The study room was bright in a neutral way–devoid of warmth, but also free of any unpleasant austerity. Long tables were set in parallel rows, lamps suspended high above casting even light across the surfaces, and the silence was regulated–not absolute, but permissive enough for whispers and the soft rustle of pages, so long as neither disturbed the collective focus.
Mael sat opposite Kalis, a book opened precisely at the center of the table, as though the symmetry of the arrangement itself might help him maintain concentration. The volume lay open to a chapter he knew all too well. The letters were clear, the meaning unmistakable, and yet more and more often he had the sense that his attention was skimming over the text without ever catching. He read carefully, slowly, sentence by sentence, grasping the content without effort–yet just as often he caught himself staring through the lines, his eyes moving without anchoring to meaning.
Kalis was taking notes with care, her handwriting small and even, guided by the same precision she applied to all academic tasks. From time to time she asked a question–brief, factual–and Mael answered just as factually, without hesitation, without emotion, exactly as expected.
The door opened softly.
It was not a sound that should have drawn his attention, and yet he felt it before he consciously registered it. He lifted his gaze reflexively, before reminding himself that there was no reason to.
Kieran entered the room with Miste and a slight girl whose hair color was strikingly similar to Kieran’s. Even her eyes were similar–though not red, but pink, carrying something faintly familiar in their expression.
They moved with ease, neither adjusting their pace to the silence nor disturbing it–as if they instinctively knew where the boundary lay. Miste carried an armful of parchment and books that barely stayed contained, complaining under her breath about the sheer amount of material to master. The silver-haired girl walked beside her, quiet and focused, scanning the room before pointing out open seats at one of the farther tables.
Kieran nodded to someone in passing, offered Miste a brief smile when she nearly dropped her notes, and without hurry took a seat opposite her, sliding the chair back carefully so as not to make noise.
Mael lowered his gaze back to the book. Or at least, he tried to.
The words stopped forming a coherent whole. The lines began to blur, as if the page had suddenly lost its sharpness. He became aware that his eyes were drifting sideways against his will, toward the far table. They did not linger on Miste’s animated movements, nor on the second girl, but on Kieran–who was leaning over the parchment, listening to what the pink-eyed girl was saying, wearing a smile that was neither indulgent nor impatient.
Kieran listened, inclined slightly toward Miste, responding with brief, calm remarks, free of irritation. From time to time he glanced at the other girl, as if checking whether she was keeping up, and that simple gesture–unforced, almost automatic–drew Mael’s attention more strongly than it had any right to.
He caught himself counting breaths. Not his own.
Kalis looked up from her notes for the first time not because something confused her, but because the silence on his side of the table had stretched a fraction of a second too long. She studied Mael, then followed the direction of his gaze, pausing on the group at the far end of the room.
“Are you staring at them?” she asked quietly, keeping her voice to a whisper. “Seriously?”
Mael looked away too quickly, as if he’d been caught doing something improper.
“No,” he replied reflexively. “I mean–do you know them?”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Miste is in our year. She’s not exactly an academic prodigy–always catching up. And the younger one is her–no, his sister,” she corrected herself, glancing that way again. “Arandi. Quiet. Not much academic ambition.”
Kalis studied him more closely, setting her quill aside. Her expression wasn’t accusatory or jealous, but analytical–as if she were trying to understand a variable that no longer fit the established pattern. Her gaze moved on, resting on Kieran only briefly, and for less time than on the others.
“And him…” she hesitated. “He’s fine. Solid, I suppose. But his practical work is weak. From what I know, he scores very high in theory, but when it comes to practical exams, it’s like he forgets everything he’s read. Not really your type of company.”
There was no malice in it. Just a dry assessment.
Mael felt something tighten inside him, though he couldn’t have explained why.
“You’ve been looking over there for several minutes,” Kalis said calmly. “That’s not like you. Are you staring at that candy-colored thing?” she went on, flicking a glance toward Miste, who was at that very moment whispering dramatically about the catastrophe of her last potion. “She’s… vivid, I’ll give her that, but her intellectual level barely qualifies as academic. Or is it Arandi?”
Mael shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“No,” he said after a moment, more quietly than he intended. For a brief instant he tried to find an answer that would be logical enough to close the subject. None of them felt right.
