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@rainiere21
⋆⏱︎ | dance of the corpses
inspired by the mv of the song しかばねの踊り(dance of the corpses) by kikuo
Hi.
Have this as good luck.
This image has kept me pushing through my exams thank you for being my lifesaver XP
oh my goodness i love oil pastel art thank you for sharing this
⋆｡°✩ | to see you from afar
as always itpot by @odileeclipse
Milkcrowns, Milkcrowns everywhere...
I'm alive, I just have been exclusively drawing for a rp account on twitter these past weeks but LOOK WHAT I MADE!!
I'm not going to suffer through this alone; if I'm not happy, no one will be
oh my goodness my HEART i support this sm
That scene won't get out of my head I had to sketch it bro
Beautiful work absolutely beautiful!!
I think for me it's symbolic because of how I view kissing hands.
Beyond just being romantic, kissing the knuckles was often an act of submission and loyalty, it's a display of hierarchal difference between them.
So SMC sees MC as someone worthy of courtesy, respect and devotion.
i.e he already sees MC as equal so take from that what you will.
this is genuinely the picture i had in mind for this scene ohnmy goodness
In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT42
<<<Previous Next>>>
By the time your plates were cleared and your grudgingly sensible breakfast was finished, the plan was set.
The library.
You walked together through the academy halls, the quiet morning hum slowly giving way to the brighter, busier rhythm of the day. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. Students passed by in clusters, laughing, debating, complaining about assignments.
It felt… normal.
And that was what made it strange.
When you reached the library doors, you hesitated for half a heartbeat.
In the daylight, the place looked entirely different.
Warm and Inviting. Full of life.
Rows of desks were occupied, books stacked high, pages flipping softly. The Nightmare Archive felt like a distant memory now, a stark contrast to the shadows and silence of the night when you’d stolen the book, hearts pounding, breath held, fear and thrill tangled together.
Chai clasped her hands together, eyes sparkling. “Okay, but hear me out. Romance section.”
Earl didn’t even slow his stride. “No.”
“Just a glance,” she pleaded. “Love is a powerful magic.”
“That is not how we’re approaching an existential crisis,” he replied coolly.
Hazelnut cleared his throat. “What about fiction?”
You blinked. “Fiction?”
He shrugged. “Stories exaggerate, sure, but they don’t lie. There’s usually truth buried in them. Old myths, allegories, warnings people didn’t want to write as fact.”
You stopped walking.
So did Earl.
The two of you turned slowly to stare at him.
“…Who are you,” you asked carefully, “and what have you done with Hazelnut Biscotti?”
Earl adjusted his glasses, genuinely surprised. “That was… remarkably sensible.”
Hazelnut grimaced. “Please don’t say it like that. It makes my skin crawl.”
Chai gasped dramatically. “Look at him! Offering wisdom before noon! I’m so proud.”
“I just didn’t sleep,” he muttered. “My brain’s running on anxiety and that wretched breakfast.”
You laughed softly, the sound easing something tight in your chest. “Still. You might be onto something.”
Earl nodded slowly. “Fiction it is. Myths, legends, speculative treatises. We’ll divide by era and theme.”
Chai pouted. “No romance?”
Earl shot her a look.
“…Fine,” she sighed. “But if we accidentally learn about love conquering death, I’m taking credit.”
You smiled as you stepped deeper into the stacks, the quiet rustle of pages and murmured voices surrounding you. For the first time since you’d opened that book, hope didn’t feel reckless.
The hours slipped by quietly.
Stacks of books grew and shifted around you, myths from forgotten kingdoms, heroic epics, speculative treatises written by scholars who clearly thought themselves far more clever than history proved them to be. You read about curses mistaken for blessings, about witches who regretted granting eternity, about mortals who chased forever only to lose everything else first.
Interesting, haunting, even. But not useful. Every time the subject drifted too close to immortality, the pattern repeated.
Black bars. Redacted passages. Or missing pages.
“This one just… stops,” Chai muttered, flipping back and forth through a brittle volume. “Right when it gets good.”
Earl frowned over his own book. “This theory references three counterexamples, and all three citations are sealed.”
You swallowed, the familiar cold settling in your stomach.
Hazelnut leaned over your shoulder. “Let me guess,” he said quietly. “Blacked out like it never existed.”
You nodded.
For a moment, none of you spoke.
Then Hazelnut sighed and straightened. “Alright. I’ll ask.”
Chai blinked. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said, already rubbing his temples. “If anyone’s going to get scolded by staff today, it might as well be me.”
You watched him go, weaving his way toward the reference desk with a look that said he already knew how this would end.
Minutes passed.
You pretended to read.
When Hazelnut finally came back, you didn’t need him to say anything.
His expression said it all.
“Administrative seal,” he said flatly, dropping into the chair beside you. “Direct order from the Sage of Truth. All materials pertaining to advanced longevity, soul anchoring, or non-divine immortality have been restricted, redacted, or removed entirely.”
Chai exhaled sharply. “So he really did it.”
You stared down at the page in front of you, the blacked-out ink staring back like an accusation.
Earl’s jaw tightened. “Did they say why?”
Hazelnut huffed a humorless laugh. “Official reason? ‘To prevent misuse of dangerous knowledge.’”
“And the unofficial one?” Chai asked softly.
Hazelnut looked at you. “…They didn’t need to say it, besides I doubt they know the truth anyways."
Silence settled around your table. The library felt cooler, the daylight suddenly less comforting.
“So that’s it,” Chai murmured. “Everything else is gone.”
“Not gone,” Earl corrected quietly. “Hidden…well at the very least he’s no liar.”
Your fingers curled against the edge of the book, knuckles pale.
He’d kept his promise.
That made everything worse.
Because now, the book in your bag wasn’t just an answer.
It was the only one left.
You closed your eyes for a brief moment, steadying your breath, and wondered for the first time whether he had done this to protect you.
Or to make sure you would always come back to him.
The frustration didn’t burn hot, It simmered like milk about to boil over.
You sat there a little longer than necessary, eyes unfocused on the page, the library’s low murmurs washing over you without meaning.
Around you, the world went on students laughing softly, pages turning, the scratch of quills utterly unaware that entire truths had been carved out of existence. It seemed as though only you were stuck with this sickening feeling.
Chai broke the silence first, voice subdued. “Okay. So the library’s a dead end.”
“For now,” Earl said, though there was no real conviction in it.
Hazelnut leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Figures. If I were an all-powerful Sage trying to keep someone safe from themselves, this is exactly what I’d do.”
You flinched despite yourself, and could only murmur. “What a way to rub salt in the wound Hazelnut.”
Earl noticed.
His gaze shifted to you, a look you weren’t sure you understood.
“There may be other avenues,” he said slowly.
Chai glanced over. “Like what? The restricted wing’s locked tighter than a vault.”
“Not books,” Earl replied. “People.”
That got your attention.
You looked at him, brows knitting. “People?”
Earl nodded once. “Research doesn’t stop just because texts disappear. Especially in places meant for… practical application.”
Hazelnut’s ears perked. “You mean the labs.”
“The research labs,” Earl confirmed. “Specifically the central wing.”
Chai’s expression shifted, interest dawning. “Oh. The ones overseen by that… What was he called? The jolly one?”
“The jolly one?” you echoed faintly.
Chai snapped her fingers. “You know. Always laughing, always with snacks on hand, acts like nothing in the world could possibly be serious.”
Hazelnut nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Everyone says he’s in charge of approving experimental projects. If anyone’s seen stuff that isn’t in the books…”
Earl finished the thought calmly. “It might be him.”
Your stomach tightened immediately.
“No,” you said, a little too fast. Then, quieter, “We shouldn’t.”
Three sets of eyes turned to you.
“We shouldn’t tell people what we’re doing,” you continued, lowering your voice instinctively. “That’s how things spread. That’s how-” You stopped yourself.
That’s how Shadow Milk finds out.
Earl didn’t push. Instead, he folded his hands together, considering. “I’m not suggesting we tell him everything.”
Chai tilted her head. “Indirectly, then?”
“Casually,” Earl said. “And hypothetically.”
Hazelnut snorted. “You mean lie.”
“I mean ask the sort of questions curious scholars ask all the time,” Earl replied smoothly. “Questions about historical anomalies. Long-term magical endurance. Cases where the data doesn’t quite line up.”
You looked down at your hands.
“You’re good at this,” you murmured. “Too good.”
Earl’s voice softened. “You’re right to be cautious.”
That surprised you enough to look up.
He met your gaze evenly. “But avoiding every possible source won’t keep you safe either. It will only leave you alone with the book.”
Chai winced. Hazelnut looked away.
Earl continued, gentler now. “We won’t mention anything that ties back to what you’ve done.”
“Done,” you echoed faintly.
“We listen,” he said. “And if nothing comes of it, we walk away.”
Your pulse beat loud in your ears.
“And if something does?”
Earl hesitated, just a fraction.
“Then we’ll have learned something without exposing you.”
The idea sat between you all, fragile and dangerous and tempting.
You exhaled slowly. “He’s… friendly, right?”
Hazelnut shrugged. “That’s the rumor.”
Chai smiled weakly. “Sometimes the friendliest ones know the most.”
You swallowed...
“…Alright,” you said at last, though unease still curled in your chest. “But if this feels wrong or if it feels like too much, we leave.”
Earl inclined his head. “Agreed.”
You reached for your bag without thinking, fingers brushing the hidden weight inside.
The book stayed silent.
The labs were louder than you expected.
Glass clinked softly, enchanted instruments hummed, and somewhere deeper within the wing something let out a cheerful pop followed by an enthusiastic, “Ah! There it is!”
