The soft hum of conversation in the Vespera common area barely registers anymore; I’ve been staring at the same page of the same book for nearly an hour, rereading the same sentence without absorbing a single word. The fire crackles low at my side, casting shifting ribbons of orange along the stone walls, but the warmth does nothing to soothe the tight restlessness knotting in my chest.
Then the doors open.
I don’t look up at first, not until the murmurs around the room shift into something sharper, something more pointed. When I finally lift my eyes, she’s standing there.
Harper.
Her arms are drawn tight over her chest, not in defiance but in exhaustion. She moves like each step is measured, like she’s forcing her legs to carry her further than she wants to go. Something about the angle of her shoulders, the tension in her neck, the slight drag in her stride, it’s wrong. Off. She’shurting, though she’s doing everything she can to make it invisible.
The fire pops again, loud in the sudden quiet. Two Vespera boys near the hearth lean toward each other, whispering behind their hands. I hear the words even though they try to hide them:unhinged,dangerous,her eyes,the explosion last class.And underneath it all, the smug thrill of people who think gossip gives them power.
My entire body goes cold.
Before logic can intervene, I’m out of my chair. The legs scrape sharply against the stone, silence rippling outward through the room like a shockwave. The boys go stiff the moment they realize I’m coming toward them.
“If I hear you speak her name again,” I say quietly, quiet enough that only they hear, but sharp enough that the meaning carves itself into the air- “I’ll make sure neither of you speaks for a week.”
They panic. One tries to sputter a defense; the other tugs him by the sleeve and nearly trips over a table in his rush to get out of the room. They vanish toward the boys’ hall like cowards who’ve just glimpsed the edge of a blade.
When I turn back, Harper has stopped moving. She’s watching me, not wide-eyed, not frightened, but with the stunned stillness of someone who expected far too little from me and got something else entirely. The lantern light catches the exhaustion under her eyes, softening her features in a way that pulls something taut inside my chest.
I walk toward her, slower than before. Careful. She already looks one breath away from collapsing into the shadows she’s been carrying all day.
“Can you talk?” I ask, stopping just close enough that she can decide the distance between us.
Her gaze flicks to the iron clock mounted above the hearth. The pendulum sways steadily, ticking away a rhythmthat fills the silence stretching between us. For several seconds she just watches it, maybe deciding, maybe steadying herself.
Finally, she nods once.
“Five minutes.”
Not agreement.
Not surrender.
A boundary.
She turns without waiting for my reaction, heading toward the corridor that leads to the Vespera dormitories. I follow at a respectful distance, resisting every urge to reach for her, to ask what’s wrong, to close the space she’s trying so hard to maintain. The lanterns dim as night deepens, casting golden halos along the walls that flicker like restless shadows.
Her steps slow when we reach my door.
She doesn’t ask permission to enter, doesn’t need to. I push it open for her, and she steps inside with the quiet certainty of someone who doesn’t want comfort but needs answers.
I follow her into the room, closing the door behind us with a soft click.
The faint scent of rain clings to her hair, droplets still dampening the shoulders of her robe as she stands near my desk. Her arms uncross slowly, as though the tension is unspooling from her in exhausted increments. I stay near the doorway for a heartbeat, just watching her take in the room, its dark wood, its shelves lined with spell books and artifacts, the single candle flickering atop my desk.
“Five minutes,” she reminds me without looking back.
I step further into the room.
"Five Minutes.”
Harper movesthrough my room with the quiet heaviness of someone carrying far more than she’s willing to speak aloud. She sits at the edge of my bed, posture rigid, shoulders tight beneath the weight of her own exhaustion. Her eyes travel over the bare walls, the neatly kept bookshelf, the weapons rack in the corner, the stack of cloaks folded without care. There’s nothing personal here, nothing sentimental or soft, and she seems to take it all in with a kind of tired curiosity.
“Not one for keepsakes?” she asks, her tone light but lacking any real levity. It sounds more like she’s searching for something to comment on so she doesn’t have to comment on me.
“Never needed them,” I answer, and the simplicity of the truth hangs between us. Keepsakes require roots, attachments, moments worth preserving. Those have always felt like luxuries, things belonging to people safer and softer than me. I wait for her to look at me, to ask something else, but she keeps her gaze fixed on the floorboards, tracing invisible patterns with her eyes as though the grain of the wood is easier to face than whatever brought her up here.