“Then what is it?” Kalis asked. “Because if it’s him…”–another quick glance toward Kieran–“…I really don’t see the reason.”
“It’s just…” he began, then stopped, unsure what was supposed to come next.
Kalis didn’t press him immediately. She looked again in Kieran’s direction. For a moment, Mael had the distinct sense that if he tried to explain himself, he wouldn’t find words that didn’t sound either absurd or dangerously honest. He looked over there once more. Kieran was explaining something to Miste, sketching a diagram in the margin of a parchment–patiently, without the slightest trace of irritation, as if time simply didn’t matter to him.
“If he’s distracting you,” Kalis said, “we can move.”
It was a reasonable suggestion. Polite. Adaptive. Mael looked at her and, for a brief moment, felt very clearly that this–this was exactly what he did not want. He didn’t know why. He only knew that the thought of changing places stirred a quiet tension in him, one he couldn’t justify.
“No,” he replied after a pause. “Let’s stay. There’s no point.”
Kalis lifted an eyebrow, just barely, almost imperceptibly.
“As you wish,” she said, and returned to her notes–though for a moment her handwriting lost its earlier regularity. “Then let’s focus. The exams won’t wait.”
Mael forced himself to return his gaze to the book. The letters became legible again. Meaning returned. And yet he already knew that the judgment he’d just heard–that there was no reason–couldn’t close anything. On the contrary, it only made him aware of how completely what drew his attention escaped all the categories he had known until now.
And still, he was aware that something inside him had shifted irrevocably–that even sitting still, even pretending to concentrate, he was no longer capable of fully ignoring a presence that demanded no attention and yet drew it all the same.
The red-eyed boy did not look in his direction even once.
It wasn’t long, however, before the silence of the study room was broken in a way that could no longer be ignored.
“I really don’t understand this!” Miste groaned, louder than the unwritten rules of the room allowed, collapsing dramatically against the back of her chair. “I do everything exactly the way it’s written. I measured it precisely. Three times. And then–” she flung a hand at the parchment, as if the very thought of the potion were a personal insult–“–it turns into sludge and smells like a skunk!”
Several heads lifted from their books. Kalis glanced in that direction with clear, though restrained, displeasure. Mael looked up as well, more startled than irritated. There was something in Miste’s voice that was hard to ignore–not so much its volume as its genuine despair, undercut by a complete lack of any defensive strategy.
Arandi leaned toward her and touched her arm.
“Quiet,” she admonished gently but firmly. “Everyone’s looking at us.”
Miste glanced around, as if only now realizing they weren’t alone, and indeed caught several gazes turned their way. For a moment she scowled, and then her eyes landed on Mael. The change was immediate. Her face lit up in a fraction of a second, as though she had just spotted the solution to all the world’s problems.
“You!” she said, pointing at Mael without the slightest hesitation–and he stiffened instantly.
Kieran, who had been listening to Miste’s complaints with amusement, snorted with laughter and leaned back in his chair.
“Oh no,” he muttered under his breath. “She’s spotted the top student–we’re doomed…” He put on a show of despair.
Before Mael could react, Miste sprang to her feet and hurried over to their table, ignoring every stare and any possible protest. She stopped right beside him, leaning in dangerously close.
“Help me,” she pleaded, clasping her hands as if in prayer. “Please. I really tried. I really did.”
Mael opened his mouth–and then closed it again.
He wasn’t prepared for such directness. For someone addressing him not with distance, not with rivalry, but with a complete absence of shame and an open request for rescue.
“I…” he began.
Miste didn’t let him finish. She took his hand. Not tightly. Not aggressively. Simply firmly, as if she were absolutely certain this was the most obvious thing in the world. She pulled him along before he could object, heading for her table with an energy that could only be stopped by a clear refusal.
Mael stood almost reflexively. For a brief moment he registered Kalis’s expression–surprise edged with something like disbelief–but it didn’t stop him. He followed Miste, aware of how warm her hand was, too real, too close, and at the same time entirely devoid of subtext. And then he saw it–right beside her moving figure–dry lines of text appeared, alien and discordant against the rest of the scene.
OBJECT: EXTERNAL UNIT
EMOTIONAL STATE: HIGH AROUSAL
SOURCE: RELATIONAL
THREAT TO COHERENCE: POTENTIAL
They vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Mael blinked and looked at Miste, who was still holding his hand, utterly unaware of anything unusual. Her face was bright with hope–chaotic and sincere–and her grip did not loosen for a moment.