You barely had time to process that sound before-
“BOO!”
You yelped.
Chai jumped. Hazelnut swore. Earl stiffened sharply, already halfway into a defensive stance.
And the culprit was…
“Oh! Oh no, no, no! Sorry! Completely my fault!” the Cookie said, hands raised immediately, eyes wide with genuine concern. “You should see your faces wait, no, don’t, that’s worse, are you alright?”
He laughed, bright and booming, entirely unbothered by the near-heart attacks he’d just caused.
Up close, he was exactly as described, apron splattered with alchemical residue, hair slightly singed at the tips, a smile warm enough to make you forget you were standing in one of the most tightly regulated research wings in the Spire.
He peered at you all curiously. “Now, this is interesting. Undergraduates don’t usually wander into my domain until next week.” He tapped his chin. “Unless I’m the one who’s wrong, which” he gasped theatrically, “is a horrifying possibility.”
Hazelnut recovered first.
“Well, if you were wrong,” he said cheerfully, “you’ve got the right vibe for it.”
The Cookie burst out laughing. “Oh, I like you already.”
Hazelnut grinned back. “Right? I keep telling people that.”
Earl cleared his throat.
Hazelnut visibly wilted.
“Ah, right,” Hazelnut said quickly. “We’re here for… reasons.”
Earl shot him a look.
“Specific reasons,” Hazelnut amended. “Academic ones.”
The researcher’s eyes twinkled. “Academic reasons are my favorite kind.”
He leaned casually against a counter, arms crossed, entirely too relaxed for someone in charge of classified magical experimentation. “So,” he said, drawing the word out. “What brings the four of you here? Curiosity? Ambition? Mild trespassing?”
You opened your mouth and then stopped.
Because Chai hadn’t said a word.
She stood slightly behind you, hands clasped together, gaze lowered. No teasing or sideways commentary whispered under her breath.
It was… unsettling.
“We were hoping,” Earl began carefully, stepping in before Hazelnut could derail things further, “to ask a few questions. General ones.”
“General!” the researcher echoed happily. “Excellent. Love a good general question. Much safer than specific ones.”
Hazelnut snorted.
Earl continued, measured and polite. “We’ve been studying historical magical phenomena, cases where long-term spellwork produced results beyond what current literature accounts for.”
The Cookie hummed thoughtfully. “Ahhh. Edge cases.”
“Yes,” Earl said. “Anomalies.”
You felt Chai shift slightly beside you.
The researcher nodded slowly. “Those are always fun. Frustrating and heeeeavily supervised.”
Hazelnut leaned in, unable to help himself. “Hypothetically speaking, if someone wanted to research… say… really extreme magical endurance…”
Earl shot him another look.
“Purely academically,” Hazelnut finished weakly.
The researcher laughed again, delighted. “Hypotheticals are dangerous things, you know.”
Your pulse ticked up.
“But,” he added lightly, “they do make for interesting conversations.”
He glanced over the group and then his gaze lingered on Chai.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” he observed gently. “Usually someone’s already asked me if I’ve ever blown up a wing. Well if you must know…twice.”
Chai looked up slowly.
Her expression was polite.
“Just listening,” she said. “You usually learn more that way.”
Something unreadable flickered across his face.
“Smart,” he said after a moment. “Very smart.”
“Well,” the researcher said, clapping his hands once. “Ask away. Indirectly. Hypothetically. Preferably without implicating yourselves or me. I would hate to file any kind of report.”
He smiled again, bright as ever.
And you had the unsettling feeling that despite the laughter, despite the warmth, you were standing in front of someone who knew exactly how dangerous curiosity could be.
You hesitated only a second before stepping forward, forcing your shoulders to relax.
“Um sorry,” you said, a little sheepish. “We kind of… skipped introductions.”
The researcher blinked.
Then his smile widened, delighted. “Oh! You’re absolutely right. Terribly rude of me. Here I am startling students half to death without so much as a name.”
He straightened, placing a hand over his chest with exaggerated sincerity. “You may call me Marzipan Taffy Cookie, head overseer of the central research labs, enthusiast of controlled chaos, and proud survivor of three self-inflicted explosions.”
Hazelnut’s eyes lit up. “I knew you were cool.”
Marzipan Taffy laughed. “High praise!”
You glanced back at your friends, then gestured vaguely between you all. “We should probably introduce ourselves too.”
Hazelnut didn’t wait.
“I’m Hazelnut Biscotti Cookie,” he said, already grinning. “Comedic relief and an occasional moral compass with frequent bad ideas.”
“Chai Latte Cookie,” Chai said quietly, dipping her head in a polite nod.
Marzipan Taffy smiled at her again, softer this time. “Pleasure.”
Earl stepped forward next, posture composed. “Earl Grey Cookie.”
“Ah,” Marzipan Taffy said, eyes sharpening just a touch. “That explains the posture.”
Earl ignored that.
And then they all looked at you.
You felt that familiar weight, that awareness that you never quite knew how to present yourself. Scholar? Student? Something in between?
You cleared your throat. “I’m” You paused, then continued simply, “I’m their friend.”
Marzipan Taffy tilted his head.
“Oh?” he said lightly. “That’s an interesting introduction.”
Your pulse quickened but his tone remained kind.
“Well,” he said, gesturing broadly to the lab around you, “friends who wander into research wings together usually share a question. Or a problem. Or a secret.”
Earl’s jaw tightened slightly.
“But!” Marzipan Taffy added quickly, clapping his hands again. “No pressure. Hypotheticals only, remember?”
Hazelnut chuckled nervously. “Right. Hypotheticals.”
Marzipan Taffy leaned back against the counter once more, entirely at ease. “So. Now that we’re properly acquainted, what theoretical curiosity has brought you to my doorstep ahead of schedule?”
You swallowed.
If anyone was going to say it, it had to be you.
You shifted your weight forward, fingers curling briefly at your side before you forced them still. “This is… kind of on me,” you admitted, glancing back at your friends for half a second before looking at Marzipan Taffy again. “I was the one who suggested we come.”
Hazelnut opened his mouth probably to protest but Earl shot him a look, and he stopped.
You took a breath. “I’ve been thinking about how magic behaves when it isn’t… structured. When it’s not filtered through runes or incantations or institutional safeguards.”
Marzipan Taffy’s expression didn’t change.
“Go on,” he said gently.
“You know how most spellwork relies on frameworks,” you continued, choosing your words carefully. “Circles. Language. Focused constructs. But historically… there are accounts where none of that seems to apply.” You weren’t even sure if that was true, adding to your nerves.
You clasped your hands together to keep them from shaking.
“Cases where magic manifests through will alone,” you said. “Raw. Unmediated. Almost instinctive.”
Hazelnut shifted uncomfortably. Chai’s gaze flicked to you, then away.
Earl stayed still but you could feel his awareness like a steady presence at your back.
Marzipan Taffy hummed thoughtfully. “Ah,” he said. “Unfiltered expression.”
“Yes,” you replied quickly. “Hypothetically.”
“Of course,” he agreed with a grin.
You pressed on before doubt could stop you. “If someone encountered that kind of magic in themselves or witnessed it would that necessarily mean they were… exceptional?”
The word felt dangerous in your mouth.
“Or,” you added, “could it be circumstantial? The result of pressure. Or proximity. Or” you hesitated, then finished softly, “need.”
The lab felt very quiet.
Marzipan Taffy didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he studied you with a gaze that wasn’t invasive, but it felt as though he was evaluating whatever circumstance you were in. The way a researcher looks at a phenomenon they don’t want to frighten into vanishing.
“That’s a very good question,” he said at last.
Hazelnut let out a breath he’d been holding.
“Raw magic doesn’t always belong to prodigies,” Marzipan Taffy continued. “In fact, it rarely does. Prodigies tend to overthink. They’re trained early. Taught restraint before they learn honesty.”
Chai’s fingers twitched.
“Unfiltered magic,” he said, voice quieter now, “most often appears when someone has nothing left to rely on except themselves. But it can hypothetically come from an outside source.”
Your chest tightened.
“However,” he added, lifting a finger, smile returning, “that doesn’t make it safe. Or stable. Or kind to the person wielding it.”
Earl finally spoke. “Then hypothetically, would you discourage someone from pursuing it further?”
Marzipan Taffy glanced at him. “I would encourage them to ask why it appeared.”
His gaze slid back to you.
“And who or what they’re trying to survive.”
The words landed heavier than anything written in the book.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Marzipan Taffy chuckled lightly, shaking off the weight. “Now! That’s quite enough existential dread for before lunch.”
Hazelnut snorted weakly. “You’re telling me.”
Marzipan Taffy waved a hand. “If you’re looking for hard answers, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re looking for warnings, those I have plenty of.”
He leaned in just slightly. “So then hypothetically speaking… what made you start thinking about magic like this in the first place?”
Your heart skipped.
Because suddenly, you weren’t sure whether you were asking questions anymore or being asked them.
Chai spoke before you could.
“Well…” she said lightly, tilting her head just enough to seem casual, “we were reading a fantasy book. One of those old ones.”
Marzipan Taffy’s brows lifted, intrigued.
“It mentioned power that doesn’t come from training or symbols,” Chai continued, her tone easy, almost breezy. “And it made us curious. Because… no one ever really talks about that kind of thing seriously.”
You felt your shoulders ease a fraction.
Chai went on, eyes thoughtful now rather than playful. “So we were wondering…how would someone even know if magic came from them?” She gestured vaguely to herself. “Or if it was… something else. An outside source. An influence.”
Hazelnut nodded along, chiming in, “Yeah. Like borrowed power versus homegrown.”
