

  Oh.

  Clearly, the universe had a personal vendetta against her, it had chosen this exact moment to deliver Astra back into her life.

  (Because of course, why the bloody hell not?)