There was no time to think about it. Miste was already pulling him closer to the cauldron, firing off questions, and the world slipped back into its normal rhythm as if nothing had happened. Only when he stopped beside the other table did he realize that the red-eyed boy was closer than he had ever been before.
He was no longer seated at a distance. He stood right there, leaning against the bench, wearing a smile that clearly said he was observing with interest, but without any need to interfere. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second–long enough for Mael to feel the familiar, unsettling tension, and short enough that he didn’t have time to name it.
“This–this is where it goes wrong,” Miste said, pointing at the parchment and then at the cauldron, where the liquid was a color that had nothing to do with clarity. “It always falls apart at this stage.” She jabbed her finger at a specific line of text.
Mael leaned over the workstation. The smell was strong, unpleasant, but the problem was immediately obvious to him. He shifted the cauldron slightly, checked the burner’s position, glanced at the ingredients.
“You stirred too fast,” he said calmly, “and at the wrong moment.”
Miste blinked.
“But it says here that after the third ingredient you have to–”
“You have to wait,” he interrupted gently, “not speed up because you’re afraid something will go wrong.”
Kieran lifted an eyebrow, clearly amused.
“So, classic case,” he commented. “Panic.”
“Hey,” Miste protested. “That’s not helping!”
Mael didn’t react. He took the spoon, dipped it into the potion, and demonstrated a slow, steady motion, showing her the pace.
“Watch,” he said. “A clarity potion doesn’t like haste. It responds to a consistent rhythm. When you stop hovering over it, it finishes itself.”
Miste stared into the cauldron with near-reverent focus.
“So… I’m supposed to leave it alone?”
“In a way,” he replied.
Kieran laughed softly.
“See?” he said to Miste. “I told you it’s not that you’re hopeless–you just have ADHD.”
He snickered, and Mael felt something inside him ease.
For the first time, he was no longer merely an observer–and for the first time, he found himself exactly where his gaze had led him before he had time to look away.
“And what about mine?” Kieran spoke up, once Miste had become fully absorbed in watching the cauldron, which was slowly, reluctantly losing its swamp-like character. “The ingredients didn’t want to bind at all. First they separated, then I burned the whole thing.”
He said it lightly, without irritation, as if describing a minor inconvenience rather than a mistake that usually cost students points or earned them a reprimand. Mael turned toward him almost automatically.
“May I see?” he asked, before he had time to consider whether it was appropriate.
Kieran slid the book toward him without a word, moving it aside so Mael could look freely. The parchment was covered in small notes–less orderly than the ones Mael was used to, but coherent, consistently reasoned.
He stepped closer. Too close, though he realized it only afterward. He leaned over the book, bracing one hand on the tabletop just beside Kieran’s shoulder–not touching him, but entering a space that normally already belonged to someone else. His hair fell slightly forward, and when he spoke, his voice was quieter than he intended.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a specific line of text. “You lowered the flame too early. The ingredients need a few more breaths before the binding starts. If you drop the temperature at that point, they react as if something’s been interrupted.” His finger traced lower along the line. “Then you tried to compensate by raising the heat, and by then there was nothing left for them to bind to. That’s why it burned.”
Kieran leaned in instinctively to see better. And at that moment, Mael lifted his head.
He realized two things at once: that he had been speaking very softly, and that the distance between their faces was far smaller than any academic norm would allow. Their gazes collided suddenly, without warning, as if they had both made the same movement at the same time.
Kieran’s red eyes were closer than Mael had ever seen them before.
He didn’t manage to step back. He didn’t manage to think. His heart slammed violently against his ribs, so hard that for a fraction of a second he was certain the sound must be audible. His breath caught halfway, and the warmth flooding him had nothing to do with the burner beneath the cauldron.
Kieran froze as well. He didn’t retreat immediately, didn’t take a step back. He simply looked at him–openly surprised, without amusement or judgment, only attention. Mael felt heat rush to his cheeks with humiliating speed, as if his body had decided to react on his behalf. He jerked back half a step, straightening too abruptly.