Marzipan Taffy let out a thoughtful hum.
“Those,” he said warmly, “are very inquisitive questions.”
Earl stiffened slightly.
“They’re also,” Marzipan Taffy added, straightening, “a bit above my pay grade.”
That startled you.
He smiled apologetically. “Not because they’re forbidden but because they’re foundational. Questions like that are better suited for the Fount. I mean I’m sure I could help but that’s not really my field of research. I wouldn’t want to lead you down the wrong path.”
You blinked. “The… Fount?”
“The Fount of Knowledge,” he clarified easily. “Public hours. Open discourse. He answers questions posed in good faith.”
Chai’s eyes widened. “Wait…you can just… ask him things?”
Marzipan Taffy laughed outright. “You youngsters really don’t read notices anymore, do you?”
Hazelnut flushed. “Hey.”
“It’s part of his duties,” Marzipan Taffy continued cheerfully. “Anyone seeking wisdom may ask, students, scholars, wanderers, the occasionally overconfident.”
Earl frowned slightly. “We… didn’t know that.”
“Well,” Marzipan Taffy said with a shrug, “now you do.”
Hazelnut shifted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean no offense, but I’m not sure we want to bother the Fount with… silly hypotheticals.”
Marzipan Taffy’s smile softened but didn’t fade.
“Curiosity is never silly,” he said. “But I understand the hesitation.”
His gaze flicked between you all, lingering just a moment longer on you.
“If you decide to ask,” he added gently, “ask honestly. He has little patience for riddles disguised as fear. I would know.”
The words settled deep.
He clapped his hands once, bright again. “Now! I’m afraid I do have actual explosions to supervise.”
Hazelnut perked up. “Can we watch?”
“No.”
“Worth asking.”
Marzipan Taffy laughed and gestured toward the door. “Good luck, all of you. Wherever your curiosity takes you.”
As you turned to leave, your mind raced.
The Fount of Knowledge.
Public hours. Answers to anyone seeking wisdom.
You hesitated at the threshold.
Your friends had already taken a few steps down the corridor when you turned back.
“Um, sorry,” you said. “One more thing.”
Marzipan Taffy glanced over his shoulder, already halfway to a bench cluttered with instruments. “Ah! The classic one more thing. Go on.”
You stepped back into the lab, careful to keep your tone light, curious and harmless.
“The Fount,” you said. “Those public hours you mentioned. How often are they? And…where does that usually take place?”
You hadn’t noticed your friends trailed behind you.
Earl paused behind you, eyes flicking to your profile. Chai stayed quiet. Hazelnut pretended very hard to be fascinated by a bubbling vial.
Marzipan Taffy brightened immediately. “Oh! Regularly. Every few days, give or take…depends on his schedule. Always posted, but no one reads the postings.” He laughed giving you a pointed look. “As for where! The throne room, of course. Upper Spire. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Your pulse ticked faster despite yourself.
“And… is it hard to get in?” you asked, quickly adding, “If someone were curious.”
“Well,” Marzipan Taffy said, tapping his chin, “the line tends to get long. Very long. Scholars, petitioners, the occasional person having a philosophical crisis before lunch.”
“So,” Marzipan Taffy finished, looking at you meaningfully, “if someone wanted answers, they’d best hurry when the hours are announced.”
You nodded once.
“Good to know,” you said. “Just curious.”
That was the truth, at least the version of it you were allowed to say.
Marzipan Taffy smiled, satisfied. “Curiosity seems to be going around today.”
You stepped back toward your friends, forcing your shoulders to loosen. As you turned away, you were acutely aware of Earl watching you.
Behind you, Marzipan Taffy called lightly, “Remember, wisdom offered freely is still wisdom. Whether you take it or not is up to you.”
The corridor swallowed the sound as you walked with the group.
You didn’t say anything about the Fount again.
And you certainly didn’t say that, despite everything you had no intention of standing in that line.
You barely made it halfway down the hall before the words spilled out of you.
“Obviously I’m not going to ask him.”
You stopped walking altogether, turning to face them, frustration sharp enough to sting your own ears. “He’s the one stopping us. He’s the one redacting things, locking them away, deciding what we’re allowed to know. Why would I go stand in a line just to ask politely for answers he’s already decided I don’t deserve?”
Your hand curled into the fabric of your sleeve. You exhaled hard. “I just! ugh.”
Hazelnut slowed first, expression softening. “Yeah,” he admitted. “That would be… kind of pointless.”
Earl nodded once. “If Marzipan Taffy knew more, he would have said so. Or at least hinted.”
Chai frowned, arms folding loosely. “He was careful. Too careful. That usually means he knows exactly where the line is, and doesn't want to cross it.”
You groaned, tipping your head back briefly. “So that’s it, then? He laughs, tells us to ask the one person who benefits most from us not knowing, and sends us on our way?”
No one contradicted you.
The silence pressed in again.
You dropped your gaze to the floor, voice quieter now. “Even if he can’t or won’t tell us more… then what if the book really is the only way?”
Chai’s breath caught.
Hazelnut’s jaw tightened. “Don’t say that like it’s already decided.”
“But what if it is?” you pressed, looking up at them. “What if everything else has been stripped away? What if this” you stopped yourself from saying it, “is the only path left?”
Earl studied you carefully. “Then we slow down.”
You shook your head. “We don’t have time to slow down.”
“I know,” Earl said gently. “But rushing toward the only door left without asking who locked the others is dangerous.”
Hazelnut swallowed. “I don’t like that it’s the book that keeps answering you. Not when everything else has gone quiet.”
Chai stepped closer, her voice softer but no less firm. “We want to help you. All of us do. But if this is the only way, then we need to be sure it’s not because someone made it the only way.”
You looked at them and thought
Four days.
Four days and a book that spoke in poetry and promises just for you.
“…So what do I do?” you asked, barely above a whisper.
No one answered right away.
But they didn’t walk away either.
For now, that was the only certainty you had.
Earl was the first to answer you.
“…I don’t know,” he said.
The admission wasn’t defeat, It was him refusing to lie to you just to make the fear smaller.
Hazelnut exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. Same. I’ve got nothing that doesn’t sound either stupid or terrifying.”
Chai reached out, resting her hand lightly against your arm. “But I do know this,” she said gently. “You’ve been thinking in circles since this morning. Maybe what you need right now isn’t another answer.”
You blinked at her.
“Maybe you need a nap,” she added, a little softer. “Or food that doesn’t disappoint you. Or literally anything that isn’t immortality and cosmic consequences.”
Hazelnut snorted. “Strong vote for a nap.”
You let out a weak laugh.
Then Hazelnut’s expression shifted to thoughtful and curious in that way that always meant trouble. “Y’know… I am kind of wondering what people actually ask the Fount.”
Earl’s head snapped toward him. “No.”
Hazelnut shrugged. “I’m not saying we ask anything. Just… watch. From afar. People line up, right? We could listen in. See what kinds of questions get answers.”
Earl frowned deeply. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Is it?” Hazelnut pressed. “We wouldn’t be doing anything. Just standing there. Existing. He has a reputation to uphold so he won’t be glaring at you…if that’s what you’re worried about.”
You hesitated.
“I’m… a little curious too.”
All three of them looked at you.
You flushed, immediately defensive. “Not because of anything else,” you added quickly. “Just, academically. Like Hazelnut said. I want to know what kind of wisdom people actually seek.”
Earl studied your face, searching for cracks. Finding none, but not finding peace either.
Chai tilted her head, considering. “It could be interesting,” she admitted. “If nothing else, it might remind us that the world is bigger than just this problem.”
Earl sighed, long and resigned. “You’re all conspiring against my better judgment.”
Hazelnut grinned. “We’d never.”
“…We will not ask questions,” Earl said firmly. “We will not approach him. We will not linger if it feels wrong.”
You nodded immediately. “Agreed.”
Chai smiled faintly. “Just observing.”
Earl closed his eyes for a moment then opened them again. “Fine,” he said. “But only for a short while.”
Relief loosened something in your chest.
A nap could wait.
For now, you would watch.
And you told yourself, that curiosity was all this was.
Nothing more.
You kept to the edges of the crowd, half-hidden behind a pillar and a potted purple statice that had seen better days. From here, you could see everything without being seen, or so you hoped.
The line really was long.
Scholars in pressed robes. Travelers with dust still clinging to their cloaks. Students clutching notebooks like lifelines. They filtered in and out of the Fount’s throne room in an almost reverent rhythm.
And the questions…
“Oh no,” Hazelnut muttered under his breath as someone stepped out, beaming. “I can already feel my sanity slipping.”
You watched as the next person went in, barely a pause between them.
Some questions were… painful.
“Do you think my professor secretly hates me?” “Will I be rich?” “Is it bad luck if my spoon bent yesterday?”
Hazelnut pressed his fingers to his temple. “I might actually go mad. Imagine having all the knowledge in the world and this is what people bring you.”
You stifled a laugh, eyes still fixed ahead. “Be nice. For them, it probably matters.”
“Sure,” he said. “But still.”
Then came the others.
Questions about lost civilizations. About contradictory historical records. About magic behaving differently near certain celestial events. About grief. About fear. About whether purpose was something found or something endured.
The tone shifted constantly, trivial to profound, foolish to achingly sincere.
And through it all, Shadow Milk Cookie sat on that throne, composed and immaculate, listening as if each question mattered equally. Elbows resting lightly, fingers steepled, expression attentive. Patient. Unhurried.
You didn’t realize you were smiling until the words slipped out.
“…Doesn’t he just look so dreamy and refined doing it, though?”
