I pushed myself upright, feeling my knees unstick from the cold marble floor with a graceless wobble, my palms brushing dust from my sleeves as I did so.
Then I stared down at him—really stared—caught in that strange, electric blankness where my thoughts sputtered out, leaving only the soft hum in my skull and the sharp, humiliating awareness that I was still half-leaning over him like I couldn’t decide whether to kiss or kill him.
I felt my breath coming slow and sharp, as though the moment itself had dug hooks under my ribs and refused to let me step back.
Tora, Saints help him, seemed just as stuck, frozen on the floor with that wild blush spread across his cheeks and his chest heaving like he’d sprinted the entire length of the library.
He wore those ceremonial white robes—loose, flowing, deceptively pure. The kind of soft, fluttering fabric that made him look like some fragile altar offering waiting to be sacrificed.
His lips parted soundlessly once, then twice, like a fish thrown unexpectedly onto land, and I felt an absurd urge to poke him just to see if he’d squeak again; I didn’t, of course, because I was trying very hard to be a responsible adult, or at least the closest approximation the universe was ever going to get from me.
And then he actually did squeak—a sharp, startled sound that shot through the aisle like an arrow. I nearly threw myself back in surprise.
Just then, he jolted with a sudden burst of breath before shouting, "You’re him! You’re—"
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of finishing.
I vaulted forward with the kind of desperate, reflexive elegance only terror and embarrassment can create, pouncing directly on top of him and clamping a hand firmly across his mouth.
Tora let out a muffled shriek that dissolved into a pitiful string of panicked noises, his eyes blown so wide they reflected the candlelight around us in shimmering waves.
I whispered a frantic, breathless "Shhhhhh—Saints above, please—be quiet," feeling the library shelves around us loom with judgment as if I’d personally offended every book in creation.
Tora nodded, trembling, and I felt him swallow against my palm, which did absolutely nothing to calm my nerves.
I slowly peeled my hand off his mouth, half expecting him to scream again, but he only inhaled shakily, staring at me like I’d descended from the rafters to devour him.
His breathing hitched, then stuttered, and suddenly—oh Saints—his eyes began to well. "Gods... you’re still alive..." he choked.
Before he could say any further, I grabbed him by the wrist, yanked him upright, and marched him deeper down the aisle with the stern authority of a parent dragging a toddler away from a hot stove.
I shoved him gently, but with purpose, back against a towering shelf of records. Dust fluttered around us in a lazy cloud, adding a dramatic effect I hadn’t quite intended but fully welcomed.
I planted a hand beside his head, leaning in just close enough to make him gulp audibly, and asked in a low, razor-sharp whisper, "Speak. What do you know about my past?"
The poor boy nearly folded in half.
Tora’s words tumbled out in tiny, disjointed fragments that seemed to have escaped his brain without his permission.
"Your... your father," he whispered, voice shaking. "After that night, after you’d been separated. I remember that. I remember—"
His throat clicked, and then the last piece came out in a strangled whisper.
"There was blood. S-so much blood. Too much. All over the floor, painting those flowers—" His breath hitched, eyes glassy. "I... I can still see it. Saints, I can still smell it—"
I felt my jaw tighten at that, the familiar sting of a memory I shouldn’t have—the kind that sat behind a locked mental door I’d bricked over for my own sanity.
I straightened abruptly and stepped away from him, pacing tight circles in the narrow aisle. I felt the edges of my thoughts catching on each other, unraveling into something jagged, something frustrated.
Each time I tried to pin down a memory, it slipped, like something wet and half-formed sliding between my fingers. But then—just for a heartbeat—something flickered.
I stopped pacing, staring at him again. "Wait," I muttered, dragging my fingers through my already-ruined hair. "I might—just maybe—recognize you. Hold on. You’re that servant boy from the lower house! The one that used to bring me things I never asked for and spill half of them on the way."
Tora’s face lit up like a lantern. "Y-yes! Exactly that! You remember! You used to—well, you didn’t talk to me often, but sometimes you’d say—"
"I’d say you needed to stop talking so much because it made my head hurt," I finished dryly, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Saints, yes. That. Gods, now it’s coming back." I blinked. "I remember you crying once because you spilled tea on one of the tapestries. Hah! The stewards nearly threw you in the river over that."
Tora flushed, covering his mouth. "T-that was one time! The pot was heavy, the carpet was uneven, and—"
"And you apologized forty-seven times in a row," I said, letting the faintest smirk drag at my lips despite the suffocating knot of tension in my chest. "I remember because I counted. It was like listening to a panicked songbird choking on its own voice."
Tora jolted upright, almost relieved. "I... I can’t believe you actually remember me. All this time, I thought—I thought maybe you’d forgotten everything from before—before the... before that night..."
"Gods," I paused, letting the moment settle. "Then you were there when it happened, weren’t you? After that... incident with my father—what happened to you?"