“Sorry,” he said reflexively, lowering his gaze. “I–”
He didn’t finish. Kieran smiled faintly, different from before–quieter, steadier.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Thanks. That actually makes sense now.”
Mael nodded, trying to steady his breathing and ignore the fact that his heart was still racing and the warmth hadn’t faded. He pulled his hand away from the table, as if only now realizing where he’d placed it, and stepped another pace aside, restoring a safe distance.
Miste eyed them suspiciously.
“Did I miss something important?” she asked, puzzled.
“Like always,” Kieran replied, amused.
Mael didn’t look up. But he knew it hadn’t been a moment of inattention.
It had been his first collision with a kind of physical closeness he could no longer dismiss as accidental.
Arandi, who had been silent until now, observing everything from the side with the same attentiveness she’d shown earlier when correcting Miste, lifted her gaze from her own workspace. Her eyes rested on Mael for a brief moment–long enough to notice the blush that still hadn’t faded from his cheeks and the faint, not-yet-contained tension in his posture. There was no curiosity in her look, no amusement. Just quiet acknowledgment.
She smiled at him gently. Not broadly. Not suggestively. The kind of smile worn by someone who sees more–but doesn’t believe it needs to be said.
“May I ask?” she said calmly, gesturing toward her cauldron. “When the professor checks clarity, he only ladles the brew with a spoon… does he always make you pour it into a crystal vial?”
The blue-eyed boy lifted his gaze with a noticeable delay, as if it took a moment for the question to register.
“Into the vial,” he answered automatically, before he had time to think. “Crystal reveals minor disturbances. A ladle doesn’t.”
Arandi nodded, accepting the information without surprise.
“That explains it,” she said after a moment. “It always looks fine in the cauldron, but once it’s in the vial, it turns slightly cloudy. As if… something refuses to fully settle.”
Mael stepped closer, this time more cautiously, stopping at a respectful distance. He leaned over her brew without touching anything, simply observing.
“The temperature was correct,” he said quietly, “and the proportions too. But you were stirring in one direction the entire time.”
“And that’s bad?” Arandi frowned.
“Not bad,” he corrected gently. “Just… the clarity elixir needs a change of direction near the end. Not abrupt. Just enough to close the process. If you don’t do that, a trace of tension remains.”
Kieran looked at them with interest.
“So even elixirs don’t like being forced to move in only one direction?” he asked, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
Mael glanced up, unsure whether it was meant as a joke. Arandi answered first.
“I suppose no one does,” she said calmly.
For a brief moment, silence settled between them–different from before. Not enforced. Not managed. Simply present.
Miste sighed theatrically.
“Great,” she muttered. “So my elixirs are swampy because my head is a swamp…”
“That tracks,” Kieran replied with a hint of mischief.
Mael felt the tension in his body begin to ease, though the warmth still lingered, a quiet reminder of how close he had been to the boy moments earlier. He looked at Arandi again and met her gaze. She smiled at him once more, just as gently as before, as if to say everything was fine–and that nothing she had noticed required explanation.
There was something soothing in it. Something Mael could not name, but which, for the first time in a long while, made him feel no urge to step back another pace.
Kalis appeared beside them without warning.
She did not raise her voice or draw attention to herself; she was simply there, as if she had always been. Her presence immediately ordered the space–her chair positioned precisely, her hands loosely folded, her gaze calm but alert.
“I think that will be enough,” she said quietly, addressing Mael, though her eyes briefly encompassed all three of them. “The exams are in a few days, and you’ve already given enough of your time.”
There was no sharpness in her tone. Only calculation.
Mael turned toward her, startled not so much by the words themselves as by the realization of how long he had been standing at that table. He looked at the open book, the cauldrons, at Miste staring into her brew with almost reverent hope, and felt a brief stab of disorientation–like being interrupted mid-sentence.
“I was just–” he began reflexively.
“I know,” Kalis interrupted gently. “You’re helping. You always do. But you’re not responsible for making sure everyone passes.”
Her gaze shifted to Miste.
“The Academy provides consultations,” she added, “and textbooks. Not private tutoring during shared study hours.”
Miste opened her mouth, clearly ready to protest, but Arandi placed a hand on her wrist and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. Kieran watched the exchange with mild amusement and no trace of offense–more curiosity, as if he were seeing another facet of the world Mael inhabited every day.