Hazelnut froze.
Earl sighed immediately, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I could do the same thing,” he said flatly.
You glanced at him, amused. “Oh?”
“Yes,” Earl replied. “Sit. Listen and answer questions and I’d do without theatrics.”
Hazelnut snorted. “You’d last five minutes before correcting their grammar.”
Chai yawned softly, swaying just a little where she stood. “I couldn’t do it, this is a snooze fest. All these questions are making me sleepy,” she murmured. “It’s like… intellectual white noise.”
You looked back toward the throne.
Shadow Milk smiled at someone gentle, reassuring and sent them on their way with a slight incline of his head.
You told yourself it meant nothing.
But your chest felt strangely tight all the same, as the next questioner stepped forward and the Fount of Knowledge listened, as he always did.
Chai noticed before you did.
The slight stillness. The way your smile pursed.
She leaned in, voice low and teasing, just for you. “Hey. Relax. He’s just being nice.” A pause then, gentler, “And besides… he’s all yours. You know that.”
Your ears warmed. You looked away quickly. “I wasn’t…”
“Mhm,” Hazelnut said, not looking at you. “Sure.”
Earl chose, mercifully, not to comment.
You stayed a little longer.
From the sidelines, you listened not to him so much as to the way he answered.
A young scholar asked, voice trembling, “If knowledge can hurt people… should it ever be shared?”
Shadow Milk folded his hands. “Knowledge does not hurt. Choice does. And choice cannot exist without knowledge.” He smiled faintly. “The harm comes when one believes ignorance to be kindness.”
Another, older, dust on their cloak, asked, “Why do patterns repeat across history, even when we swear we’ve learned?”
“Because memory fades faster than fear,” he replied smoothly. “And fear is a far more motivating teacher.”
A student, barely older than you, blurted out, “Will I ever be enough?”
The room went very quiet.
Shadow Milk’s gaze softened. An honest gaze. “Enough for whom?” he asked. “Decide that first. It will save you years.”
Hazelnut shifted beside you, quieter now.
Someone else asked about magic, why it behaved unpredictably near certain people.
“Magic,” Shadow Milk said calmly, “is drawn to fracture. To pressure. To those who cannot afford to fail.”
Your chest tightened.
Chai squeezed your arm.
Eventually, the line thinned. Voices faded. The weight of the crowd loosened. Shadow Milk dismissed the last visitor with a polite nod, already reaching for a stack of papers at his right side.
Your stomach chose that moment to betray you.
A very loud, very insistent growl echoed in the quiet corridor.
Hazelnut froze. “…I think that was you.”
You groaned softly. “We skipped lunch.”
Chai laughed under her breath. “And dinner is rapidly becoming a medical necessity.”
Earl glanced once more toward the office then turned away. “We should go. Before we linger.”
You nodded, though your gaze flicked back one last time.
Shadow Milk hadn’t noticed you.
Or if he had he gave no sign.
Your stomach growled again, more insistently this time, and that finally broke whatever fragile spell had settled over you. You turned with the others, falling back into step, the murmur of the Spire swallowing you whole.
Dinner felt… normal.
Blessedly, stubbornly normal.
The dining hall glowed with warm lanternlight, chatter rising and falling in easy waves. Plates clinked. Someone laughed too loudly at a table across the room. The scent of baked bread and roasted herbs drifted through the air.
For a moment it felt like the old academy days. Before forbidden books.
You slid into your seat without thinking, muscle memory guiding you. Hazelnut dropped into the chair beside you with a dramatic sigh. Chai tucked in across from you, chin resting briefly in her hands before she reached for the bread basket. Earl adjusted his coat and sat, posture as composed as ever.
You looked around at them and couldn’t help the soft smile that tugged at your lips.
“…Are your dorms cozy?” you asked suddenly, the question light, almost playful.
Hazelnut nearly choked on his drink. “Do not come to my dorm.”
You blinked. “What?”
He pointed a fork at you accusingly. “I do not need Shadow Milk Cookie knocking on my door at dawn demanding explanations. I barely survived this morning.”
Chai snorted. “He’d probably critique your décor.”
“I don’t have décor,” Hazelnut said defensively. “I have a chair and existential dread.”
Earl sipped his tea. “Minimalist.”
You laughed, and the sound came easier than it had all day.
Chai smiled softly. “My dorm’s cozy,” she said. “I’ve been enjoying being here. With all of you.” Her voice was warm and simple.
Something in your chest shifted at that.
Once dinner was served in the dining hall, you got up filling your plate with roasted vegetables glazed in something sweet and savory, a thick stew rich with herbs. Nothing indulgent like waffles or chocolate pudding.
But the smell was familiar.
Not because you’d eaten it before or because it belonged to a memory you could name.
But it felt like something safe. Hazelnut inhaled deeply. “Okay. This is good.”
Chai nodded, eyes closing briefly as she tasted the stew. “It reminds me of… something.”
“Home,” Earl said quietly.
You swallowed around the sudden tightness in your throat. “Yeah.”
They ate, conversation drifting from lectures to minor gossip to whether Hazelnut’s nightmare about sentient parchment qualified as a haunting.
You reached for your cup and glanced around the table. “What kind of tea did everyone pick?”
Chai brightened. “Honey blossom. It’s floral but not too sweet.”
Hazelnut held up his mug. “Spiced bark. Because I enjoy suffering.”
Earl lifted his cup slightly. “Black citrus.”
You looked down at your own.
“…Mint,” you murmured.
The steam curled upward, warm against your face.
They were here because of you.
Because you had opened something, because you had asked them to.
Because you had dragged them into the orbit of something bigger than any of you.
A small tinge of guilt crawled through your dough, slow, sticky and impossible to ignore.
They laughed. They ate. They talked.
And you wondered, quietly, if the cost of your choice would ever show on their faces.
You smiled anyway liftiing your tea.
The warmth of the tea didn’t reach as far as you wanted it to.
It should have.
Everything around you was soft, voices, laughter, and the steady comfort of your friends slipping back into old rhythms like nothing had changed. Hazelnut arguing about spice levels, Chai leaning toward you just enough to be close, Earl correcting something under his breath with quiet precision.
It should have been enough for you. This life should have; But the thought of it came back anyway.
Uninvited and persistent.
“You must step within your circle alone, those you wish to share your eternity must each perform their own.”
Your fingers tightened slightly around your cup.
Each of them.
Their own circle. Their own vow. Their own… cost.
Your gaze drifted across the table.
Hazelnut, laughing at something stupid. Chai, warm and present, eyes soft in the lanternlight. Earl, composed but here with you.
Because of you.
A quiet, creeping guilt settled deeper into your chest.
What were they supposed to give up?
What would the ritual take from them?
You swallowed.
No.
Your grip steadied.
There had to be another way.
The book hadn’t said it outright, but it also hadn’t said it was impossible. It spoke in riddles. In suggestions. In half-truths that felt like whole ones if you didn’t question them hard enough.
Maybe it was written that way for a reason.
Maybe… it could be bent.
Your thoughts sharpened.
What if the ritual didn’t need to be shared?
What if you could take the cost alone?
If someone had to lose something if someone had to bear whatever “release of mortal ties” truly meant,
What if it was just you?
Your stomach twisted, but the idea took root.
Stronger than the doubt.
Stronger than the fear.
You set your cup down quietly.
No one noticed.
Because they were still talking. Still here. Still safe.
You made the decision in silence.
Later.
When they weren’t around.
You’d go back to the book.
You’d ask it properly this time.
Not how to complete the ritual, you already had that…sort of.
Instead you’d ask how to change it.
How to make it so they wouldn’t have to give anything up.
How to make it so you were the only one who took the fall.
Your gaze softened as you looked at them again.
If this was the only way then you’d make sure it only cost you.
Eventually, the night thinned.
Dinner ended. Cups emptied. The last of the easy laughter faded into soft goodnights and tired smiles and familiar promises to see each other in the morning.
Chai hugged you a little longer than usual.
Hazelnut pointed at you and said, “No summoning anything tonight.”
Earl only looked at you, steady, searching for danger and said, “Sleep, if you can.”
You told them you would.
It was not quite a lie.
Your dorm felt different once the door shut behind you.
Too quiet.
Too still.
The lantern on your desk burned low, casting warm light over the room, over your blankets and books and the shelf that no longer held what you wanted it to. You crossed the space slowly, heartbeat loud in the hush, and drew the hidden tome from your bag.
The moment it touched the desk, the room seemed to darken even in the light of your lantern.
You stared at the cover for a long moment before opening it.
The pages fluttered once on their own.
Then stilled.
Your voice came out small at first. “I need to ask you something.”
Nothing. You almost gave into desperation.
Then, from the empty page, ink began to seep upward like dark water finding the surface.
“You need many things. Questions are only the prettiest of them.”
Your jaw tightened.
“I’m serious.”
The script curved slowly, elegantly, almost indulgently.
“As am I. Speak, starlight. The night is listening.”
That made your skin prickle.
You drew in a breath and forced yourself to focus.
“You said…or wrote” your eyes dropped briefly to your notes, to the copied line that had been haunting you all evening. “You must step within your circle alone, those you wish to share your eternity must each perform their own.”
The page remained still, as if waiting.
You pressed on.
“But is there another way?”
Your fingers curled against the desk.
“A way where only I have to do it. Where only I have to… pay for it.” Even saying that felt wrong. “If my friends want to follow me…if they want eternity too, surely there’s some magic where they can come after. Without taking the fall themselves.”
The page stayed blank long enough that doubt began to creep in.
Then the ink unfurled again, slow and sinuous.
“Ah. Now guilt enters the circle.”
