Chapter 100 — "One Hour Older"
Evening at the academy settled differently than morning.
The noise reduced.
Not gone.
Just lower.
Students returning to dormitories.
Professors finishing.
The building finding its night rhythm.
Seraphina was in the library.
Not her home library.
The academy library.
Larger.
Older.
The kind of place that took itself seriously.
She had the notebook open.
The dark blue one.
Three pages filled already with ideas that had been sitting in her head since before Valemont.
Since before everything.
Fashion sketches.
Notes about fabric behavior.
A diagram of a sleeve construction that had been bothering her since the city competition.
She was using the gold ink.
Not the dark blue.
The gold looked different on paper than she expected.
Better.
She made a note about that.
Tax was on the shelf above her.
Not watching her.
Reading the spines of books.
Occasionally pushing one slightly to see if it fell.
It never did.
He seemed personally offended by this.
Then the chair across from her moved.
She looked up.
Kael sat down.
Didn’t announce himself.
Didn’t explain.
Just sat.
Opened his own book.
Read.
She looked at him for one second.
Then back at her notebook.
The library continued being a library around them.
Old.
Quiet.
Unhelpful as always.
Several minutes passed.
Then she said:
"You keep appearing."
He turned a page.
"I’m sitting here."
"You keep sitting where I am."
"The library has many chairs."
"You chose this one."
"It’s a good chair."
She looked at him.
He read.
"Kael."
"Hm."
"Why this chair specifically."
He looked up.
Met her eyes.
"Good lighting."
She looked at the lamp between them.
Then at the identical lamp three chairs down.
Then back at him.
He was reading again.
She looked at her notebook.
Wrote something.
Crossed it out.
Wrote it again differently.
The sleeve diagram wasn’t working.
She turned the notebook sideways.
Looked at it from a different angle.
Still not working.
She made a frustrated sound.
Small.
Quiet.
"The sleeve."
Kael said.
Without looking up.
She stared at him.
"What."
"The diagram."
"How do you know it’s the sleeve."
"You’ve been looking at it sideways for four minutes."
"You were reading."
"Yes."
"You can’t read and watch me simultaneously."
He turned a page.
Said nothing.
She looked at him.
At the book.
At his eyes that were definitely moving across the page.
At his peripheral vision that was apparently extraordinary.
She looked back at her diagram.
Then pushed the notebook across the table.
Toward him.
He looked at it.
She pointed.
"The sleeve connects here."
"Yes."
"But when it moves it pulls here."
"Yes."
"Which means the cut is wrong."
"Yes."
She stared at him.
"You know about sleeve construction."
"No."
"You just agreed with everything I said."
"You sounded certain."
"I was uncertain."
"You sounded certain about being uncertain."
She pointed at him.
He looked at the diagram again.
Actually looked.
His eyes moving across it differently than before.
"The attachment point."
He said.
"What about it."
"It’s too rigid."
"Obviously it’s—"
She stopped.
Looked at the diagram.
At the attachment point.
At the line she had drawn three times and crossed out twice.
"How do you know that."
"I don’t."
"You just said—"
"The line looks rigid."
"That’s a sketch."
"Still looks rigid."
She stared at the sketch.
At the attachment point.
At the line.
He was right.
She had been trying to fix the wrong part.
The problem wasn’t the cut.
It was where the sleeve connected to begin with.
She grabbed her pen.
Started redrawing.
Fast.
The way she moved when something clicked.
Kael watched this for approximately two seconds.
Then went back to his book.
The library was quiet.
She drew.
He read.
The lamp between them did what lamps did.
Tax pushed another book spine.
It didn’t fall.
He pushed it harder.
It still didn’t fall.
He sat back.
Looked at the ceiling.
Made no sound at all.
Just processed his disappointment privately.
Then a group of students walked past the library entrance.
Stopped.
Looked in.
Saw Seraphina and Kael at the same table.
Whispered to each other.
Moved on.
Seraphina didn’t look up from her diagram.
Kael didn’t look up from his book.
The whispering faded down the corridor.
Then another student appeared at the entrance.
A boy this time.
Third year.
He looked at Seraphina.
Then at Kael.
Then specifically at the space between them.
At how close the chairs were.
At the notebook between them.
At the lamp.
At all of it.
Then he looked at Kael directly.
With the expression of someone who had been considering saying something for a while and had decided now was the time.
"Arden."
Kael looked up.
"Heard about the announcement."
Kael said nothing.
"Congratulations I suppose."
Still nothing.
The boy looked at Seraphina.
"Miss Valois."
"Hm."
She didn’t look up from her diagram.
The boy stood there for a moment longer.
Then left.
With the energy of someone who had wanted a reaction and hadn’t received one and was unsure how to process that.