"I was barely able to escape," he murmured. "The stewards found me hiding under one of the grain carts. They said your father was... looking for me." His voice faltered. "But a merchant caravan had come through that morning. One of the drivers recognized me from errands I used to run. He smuggled me under the tarps and out through the back gate before your father’s men searched the yard."
"Saints above," I whispered. "To think you’d become a Glasswick."
His cheeks pinked a little with pride—or possibly embarrassment—before he nodded.
He spoke in painstaking detail about the moments leading up to that night—the night my mother had died. My mother... a word I had thought carried warmth, memory, and safety, now paired with terror I’d never consciously remembered.
He spoke of the garden. The screaming. All of it felt like a distant dream I had woken halfway through, leaving only the terrifying impression without the actual memory.
"Most of the other servants," he whispered, fingers twisting in his sleeve, "they were all in a panic. No one knew what your father would do next, and everyone in the lower house said—"
He hesitated, a bit too long.
His mouth worked around a word he clearly wanted to say, the syllables forming behind his teeth with the trembling desperation of someone who had been holding onto a truth for far too long.
"They said the—"
I was on him before the breath finished leaving his lungs.
I slapped my finger over his lips so fast he squeaked in protest. His eyes bulged, his entire body going ramrod stiff as my face hovered inches from his, my voice barely a whisper.
"Don’t," I breathed.
"Everyone in the house already knew," he tried to murmur around my touch, the words muffled. "We were taught to—"
"Ah-ah." I pushed my finger harder against his lips. "Stop. Right there. Whatever comes after that sentence? Stuff it back into the vault where it belongs." I darted a glance down the aisle—too many corners, too many shadows, too many places a person could stand unnoticed. "Anybody could be listening," I murmured. "These walls aren’t safe, these shelves aren’t safe, this city isn’t safe."
I waited until the silence settled between us again before placing my hands gently on his shoulders. His eyes shot open wide again, as if I’d lit a match under his ribs.
I leaned forward slightly and whispered, "Listen. That part of my past cannot, by any means, be disclosed. Not to anyone you hear me? If it gets out, many people could be in danger. Understood?"
Tora nodded so hard I feared his neck might snap, stuttering, "O-of course—yes—obviously—I’d never—I’m sorry..."
I gave him a soft pat on the head.
I really did—full palm, slow, deliberate, authoritative—like I was rewarding a puppy for not chewing through my shoes, and honestly the reaction was so gloriously worth it that I nearly congratulated myself twice.
Tora froze, eyes shooting wide like I’d just cast some forbidden charm on him, and a tiny sound slipped out of his throat, something between a startled gasp and a strangled oh.
His cheeks flushed a vivid pink that spread so quickly across his face I felt as though I could practically see the heat rising off him.
He tried—saints above, he tried—to pull himself together, to raise his chin and stand with dignity, but his gaze darted away in a flustered burst of breath, leaving him staring intently at absolutely nothing on the nearest shelf, as if the knots in the wood had suddenly become fascinating historical artifacts deserving his full scholarly attention.
"Good boy," I said with a smirk, unable to help myself, because saints above, he was adorable.
Not in a pathetic way—well, a little pathetic—but in that earnest, trembling way that made him look like a skittish deer pretending to be a scholar, all wide eyes and fluttering breaths, stiffening every time I so much as moved a hair.
I withdrew my hand and let him marinate in the embarrassment, stepping past him with a quiet hum to crouch beside the disastrous sprawl of books and scrolls that had exploded across the floor.
Dust puffed up around me as I began reorganizing the mess, stacking his scrolls with exaggerated care, aligning the corners of his books into neat little piles, and pretending I wasn’t watching him from the corner of my eye the entire time.
My own tome lay face-down among the chaos, its spine bent in a way that suggested it was taking personal offense at its treatment.
I plucked it up, blew a soft cloud of dust off the cover, and brushed the binding with my thumb until the embossed sigils gleamed again.
As I stood, I glanced back—and there he was, standing awkwardly between the towering shelves with his hands clasped behind his back like a child standing before his headmaster, shoulders tense and posture rigid as he tried desperately not to meet my eyes.
"I... nearly forgot something," he said suddenly, voice small, fragile, thin enough to snap under a breeze.
I raised my brow. "That so?"
He swallowed, eyes flicking up, then down, then up again with the hesitancy of someone preparing to launch a confession into the void.
"Your sister," he whispered. "She’s still alive. I’ve seen her."
The world inside my skull didn’t so much stop as lurch forward violently, like my brain had tripped over itself.
Instantly, I felt myself flung back to that moment with the High Warden—his voice dripping with poisonous confidence as he’d mentioned her, the way he’d said it with such casual certainty that it hadn’t felt like a threat, but a fact I’d foolishly avoided.
"Where?" I breathed, or stammered, or exhaled—whatever sound I made barely counted as language. "Where is she?"
Tora wet his lips before speaking again. "Somewhere on The Border Sea."
My heart kicked against my ribs. "That’s... that’s—"
"Yes," he said softly, cutting in. "The fifth layer of the city."
I nodded slowly, my thoughts spiraling. The Border Sea. The name alone sent a ripple of unease down my spine.
