As their conversation went on, Wolfgang finally started to relax around Enid.

  He admitted he’d been watching Professor Innis for a while. She felt different from other Stahill people, so different that he couldn’t quite put it into words. Maybe it was because she was an elf.

  All he knew was that, on instinct, she gave off a calming presence. The kind that made you trust her without realizing you were doing it.

  And on top of that, Wolfgang had never seen anyone as beautiful as her.

  It was the first time he’d ever thought someone from another race looked better than his own people. It almost made him wonder if his taste was broken.

  But nothing was wrong with his taste at all. Among wolf-beastfolk, ears were a big deal. The sharper the hearing, the more attractive they were considered.

  Enid’s ears were famously long and soft. Unlike most elves, she could even flick them quickly when she wanted to.

  And, unfortunately for Wolfgang’s composure, that was exactly his type.

  He just didn’t have the vocabulary to recognize it yet.

  He was born loving nature, and Enid, as a natural elf, was about as close to nature as a living being could get. So of course he couldn’t help feeling drawn to her.

  It had been a long time since Wolfgang had talked this freely with anyone. His face still looked severe, but his tail gave him away. It swished with a happiness he couldn’t hide.

  Enid realized the big guy wasn’t all that different from anyone else, aside from the blank expression. If anything, he might even be the lively type, which made the contrast almost funny.

  Then, carried away by how good it felt to finally talk, Wolfgang let something slip.

  His real name was Wolfgang Mikhailovich Sagrave, and he was the seventh prince of the Sagrave Tsardom.

  The moment he realized what he’d said, it was too late.

  He looked at Professor Innis, expecting shock, panic, anything.

  But she just held her teacup, wearing that same gentle, signature smile. No surprise, no change at all.

  Truthfully, Enid had already suspected.

  Wolfgang moved with a kind of grace and polish that screamed high-born training, but his surname didn’t match any noble house.

  And there were always two or three people shadowing him in the background.

  Even during the very first class, Enid’s instincts, and the little warnings carried by the breeze, told her someone kept pacing the hallway outside the room, pretending to just be passing by.

  Even now, she could sense two people standing outside her office door. She simply chose to act like she hadn’t noticed.

  In a world-famous international academy, who would need to hide their identity with that level of protection, if not royalty?

  Safety, discretion, political reasons, there were plenty of possible explanations.

  Enid didn’t voice any of those guesses. Instead, she gave him what he needed, she said she was shocked.

  Wolfgang felt like her reaction belonged to someone who’d seen the world and wasn’t easily rattled. More than that, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he trusted her. Deep down, he was certain she wouldn’t expose him.

  Enid promised she would keep his identity secret until he graduated.

  Her condition was simple, he had to take his studies seriously, and he had to try to talk more with Nino, Eleanor, and the others. She told him those kids wouldn’t judge him for his race or where he came from.

  Because, one way or another, they were all carrying their own scars.

  Wolfgang agreed, then finally left.

  Only after he was gone did Enid let out a breath. Being watched was unpleasant, and it was even worse when you knew you were being watched and had to pretend you didn’t.

  Still, she felt like she finally understood her original four students.

  It had taken eight days. For Enid, that was lightning fast.

  After that, nothing particularly dramatic happened.

  For the next three days after the second class, Enid mostly worked on the public lecture report and the papers she had to submit. She also had afternoon tea with Caroline and gave Eleanor, Esme, Nino, and Wolfgang a bit of extra tutoring on the side.

  Quiet, almost boring.

  Then on the fourth night, Esme showed up at Enid’s quarters well past curfew, dressed in an adorable set of pajamas.

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  Enid didn’t scold her. She made tea and brought out snacks, calm and gentle in a way that eased Esme’s guilt and nerves almost immediately.

  Then Enid asked why she’d snuck out of her dorm so late.

  Esme hesitated for a long time. When she finally worked up the courage, she pulled out an invitation and handed it over.

  “I… I got… invited,” she said softly. “To an afternoon tea… tomorrow… from some of the other girls.”

  Curious, Enid took the card and read it carefully, then looked up.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t turn them down,” she said. “And I’m honestly happy. This is proof you’re starting to change.”

  Esme gave a shy little smile at the praise.

  “Ehe… thanks… My brother wrote to me… said it would be better if I… went to more social events… but…”

  She took a deep breath and pushed through.

  “They said… I could bring… someone with me… Eleanor doesn’t like those kinds of things, so…”

  Enid already had a pretty good idea where this was going.

  “So you want me to go with you,” she said.

  Esme nodded hard.

  “But I’m a commoner with no title,” Enid said carefully. “If I just show up at a noble girls’ tea party, that might not be ideal.”

  Esme shook her head quickly.

  “No… They said… they want to be friends… with me, and with Eleanor… and if I could bring Professor Innis too… that would be fine…”

  In that instant, Enid understood exactly what those girls were doing.

  They knew Esme had trouble saying no. They used “friendship” as bait to invite Eleanor, the duke’s daughter who never showed up to parties.

  They also knew Eleanor hated events like this, which meant there was only one realistic target left.

  Professor Innis, the academy’s newest rising star.

  It was almost too obvious. Even if Eleanor showed up, the girls lost nothing. Getting acquainted with a favored duke’s daughter would only help them.