“Relax,” he said at last. “He’s already explained plenty. We can give him back.”
Kalis nodded, accepting that without comment, then looked back at Mael.
“Come on. We still have two chapters to review.”
It was not an order.
It was an inevitability.
Mael hesitated–for a fraction of a second.
He looked at Miste, who was watching him with unmistakable regret mixed with gratitude, then at Arandi, who offered him a calming smile, and finally at Kieran. Their eyes met again–this time more briefly, more evenly–as if both of them were now aware of the boundary they had nearly crossed moments before. Kieran gave a minimal nod, without pressure or expectation, as if to say: it’s fine.
Mael felt something close to relief–and something else, harder to grasp.
“We’ll come back to this later,” he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else.
He stepped away from the table and moved toward Kalis. She turned at once, without looking back, certain he would follow. As they started to leave, Mael was aware that his place at that table had been left empty for the moment–but he no longer doubted that he would return to it.
At the last second, he paused again, as if something had only just broken through the layer of focus and habit. He reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a small crystal vial. The elixir inside was perfectly clear, motionless, sealed in on itself in a way that only hours earlier he would have considered the sole acceptable result. For a moment, he turned it between his fingers, watching the lamplight fracture across its smooth surface.
He knew he had no use for it–not out of recklessness, but because he was aware that he knew the material by heart, that exam anxiety would not cloud his thinking, that this single potion would change nothing for him. For someone else, though, it might mean a calmer night.
He returned to the table and set the vial beside Miste’s notes.
“Take it,” he said quietly. “It’ll help you focus. Don’t drink it all at once. And not later than an hour before sleep.”
Miste looked first at the vial, then at him, as if for a moment she wasn’t sure she’d understood.
“Seriously?” she whispered. “For me?”
Mael nodded.
“For you.”
She took the vial in both hands, as if afraid it might vanish, then looked up at him, visibly moved.
“You’re… really kind,” she said, with a simplicity that needed no embellishment.
Arandi watched the exchange with quiet attention and smiled at Mael again, this time with something like approval. Kieran glanced at the vial, then back at him, and there was something in his gaze that could not be mistaken for mere politeness–warmth, steady and attentive.
And then Mael did something he hadn’t planned.
He smiled.
It wasn’t a polite gesture or a learned reflex–not the courteous shadow of a smile he usually offered in response to expectation. It was simple, genuine, unguarded, as if for a brief moment he felt no need to monitor who he was supposed to be.
“Good luck,” he added.
Kalis stood beside him, observing in silence. For a moment her expression softened, before returning to its usual restraint.
“Come on,” she reminded him calmly.
Mael glanced at the three of them once more–at the focused Miste, the quiet Arandi, and Kieran, who was still looking at him with the same unchanging calm–and felt that something had stayed with him, something he could not yet name, but no longer wished to give up.
He turned and followed Kalis. This time, however, the awareness of leaving something behind held no emptiness. It felt like a promise.
Kalis spoke only once they were far enough away for the sounds of the room to blend back into a uniform murmur.
“Don’t do that again,” she said evenly, though there was something harder in her tone than usual. “Don’t waste your time on them.”
Mael looked at her with mild surprise.
“It was just–” he began, then stopped, unsure how to finish.
“I know,” she cut in. “Helpfulness. Politeness. Instinct. Call it whatever you like. But every such gesture has a cost. And you don’t have a margin right now.”
She stopped, forcing him to meet her gaze. Her expression was controlled, alert, as if she were weighing how much she could say–and when.
“If you start letting yourself get distracted,” she continued more quietly, “you’ll fall behind. And then our entire plan stops making sense.”
Mael felt a faint tension settle at the back of his neck.
“What plan?” he asked.
Kalis hesitated–for no more than a fraction of a second.
“The Tower doesn’t take everyone,” she said at last. “The academic scholarship is the only realistic path. Without it…” She trailed off, as if the rest were self-evident. “If your results drop, even slightly, we won’t get a recommendation. Neither of us.”
We won’t. Not you won’t. Mael registered it a moment late.
“I thought you knew,” she added when he didn’t answer at once. “I said in the refectory that we can’t afford mistakes. That wasn’t a metaphor.”
They walked on, Kalis’s steps even and assured, as if each one were already part of a calculated route.
