“You’d be good at that,” Grayson says.
“I know,” Skye says it matter-of-factly; not arrogant, just one hundred percent certain. “That’s not the issue.”
“Okay.” Grayson leans back in his chair. “What is the issue?”
Skye folds the napkin in half. Then half again. “I know what people think about me.”
“Meaning?”
He gives Grayson a look over the top of his glasses. He doesn’t need them, but he’s worn them like a shield since he was seven. “That I’m powerful enough to do something more useful…important.”
Grayson is quiet for a beat, not because he doesn’t know what to say, but because if he opens his mouth too quickly, he’ll say something furious about society, magical propaganda, and people who think care work is somehow lesser than prestige.
Instead, he says, “And what do you think?”
Skye’s expression barely shifts, but his grey eyes sharpen. “I think teaching children is important. I think being good with them matters. I think there are a lot of people who decide things about kids before they’ve even had a fair shot to show who they are.” He picks up his fork again, then sets it back down untouched. “And I think I’d rather spend my life doing something that actually matters to me than something other people would brag about at dinner parties.”
Grayson doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Skye notices.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He picks up his water and takes a sip to buy himself a second. “You just sound like your Dad.”
That gets him a long-suffering look. “Which one?”
“Exactly.”
Skye snorts, quiet and quick. “Pops would say children deserve competence, structure, and someone who doesn’t talk to them like idiots.”
“He would.”
“Big would say leadership is at the heart of service.”
“Also true.”
“Woo would say tiny people deserve whimsy and someone willing to get paint on the floor.” He frowns. “Though his standards for whimsy are often unachievable. No one does whimsy like Woo.”
“Very true.”
“And Ninny would tell me to stop overthinking it because I already know.”
Grayson feels something in his chest pull so hard it almost hurts. Not because Skye needs them the way he once did. He doesn’t. Not like that. But because they’re in him. All of them. Woven through the man he became.
“What about me?” Grayson asks lightly.
Skye finally looks at him head-on. “You’d ask if I love it—if it feeds my soul.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” Not even a pause. “I like the order of it. I know they’re loud and chaotic, but I like that little kids mean what they say until they’re taught not to. I like that if you make room for them properly, they stop trying to be whatever they thinkyouwant. And that they’ll become who they’re meant to be.” He reaches out and taps one finger against the edge of the sketches his first-years had left on the end of the table. “I like watching people become more themselves.”
And there it is. The thing under the thing. It’s not just teaching, it’s recognition. It’s not just skill, it’s belonging.
Grayson’s throat tightens.
For a long time, the world had mistaken Skye’s quiet for the absence of interest. His difference for deficiency. But Skye had always been watching, cataloging, and understanding the world in his own way. He has always been building his own framework for what mattered and what didn’t.
Now he is sitting in Grayson’s classroom, fully grown and self-possessed, talking about shaping the world around children so they can arrive as themselves.
