The week passed, then another, each turning of the hourglass intensifying a peculiar, chilling curiosity within Lysander.
He had seen Silas Vane return to the Lyceum, head bowed, yet with an unfamiliar flicker in his eyes. He had seen Cassian Thorne, an obsidian shadow, drift ever closer to the quiet scholar, an unspoken claim in every casual glance. A morbid fascination, cold and precise, gnawed at Lysander.
He found himself wondering how they navigated the ancient halls now, Cassian’s domineering presence, Silas’s newfound, fragile proximity. It was a simple question, born from a jealousy he dared not name, but it felt like toying with a forbidden text.
This tiny cista, a box meant to remain sealed, contained not just despair, but a cruel, insidious hope. He knew the danger, the precipice of ruin, yet the impulse to peer within, to understand the serpent’s coil, was irresistible.
“I must be quite mad,” Lysander murmured, the sound swallowed by the deep quiet of the Lyceum’s arcane library.
His mind, usually a bastion of logic and ancient lore, felt untethered. He knew better. Still, following the dismissal of the afternoon’s lecture on runic matrices, Lysander found himself trailing in Cassian’s wake.
He moved with a scholar’s practiced stealth, his every movement hushed, his magical sensitivity a subtle hum against the stone. He kept his distance, darting behind pillars carved with forgotten sigils, melting into the deeper shadows of a rarely used service corridor.
Cassian walked with the casual arrogance of one who owned the very air he breathed. Silas, a few paces behind, seemed to follow a magnetic pull. His gaze, even from Lysander’s distant vantage point, seemed fixed on Cassian’s back, a silent, almost desperate devotion. The peeling gilt on a forgotten fresco, the rusted hinges of an ancient doorway, the faint dust motes dancing in the slanted light – the scene was steeped in decay, in things worn down and overlooked.
Two figures, moving through the Lyceum’s forgotten corners: Cassian leading, Silas trailing. And Lysander, watching them, a ghost in the periphery.
Everything about it felt raw, exposed, and profoundly pathetic. A hot flush climbed Lysander’s neck. He turned, retreating into the labyrinthine passages, the shame burning.
---
Later, in the solitary quiet of his personal study chamber, surrounded by shelves groaning with forgotten knowledge, Lysander felt a grim satisfaction. His decision to withdraw, to not fully unlatch that terrible box, seemed wise.
Curiosity was a dangerous beast, especially when fed by such base emotions. What further depths might he have glimpsed? Better not to know. He was no fool to plunge headlong into a maelstrom for a fleeting, poisoned glimpse.
Cassian’s fixation on Silas, he noted, grew more pronounced each day. And Silas, despite his quiet obedience, still carried a flicker of the fear Lysander had sensed before – or perhaps, a simmering resentment. No, not fear alone. A profound, stark hatred for someone who had so casually tormented him.
Lysander leaned back in his ancient chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. He gazed up at the intricate, star-chart diagram etched into the vaulted ceiling, the celestial bodies glowing with faint, residual enchantment. This tranquil sanctuary, this intellectual haven, was a testament to his good fortune, his esteemed place within the Lyceum’s scholarly ranks.
He was born to a respected, if not dominant, bloodline, cultivated for his aptitude, never truly denied the resources he needed to pursue his arcane studies.
“Damn it all,” Lysander breathed, the words barely audible.
He had once believed there was no ancient cipher he could not break, no forgotten lore he could not master. Until he had met Cassian Thorne. That insufferable noble had revealed the cruel reality: the world did not always bend to intellect, nor did desire follow reason. Lysander was certain Cassian, in his own way, was learning that bitter truth now, too.
Such a merciless world.
Lysander, at least, had mastered the art of concealment, of burying his true affections beneath layers of academic detachment. Cassian, however, was a storm of raw emotion, entirely unaware of the hunger in his gaze when he looked at Silas. That sudden, abnormal intensity must have been unsettling, even for one as jaded as Cassian.