“They,” she added after a moment, without looking at him, “don’t have that goal. They don’t have that stake. They can afford missteps, outside help, chaos. You can’t.”
Mael nodded automatically.
He understood the logic. It was familiar, clean, perfectly embedded in the order he had known for years. And yet something in him refused to settle into it as smoothly as it should have.
“It was just one afternoon,” he said quietly.
Kalis stopped again.
“That’s exactly how falling behind begins,” she replied. “With ‘just one.’”
She moved on without waiting for a response. He followed, but for the first time in a long while, he felt that two parallel aims–once indistinguishable–were beginning to drift apart. And that a choice he had not yet been forced to make was approaching faster than he was ready to admit.
⸸ * ⸸
The brown-haired boy walked through the empty corridors until he eventually reached the path leading straight to the library. The lights had been dimmed, leaving only a row of lamps along the walls, their glow failing to reach very far, as if the Academy itself were withdrawing from wakefulness. The heavy library doors remained closed, and a small plaque listing the opening hours was the only proof that Mael was a full hour too late.
Only now did it occur to him that he had never actually checked the schedule. He sat down on the bench beside the entrance without irritation, without any sense of loss. Since he was already there, he saw no reason to turn back immediately. Erian would still be in the room anyway, and Mael hadn’t been able to focus properly with him there. The boy had offered to leave, but Mael knew he couldn’t suddenly start disrupting someone else’s daily rhythm.
He pulled a book from his bag–a slim volume devoted to wand gestures, their sequences, and their meanings. Dry theory, stripped of emotion, exactly what he needed right now. His body knew these movements all too well. It performed them without hesitation. He himself didn’t know why.
He read slowly, tracing the lines with his finger, trying to understand the logic of something that was already written into him, when he heard footsteps. They weren’t hurried or cautious. Just present. He looked up–and for a moment, his breath caught.
Kieran stopped a few steps from the bench, as if unsure whether he should come closer. He was holding a rolled sheet of parchment in one hand, clearly on his way back from studying. The red-eyed boy looked at him with a questioning expression.
“I thought it was still open,” Mael said, wanting to break the silence, nodding toward the library doors–before he’d had time to consider whether it made any sense.
“They close at eight,” Kieran replied. Then, glancing at the bench, he added, “But… it’s still a good place to sit if someone wants to be alone.”
Silence fell. Brief. Awkward.
“I wanted to thank you,” Kieran said at last. “For today. And for the elixir you gave Miste. It really helped her. For her, that’s… a big deal.”
“That’s good,” Mael said. “I wouldn’t have used it anyway.”
Kieran studied him more closely, as if something about that answer felt familiar, though he couldn’t quite say why.
“You know,” he said after a moment, “I also wanted to apologize–for what happened back in first year…”
He hesitated, as if weighing whether this was even the right moment, and Mael was surprised by the sudden openness. It had never occurred to him that, since they were in the same year, there must have been times when their paths crossed.
“The professor paired us once in Potions. Do you remember?”
Mael didn’t answer right away. Not because he didn’t want to–but because there was nothing there to reach for.
“I shattered the cauldron,” Kieran continued calmly. “Accidentally, obviously. You tried to salvage it, but the professor decided we were both taking the class lightly. We got a pretty harsh reprimand.” He smiled briefly. “After that, you mostly avoided me. At least until now… the only interaction we ever had was saying hello.”
There was no accusation in his voice. Just a statement of fact. Mael listened in silence, feeling the familiar disorientation–as if someone were explaining the rules of a game he’d been dropped into without a starting screen, without a tutorial, without a save point.
“If I was…” he began carefully, “…distant, it wasn’t intentional.”
He had no idea whether that was true of the person he’d been before, but he knew now that he had no intention of pushing Kieran away or hurting him. Kieran nodded, as though that was exactly the answer he’d expected.
“I figured as much,” he said simply. “But I never had the nerve to come up to you before–especially since you were always sitting with a book, or with Kalis. I didn’t want to distract you. Today you didn’t ignore us, though. It was different. I just wanted you to know that I appreciate it.”
He sat down on the bench, keeping a deliberate distance, careful not to intrude into a space Mael had yet to learn how to claim as his own. Mael closed the book and set it beside him. He wanted to change the subject–he had no idea how to respond to something like that.
