“...And then he muttered that since he was awake so early, he’d have nothing to do with the time before classes. I asked why he wasn’t happy to be spared all the dashing around – cos he wakes up at like a quarter to nine for some reason – and he said he wasn’t dashing around, he was exactly on time with everything he needed to do. I said something like how he was always dashing to me, no matter how fast he was moving, and then he, uh…” I drew my knees up a little, perched on the edge of my bed. Grove had the water running in the restroom; Holly seemed inexplicably fascinated by my night, the way she was focused on me from her own bed. “We kissed. And cos I still had my clothes from yesterday, I came back here and, uh, yeah… I think I might be kinda in love with him,” I finished. Which brought me up till now. Or almost. Decided to skip over the twenty minute shower I’d had before anyone else was awake and how little of the time I’d spent actually washing myself. Though in fairness, it had been a hell of a dream I’d had.

  “He seems great!” she said. “We’ve barely had time to make a home for ya here and you’re already flying the nest!”

  “Ahh, I love this room too, I swear it.” I smiled brightly. “He doesn’t have an Ooh.”

  “No one else is allowed an Ooh,” called Grove through the door. “He can be as tall and handsome as he likes but I’m not giving him my blueprints and schematics.”

  “I feel like there’s so much attention on me all the time. Here, at his place, in the classroom… I’m not used to it. I’ve never got much of it at all until last month. Maybe it’s cos I’m different to what’s usually here, but…” I looked at Holly, her eyes square on me. “Like what have you been doing lately? You’re in your third year. Shouldn’t that be the best one?”

  “The best one…? The third year’s only good for picking your specialised field and prepping for your final exams, and they’re both way off. Pretty sure the first semester is only extra, to pad the chancellors’ pockets.”

  “So what have you been doing with the time?”

  She took a moment before replying. “With the time? Enjoying it. Trying to, anyway. Looking at my options.”

  “For your specialised field?”

  A longer moment this time. “Sorta. Sorta not.” I didn’t know what to ask after that, and thankfully she continued. “Been looking through the libraries and I can’t find anything about healing magic. None of my professors can point me to anything useful either.”

  A rush flowed through me. “Like, to help with the war? I was thinking the same thing the other day! Why isn’t there anything there?!”

  “Oh, uh… Yeah, for that.” She swallowed and shifted on her bed. “I’m gonna sound selfish now, aren’t I?” She’d gone a little quieter, a little more inward. I leaned forwards. “For everyone and everything else, yeah, but also for my ears.”

  “For your ears?”

  “Don’t tell me yours are acting up too,” she said, with a smile that looked so hollow and not a sliver of her usual geniality. “Yeah, I… I swear they’re getting worse quicker. It became a thing about six years ago and my parents took me to the best physicians in Baronbridge and a couple in Whitfield too. They poked things in them and took samples and basically the best they could offer was a weak, confused, apologetic shrug. Generally gave it ten years till I was more or less totally deaf.” And then she did something I’d never seen Holly do before. She looked… not happy. Sad, even. “So that’s… maybe four more years I’ve got left. But lately, I know it’s really nowhere near that long.”

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  I wasn’t aware of crossing the room. My heart had taken control and put me by her side, my hand on her knee, her hand taking mine and holding it tightly. “I just thought, maybe,” she said with a loud sniffle, “if I pursued this, the magic and arcany and all, then it could maybe lead to something, if the physicians all had nothing. But ignoring that, being an arcanist is one of the few things that you don’t need to hear anyone to do. It’s all books and scrawlings and writing down discoveries if you ever make any. The opportunity felt so much like a hope after a really long couple of years that had been totally hopeless. I could make a life for myself, even if I couldn’t find anything to heal with. So… yeah. But I try not to tell people cos it sounds so selfish.”

  I wasn’t sure whether her hand squeezed mine or mine hers. “Or you could turn it the other way?” I said. “If you did find some way of healing, even if it’s just for ears, you’d be a hero to a huge amount of people, I’d imagine. You can’t be the only one. And after all those physician visits, people would come to you, and you’d really have the help they needed. The help you needed. It’s such an awful thing to have to deal with, but I’m not gonna let you call yourself selfish for how you’re managing it.” Definitely me who squeezed this time. “I think it’s a really honourable choice, and it’s a practical long-term path for you too. Not selfish at all.”

  She sniffed again, heavier this time. “Thanks, Leafy. I’m trying to hold it all together but then people treat me like I’m weird for unintentionally being a bit loud, or when I’m trying to read their lips they call me out for staring at them.” She pulled my hand against her chest. “It’s really tough sometimes.”

  The water had turned off some time ago and a door opened. “That’s what I said too, every time she talked about feeling selfish,” Grove said. “And it’s never selfish to give yourself the bare minimum you need to survive. That’s what my grandma says.”

  “Okay, so Holly’s selfish for trying to discover some healing magic,” I said, “and I’m selfish for avoiding the Forester conscription and putting myself here instead.” I was about to continue, but for an ahh! of realisation from behind me. “Didn’t you know? Or connect the dots? – which honestly are barely a hand’s width apart by this point.”

  “I let other people mind their own business,” Grove said contentedly. “If they want me to know something, they ought to tell it to me.”

  “Very fair. So we’re counting on you to redeem the dorm by not being so hopelessly selfish about enrolling here.”

  “Sorry,” they said. “I’m aiming to enter the family business of arcane devices, bringing the power and utility of glyphmagic to your home and for prices much more affordable than you might think. The Ooh is a prototype I’ve been refining for a few years and it’ll hopefully be marketable by the time I graduate, to sell at our family shops. It just needs some refinements. Arcanovolumetrics can be so temperamental.”

  “Oh. Breaking down the walls of stringent academia and opening up the benefits of it to the ordinary person in the city. That’s so selfish of you.”

  Holly chuckled a little, finally letting my hand go. And while Grove headed out to their classes, I checked myself in the mirror, hoping I didn’t look like I’d spent the night debasedly unconscious in someone else’s bed. Not too great, but what I lacked I couldn’t fix here. And looking in the mirror today felt a little easier to handle than it had done for a few years.

  I needed to go to my classes as well. But not just yet. “Holly?” I said clearly, once she was done making herself presentable. She looked over. “I gotta say this: I thought you were kinda weird for being loud and staring, too. I’m sorry for it. I was judgemental, and I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know,” she echoed. “So it’s not your fault.”

  “Maybe it’s not, but I still did it, and you’re the nicest, kindest, most positive person I think I’ve ever met. You’re a good influence on me and probably everyone else who has the joy of knowing you. I wish there was some way to help you – to use arcany to actually help anyone in need of it. Cos I’d be right there learning it alongside you. In fact,” I added, “you’d better make sure to start a field of arcany for healing, and you’ve got two years to make it happen because when I’m where you are now, I’ll be following you into it.”

  “Oh right?” She brightened, a glimmer of her usual self returning to her face. “Blood pact?”

  “I get you’re joking but I think a blood pact goes against the principles of healing people’s bodies.”

  She laughed, a proper laugh this time. “If I’m the first one to start the field, I get to make all the fundamental rules and aims of it, right? That’s gonna be my first one: ‘Don’t encourage blood pacts’. Hey! You’re grinning at me like I’m joking but I swear I’m not. I will remember this – you see if I don’t!”