You went cold.
More words bloomed beneath the first.
“At last, you ask not how to ascend but who must bleed for the staircase.”
You flinched.
“I’m not asking for anyone to bleed.”
“No?” The line curved, almost amused. “Then why does your heart shake so loudly?”
You stared at the page, suddenly angry.
“Because I don’t want them hurt.”
The answer came quickly this time, as though pleased by the force in your voice.
“And yet you wished them eternal. A beautiful contradiction. A selfish kindness. A tender cruelty.”
Your throat tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” the book agreed, “it is not.”
The lantern flame flickered.
You lowered your gaze, voice quieter now. “They said they’d do it. They agreed. But that was before we knew…before I knew there was a price to be named. I thought…” You stopped.
You thought it would be like a door.
You thought it would be light.
You thought if the book called it sleep, then it could not be death-adjacent enough to matter.
You swallowed hard. “I don’t want them to lose anything because of me.”
The page darkened as the fresh script wrote itself into being.
“The moon is not a door. It is a mouth. It swallows what is offered and returns what pleases it.”
Your pulse skipped.
“So there isn’t another way.”
“There are always other ways. But not other prices.”
You shut your eyes briefly.
“No. Tell me clearly.”
When you looked again, the ink had sharpened.
“The moon must take something.”
The words seemed darker than the others. Heavier.
“A vow without surrender is wishcraft. A circle without cost is chalk. Eternity without severance is merely longing in finer robes.”
You hated how much that sounded like him.
Not exactly him, but like a version of him that stepped into rooms like he was performing for the stars. Refined. theatrical. Cutting in ways that felt almost beautiful.
Your hands trembled.
“What if the moon takes from me for all of us?”
This time, the answer came very slowly.
“One vessel cannot drown for four and call it mercy.”
You pressed harder.
“Why not? If the magic is mine when we do the ritual if I’m the one seeking it first, why can’t I bear it?”
The book replied
“Because eternity followed is not eternity earned. Because no soul may be carried through that gate asleep. Because what is not surrendered willingly is torn instead.”
You went still.
The room felt colder.
“I don’t understand.”
“You do.” A new line appeared beneath it. “That is why you are afraid.”
You looked away from the page, eyes stinging with a frustration that felt uncomfortably close to grief.
For a while, all you heard was your own breathing.
Then, very quietly, you asked, “Should I even be doing this?”
The question sat there like a wound.
The book did not answer immediately.
When it did, the handwriting had softened, definitely not kinder, clearly less amused.
“At last. The true question arrives.”
You stared.
“Not can.Not how.But should.”
Your mouth went dry.
“Yes.”
The page seemed to almost pulse beneath your hands.
“Would you abandon the shore if none could follow? Would you still seek forever if forever meant solitude? Would you climb if no one stood below to marvel?”
You hated every word of it because you didn’t know.
You thought of Shadow Milk.
Of the ache in you that still wanted to prove something.
Of your friends at dinner, safe and laughing, warm beneath lanternlight.
Of Chai saying she’d been enjoying being here with all of you.
Of Hazelnut bluntly saying he loved you.
Of Earl refusing to lie just to comfort you.
You pressed the heel of your hand to your mouth.
“I don’t know.”
The ink curled once, like a wicked smile you could not see.
“Then do not pretend certainty in a ritual that punishes hesitation.”
That settled into you with the weight of truth.
You stood there for several heartbeats, saying nothing.
Then something rose through your fear, something desperate, offended, almost childlike in its need for footing.
“How do you know all this?”
The words cracked out of you.
“If everything else has been redacted, hidden, stripped away, how do you know? Who wrote you? What are you?”
The page remained blank for a few seconds.
“I am what remains when truth is dressed for the stage.”
You frowned.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means exactly enough.”
The next line came quicker, curling elegantly across the page.
“I know because I have watched vows become cages. I know because I have worn many voices and heard what mortals confess to moonlight when they believe themselves alone.”
The lantern gave another weak flicker.
You took a step back from the desk.
The book continued
“Some lights reveal. Some lights entice. Some lights teach the eye to love the gleam more than the shape beneath it.”
A chill traveled down your spine.
You whispered, “What are you?”
The answer unfurled in a long, beautiful hand:
“A mirror, perhaps. A mask. A patient little lie told so artfully it learns to pass for guidance.”
Your breath caught.
Then, before you could decide whether to slam the book shut or demand more, the page darkened once more.
“But you did not open me to ask my nature. You opened me because you wanted permission for a sin.”
You stared at that line until it blurred.
Because it was right.
You had wanted the book to tell you there was a way to spare them.
A way to keep moving toward immortality without paying for it in anyone else’s jam or breath or soul.
A way to remain noble while still choosing it.
Your voice shook. “There has to be something.”
The script appeared almost tenderly this time.
“There is.”
Your heart lurched.
The next line followed.
“Turn back, I hate wasting time.”
You didn’t move and held your breath waiting for more.
When nothing came you whispered, “And if I can’t?”
For a moment, nothing.
Then, like breath onto glass,
“Then choose with open eyes. And do not call the wound love simply because others offered their dough.”
You shut the book.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the room like a snapped branch.
You stood there with both hands braced against the cover, head bowed, breathing unsteadily.
The guilt had not lessened. If anything, it had sharpened.
The moon must take something.
And if there was no way to bear the cost for everyone, then you would have to decide whether forever was worth asking anyone to fall beside you. Outside, somewhere beyond the dorm walls, the night carried on.
And the moon, distant, silent, watching said nothing at all.
You kept your hand on the cover for a long moment, breathing slowly, waiting for your pulse to stop sounding like panic.
Then, quietly, you said, “...Fair enough.”
You looked down at the book, at your own fingers splayed over its worn cover, and something softer moved through the guilt and frustration.
“I mean it,” you murmured. “If we all have to pay a price, then… okay. That’s fine, I suppose.”
The words felt weak even to you. Like paper held too close to a flame.
Your thumb brushed the edge of the cover.
“And… sorry,” you added, almost awkwardly. “For shutting you like that.”
You hesitated, cheeks warming faintly despite being alone.
“I don’t know if that hurt.”
A beat.
You exhaled through your nose, the silence almost embarrassing now.
“You might not even be alive,” you muttered. “Or… sentient. Or whatever the proper term is.” you shook your head once. “It felt rude.”
You almost asked again ‘what are you?’.
But the thought died as quickly as it came. You could already feel the shape of that conversation, more riddles, more silken evasions, more answers that circled the truth until you were too dizzy to tell one from the other.
No.
Not tonight.
You opened the book again, more carefully this time. The pages shifted beneath your fingers with something that almost felt like a sigh.
Ink unfurled at once, elegant and dark:
“Contrition becomes you. It softens the corners of your ambition.”
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t start.”
The script curved, amused.
“Then do not invite poetry and demand arithmetic.”
“I understand,” you said, more firmly now. “Or… enough of it.”
That gave the page pause.
You leaned over it, deciding, at last to stop circling.
“Then I’m going to ask plainly.”
The lantern flame trembled.
“If the moon takes something, if that's the price, what kind of memories does the moon take?”
“The ones with roots.”
You frowned. “That is exactly the kind of answer I’m trying to avoid.”
More ink.
“Then listen more carefully. The moon does not pluck at random. The moon takes what binds you most tightly to the shape you are now.”
Your stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
The writing flowed on, slower this time, deliberate.
“A face loved too fiercely. A grief polished smooth by years of handling. A promise that taught your soul its own name. Not always the brightest memory. Not always the happiest. But the deepest.”
You stared.
“No…”
The word came out before you meant to say it.
“No, that’s” your throat tightened. “That could be anything.”
“Yes.”
Your hand pressed flat to the page.
“How am I supposed to choose if I don’t know what I’ll lose?”
“You are not asked to choose the memory. Only the path.”
You looked away for a second, jaw tight.
“Then what comes after?” you asked quietly. “How am I reborn?”
The ink darkened, almost lush in the lanternlight.
“With silence first. Then severance. Then the long and silver work of being unmade just enough to be remade.”
A chill worked its way down your arms.
“So I do die.”
“Words are frail little coffins. ‘Die.’ ‘Sleep.’ ‘Change.’ Mortals name thresholds according to what frightens them least.”
You hated how beautiful that was.
You hated more that it answered nothing and everything at once.
“Tell me clearly,” you whispered. “Will my heart stop?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Your breath caught.
“Will I still be me?”
The reply came gently. Too gently.
“Not in all the ways you currently mean.”
Your eyes stung.
“But some of them?”
“Enough to rise. Enough to remember wanting to.”
You swallowed hard.
“And how soon after?” You leaned closer, voice dropping into something small and almost afraid. “How soon would I wake up?”
The page remained empty so long that your pulse began to hammer again.
Then, in slow and careful script:
“When the moon releases you.”
You closed your eyes. “That’s not a time.”
“No.”
“Days? Weeks? Years?”
“Perhaps.”
Your head snapped down toward the page. “That’s not funny.”
“I am not jesting.”
The next line appeared beneath it.
“You asked earlier if you would wake quickly. I answered truly. Time means little beneath the moon’s hand. You rise when longing outweighs stillness. When memory of you outweighs forgetting. When the world has room for your return.”
A horrible sort of understanding unfurled in you.
“So I might not wake for a very long time.”
The page offered no mercy.
“Yes.”
You pulled your hand back.
“And if no one remembers me?”
The ink did not hesitate.
“Then sleep becomes your forever.”
The room went very, very quiet.
You stared so hard at the page that the words blurred, then sharpened again.
It felt unfair in a way you had no language for.