Lysander knew precisely that feeling. He had experienced it, gnawing at his own vitals. But where Lysander endured in silence, Cassian lacked the discipline. Instead of quietly winning Silas over, he acted in ways that only deepened the other's resentment. For Lysander, a dark, selfish part of him found this convenient.
“Please, remain utterly oblivious,” Lysander murmured to the empty chamber.
Or, better yet, let Silas grow weary, let him find solace elsewhere. Lysander harbored no grand delusion of Cassian turning to him. If anything, this kind of possessive affection, so flagrantly displayed, filled him with a quiet dread.
He wished for but one thing: for a day to dawn when his heart no longer ached for Cassian, and for Cassian to find some measure of peace, or perhaps, a different obsession. But the arcane currents rarely flowed as one wished.
Another subtle shift manifested. Cassian, who usually occupied a study alcove near the Lyceum's entrance, had moved. He now sat directly adjacent to Silas’s preferred station in the Grand Reading Chamber. Of all the places, he chose the seat that partially obstructed the view of the master lecturer’s demonstration platform, an act of sheer impudence given Lyceum protocol.
Silas’s usual study partner, a meek scion of a minor house, offered Lysander and Alaric a tense, awkward nod, his expression a mingling of embarrassment and discomfort.
“Greetings, scholars.”
Alaric and Lysander exchanged a brief, unreadable glance. They offered curt nods in return.
“Ah, yes…”
The awkward chuckle lingered, but neither Lysander nor Alaric offered a further response. They held no interest in the minor dramas of insecure noblemen.
Cassian sat silently beside Silas, an unyielding presence. Lysander found himself wishing – no, desperately praying – that this suffocating tableau might somehow endure for the next year, that one day, this unbearable moment would fade into a forgotten, indistinct dream.
Then came another ripple. Cassian, whose reputation for hedonistic revelry and late-night liaisons was whispered through the Lyceum’s less austere quarters, seemed to curtail his overt indulgences. Or so it appeared.
Gossip, gleaned from Alaric’s more dissolute acquaintances, suggested his habits hadn’t ceased entirely. But at least the lingering miasma of stale incense and cheap enchantments no longer clung to him in the morning lectures. Nor did he boast of his conquests within the hallowed halls.
For Lysander, this was a small mercy. He no longer had to endure the cloying, magically-charged stench of Cassian’s escapades.
“Thorne, abandoning your usual pursuits, are we? No longer indulging, like this?”
Lord Vesper, a boorish young noble known for his crude gestures, mimicked a suggestive sway, placing his hands low and moving with vulgar intent. Cassian’s face twisted into a mask of disgust.
A quick glance flickered toward Silas. Then, Cassian’s voice, sharp with anger, cut through the quiet hum of the common room.
“You oaf! I commanded you not to display such obscenities in public!”
“Why the sudden shyness, Thorne? Your usual swagger seems to have fled.”
“If you breathe another word of this, Vesper, you shall regret it.”
“Thorne, now —”
“I said, silence!”
“…Fine. As you wish.”
The others, gathered in a loose circle, were visibly disappointed. Cassian, with his imposing stature and cultivated aura of reckless abandon, had once been the perfect conduit for the idle curiosities of young scholars brimming with unfocused energies.
The students in Cassian and Alaric’s social periphery were not novices; they had all fumbled through clumsy, experimental dabblings in forbidden rites and minor debaucheries. Compared to the truly naive, they were more easily stirred. With Cassian no longer sharing his exploits, their attention drifted to Alaric. But Alaric only bared his teeth, a flicker of pure disdain in his eyes.
“You filthy degenerates.”
“Ah, there he goes again! Alaric with his sanctimonious pronouncements.”
“He’s merely an ascetic, a puritan. Honestly, such a waste.”
Laughter rippled through the room, loud and fleeting.
