Her Gracefulness, the Queen of Shadows, let herself fall onto the mattress. If “mattress” even applied. It was one miserable pace wide, two and a half long, stuffed with malice and murderous springs. She tolerated it anyway.

  The towel she tossed arced across the room and landed dead-center on the coat hook. Even bone-tired, she refused to miss.

  It had been so long since she’d last visited this broom-closet excuse for a room, long enough that nostalgia might have even kicked in. She rolled to her side and felt the bed.

  Goose down it isn’t, but a queen adapts.

  Besides, her muscles were rebelling. This sigil business was proving to be a pain in, well, everywhere. She needed a solution for containing dark essence, and she needed it quickly. Practicing outside at night while dodging Gifted students and mosquitoes was not ideal.

  Maybe those lectures on rejuvenation and mana-stabilising sigils deserved more than a bored hand-wave. If only she’d bothered to listen to her tutor. She blinked at a fleeting image of a beige-wool robed middle-aged man flooding her mind before vanishing.

  Odd. Who?

  Anyway, who needed dull old lessons when your veins overflowed with endless mana?

  (Humility had never been her strong suit. Surely that much was obvious by now?)

  Right? Wrong.

  Turns out, the answer was everyone. Turns out, consequences existed. But hey, her skin had just stopped punishing her for her hubris.

  Small victories. Sleep now, schemes later.

  She buried her face in the pillow, trying to ignore the fact that it felt as though it had been stuffed with twigs and spite. She was just starting to slip under until the latch clicked.

  Eydis cracked an eyelid.

  Astra glided in, moonlight sliding across silver hair that never frizzed. Silver hair wasn’t rare, since Damien had it too, but his prehistoric muscle couldn’t hope to compete.

  Eydis assured herself the sight was entirely unimpressive. Objectively speaking, with no subjectivity involved whatsoever, Astra had the kind of beauty that turned heads and silenced weaker souls.

  Not that Eydis had ever been weak.

  And certainly not over something as trivial as a face.

  Dignity had its limits, but not that low.

  “You’re staring. Intensely.” Astra said, damp towel slung loose over lean shoulders, droplets still tracing down her collarbone.

  Eydis didn’t lift her face from the cushion. "I’m admiring our… room. Beige everything. A colour that whispers, ‘I’ve given up, but politely.’”

  Astra’s lips twitched. “Careful, Eydis. Keep staring and the… ‘beige’ might start feeling self-conscious.”

  Banter—or, no, not going there—from Astra. Which meant Eydis had to be exhausted to hallucinate this entire exchange.

  “Twice before sunrise and you manage humour,” she said, rolling onto her back. “Will compassion be next?”

  Light sparked in Astra’s eyes, perhaps amusement. “At least you’re no longer analysing me like an equation.”

  “You remind me of someone.”

  “Should I ask?”

  “Silver hair, litely charming,” Eydis said with a smirk. “And a knack for complicating my calendar.”

  "That was so close to a compliment. Then you ruined it,” Astra deadpanned.

  “Just the hair, really. The subject in question was only entertainment.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Astra’s fingers tightened around the towel. “Entertainment? So your bullies were also minor inconveniences too?”

  “According to the academy? Apparently.”

  Astra sat down on her bed and resumed drying her hair. “Everyone was afraid,” she murmured. “Even you. Until now.”

  Sensing an opportunity to pry for more information, Eydis stepped out of her bed, crossed the room, and caged Astra between her arms on the bed.

  "The Student Council President sees more than she lets on. If she wanted to know the truth, she’d find it.”

  "That's a question for Athena." Astra didn't take the bait. "Do you think it's unfair, the way they treated you?"

  "Fairness is a concept for lesser beings, Astra. Weakness, however, is something I will never tolerate,” Eydis whispered near her ear. “Do you happen to know why your roommate let the school walk all over her?”

  “Is that supposed to be rhetorical, or are you actually asking?”

  “A sincere question.”

  Astra's eyes became unreadable. "We never really talked. Except for—" she stopped abruptly.

  "That one love poem… Do you still have it?"

  Astra shook her head, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  How curious…

  The scent of exotic darkwood drifted from Astra’s hair; Eydis breathed it in on reflex. Perhaps it was the scent, perhaps it was an impulse to tease, she nudged Astra’s chin with a fingertip until their eyes met.

  In those crimson depths she saw herself, clear, curious, smiling?

  Astra seemed surprised but there was no anger, no irritation in her eyes.

  Only an atmosphere that was both tense and charged, caused by both Eydis’s perplexing action and Astra’s ever more perplexing inaction.