Cruel, but not malicious. Like gravity. Like winter. Like finding out the stars are beautiful because they are too far away to care what happens to them.
You laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“So not only do I die, I have to trust that enough people miss me to pull me back.”
The answer came elegant as ever.
“You wished for eternity. Did you think it would not ask whether you had ever truly been loved?”
Your hand flew to your mouth.
Because that was the cruelest question of all.
Not whether you were brave enough.
Not whether you were clever enough.
Whether you were remembered enough.
Whether you were needed.
You stood there breathing shallowly, your pulse an ugly thing in your throat.
You lowered your hand and looked at the book again.
“…If I do this,” you said, voice rough, “and my friends do too, would we all wake separately?”
The book paused.
“Not all moons return their dead in the same hour.”
That sank like a stone.
“So we could lose each other anyway.”
“You could.”
You laughed again, softer this time, bitter and frayed.
“This whole thing sounds awful.”
“And yet you still ask.”
You hated that it was right.
You hated more that some part of you was still asking.
Still searching for a version of the ritual that was survivable. Noble or even worth it.
Your gaze dropped to the page, and when you spoke again your voice had lost some of its sharpness.
“I said I understood. I do. I think I do.” A breath. “I’m just trying to know what I’m asking of them. Of myself.”
The writing curled slowly, almost gracious.
“At least, you are asking as one who might survive the answer.”
You didn’t know whether that was comfort or warning.
Maybe it was both.
Your fingers rested near the bottom of the page, not touching the ink.
For a long while, neither of you said anything.
Then, quietly, because you couldn’t help it, you asked one last question.
“If I turned back now…”
The book waited.
“…would I ever stop wanting it?”
The answer appeared like a whisper made visible:
“No. Probably not. You’d forever think of the fount and wonder why you never went through with it. But wanting is not the same thing as choosing.”
You sat with that.
And the moon beyond your window went on shining, silent and remote, as though none of this belonged to her at all.
The silence stretched just a little too long.
Long enough for irritation to rise where fear had been.
You stared at the page, jaw tight, the lanternlight making the ink gleam like something wet and watchful.
Then you said, a little sharper than before, “You know, you’re being incredibly smug for a book.”
The page remained blank for half a breath.
Then, with almost theatrical timing, ink unfurled in a graceful sweep:
“And you, starlight, are being incredibly mortal about this.”
You narrowed your eyes.
“I’m serious.”
“As am I. You wanted eternity and balked at inconvenience. Forgive me if I fail to collapse in sympathy.”
Your fingers curled against the desk.
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“No?” “You ask what memory will be taken, how long you will sleep, whether your precious companions may step lightly around the wound and still you wish me to believe you have made peace with price?”
Heat rose to your face.
“I never said I made peace with it.”
“Honesty. How refreshing. And sickening.”
You let out a slow, agitated breath. “You don’t have to keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking like you’re in the middle of a stage monologue.”
The ink curled, practically preening.
“Shall I become duller for your comfort? More academic? ‘Subject exhibits anxiety regarding lunar transfiguration and associated existential liabilities.’ Better?”
Despite yourself, you scowled harder.
“You’re insufferable.”
The page replied smoothly,
“you keep opening me.”
That stung more than it should have.
For a moment, you just glared at the pages, feeling your irritation thicken into something almost useful. Safer than fear. Safer than guilt.
Then you asked, more quietly, “Why are you helping me?”
The page went still.
You leaned forward before it could redirect the conversation.
“No, really. Why?” Your voice sharpened again. “I wasn’t desperate enough to talk to you today. Not like before. I wasn’t half-crying or frantic or clinging to you like you were the only thing in the room that could answer me.” Your throat tightened, but you forced the words through anyway. “So why are you still helping me?”
Nothing.
Then the ink returned, slow, elegant, and infuriatingly amused.
“Because, even I grow bored of the same act.”
You blinked.
More script bled down the page.
“I have spent sufficient time toying with you. Enough circling. Enough baiting. Enough watching you step carefully around the questions you feared to ask.”
Your stomach twisted.
“To make you wait now when you finally approach with your eyes open would be a drag.”
You stared.
“A drag?”
“Yes.” The reply came almost lazily. “You have become marginally more interesting. I reward improvement.”
You made an incredulous sound. “That’s your reason?”
“One of them.”
The words came faster now, almost pleased with themselves.
“Should you not be grateful? I could have left you in your pretty confusion. I could have answered only in moonlight and metaphor. I could have watched you mistake hunger for certainty for nights and nights and nights.”
The page darkened, the next lines sharper.
“Instead, I have shown mercy.”
You almost laughed.
“Mercy,” you repeated flatly.
“Yes.” “Be thankful.”
Something in you bristled.
“I don’t think you get to call it mercy when half of what you say sounds like it’s trying to see how close I can get to a breakdown before I close you again.”
“I told you to turn back.”
Your mouth opened, then shut.
Because that was true.
Because it would have been easier, crueler, perhaps, but easier for the book to keep nudging you forward, wrapping danger in beautiful language until you called it destiny.
But it hadn’t.
You pressed your palms to the desk. “If this is mercy, then you have a very strange idea of it.”
The book’s response was immediate.
“Of course I do. I know many strange ideas. I keep them polished.”
You exhaled through your nose, annoyed enough now that some of your fear had burned away.
“Still. You didn’t answer properly.”
“I answered exactly.”
“No.” You shook your head. “You answered like you always do, like there’s an audience somewhere waiting to applaud your phrasing.”
That seemed to delight it.
“Perhaps there is.”
You groaned, dragging a hand over your face. “Stars above.”
The next line appeared beneath your fingers, softer than the ones before:
“You ask why I help. Then hear this plainly, as plainly as I am willing to say it Too much waiting rots curiosity into fear. A seeker left starving becomes dull, and I have no fondness for dull things.”
Your hand stilled.
That… was closer to honest than you expected.
Or maybe it only sounded honest.
With this thing, you weren’t sure there was a difference.
You lowered your gaze to the page, irritation ebbing just enough to leave behind caution.
“So I’m entertainment.”
“At times.”
You frowned.
“And the rest of the time?”
A pause.
“A possibility.”
You went quiet.
The lantern crackled softly beside you. Somewhere beyond the window, the wind scraped tree-branches against stone.
You looked at the book for a long while before speaking again.
“You’re awful.”
“And useful.”
“That doesn’t make you better.”
“No,” it agreed, “but it does keep you here.”
Your fingers tapped once against the desk.
Then, because you couldn’t leave well enough alone, you asked, “If you’ve spent enough time toying with me, why start in the first place?”
When the answer came, the script was beautiful and cold.
“Because all doors test the hand that reaches for them. Because not everyone who seeks forever deserves to find it. Because I wished to know whether you were merely desperate or whether you could become something worse.”
Your stomach dropped.
“…Worse?”
“Someone willing to understand.”
That settled into the room like a blade laid flat on a table.
“You say things like that and expect me to believe you’re being merciful.”
The ink curved one last time, amused and almost fond.
“I expect nothing of the sort. I merely expect you to keep reading.”
And the worst part was that you knew you would.
The next thing you knew, light was wrong.
Too bright. Too high. Not moonlight, not lantern-glow, but the pale gold of a day that had already gone on without you.
Your cheek was pressed to the desk. Your neck ached. One arm had gone numb beneath you, and the book lay open under your half-curled hand, its pages so blank it almost made you wonder if you had dreamed the whole of last night.
“Oh, stars above.”
Chai Latte’s voice, close and warm and edged with exasperation, cut through the haze. You groaned softly before even lifting your head.
“You stayed up all night,” she scolded, stepping around the desk and pinching the bridge of her nose. “You absolutely stayed up all night.”
You blinked blearily at her, then at the room beyond her where Hazelnut leaned in the doorway and Earl stood just behind him, one hand resting lightly against the frame.
Then Hazelnut exhaled. “Okay. Good. You’re alive.”
You pushed yourself upright with a wince. “Was there concern that I wouldn’t be?”
“Yes,” all three of them said at once.
Chai folded her arms, though the relief in her eyes softened the shape of her annoyance. “We wanted to give you space after yesterday,” she said, less sharply now. “It was a long day. You looked like your brain was trying to set itself on fire. So we didn’t come by this morning.”
Hazelnut shrugged, aiming for casual and missing by a little. “But then it got later. And later. And then near afternoon. Which, for the record, is a terrible time to still be unconscious at your desk with that thing out.”
He pointed accusingly at the open book.
“At the very least,” he went on, crossing the room now, “you should put the creepy moon-book away before trying to sleep. Imagine if Shadow Milk saw you like th” He stopped abruptly, coughed, and corrected himself with only a hint of embarrassment. “The Fount of Knowledge.”
Chai snorted.
You rubbed your eyes. “You can say his name, Hazelnut. He won’t descend from the ceiling if you do.”
“That sounds exactly like the kind of thing he would do,” Hazelnut muttered.
Earl finally stepped forward, gaze drifting first to you, then to the book, then back again. “To be fair,” he said smoothly, “they were under no obligation to schedule their emotional collapse more conveniently…”
He stopped.
His expression sharpened just slightly.
Then, in that precise, quiet tone of his, he asked, “What exactly were you speaking to it about?”
The room went still.
You looked down at the blank pages.
Then at your friends.
You did not tell them everything.
You didn’t tell them the way the book had spoken about memory like roots, or how it had admitted your heart would stop, or how it had told you to turn back and then mocked you for needing permission to do so. You did not tell them about the question of being remembered. Or the awful possibility that sleep might become forever if no one missed you enough.
Instead, you offered them the important pieces.
