I take a bite of oatmeal, force myself to swallow even though it tastes like paste. "I decided, and then I did something about it."
Lily looks at my hands where I've wrapped them in strips of torn fabric, the white cloth already staining through in places. She reaches across the table and squeezes my wrist gently, careful to avoid the damaged parts. She doesn't ask what I did. Maybe she doesn't want to know. Maybe she already knows.
We eat in silence for a while, the comfortable kind that says we understand each other without needing words.
Across the hall, I can feel eyes on me. I glance up and catch Nico looking in my direction before he quickly looks away, breaking eye contact like he's lost the right to hold it. First crack in that perfect performance of his. Caspian sits besidehim at their usual table, and when my gaze shifts to him, his expression is different from what it was before. Not dismissive anymore. Assessing. Like I'm a problem that's changed variables overnight.
I look back down at my food and take another bite.
A few minutes later, movement in my peripheral vision makes me glance toward the corner where Knox always sits alone. The space around him is empty like always, not because people avoid him but because that's just how Knox exists in the world. He's watching me over his food with those pale eyes, and when I meet his gaze he gives the smallest nod. I remember the tower. I remember his hand on my wrist pulling me back from the edge.
I nod back. Once. Quick.
At the faculty table, I can see Professor Harmon in profile. His jaw is tight and he's gripping his coffee cup with more force than necessary. He's staring at the wall beside him like it's the most interesting thing in the room.
I turn my attention back to Lily.
"What happened to your hands?" she asks quietly.
"Training."
"At two in the morning?"
"I couldn't sleep."
She's quiet for a moment, studying my face. "Nova. What are you doing?"
"Learning to fight back."
"Against who?" Her voice drops even lower. "You can't beat the Dominion alone. No one can."
I take another bite, chew, swallow. "Then I'll lose fighting instead of crying, and I can live with that."
Lily looks at me for a long time, and something in her expression shifts. Not quite approval, but maybe understanding. "What do you need from me?"
The question catches me off guard. I meet her eyes and see that she means it, that she's offering whatever she can in a place where offering anything comes with a price.
"Keep bringing food," I say. "Don't ask questions. And if I don't come back one night, tell Professor Harmon."
"Why him?"
"Because he's the only one who looks at me like I might be worth something."
Lily nods slowly, doesn't argue, just goes back to her breakfast.
I finish everything on my plate. Every bite. When I stand to leave, my legs are steadier than they were yesterday.
By the time seven o'clock rolls around, my hands hurt enough that holding a pen is an exercise in stubbornness. The bandages are stiff with dried blood and the blisters underneath throb with every movement, but I knock on Professor Harmon's door anyway.
"Enter."
His voice comes through the wood flat and cold. When I push the door open he's at his desk with his head down, pen moving across paper in sharp exact strokes. He doesn't look up.
"Sit, Miss Bardot."
I sit. Pull out my notebook and open it to a clean page. My hands protest but I ignore them.
He keeps writing for another thirty seconds before he finally sets down his pen. Still doesn't look at me. "Chapter seven. Bloodline consolidation following the territorial reforms of 1847. You'll find the primary sources in Markham's text, pages one-fourteen through one-thirty-six. I expect you to have formed an argument by the time I'm done grading these essays."