“I’m trying to understand the theory,” he admitted quietly. “The gestures. Before I… do something on reflex.”
Kieran glanced at the volume.
“That’s sensible,” he said. “Most people don’t bother. I’ve got the theory down myself, but when it comes to practice, I completely fall apart.” He laughed easily, and the tension loosened a little.
“I honestly don’t know what I’m doing,” Mael said, offering his first truly honest confession. “I’m completely lost. I do everything the way I’m supposed to, but it feels like none of it means anything.” He let out a heavy breath, not looking at him, as if he were speaking only to himself.
“I think you’re just exhausted from constant studying,” Kieran replied gently. “Everyone needs rest sometimes. You more than most.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and Mael had the distinct sense that, for the first time in a long while, no one expected him to know what he was doing–that he was allowed to be in the middle of learning the rules of a world everyone else seemed to know by heart.
The corridor lamps dimmed further.
“If you ever feel like talking,” Kieran said, standing up, “no plans, no studying–I’m usually on the roof, or in the refectory after dinner.”
It didn’t sound like an invitation. More like information.
“Okay,” Mael replied.
One word. Enough.
After Kieran left, Mael remained on the bench for a while longer, the book resting on his knees, thinking that maybe a game without instructions wasn’t about learning all the rules as quickly as possible. Maybe it was about finding someone who didn’t mind that you didn’t know them.
When Kieran’s footsteps faded into the echo of the corridor, Mael stayed still for a moment, his hand resting on the cover of the closed book. He could have stayed. Nothing would have happened. It would have been sensible. Safe. Exactly the response he expected of himself.
The thought of Kalis came almost immediately–her voice, her plans, the words delivered with that calm certainty that left no room for hesitation. Don’t waste time on them. You have no margin. The Tower.
And yet, sitting in the half-light of the corridor, Mael realized something both simple and unexpected. He didn’t want to be efficient right now. He wanted to be needed. Not as a function, not as a result. He wanted to do something that belonged only to him–something he could smile about without calculation, without checking whether it fit into someone else’s plan.
He lifted the book, slid it into his bag, and stood. For a moment he hesitated, as if the world were about to ask him for a justification–but no one was watching. The corridor was empty. The Academy did not react.
He walked quickly.
He caught up to Kieran just before the turn leading to the stairs. Stopping a step behind him, he spoke before he could change his mind.
“Kieran.”
The boy turned, mildly surprised.
“Yes?”
For a fraction of a second, Mael didn’t know where to begin. The words refused to arrange themselves into anything that sounded reasonable, so he chose the simplest truth.
“If…” he started, then took a short breath. “If Miste keeps having trouble with potions. Or you do. I can help.”
Saying it aloud felt strangely freeing. He wasn’t offering knowledge as leverage. He wasn’t proposing tutoring from the position of a top student. He was offering–simply–himself.
Kieran looked at him in silence for a moment, as if making sure he had understood correctly.
EMOTIONAL STATE: –
SOURCE: –
“You don’t have to,” he said at last. “Really.”
Mael nodded, accepting that–but without withdrawing the offer.
“I know,” Mael said. “I want to.”
The single word resonated inside him more strongly than he had expected. The red-eyed boy smiled slowly–not with that light, social expression, but with something softer, more attentive.
“Miste would be thrilled,” he admitted. “And I…” He hesitated for a moment. “…I’d like the help too. When it comes to practice, there’s no one better than you.”
He didn’t say thank you. There was no need.
“Tomorrow after classes–would you have time?” he asked.
“Tomorrow,” Mael confirmed, and despite the composure he usually wore, he smiled–genuinely, unforced. Straight from a heart he was finally beginning to recognize as his own.
They walked on together, unhurried now, and Mael realized that for the first time since he had been, he didn’t feel like someone patching over another person’s absence. Maybe he still didn’t know who he was. Maybe he was still moving through the world without instructions. But he had just done something that was his. And for a brief moment, that was enough to make the place he found himself in feel less foreign.
They walked side by side in a silence that was neither strained nor empty. At this hour, the Academy’s corridors lost their daytime severity; footsteps echoed more softly, the lights dimmed further, and the space itself seemed to slow, as if allowing its students a moment of inattention.