“The ritual still has a cost,” you said quietly. “For all of us. There isn’t a way for me to… take all of it on by myself. At least not one the book knows, or is willing to tell me.”
Chai’s face fell a little, though she tried not to show it.
You went on. “And the moon has to take something. Memories. Something important. Something deep.” Your voice thinned slightly. “And…the possibility we wouldn’t all wake at the same time.”
Hazelnut swore softly under his breath.
Earl’s jaw tightened.
Chai was the first to speak. “Well. That’s horrible.”
You gave a weak huff that might have been a laugh. “Yeah.”
Your fingers curled against the edge of the desk.
“There are only three days left now,” you said, and hearing the number aloud made it feel far too real. “So I need to ask you again, one last time, properly. Do you really want to do this?”
Hazelnut was the one who answered first, because of course he was.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned back on his heels, expression caught somewhere between laid-back and deeply unsettled. “I mean… even if we don’t all wake up at once, whoever wakes up first can just wait, right?” He shrugged, trying for breezy. “We’d be immortal. So would it really matter?”
Chai turned on him immediately. “Hazelnut.”
“What?” he said, though his voice softened under her look.
“Stop saying things like that.” Her eyes were bright, not angry exactly, just wounded by the ease of his phrasing. “You make it sound simple.”
Hazelnut grimaced and looked away. “I know it’s not simple.”
“Then don’t talk like waking up centuries apart is just a scheduling issue.”
“That’s not what I…” He stopped, dragged a hand through his hair, and sighed. “I’m trying not to freak out, okay? If I think about it too hard, I will. So I’m trying to make it sound less terrifying than it is.”
That took some of the edge out of Chai’s expression.
She looked back at you then, stepping closer, voice gentler. “I said I would follow you. I meant it. But I don’t like any of this more now than I did yesterday.”
Earl inclined his head slightly, hands folded behind his back. “Nor do I.”
You looked at him.
His gaze was steady, refined as ever, but there was strain beneath it now. Just the weight of thinking too clearly about something no one should have to decide.
“I will not pretend the new information is comforting,” he said. “It isn’t. But neither will I pretend my answer changes every time the path becomes uglier.”
Hazelnut glanced at him, then at you, then huffed quietly. “Yeah. That.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m scared. I hate that book. I hate that the moon sounds like it has opinions. And I especially hate the part where my memories might get stolen because I said yes to some half-poetic cosmic bargain.” He paused. “But… I said I’d do it.”
Chai looked down at the blank pages, then up at you again. “I’m still hoping something changes. That the book changes. That you change your mind. Any of it. But if nothing does…” Her fingers found your sleeve and tugged gently. “Then I’m not leaving you to face it alone.”
The guilt that had gone to sleep somewhere under your candy ribs stirred awake again.
You had dragged them into this.
And still they stayed. You looked down at the open tome, then reached over and shut it carefully this time.
Hazelnut eyed it suspiciously. “Thank you.”
You ignored him.
Then, after a moment, you said, “I asked it if there was another way.”
Three heads lifted.
“There isn’t,” you finished softly. “Not one that spares everyone.”
Chai drew in a slow breath. Earl’s expression turned distant and thoughtful, the way it always did when he was arranging pieces into a shape he didn’t yet like. Hazelnut, by contrast, looked like he wanted to throw the entire book into the astral river and be done with it.
Instead, he pointed at your bathroom. “Alright. New plan. You get up. You wash your face. We drag you somewhere with sunlight and food before you try discussing mortality with stationery again.”
Chai brightened at once. “And tea.”
“Obviously,” Earl said.
You stared at them for a moment, tired enough that your eyes stung for reasons that had nothing to do with sleep.
“Three days,” you murmured again.
Hazelnut gave you a crooked, too-casual smile that didn’t quite hide the fear under it. “Then we’ve got three days to either stop you or ruin ourselves with you.”
Chai elbowed him. “Hazelnut.”
“What? That was affectionate.”
“It was awful.”
Earl sighed faintly. “Please refrain from phrasing loyalty like a threat.”
You laughed then, small but weak. Somehow that was enough to get you to your feet.
The rest of the day blurred gently after that.
Earl did, in fact, drag you toward sunlight. Chai insisted on tea strong enough to “resurrect your personality.” Hazelnut hovered near your bag every time the book so much as shifted inside it, like he expected it to grow teeth.
And somehow, in the quiet spaces between worry and joking and the unsteady rhythm of the next three days, life kept happening.
The four of you moved through the academy as if you had not all begun measuring time in moonrise.
You studied when you had to. You wandered when you could. You laughed more than you probably should have, which only made the guilt sharper when it returned. Sometimes it sat with you like a stone. Other times, it only brushed past.
The book stayed mostly silent. After all you didn’t want to ask anything more.
And the moon, slow and inevitable, grew fuller.
Until at last morning came.
The day of.
You woke before your alarm.
Not because you were rested or because you were calm.
Dawn had barely begun to bleed into the stonework when you sat on the edge of your bed and stared at your hands.
By tonight, you would stand by the Blueberry Yogurt River, where moonlight poured silver over the water and turned the banks into something holy and cold. By tonight, the choice would stop being theoretical. It would stop being pages and promises and whispered plans between friends.
And because of that the guilt had become unbearable in its own quiet way you found yourself thinking of him.
Of all the things you had not said. Of how many of your conversations lately had become barbed, deflected, unfinished. Of how much you had taken from him without ever fully knowing what he wanted in return. Of how you were about to do something he would almost certainly hate, if he knew.
You stood. Dressed. Left your room before you could decide not to.
The halls were still pale with early light, mostly empty, the academy caught in that strange hush before the day fully remembered itself. Your footsteps echoed softly as you made your way upward, toward the private quarters you knew too well.
His door was half-open.
Of course it was.
You hesitated at the threshold only long enough to see him there, already awake, already working, robes immaculate despite the hour, one hand resting against a stack of papers while the other moved steadily across the page.
Shadow Milk Cookie looked up almost immediately.
And in the quiet of the morning, without petitioners, without scholars, without the performance of public wisdom wrapped around him, his attention felt terribly direct.
He stilled then set down his pen.
“Well,” he said softly, amusement and surprise threading together beneath his voice. “Either the dawn has become remarkably generous… or you are here of your own accord.”
You swallowed. “I’m here of my own accord.”
That made something flicker in his eyes.
He leaned back slightly in his chair, studying you. “How curious.”
You nearly turned around right then. But the thought of leaving, of not saying this, of carrying one more thing into the night without trying to mend it first felt worse.
So you stepped inside.
“I know this is early.”
“For most, yes.”
You ignored that. “And I know you’re busy.”
“Less so now.”
The faintest smile touched his mouth. It should have made this easier. It didn’t.
You clasped your hands together to keep them from fidgeting. “I just… wanted to talk to you.”
That, more than anything else, seemed to quiet him.
A/N Okay so this was meant to be one part but Tumblr is making it hard for me so I'm splitting this into 2 chapters so the abrupt end is not a cliffhanger just give me a second to figure this out TwT!!! if there are weird spaces between paragraphs that was me messing around seeing what worked so don't mind them. I forgot there is a 1000 block limit.
Anyways
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In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT43
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He said nothing and simply waited.
You looked down for a moment, collecting yourself. When you spoke again, your voice was smaller than you intended.
“I haven’t been fair to you.”
“I keep…” You huffed a weak breath. “Avoiding things. Or trying to talk around them. Or making jokes because I don’t know what else to do.” Your throat tightened. “And I know you notice. You always notice.”
He was still watching you with that infuriating, unwavering patience. You forced yourself to continue.
“I have a lot to learn from you.” The words hung there. True words. Dangerous words. His gaze softened almost imperceptibly.
“You always say things like truth should be faced directly,” you went on, looking at the edge of his desk rather than at him. “And I keep pretending I can dance around it if I’m clever enough. But I’m not. Not really.”
A silence followed that did not feel empty. Then, very quietly, he asked, “Is that what this is?”
You looked up.
“This?”
“A confession?” he said. “An apology? A peace offering?”
You almost smiled despite yourself. “Maybe all three.”
“How ambitious.”
You stepped nearer his desk. The morning light from the window caught on his robes, making him look impossibly composed. Untouchable, almost, like the first time. “I mean it.”
"I know,” he said.
You had come here to ease your guilt, yes. To make amends in the only way you knew how before the moon rose and everything became impossible to take back. But hearing him say I know made the whole thing feel less strategic, less safely motivated. More honest than you had meant it to be.
You shifted your weight. “I just thought… if I’ve seemed distant, or difficult, or…”
“Terrified of honesty?” he supplied.
You winced. “That one.”
His mouth curved.
“I had noticed.”
You rolled your eyes faintly, and that seemed to please him. He smiled “But you are here now.”
“Yes.”
“And you wish me to believe,” he said, voice silk-soft now, “that this visit is unconnected to anything else troubling your mind.”
Your pulse stumbled. For a terrible instant, you thought he knew. That somehow, impossibly, the moon, the book, the river had already reached him. But then he looked at you, not with suspicion, only searching for answers.
You answered carefully. “I wanted to see you.”
Which was true not the whole truth.But the truth
Something in him settled at that. Not completely. But enough to let his guard down.
He stood then, moving around the desk with that same unhurried grace that always made you feel like the room belonged to him long before he entered it. When he stopped before you, the space between you felt suddenly too small.
“You continue,” he said softly, “to say the most dangerous things with the face of someone who does not realize they are holding a blade.”
You looked up at him. “I said I have a lot to learn.”
“And I,” he murmured, “am apparently expected to teach while under siege.”
You huffed out a laugh.