  And if Enid refused and left Esme to face them alone, it wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen.

  Girls raised inside noble circles, trained from childhood in social games, would tear Esme apart without leaving a trace.

  So this wasn’t really about Esme at all.

  It was aimed straight at her.

  That was what Enid thought.

  To protect the progress Esme had just started making socially, Enid decided to go to the gathering with her.

  She wanted to see for herself what those noble girls were really after.

  Were they trying to recruit her, test her, size her up, or put her in her place?

  Either way, Enid wasn’t worried. She’d been in rooms like that plenty of times, and she’d made more than a few noble girls cry.

  If their intentions really were malicious, she was curious whether they could handle the kind of social skill she’d sharpened from spending over a century buried in books up in a tower.

  Enid agreed, and Esme, who’d been afraid of being turned down, finally relaxed into a satisfied, adorable smile.

  To protect that smile, Enid couldn’t just stand by.

  She was going to sweep aside anything aimed at hurting Esme.

  Not only because Esme was cute and easy to care about.

  But because Esme was her student, and she was Esme’s professor. That was all it needed to be.

  When Esme got up to leave, Enid checked the time and realized it was far too late.

  She asked how Esme planned to get back into the dormitory tower with the doors locked.

  Esme said she knew a hole in the wall, and that she’d crawled out through it.

  Enid could only give her an exhausted, helpless smile and told her she was never allowed to use that hole again.

  In the end, Enid decided Esme would sleep in her bed.

  As Enid was about to leave the bedroom, Esme grabbed the hem of her clothes and, stammering, asked if Enid could tell her a bedtime story.

  Enid agreed without thinking.

  After she finished a short, gentle little story, she leaned down and pressed a soft goodnight kiss to Esme’s forehead. Then she took the light with her, stepped out, and closed the door.

  Not long after, Enid lay down on the sofa and fell asleep.

  That night, deep into the dark hours, Esme lay in Professor Innis’s bed, unable to sleep.

  Only then did she really process what had happened.

  Professor Innis had helped her wash up, used wind-element nature magic to dry her hair, and even smoothed the sheets around her once she was tucked in.

  The faint, comforting scent that drifted off her, the warmth in her hands, it all brought back an image Esme barely dared to touch.

  Her mother.

  Esme had seen portraits of her mother before. A grown woman with the same hair color as Esme, with a gentle, loving look in her eyes.

  Even as a child, Esme had felt it instinctively. The pull of what a mother was.

  But Esme also believed she didn’t deserve it.

  Her father had said it was Esme’s birth that took his wife away.

  People in the estate whispered that she was cursed, a walking disaster, a killer.

  Except for her older brother, no one wanted to stay with her.

  Little by little, Esme shut down every longing she had for “mother” until she could pretend it wasn’t there.

  And yet, sometimes she would still creep beneath that enormous portrait and curl up under it.

  She told herself that if she stayed far away from everyone and never caused trouble again, then maybe her mother would still like her.

  Even Esme knew it was only a fantasy.

  She was the disaster that killed her mother.

  She didn’t deserve to be loved.

  Maybe because she’d never truly felt motherly love, Esme suddenly thought Professor Innis looked like the mother in her dreams.

  She couldn’t stop herself. She’d grabbed her sleeve and asked for a bedtime story.

  Like the mother in her dreams would do.

  Professor Innis said yes.

  She sat by the bed, gently stroking Esme’s forehead as she told a sweet little fairy tale.

  But what Professor Innis didn’t know was that Esme barely heard a single word.

  She just watched her.

  Felt the warmth through her touch, the soft scent in her hair, the steady calm that quieted the noise in Esme’s heart.

  Moonlight spilled through the window.

  And for a moment, with Professor Innis bathed in that pale light, Esme almost saw her mother.

  But every story ends, even the warm ones.

  Esme wanted to ask for another story, but she forced herself not to.

  Because mothers didn’t like greedy children.

  Esme didn’t want to be greedy.

  What she didn’t expect was the kiss.

  Before leaving, Professor Innis had pressed a small, warm goodnight kiss to her forehead.

  Just like the mother in her dreams.

  Like a real mother would.

  For some reason, Esme suddenly wanted to cry.

  She wanted to hug Professor Innis.

  She wanted to cling and beg and be spoiled, just once.

  She wanted Professor Innis to call her “my child.”

  But she couldn’t.

  Professor Innis wasn’t her mother.

  And she wasn’t Professor Innis’s child.

  No matter how badly she wished for it, they weren’t mother and daughter.

  Esme finally fell asleep.

  In her dream, her mother’s face kept changing, sometimes her mother, sometimes Professor Innis.

  And her mother told her she could cling.

  She could cry.

  She could want things.

  She was her good girl.

  Her sweetest baby.

  She wasn’t a disaster.

  She was a miracle.

  Her mother’s miracle.

  Proof that love existed.

  That time, Esme sobbed in her dream until it hurt.

  And finally, she remembered.

  Ever since she was little, the mother in her dreams had always been there, encouraging her, comforting her, spoiling her.

  Just like Professor Innis.

  She missed her mother.

  Somewhere far away in the dream, a weak but gentle woman’s voice drifted in.

  It said, “My good girl, your name is Esme, and it means love.”