Mael noticed that he was no longer counting turns or staircases. He was simply walking. Only when they reached the dormitory wing did he realize that Kieran hadn’t turned down the side corridor leading to the upper floors, though he should have. He stopped only when they stood before the doors to the section where Mael’s room was.
How had he known this was where Mael lived?
“I’m a floor up,” Kieran said, as if only now noticing. He nodded toward the stairs. “But it was on the way anyway.”
Mael nodded.
“Thanks,” he said. “For…” He trailed off, unwilling to name something that didn’t yet have a name.
Kieran smiled briefly.
“See you tomorrow,” he said. “After classes.”
“See you tomorrow.”
They stood facing each other for a moment–too close to be entirely neutral, yet without the kind of tension that demands immediate resolution. Mael felt the familiar quickening of his breath, quiet, almost embarrassing, and he was grateful for the half-light of the corridor, which concealed more than it revealed.
Kieran turned first and headed for the stairs. After a few steps, he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.
“And…” he added, almost casually. “Good night.”
Mael didn’t answer right away. The dormitory doors were just behind him, cool and solid, a promise of familiar quiet. For a moment, he felt that if he spoke now, it would become part of this new, fragile structure he was only beginning to build.
“Good night,” he said at last.
Kieran nodded, accepting the words without comment, and disappeared up the stairs. Mael was left alone in the corridor. He opened the door to his room and stepped inside, closing it softly behind him, almost carefully. Only then did he allow himself another brief, barely noticeable smile–not triumphant, not certain, but real. He didn’t yet know where this was leading, but for the first time in a long while, he felt he was moving in a direction he had chosen himself.
Erian looked up from his desk almost reflexively, at the same moment Mael closed the door. He didn’t ask anything right away. He simply watched. Mael realized it only after a few steps, when he took off his coat and set his bag of books on his bed. The smile that had appeared without invitation still refused to fade. It was quiet, barely sketched–but to someone who shared a room with him every evening, it was unmistakable.
“You’re… smiling?” Erian finally said, clearly surprised, as if speaking more to himself than to Mael.
Mael froze. He lifted a hand to his face instinctively, as if checking whether it was really visible.
“Am I?” he asked, startled by his own voice.
Erian nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
There was no probing in it. Just the calm observation of someone accustomed to noticing small changes. Mael lowered his hand and stood there for a moment, no longer trying to hide anything. He considered whether he should say something, explain something, but couldn’t find the right words.
“I guess…” he began, then stopped. “I guess I had a good day.”
Erian accepted that without further questions. He smiled faintly–almost imperceptibly–and returned to his notes. Mael sat down on his bed, staring at the floor. The smile eventually faded, but didn’t disappear entirely, as if it had left behind a trace that would linger a little longer, reminding him that something had shifted.
Erian lifted his head from the parchments once more, as if something had just amused him.
“A good day meaning…?” he asked with a slight smile. “You didn’t see your parents today?”
He tossed it out lightly, half a joke, in the tone of someone not expecting any major revelations. Mael looked at him slowly.
“Why do you think that?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.
Erian shrugged.
“Because every time you come back from seeing them, you’re…” Erian hesitated, searching for the right word. “…tenser. Like you’re trying to fit yourself into something that’s a size too small. And when they’re not around, you breathe more normally.”
There was no judgment in it. Just a factual observation. Mael felt a brief sting of surprise.
“Always?” he repeated quietly.
“Yeah. Ever since we’ve lived here,” Erian confirmed. “I thought it was obvious.”
Silence settled between them. For a moment, Mael had the strange sensation that someone had opened the door to a room he hadn’t known existed–not a memory, but a pattern. Something that had been there before and had left its trace.
“They worry,” he said at last, more to himself than to Erian.
“I know,” Erian replied calmly. “But worry can be a form of pressure too.”
Mael nodded, though he wasn’t sure whether the gesture meant agreement or merely acknowledgment. If the previous Mael had felt the same–this tightness, this constant sense of being watched and assessed out of concern–then not everything that remained of that life was foreign. It wasn’t memory or emotion, but an echo of reactions the body had known before he himself learned to recognize them.
He looked down at his hands, resting quietly on his knees, and thought that perhaps this pressure–this thing he was only now naming–had been one of the few points of contact between him and the person who was gone.
He didn’t feel sorrow because of it. Rather, a quiet relief that not everything had begun from nothing.