Page 47

THEY DIDN'T HEAR THE KNOCK.

Not at first.

The room was too thick with it—that tension that crackled just beneath the skin, the sort that made the air feel close, like it was bracing for a storm.

Adrian and Silas stood at a distance that was both too far and too close, chests rising in restrained rhythm, words unspoken curling like smoke in the silence between them.

It wasn't until the door creaked, opening with slow, deliberate weight, that any of them turned.

And there she was.

Headmistress Valerie.

The rain haloed behind her in soft mist, black strands of hair gleaming like a raven in the dim corridor light. She did not speak immediately. She didn't need to. Her presence alone spoke louder than any reprimand.

"Well," she said at last, her tone deceptively mild, her gaze drifting between the three of them. "What an interesting assembly."

Adrian straightened as though someone had struck a match along his spine. Silas's smirk was gone, replaced by a subtle shift in posture—something tighter, warier. Even Y/N, still stiff with the echo of adrenaline, felt herself shrink under the weight of the Headmistress's gaze.

"Boys," Valerie murmured, voice velvet-wrapped steel. "Do remind me—are there any legitimate circumstances in which students of the male dormitories are permitted entry into the girls' quarters... without staff permission?"

Neither of them answered.

"And Miss L/N," she added, her eyes sharp enough to cleave stone, "surely you understand your responsibility in such matters. It's your room, is it not? Your silence is as much a transgression as their presence."

Y/N opened her mouth to protest—then stopped. What was there to say? That she hadn't known how to stop them? That she was caught in the crossfire of things she didn't yet understand?

The words wouldn't come. Just a quiet nod.

"Excellent," Valerie said, stepping back into the hall. "All three of you. My office. Now."

? ★ ?

The punishment was swift and clinical.

Three days of detention for the next week.

Immediate loss of extracurricular privileges. A formal warning was added to their disciplinary files. No student lounges. No late-night freedoms. No illusions that their reputations could escape untouched.

Adrian bore it with tight-lipped silence. Silas watched his mother like he was trying to see something beyond her.

Y/N said nothing, fingers clenched beneath the sleeves of her jumper, a silent ache settling into her chest that had nothing to do with guilt—and everything to do with exhaustion.

The next morning brought a quiet kind of reprieve.

Y/N stepped into the wide, skylit studio with the weight of detention still hanging at her back, but something in the scent of oil paints and the low hum of classical music softened the world again. It was the only room in the academy that never felt cold.

Azul was already there, perched beside his easel with his sleeves rolled to the elbows, silver waves sitting perfectly on his forehead. He looked up as Y/N entered and offered a small smile.

"Y/N, I finished it." he said.

Y/N walked over, curious—and then stopped short.

The portrait.

Her portrait.

It stared back at her from the canvas like a mirror painted in light. Not a perfect likeness—something better. The face was familiar, yes, but it was the soul in the eyes, the way the brush had captured something deeply felt, not just seen, that stunned her speechless.

Her lips parted. "Azul..."

"I hope that's not a horrified gasp."

"It's... incredible."

And it was. A version of herself she didn't quite recognise—but liked. Not because it was prettier or idealised, but because it looked like she mattered. Like she was worth painting.

"It literally looks better than the real me..!"

He continued to smile, but something hardened in his gaze. "Nothing is better than the real you, Y/N."

They worked in companionable silence for the rest of the session. The instructor came by midway, paused at the canvas, and let out a low whistle. "Stunning..." she muttered, turning to the class. "This—This is a portrait that breathes."

? ★ ?

His posture was casual, but it carried the careful weight of someone who didn't want to linger too long. One hand in his pocket, the other loosely wrapped around the strap of his satchel, shoulders tucked in like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be seen or forgotten.

His hair was a little tousled from the wind outside, falling across his forehead in a way that used to make her stomach flutter. But today, there was something sharper about the line of his jaw. Distant.

She blinked. "Calixto..?"

He glanced up, just once. "Didn't mean to startle you," he said coolly.

For a moment, they both stilled. The quiet between them wasn't the kind that invited ease. It was brittle. Cautious. Heavy with all the things neither had said since that night.

? ★ ?

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The days after the party had twisted into a blur of smoke and knives.

It wasn't the kiss that haunted him—he could live with that, even if it replayed in the back of his mind with agonising clarity. It was everything after. The way the others had looked at her. Looked at him.

Adrian was the first to corner him. "You kissed her; that's not fair," he'd said, calm in that terrifying, restrained way he always used when he was one breath from violence. "Don't do it again."

"You let him get that close, and now you're pouting?" Silas mocked, lounging like he hadn't been seething beneath it. "Maybe if you weren't too busy brooding in corners like a lone fucking wolf—"

It hadn't stopped—a week of quiet competition. Of smug jabs and smouldering glares traded behind her back. All of them keeping score. Who made her laugh first in the morning, who she sat next to in class, and who she looked at longest when she thought no one noticed.

Because unlike the others, he knew what came after obsession. He'd grown up in a world where people killed for what they wanted. He could already see it in them. That ache. That edge

He refused to turn into another clawing hand reaching for her. After all, in some sense, he'd been the closest and had nearly succeeded in winning her over, hadn't he?

Perhaps if he maintained a bit of distance and gave her the cold shoulder following the deep connection they had shared, it might be enough to make her the one who yearned for him instead.

But seeing her now—her wide eyes, the softness in her voice when she said his name—something cracked through the cool distance he'd tried so hard to build; he swallowed it down.

He couldn't afford softness.

Not anymore.

Not when she looked like she was still trying to figure out what the kiss meant, and the others were already planning how to win her. So he did what he had to.

He only nodded once in acknowledgement and turned to leave, already walking past her like he hadn't been standing there on purpose.

She almost called out to him, again.

But didn't.

Instead, she stepped aside, giving him room to pass. He nodded once more, the paper still clenched in his hand, and walked past without touching her. Without glancing back.

She stood for a while after he'd gone, listening to the rain soften against the windowpanes and the faint creak of doors closing further down the corridor. The ache in her chest wasn't sharp—it was dull, familiar.

The ache of something that almost was and now isn't.

And maybe wouldn't ever be again.