Chapter 5
Elara
Emma’s communication crystal rang just as I was putting away my notes. She was sitting at the edge of her bed, half-listening to Tara’s explanation of a forum rumor while trying to braid her hair. The crystal chimed again, and Emma glanced at the display before answering without thinking.
“Liam?”
The connection opened immediately. A burst of noise came from the other side—male voices, a chair scraping against the floor, and someone shouting that the last healing card had been stolen. Emma lifted the crystal closer to her ear.
“Are you still playing?”
“Playing?” Liam’s voice sounded breathless. “We are conducting a highly strategic defense exercise.”
“That means they’re losing again,” Emma said.
A chorus of protest erupted from the boys’ dormitory. I was sitting at my desk with a book open in front of me, though I had not read the same paragraph for several minutes. My attention had kept drifting back to the private room, the corridor, and the weight of Kael’s shoulder beneath my forehead.
The memory was inconveniently clear. Tara leaned over from her bed.
“Did Kael really leave right after you?”
Emma covered the lower half of the crystal with her hand and looked at me. “Apparently. Liam says he went back to the dormitory with them.”
“I didn’t ask where he went.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t.”
The crystal remained open. From the other end, Liam asked, “What are you two talking about?” Emma turned slightly away from me. “Nothing.”
Tara gave me a look that was far too amused for someone who had not been part of the conversation. I lowered my eyes to the page. The ink blurred for a second.
I remembered Kael’s hand settling uncertainly on my shoulder, the low vibration of his shadow magic, and the way the pain had receded without my having to force it down. His face appeared in my mind before I could stop it. The words slipped out quietly.
“Kael is actually quite handsome.”
The room went silent. Emma’s hand froze around the communication crystal. The noise on the other side stopped at exactly the same moment.
For one terrible second, I thought the connection had broken. Then the boys’ dormitory exploded. Dylan shouted something incoherent. Liam made a sound that seemed to contain both surprise and laughter, while several other voices started repeating my sentence in increasingly exaggerated tones.
Emma stared at me. I stared back. No one moved.
“Did she just say Kael is handsome?” Dylan yelled through the crystal.
“Turn the volume down!” Liam said, though he was clearly laughing.
“She said it! I heard it!”
“Everyone heard it,” someone else added.
Emma finally pressed her fingers against the crystal and tried to close the connection. The call ended. The silence that followed was worse than the shouting.
Tara slowly lowered her braid. Lillian, who had been pretending to search through a drawer, turned around with an expression of open delight.
“Elara,” she said, “did you just confess that Kael Blackwood is handsome?”
“I’m tired.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m going to sleep.”
“You’re wearing your uniform.”
“I can sleep in it.”
I stood up, crossed the room, and climbed into bed before anyone could ask anything else. I pulled the blanket over my shoulders and turned my back to them. Behind me, the room remained unnaturally quiet for three seconds.
Then Tara whispered, “She really did say it.”
“I heard it,” Lillian whispered back.
Emma said nothing. I pulled my pillow over my head.
I wanted to disappear.
Not metaphorically. Not in the dramatic way people used the phrase when they were embarrassed. I wanted the floor beneath my bed to open, swallow me, and close again before morning.
The worst part was that I had not even been confessing anything. Kael was handsome. That was an objective observation, no more meaningful than saying the academy towers were tall or the moon was bright.
The fact that my body remembered his touch had nothing to do with his face. The fact that I had been thinking about him for most of the evening had nothing to do with his face either. I closed my eyes.
The memory of his shoulder returned at once. That explanation became less convincing. I slept badly.
Every time I drifted off, the dream began in the same place. I stood beneath a black sky filled with silver water, and Kael was somewhere beyond the surface, his hand extended toward me through the reflection. I tried to reach him, but the moonlight between us kept breaking apart.
When I finally woke, the first thing I remembered was his face. The second thing I remembered was my own voice saying that he was handsome. I pressed both hands over my eyes.
The day had not even started, and I had already experienced another social death.
The fog over the academy had not lifted by the time morning classes ended. It was the middle of October, and the cold white mist clung to the bridges between the towers. I stepped out of the Central Teaching Tower wearing my silver-gray Moon Department cloak, pulled the hood over my head, and started toward the Alchemy Building.
Nora had asked me to collect a lunar stabilizer from the second-floor dispensary. I had agreed because it gave me a reason to leave the dormitory before anyone could mention the previous night. It did not work.
The corridor ahead filled with voices as a group of students came around the corner. I recognized them before I saw their faces—the practical-training team from the Shadow Department, with Kael walking near the center. One of the boys spotted me first.
He nudged the person beside him and said loudly, “Careful. Kael’s admirer is coming.” Another laughed. “Should we give them some privacy?”
A third added, “Kael, she said you were handsome. You should at least thank her.” My hand tightened around the medicine request form.
I lowered my hood another inch, hoping the shadow would hide my face. The corridor seemed to narrow around me. The boys’ voices bounced between the stone walls, carrying farther than they should have. Every student nearby turned their head, and each glance felt like a small point of heat against my skin.
“Enough,” Kael said.
His voice was not loud. It did not need to be. The boys quieted immediately.
I kept walking, pretending not to have heard any of them. When I passed Kael, I saw the slight crease between his eyebrows. He was not laughing with them, and he was not looking at me with amusement.
That should have made things easier. It did not. I reached the corner and continued toward the stairs without looking back.