I’d heard only scraps about it, rumors mostly—the place where most of the Glasswicks were penned like cattle, where the city blurred into something bleak and strange, where the magic in the air twisted into unpredictable currents that made even the highest of nobles nervous.
I exhaled slowly before murmuring, "Thank you."
Tora blinked in surprise, as if gratitude was some impossible language he’d never expected me to speak to him. I extended my pinky toward him, holding it suspended in the dim light between us.
He stared at it.
I stared back.
"...What?" he whispered, looking at my hand like it was a riddle the bookkeepers had forgotten to annotate.
"Oh for saints’ sake," I muttered, grabbing his hand and hooking our pinkies together myself.
He squeaked—an adorable little sound that sprang from somewhere deep in his chest and made him stiffen so sharply he practically levitated. I leaned in, lowering my voice to something conspiratorial and soft. "Promise we’ll meet again?"
Tora swallowed hard and nodded, his pinky tightening around mine.
"Good," I said, flashing a grin before letting go.
And then I turned—pivoting sharply, heart beating with giddy, chaotic momentum—and dashed down the aisle with the reckless enthusiasm of someone fleeing both revelations and responsibility.
I didn’t look back, didn’t slow down, letting the green candlelight smear into shimmering streaks as I descended the staircase, tore through the silent floor, and burst out into the brighter halls with the book hugged tightly against my chest.
About an hour past before I slammed into the Barracks corridor, flushed with triumph and barely suppressed panic. The muffled chatter inside had just begun to pick up.
Perfect timing.
I skidded toward my bunk, shoved the tome under my pillow with all the grace of a thief hiding stolen jewelry, and flung myself into a casual lounging pose just as the door rattled open and everyone else poured in.
Elvina was already complaining—loudly—about something utterly inconsequential, her voice rising and falling with dramatic flair that made me want to applaud and shove her head into a bucket simultaneously.
Brutus lumbered in behind her, yawning so widely I could practically see his childhood traumas inside the cavern of his mouth. Freya and Mia drifted toward their shared bunk like synchronized dancers before sitting cross-legged on their blankets and beginning some complicated hand-clapping game with the solemn intensity of priests performing a ritual.
Brutus paused mid-yawn as his eyes finally drifted up to my bunk.
"You," he said, pointing one thick finger at me. "Where the hell did you sneak off to this morning? Saints, you almost had be worried."
I stretched my arms above my head lazily. "Aww, Brutus, were you worried about lil’ ol’ me?" I teased. "What’d you think happened, huh? Maybe I slipped, maybe I fainted, maybe I choked on my own fabulousness, maybe a murderous ghost tried to seduce me or—ooh, my favorite—maybe I wandered off, got lost, found a secret tunnel, met a cult, solved their prophecy, and then got eaten by some ancient sewer deity."
He snorted. "Please. If anything ate you, it’d probably get indigestion."
"I’ll take that as affection."
"Take it however makes you sleep at night."
I grinned. "Oh, I sleep beautifully. Like a prince. A prince who makes bad decisions and never takes accountability."
Brutus rubbed his face. "Sounds about right."
"Also," I added sweetly, "if you’re so concerned about my whereabouts, you could’ve come looking. I bet you miss me when I’m gone."
He made a face. "I miss the silence."
I patted my chest dramatically. "Ow. Wounded. Right in my delicate heart. How will I ever recover?"
"A lotta crying," he said. "Maybe writing in a diary. Dunno, I’m not your therapist."
"Tragic, really. You’d make a great one."
We continued trading barbs until I noticed it—movement in the doorway. A figure standing perfectly still, shadow draped across half their face. Iskanda’s attendant. Tall. Silent. Wearing that same uniform that screamed discipline, efficiency, and mild judgment. They were staring directly at me.
When our eyes met, they nodded once. Slow. Heavy with implication. My stomach did that excited little flip I’d never admit to out loud.
Brutus followed my gaze. "Oh no," he muttered. "Where are you going this time? Another one of those ’training sessions’? Should I prepare your funeral? Or, better yet, should I come watch? I’ll sell tickets."
"Oh hush," I said, hopping neatly off the bunk. "I’ll be going back to the second floor. Iskanda wants another session."
Brutus raised a brow and smirked in the most annoyingly suggestive way possible. "Right..."
"It’s for training," I insisted.
"Uh-huh. Lots of sweating, lots of heavy breathing—"
"Oh saints, shut up."
"—lots of positions—"
"I swear on every holy deity, Brutus—"
"—lots of yelling—"
"Brutus!"
He beamed at me proudly, victorious.
I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly tumbled out of my skull. "Anyway," I muttered, stepping toward the attendant, "try not to miss me."
"No promises," he shot back.
The attendant turned sharply on their heel and strode down the hallway. I followed—feet light, pulse quickening, mind buzzing with possibilities. I felt ready—more than ready—to face whatever absolutely ludicrous, painful, humiliating, or physically unreasonable training Iskanda had concocted for me this time.