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Classes will feel odd now, to say the least. There’s only about three months left until the Feast of Cups, and the main goal for the year—sorting us all into houses—has concluded.

Judging from just one morning, the professors seem to be content for us to continue practicing the same fundamentals they’ve been teaching all year, but there’s no urgency to it.

And there’s a sense of relief among the first-year students.

Most can’t stop twirling the medallions of their new houses around their necks.

We all made it.

But what awaits us next year remains a question. I had some idea of what the first year was like from Arina. Year two is a mystery that remains a problem for the future, one I’m hopeful Kaelis will help me tackle. If he’ll even look at me, that is…

As soon as classes are over and lunch is finished—a lunch Kaelis was notably absent from—I head straight for the headmaster’s apartments.

I’m prepared to wait until he returns, until he lets me in.

But I meet no resistance. The Stellis positioned at his doors still don’t stop me.

His chambers are unlocked, bedroom empty.

But there’s the sound of a pen scratching coming from the half-open door of his study. The soft hum of his focus.

I open the door the rest of the way and stand in its frame, waiting. He draws the silence out for a good minute before his eyes drift up to look at me. For a breath, neither of us speaks. The silence does little for my mood, and just the sight of him spurs my frustration.

“You seem like you have something you want to say.” He looks back to the papers on his desk. “Well, then, out with it.”

“What is wrong with you?”

His eyes flick up, but it’s little more than a second of acknowledgment. “People would say ‘many things.’?”

“You sent me away.”

Kaelis’s quill scratches across the surface of the papers. “You made it clear from the very start that you were not particularly delighted by our living arrangement.”

I suppose I did… “What happened to convincing people we’re a legitimate couple? I’m not going back to Halazar.”

“I don’t think you’re at risk of that anymore, thanks to my father’s blessing.

We could not have asked for a better endorsement.

Nor could we have a better excuse than you joining a house to leave—it is important for you to connect with your new housemates.

” He doesn’t sound like himself. It’s almost like he repeated these words a dozen times over.

He’s not the cruel but driven prince I first met.

Nor is he the soft-spoken and surprisingly kind man who tended to the wounds Eza inflicted across my body. He’s emotionless. Void of everything.

“So, that’s it, then?”

“What’s it?” He sighs dramatically.

“You’re not…We’re not…”

“We’re not what, Clara?”

“Would you look at me for one moment?” I snap. If I could just see his eyes, then I’d know. I’d know what this is—what we are. As if the thousands of other times he looked at me weren’t enough already.

Kaelis leans back in his chair and drags his attention to me as if it’s physically painful. There’s a wall there. Cold and unfeeling. I’d be impressed he could erect such a thing in such a short period of time if it weren’t designed to keep me out.

“What?” he presses when I don’t immediately speak.

Before I can respond, though, he stands.

“What do you want from me, Clara?” Kaelis rounds the corner of his desk.

“You have told me, in no uncertain terms, countless times, the depths of your hatred for me. You have run from me. Blamed me for the death of your sister. Doubted me and my intentions. There has been nothing I can say or do to make you think differently, and I have tried.” With every bitterly true accusation, he takes a step closer to me.

I don’t move. An unseen hand holds me in place so tightly that my breathing shallows.

“When I have finally given you what you wanted, you only resent me more for it. What do you want from me? ”

The question repeats like a plea. His eyes search mine as he looms over me. The wall is cracking, my heart with it.

“I don’t know.” The confession is little more than a breath.

“Then set me free.”

“What?”

“You consume my every waking moment. Devour my thoughts. You’ve poisoned my halls with your scent.

Flooded my dreams to the point that I cannot tell if it is a delight or a nightmare to want to drown in you.

If you hate me, then hate me, let us be eternal rivals.

Let any future where you and I are more than enemies finally be done and gone.

“If you want something else from me, then take it. But, if it is neither, then set me free and let me be done with you once and for all.”

“I can’t.” Those two words are the first thing to come to my mind. His eyes widen a fraction. His hands twitch, as if he’s physically holding himself from reaching out and grabbing me. “Hate you. Love you. But I can’t be nothing to you.”

Once more, I’m the one to kiss him.