Most of the young men in their circle had, at some point, ventured into forbidden territories, yet Alaric Thorne, for some obscure reason, had not. While they teased him good-naturedly, calling him an uninitiated neophyte, no one truly disrespected him. He was Alaric Thorne, after all, Cassian’s sharp-witted cousin. At the same time, Alaric possessed a detached, almost carefree disdain for conventional expectations, which made his cutting remarks seem less offensive, his actions almost casual. People found that either captivating or approachable, often commenting that his demeanor hardly matched his often intimidating gaze.
“Vesper, cease glaring. You will provoke an incident.”
“Aye, that one possesses a truly menacing aspect.”
“Do you imbeciles harbor a death wish?”
Alaric scowled, and the group burst into fresh laughter, though the jest itself held little wit. Some minor scholars loitering at the back of the chamber, perhaps his distant acquaintances, joined in with their hollow laughs and vapid chatter. As Lysander sat among them, his gaze drifted, unfocused, to his own hands, lost in an internal quiet.
If his memory served, he had never felt that conventional, burning arousal for a sorceress. He supposed that made him different, queer by birth, a strange anomaly even within the Lyceum’s varied ranks. Certainly, he had felt a tremor of curiosity, a sharp, cold fascination when observing certain illicit enchantments, but he had never once fantasized about a woman's form while indulging in the solitary, furtive practices of young men. The former seemed more about the raw, visceral power of magic; the latter, he simply lacked the desire.
He had once ventured to a notorious establishment, dragged along by Cassian, but he hadn’t even made it past the threshold. He lacked the proper credentials, the forged identification required for entry. Instead, he had waited outside, cloaked in shadow, until Cassian emerged. Brothels? Disgusting. The mere thought of such a place, of the miasma of traded intimacy, made his stomach clench. He often wondered why anyone would willingly subject themselves to such degradation.
Because of this peculiar disinterest, the young men in their acquaintance jokingly called him ‘Abstinent Lysander,’ but in truth, his abstinence was less a choice, more an intrinsic state of being. He was simply… cold to such things.
Lysander let out a small, almost imperceptible sigh.
The others were too preoccupied, laughing at Alaric’s sardonic wit, to notice. Taking advantage of the moment, Lysander glanced at Cassian, who sat in stark silence. Cassian’s gaze was fixed, as always, on the back of Silas Vane’s head, where Silas diligently reviewed his parchments.
And, as always, Lysander regretted the glance. Why did he look? Why did he allow the curiosity to bloom? To distract himself, he posed a question to Alaric, its pointlessness almost painful.
“Alaric, do you truly intend to remain so… untouched, until you are bound by decree?”
Alaric, lounging in his chair with the casual sprawl of a predatory cat, suddenly fixed his gaze directly upon Lysander’s lap. The intensity of that stare was so unnerving that Lysander instinctively crossed his legs, a shield against the intrusion. What in the blazes?
“You are not my decreed, Lysander, so why the fervent interest? What, are you offering yourself?”
Lysander’s breath caught.
Of course. This wretched rogue always twisted words into malicious jests. The others laughed, and Lysander delivered a sharp kick to Alaric’s shin beneath the table.
Such were his days – an endless, repetitive cycle.
---
Alone in his chamber, he often lost himself in thought, contemplating all manner of arcane possibilities, the intricate dance of magical theory. Inevitably, those thoughts sometimes drifted into strange, melancholic fantasies.
Today, he found himself wondering what it would have been like if his hidden affections had settled upon Alaric Thorne instead of Cassian. It seemed a less perilous, perhaps even a kinder, fate. If he had harbored such a secret yearning for Alaric, he would not have had to endure the gnawing pain caused by Cassian’s endless, messy entanglements with others.
Even so, the heartbreak would remain.
Neither Cassian Thorne nor Alaric Thorne would ever look upon Lysander with anything but a scholar’s detached respect, or a friend’s casual camaraderie. But at least his heart would not ache because of Silas Vane.