  “Do you care about me, Astra?” Even she was surprised by her own question.

  Astra’s voice, when it came after a long, contemplative pause, was low and husky. “Trouble seems to cling to you like a shadow.”

  Eydis chuckled. "Shadows,” she corrected. “Keep this up, and I’ll start thinking you find me charming, Ice Princess.”

  “Ice Princess? You're getting creative, Shadows." Astra relaxed her eyebrows.

  Eydis grinned and leaned closer, close enough to catch the flecks of violet in Astra’s eyes, like distant constellations that burned.

  Brightly.

  "Had no idea people called you that, did you?” Eydis said.

  “No. I just don’t care what they think.”

  “Not even a little? You’d be surprised how often never isn’t quite never.”

  Astra didn’t reply, though the pulse under Eydis’s fingers raced on.

  Eydis ignored the heat blooming in her chest and drew her hand back. Information. That's what she was here for. Focus.

  “You care,” she said, her voice slipping softer than she meant.

  “About you?”

  “About Natalia. About the others.”

  Astra looked away.

  Eydis added, “Like the missing students. Who are they?”

  “Four Elites students from Tiffany’s circle have vanished.”

  "The ones with the trust funds or political connections?"

  Astra raised a brow. “Both.”

  Both?

  "Not exactly the company I keep,” Eydis said. “Maybe this danger you mentioned doesn't apply to me after all."

  Envy hadn't noticed anything odd inside the campus yet. The culprit had to be working outside then. Great. An investigation that began everywhere but here.

  “—safer,” Astra murmured.

  "What was that?"

  Astra sighed. "Stay within the academy grounds."

  So it is true. Eydis mused.

  Had the students gone missing during the occasional weekend home visits? Or somewhere among the crowded market stalls on town trips? Either way, it did not matter how, but who, or what, had taken them.

  “Is that an order?” Eydis teased.

  “It’s a suggestion.”

  “Ah, but I enjoy my freedom. Unless you plan to escort me yourself, Lady Knight.”

  Astra gave a flat look. “Requesting a royal escort now? Also, breathing room would be nice, Your Majesty. You are on top of me.”

  Eydis laughed quietly. “Must be my poor eyesight. Distances keep lying to me. These muscles too.” She gestured behind her. “Entirely rebellious.”

  Astra looked almost amused, then unexpectedly wrapped her arms around Eydis’s back.

  "What are you—?” Eydis’s breath caught as Astra’s fingers pressed and kneaded away the tension that had accumulated over the week.

  Heat rolled off Eydis, settling on her skin. Instinctively, she gripped Astra’s shoulders for balance.

  Astra fixed her gaze rigidly on a corner by the window. Eydis might have mistaken it for an odd fascination with some cobwebs, if not for the brief moments when Astra’s eyes dipped to her lips again and again.

  Not surprising, considering Eydis’s mouth kept humiliating her with every pleased little sound she failed to suppress.

  “That certainly shut you up. A public service, really,” Astra said coolly, or tried to, because she couldn’t quite hide the faint flush dusting her cheekbones. With one last press, she released Eydis. “Move.”

  Eydis stretched and sighed in contentment, before it hit her.

  Oh.

  Of course.

  She was sitting on Astra’s lap.

  Quite literally enthroned.

  "Astra, very persuasive. Though next time, a little warning first?”

  "Someone has to. A record-breaking two minutes of silence.”

  “Not entirely silent…” Eydis countered. "Perhaps I should strive to be even more insufferable, wouldn't that keep your hands occupied?"

  Astra’s breath skipped, though she recovered fast. Hoodie over head, she nearly sprinted for the door. “…Perimeter check.”

  Eydis watched Astra disappear, feeling an unwelcome warmth in her own stomach. She hadn’t expected the touch, the reaction, or the way her own skin still tingled where Astra’s hands had been.

  "Sneaky Ice Princess," she murmured. But patrol? Didn't Astra just return?

  Face buried in the pillow, Eydis inhaled lavender shampoo and, beneath it, something richer, warmer, alarmingly distinctive.

  Astra’s scent.

  And now that she recognised it, she couldn’t unnotice it. Couldn’t push it away.

  She pinched her temple to refocus. Track the Elites, confront Gluttony, in no particular order. But given that the town trip was coming soon, she might as well start with it first. And if it didn’t give her an answer… well, her shopping list wasn’t getting any shorter. Cheap arcana wouldn’t restock themselves.

  She flipped open her notebook and sketched sigils from memory.

  Hopefully, she thought, this one doesn’t explode.