Chapter 112 — "Three Weeks"
Not a question.
"No."
"He’s just in there."
"Yes."
"Why."
Tax said nothing.
Which was its own answer.
She looked at the blanket above her face. At the specific texture of it. At nothing that required a response.
"I’m going to avoid him," she said. "Starting tomorrow."
"You said that."
"I mean it this time."
"You meant it before."
"I mean it more now."
Tax looked at her. At the blanket pulled up to her nose. At the expression above it.
"Boss."
"Hm."
"Avoiding him for five years isn’t—"
"I’m not avoiding him for five years."
"You’re leaving in three weeks."
"I’m avoiding him for three weeks."
"That’s—"
"Manageable."
"Is it."
She looked at the ceiling through the blanket.
"No."
Tax made a sound. Not the formula one. Not the ancient weight one. Something small and genuine that belonged to this specific moment.
"The gifts," she said.
"Yes."
"He’s going to keep giving them."
"Probably."
"While I’m avoiding him."
"Yes."
"That’s going to be."
"Complicated."
"Very."
She turned onto her side. Faced the wall. At the festival dress hanging there. At the dark blue. At the sleeve.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"Do you think he knew."
"Knew what."
"About Varen."
"Before tonight."
"Yes."
Tax was quiet. Long enough to mean something.
"No."
She looked at the dress.
"He didn’t know."
"No."
"And now he does."
"Yes."
"And he’s been in the practice hall for four hours."
"Yes."
She looked at the dress. At the dark blue running through it. At the crimson edges. At the specific combination she had designed for tonight.
"He matched everything to these colors," she said.
To the dress. To herself. To nobody.
"Every gift."
"Yes."
"The hair pin."
"Yes."
"The ink."
"Yes."
"The gloves."
"Yes."
"The thimble."
Tax looked at the thimble on the desk.
"Yes."
She looked at the dress.
"He’s been matching things to this dress since before the dress existed."
"The dress existed in your sketches."
"He saw the sketches."
"Once."
"He remembered the colors."
"Yes."
She turned back to the ceiling.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"That’s—"
She stopped.
Tax waited.
"That’s a lot."
Tax said nothing.
"For someone who’s supposedly—"
She stopped again. Started differently.
"For a fake arrangement."
Tax looked at the window.
"Yes."
She looked at the ceiling.
"The fake part doesn’t matter to him."
"No."
"He said that."
"Yes."
"Tonight."
"Oh."
"And I said it back."
"Eh."
She stared at the ceiling. At the steady refusal to weigh in on anything.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"I’m going to Varen."
"Yes."
"In three weeks."
"Yes."
"For five years."
"Yes."
"And the fake part doesn’t matter."
"No."
"And I kissed him."
A pause.
"The momentum kissed him."
"The momentum."
"Yes."
"Right."
"The entry angle."
"Also yes."
"And physics."
"The primary culprit."
"Obviously."
She closed her eyes.
"Tax."
"Hm."
"Go to sleep."
"I’m a crow."
"Crows sleep."
"Not always."
"Tax."
"Boss."
"Go to sleep."
Tax looked at the window. At the practice hall light, still on. Then at the thimble on the desk. At the ink set. At the hair pin box. At the notebook. At the room full of things that had accumulated without examination.
Then at Seraphina.
Eyes closed. Facing the ceiling. The festival dress hanging on the wall behind her. The wish made. The five years real. The kiss existing in the room, not being examined by mutual agreement.
He looked at the practice hall light one more time.
Then closed his eyes.
Both of them pretending to sleep. Neither of them sleeping.
The night doing what nights did. Moving forward regardless.
The letters started the morning after the festival.
Not one. Four.
Delivered simultaneously by a very determined academy messenger who had clearly been given specific instructions about urgency.
Seraphina looked at the stack on her desk. Her mother’s handwriting on the first envelope. Her father’s on the second. Both of them on the third. The fourth bore an official royal family seal and appeared to be addressed to the academy administration rather than to her.
She put them in her desk drawer. Closed it. Went to class.
By the end of the first week the drawer wouldn’t close properly.
Tax regarded it from the windowsill.
"You should read them."
"I will."
"When."
"Later."
"They’ve been arriving daily."
"I’m aware."
"Your mother sent three yesterday."
"I know."
"Three separate letters. On the same day."
"Tax."
"Same day, Boss."
"I KNOW."
She pushed the drawer shut with her knee. It stayed. Barely.
Tax looked at the drawer. Then at her.
"The royal guards turned them away again."
"I know."
"Your father came personally."
She turned toward the window. Toward the academy grounds. Toward the guards stationed at the gate since the morning after the festival — the specific consequence of making a wish that included handle my parents.
"I know."
"He stood outside for two hours."
She kept her gaze on the window.
"I know, Tax."