That melancholic train of thought inevitably led to feelings of profound inferiority and a quiet, burning anger. In the end, he simply wished for the swift arrival of his graduation, for the day he might become a stranger to Cassian Thorne.
At some obscure point, he had begun unconsciously placing his hands beneath the desk whenever he sat to study. This habit truly began during his second year at the Lyceum, and the root cause was always the same – the sheer, overwhelming proximity of powerful magical presences, of captivating, dangerous men.
As his fingers traced the faint, cool metal of a buckle on his satchel, his thoughts drifted. Should he succumb? Or should he resist? The faint, dry click of metal against his nails filled the quiet room. Just as he applied a slight pressure with his thumb, contemplating the undoing, a soft rap sounded at his chamber door.
“Master Blackwood? Are you engaged in study?”
“…Ah, no! I mean, yes! I am!”
Lysander’s heart leaped into his throat. Clearly, this was not the day for such dangerous introspection. Mortified, he buried his face in his arms, a wave of shame washing over him. Damn it all.
---
Lately, Cassian Thorne had been particularly grating.
Sometimes, when Silas glanced in Lysander’s direction, Cassian would deliberately initiate a conversation with him. Silas, caught in the middle, would flicker his eyes toward Lysander, his lips parting as if to speak, only to close again. Then, as if acutely wary of Cassian’s presence, he would lower his head and answer in the faintest of voices.
“Yes… indeed.”
Just so.
Silas, subtly emboldened by Lysander’s quiet intervention weeks prior, had begun to seek him out more often. He even started addressing Lysander by his given name, ‘Lysander.’ Aside from a few senior masters, almost no one used such an informal address, so the change was starkly noticeable. Silas seemed to think he was being discreet, but he was not. The worst part was how Cassian could not conceal his discomfort whenever Silas did anything remotely familiar.
“Silas Vane, cease interrupting Scholar Blackwood’s focus.”
“Pardon?”
“Do not disturb his studies. Is that not clear?”
“Oh… uh, yes… quite.”
When Silas stammered and avoided his gaze, Cassian immaturely slammed his fist against the ancient lectern leg beside him, a dull thud echoing through the study hall. Lysander pretended not to notice, his senses, however, thrumming with the suppressed magical energy radiating from Cassian’s anger. Annoyingly, the clueless Silas seemed to believe no one cared about him calling Lysander by his given name anymore. He grew bolder, casually using it as if it were the most natural thing.
“Uh, Lysander… my apologies for disturbing your research.”
Lysander stiffened, staring at Silas in disbelief. Was the man truly so oblivious? Cassian was seated directly opposite them, his jaw clenched.
Sure enough, Cassian pounded his fist on the lectern again, a sharper impact this time. Damn it.
“Vane!”
“…Huh?”
The atmosphere in the study hall turned glacial instantly. Lysander felt a chill crawl up his spine, not from the ancient stones, but from the raw fury emanating from Cassian.
“I told you.” Cassian’s voice was low, laced with a blatant, dangerous anger.
“I told you not to address him thus, did I not?”
“…W-well…”
“You will call him Scholar Blackwood. That is his proper address – Scholar Blackwood.”
Cassian’s gaze, sharp as obsidian shards, flicked to Lysander, a predatory glint in its depths. Lysander despised that look and instinctively lowered his head, a fresh wave of humiliation washing over him. At that precise moment, Alaric Thorne, seated beside Lysander, casually draped an arm over his shoulders, a familiar, easy gesture. His low, distinctive voice murmured near Lysander’s ear.
“Cassian Thorne, if you persist in this manner, you will truly bring ruin upon yourself.”
“What in the blazes are you implying?”
“I am saying you will come to regret it.”
Alaric smirked, and Lysander felt a flicker of irritation. For one reason only. He knew, with a painful certainty, that Alaric’s prediction, though directed at Cassian, carried a subtle echo for Lysander himself. He was already drowning in regret, caught in the undertow of a serpent’s coil.