Seraphina finally looked up.
At the empty doorway.
"Who was that."
"Third year."
"I don’t know him."
"He knows you."
"Obviously."
She looked at her diagram.
Then at Kael.
"Does it bother you."
He looked at her.
"What."
"People congratulating you."
"For what."
"The engagement."
"The fake engagement."
"The fake engagement."
He looked at his book.
"No."
"Why not."
"Should it."
She looked at him.
He read.
"Kael."
"Aina."
The way he said her name.
Quiet.
Natural.
Like breathing.
Like it had always been the most obvious word.
She looked at her notebook.
At the diagram.
At the attachment point she had been drawing wrong for an hour.
"Does anything bother you."
She asked.
To the diagram.
"Yes."
That surprised her.
She looked up.
He was still reading.
"What."
A pause.
Long enough to be its own answer.
"Things."
She stared at him.
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s a complete answer."
"It’s a category."
"Yes."
"Kael."
"Aina."
"Tell me one thing that bothers you."
He turned a page.
She waited.
The library was very quiet.
Tax had given up on the books.
Was now looking at the lamp.
Considering it.
Seraphina pointed at him without looking.
"Don’t."
Tax looked away from the lamp.
Looked at the ceiling instead.
Kael watched this exchange.
Something at the corner of his mouth.
Gone immediately.
Then he looked at his book.
"When you don’t sleep."
He said.
She looked at him.
"That bothers me."
She stared.
"You know when I don’t sleep."
"Tax tells me."
"Tax."
She turned to the shelf.
Tax was examining a different lamp now.
Very interested in this lamp specifically.
"TAX."
"Hm."
"You tell him when I don’t sleep."
"He asks."
"WHY DOES HE KEEP ASKING."
"He’s curious."
"About my sleep schedule."
"About you generally."
Seraphina looked at Kael.
Kael was reading.
The page hadn’t moved.
"You ask Tax about me."
"Occasionally."
"What counts as occasionally."
"Regularly."
She stared at him.
He turned a page.
An actual page this time.
"Why."
One word.
He read.
"Kael."
"Aina."
"Why do you ask Tax about me regularly."
A pause.
"I like to know you’re alright."
The library was very quiet.
Seraphina looked at her notebook.
At the diagram.
At the attachment point.
At the dark blue ink sitting in its small bottle.
At the ribbon on her wrist.
At nothing specific.
Something moved through her.
Not the warm thing she filed.
Something that didn’t file easily.
Something that stayed.
She picked up her pen.
Started drawing again.
Then stopped.
Looked at him.
"Kael."
"Hm."
"I’m an hour older than you."
He looked up.
She met his eyes.
"I’ve been an hour older than you for fifteen years."
"Yes."
"You’ve never once acknowledged that."
"It’s not significant."
"It’s extremely significant."
"One hour—"
"One FULL hour."
He looked at her.
She looked back.
The lamp between them.
The notebook between them.
The distance between them that was somehow both exactly the same as always and completely different.
"You’re younger than me."
She said.
"By one hour."
"Yes."
"That makes me your elder."
"That’s not how—"
"Your senior."
"Aina."
"Your superior."
"No."
"Chronologically."
"That doesn’t—"
"You should listen to me more."
"I listen to you constantly."
"More than constantly."
"That’s not possible."
"For your elder."
He stared at her.
She looked completely serious.
Completely committed to this argument.
Then Tax made a sound from the shelf.
Not the formula sound.
Something completely different.
A short sharp noise like a laugh that had started and stopped simultaneously.
Gone in under a second.
Kael looked at Tax.
Tax was examining the lamp again.
Completely uninvolved.
Kael looked back at Seraphina.
She was still looking at him.
Waiting.
With the expression of someone who had made a point and intended to stand behind it indefinitely.
He picked up his book.
"Obviously."
He said.
She blinked.
"Obviously what."
"Obviously you’re my elder."
She stared.
"You’re agreeing."
"Yes."
"Just like that."
"Yes."
"You’re not going to argue."
"No."
"Why."
He read.
"Because agreeing with my elder seems appropriate."
She pointed at him.
He didn’t look up.
The corner of his mouth.
Just slightly.
There.
Gone.
She looked at her notebook.
At the diagram.
At nothing.
Her face was doing something she was not going to examine.
Not right now.
Not in a library.
Not with Tax watching from a shelf.
She drew a line on the diagram.
Wrong line.
Crossed it out.
Drew another.
Also wrong.
She was not thinking about the sleeve anymore.
Obviously.
Tax watched her cross out the third wrong line.
Looked at Kael.
Kael was reading.
Or appearing to read.
The page had not moved in six minutes.
Tax looked at the ceiling.
Said absolutely nothing.
Which was the loudest thing he could have done.