"Your mother sent a letter describing how long he stood there."
"Tax."
"In detail."
"TAX."
He looked at the window. She looked at the window. Both of them looking at the gate, at the guards, at the space where her father had apparently stood for two hours because he couldn’t come in and couldn’t make her come out.
Something shifted behind her ribs.
She looked down at her desk. At the drawer that wouldn’t close. At all the letters inside it.
"I’ll read them."
"When."
"Soon."
"Boss."
"Soon, Tax."
He looked at the window. Said nothing else.
Which was its own kind of pressure.
The compass appeared on her desk the third morning.
She hadn’t seen Kael put it there. Nobody had seen him put it there. It was simply present when she returned from breakfast.
Brass. Old. Worn smooth in specific places.
She picked it up. The needle settled north immediately.
She turned it over. Nothing written on the back. No card. No note. Just the compass. Just north.
She put it in her pocket. Went to class.
Sat three rows away from where she usually sat.
Because Kael sat where she usually sat, and she was avoiding Kael. Strategically. With great commitment.
The professor noticed she had moved. Said nothing. Professional of him.
Kael noticed too. Said nothing. Also professional, but a different kind — the kind that catalogued everything and filed it and offered nothing back, because saying something would require acknowledging what was being avoided, and acknowledging it would make it real in a way currently being managed.
She looked at the professor. At the lesson. At the compass in her pocket. At the lesson again.
Evelyne found her in the east corridor after third class.
Not looking for her. Just there. Walking in the same direction. Then walking beside her.
"You moved seats."
"Better light."
"You moved away from Kael specifically."
"The light near him is poor."
"The windows are on that side."
"Different quality of light."
Evelyne looked at her with the precision of someone who had already identified every flaw in the argument and decided the argument wasn’t worth dismantling directly.
"Your parents sent sixty eight letters."
"I’m aware."
"Your mother sent three yesterday."
"Also aware."
"You haven’t read any of them."
"I’ve been busy."
"With avoidance."
"With studying."
"You’ve been studying avoidance."
Seraphina looked at the corridor ahead.
"The wish covered it."
"The wish handled them being let in."
"Yes."
"It didn’t handle you ignoring them."
"It covered my parents."
"It covered their access."
"Same thing."
Evelyne’s crimson eyes did the reading thing. The quiet, thorough thing that found the seams in everything.
"It’s not the same thing."
Seraphina looked at the corridor. At the students. At the ordinary day happening around an extraordinary situation.
"I’ll read them."
"When."
"When I’m ready."
Evelyne walked beside her for a moment longer.
Then: "The compass."
Seraphina looked at her.
"In your pocket."
"Yes."
"He found that."
"How do you know."
"Because you don’t buy a compass like that."
"Like what."
"Used."
Seraphina looked at the corridor.
"You find it," Evelyne said. "Or you keep it."
She turned into a different corridor. Gone, the way she always went. On her own terms.
Seraphina stood in the corridor. At the compass in her pocket. At the worn places where someone’s thumb had rested. At north.
At all of it.
Two weeks passed.
The drawer situation became critical.
Seraphina had to use both hands and her shoulder to close it now. Tax watched this operation every morning with the careful blankness of someone maintaining a strictly neutral position on a matter they had strong feelings about.
She had moved seats three more times. Kael had moved zero times. He simply existed in whatever location he happened to be in, and she navigated around him with increasing creativity.
It was going well.
Mostly.
Except for breakfast. And the library. And the corridors. And the fundamental problem of the academy being a finite space containing two people, one of whom was trying to avoid the other, while the other had apparently decided that existing calmly in various locations was a perfectly acceptable response to being avoided.
He hadn’t mentioned it. She hadn’t mentioned it.
Tax observed both of them not mentioning it with the expression of a crow attending a very long theatrical performance and finding it genuinely compelling.
Then one morning, with exactly one week remaining, Tax appeared at breakfast before she did.
This was unusual. Tax did not do mornings unprompted.
He was sitting on Kael’s side of the table.
She noticed this immediately. Sat across. Reached for bread.
Tax looked at Kael. Kael looked at Tax.
Something passed between them. She caught it.
"What."
"Nothing," Tax said.
"What was that."
"What was what."
"That look."
"I was looking at Kael."
"Why."
"He was there."
She turned to Kael. He was drinking tea. Studying nothing in particular with the face of someone who had never in his life communicated secretly with a crow over breakfast.
"Kael."
"Hm."
"What are you planning."
"Nothing."
"You and Tax."
"We were sitting here."
"Together."
"At the same table."
"Specifically together."
"It’s a shared dining hall."
She looked between them. The crow. The person. The distinct energy of two individuals who had definitely not been planning something and were definitely not in the process of executing that plan.
She ate her bread.
Watched them.
They watched nothing.
Professionally.