It faded quickly.
Because being this close to him, on this morning of all mornings, made your chest ache with a guilt you could not put anywhere. You were here to be kinder to him. To honor what he had given you. To lessen, in some small selfish way, the wrongness of what you were about to do.
He was just looking at you. Not as a problem. Not as a puzzle. Not even as a student, exactly.
Just you.
“I do mean it,” you said again, almost helplessly. “About learning from you.”
His gaze lowered briefly, then returned to your face. “I know that too.”
You smiled, but it felt fragile.
“I’m trying,” you admitted. “Even when I don’t look like I am.”
“That,” he said, “has perhaps been your most consistent talent.”
You laughed softly, and this time it stayed.
He let the silence breathe for a moment before lifting one hand, slow enough for you to pull away if you wanted and brushing a thumb lightly beneath your eye, where sleep had left its faint trace.
“You look tired,” he said.
“I was thinking.”
“A dangerous pastime.”
“I’ve heard.”
His thumb lingered one heartbeat too long before he let his hand fall.
“Whatever it is you are wrestling with, do not decide it alone.”
The words went through you like cold water.
You smiled before the horror could show on your face. “That sounds suspiciously like concern.”
“It is concern,” he said, too smoothly to deny. “You continue to make it necessary.”
You looked away for a second, because that was the sort of kindness that made guilt unbearable.
You were not deciding it alone. That was the problem.
By tonight, your friends would stand with you by the river. By tonight, moonlight would ask what all of you were willing to lose.
And here you were, standing in his office in the morning light, trying to mend something before you shattered something else entirely.
“…Thank you,” you said quietly.
He tilted his head. “For what?”
You could not say for seeing me.You could not say for teaching me enough that I know I am doing this wrong.You could not say for making me wish I were not about to lie to you with my whole body.
So instead you said, “For being patient with me.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“I have not always been patient.”
“More than most would have been.”
“That is a very low bar.”
You smiled faintly. “Still counts.”
At that, he reached for your hand.
The gesture was elegant, familiar, and devastating.
He turned your palm upward and held it as if it were something worth reading.
“You are behaving strangely,” he said.
Your heart lurched.
But his expression remained calm, almost tender.
“If this is guilt,” he continued, “I would like to know what crime inspired it.”
You managed a weak joke because you were still you, even now. “Existing badly, maybe.”
“Unconvincing.”
You looked at your joined hands. “Maybe I just wanted to do something right for once.”
That made him still.
And then, very softly, he said, “You are not as impossible as you think.”
Something in your chest cracked at that, Not enough to show, but enough to feel between your ribs.
You stepped closer before you could overthink it and leaned into him, brief and careful and not quite a full embrace. For half a second he did not move.
Then his arms came around you.
You shut your eyes.
The guilt did not disappear. But it changed shape, becoming sadder.
“I’ll keep learning,” you murmured into the fabric of his robes.
He let out a breath that might have been a laugh, might have been something else.
“You had better,” he said. “It would be terribly inconvenient if all this effort were wasted.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him. “There you are.”
“I have been here all along.”
Outside, the day was brightening. Somewhere far below, the Blueberry Yogurt River moved toward evening as it always would, silver waiting beneath the ordinary color of daylight. Hours still remained before moonrise. Hours before circles drawn on the bank. Hours before vows.
But standing there in his office, held in the quiet between what he knew and what he didn’t, you let yourself pretend that you had come here for nothing more than this.
For amends, for closeness.
For the sake of saying I have a lot to learn from you.
And when you finally stepped back, he kept one hand lightly over yours as if reluctant to break the thread completely.
“Come see me later,” he said.
Your pulse stumbled again.
“I’ll try,” you answered.
Not a promise.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
But whatever question rose in him, he let it pass.
“For your sake,” he said, releasing your hand at last, “do.”
You left him then, the morning wrapped in gold, your chest full of guilt and tenderness and dread. And all day long, as the hours slid quietly toward moonrise by the Blueberry Yogurt River, his voice stayed with you warm enough to hurt.
You found your friends where you half-expected they would be together.
Of course they were together.
Near one of the sunlit corridors overlooking the courtyard, the four of you had fallen into the habit of finding each other without meaning to, as if the academy itself had learned your pattern and gently nudged you back into place whenever you drifted too far.
Hazelnut was saying something with his hands, dramatic enough that Chai was already laughing before he finished. Earl stood beside them, composed as ever, though his posture softened the moment his gaze lifted and found you.
And that; That did it for you.
Whatever had been holding you upright since leaving Shadow Milk’s office gave way all at once.
You crossed the distance faster than you meant to, barely hearing Hazelnut’s startled, “Whoa!” before you threw your arms around them.
All of them.
Chai made a soft sound of surprise and immediately folded into you. Hazelnut stumbled, then steadied, one hand flying up to pat your back with awkward urgency. Earl was the last to move, but when he did, he stepped in close and wrapped you tightly, one hand finding yours and threading through it as though to anchor you there.
You held on hard enough that your shoulders began to shake.
Not quite crying but trying not to, trying very hard not to.
And because they knew you so well, none of them joked at first.
Chai’s hand slid up to your face, warm and gentle, cupping your cheek as she searched your expression. “Hey,” she whispered, her voice losing all teasing. “Hey, look at me.”
You did.
Her thumb brushed just beneath your eye.
And then the words came out before you could stop them.
“I’m scared.”
The confession landed soft and raw between all of you.
Hazelnut inhaled sharply through his nose.
Chai’s face crumpled with that particular kind of tenderness that hurt to look at.
Earl’s grip on your hand tightened.
Then Chai, because she was Chai and softness in her never stayed still for long, made a tiny wounded sound and threw herself more fully into the embrace, nearly knocking all of you off balance as she bear-hugged the whole group at once.
Hazelnut wheezed. “Stars, okay, yes, emotional solidarity, but I do enjoy breathing.”
“Too bad,” Chai mumbled into someone’s shoulder.
You laughed then, wet and shaky, and it broke the worst of it. Just enough for the fear to stop feeling like it might split you open. You drew back only a little, still holding on, still close enough to feel the warmth of them all. “Should we…” Your voice caught. You tried again, softer this time. “Should we just pretend it’s a normal day?”
Three pairs of eyes stayed on you.
“Like back at the academy,” you said, almost pleading now for something simple. “Just for today. Just for a little while.” You swallowed. “We could go see if they have waffles. And pineapples.”
That got a real smile out of Chai. A proper one, bright and aching.
“That reminds me more of our childhood than the academy,” she said softly. “Sneaking off to find the best food like it was some grand quest.”
Hazelnut huffed a laugh. “It was a grand quest.”
“It still is,” you said. Earl let out the faintest breath of amusement, and when you looked at him, there was something in his expression you almost couldn’t bear, too much feeling, too carefully held.
Then he stepped back.
Only enough to compose himself.
“Very well,” he said, smoothing one sleeve with a precision that fooled no one. “If we are to behave irresponsibly, we ought to commit properly.”
You blinked. “What does that mean?” A faint gleam entered his eyes familiar, refined, and suddenly boyish in a way you did not see often enough.
“It means,” he said, already turning, “I’ll race you to the dining area.”
And before any of you could answer, he was moving. Not with his usual measured grace. Actually running.
Chai gasped. “Earl Grey Cookie!” You stared, stunned, just long enough to see him not look back. And then you understood. The speed. The abruptness. The way his head angled just slightly away. He did not want you to see the tears brightening in his eyes. That made your chest ache with such fierce love you almost couldn’t stand it. Chai understood at the same moment you did. You saw it in the way her mouth parted, then softened. And then she laughed a breathless, bright sound that rang down the corridor like sunlight.
“Oh, absolutely not,” she declared, grabbing your wrist. “He does not get to win.”
You were already moving. The fear did not vanish. It came with you. But for one shining, foolish moment, so did something else, something freer. Closer to the version of yourselves that existed before countdowns and rituals and moonlit bargains.
You ran. Chai beside you, nearly pulling you along with the force of her determination. Earl ahead, coat robes behind him, pretending very hard this was only a race and not a desperate little act of mercy he was giving himself. And Hazelnut well poor Hazelnut, was left several strides behind before realizing the betrayal.
“Are you serious?!” he shouted, breaking into a sprint after you. “Slow down! Some of us are built for survival, not drama!”
Chai laughed harder.
You did too.
And by the time the dining hall doors came into view, all four of you were breathless and bright-eyed and almost, almost able to pretend this was just another morning, another ordinary day, another chance to chase waffles and pineapples and each other, with nothing waiting for you at moonrise except more life.
The moment you all stumbled through the dining hall doors, breathless, laughing, half-collapsed against each other from the sprint you stopped so suddenly Chai nearly ran into your back.
“…No way,” you whispered.
Hazelnut blinked past you toward the serving tables. “Oh.”
Earl, who had reached the line first and was still pretending he hadn’t been running to outrun his own feelings, actually laughed under his breath.
Because there they were.
Freshly cut pineapples, glistening gold in a chilled bowl like little pieces of stolen sun.
Honey waffles, actual honey waffles, warm and soft and stacked high.
And beside them, in a shining little dish that looked almost ceremonial in the morning light, pineapple jam.
For a moment, none of you moved.
It was so absurdly perfect that it felt less like luck and more like the universe itself had finally blinked and gone soft.
Chai let out the smallest, most awed sound. “Lady Luck really is staring directly at you today.”
You laughed, but it came out thin and shaky and much too close to crying. “I know.”
Hazelnut folded his arms, grinning despite himself. “This is either a blessing or the cruelest foreshadowing of all time.”
“Don’t ruin it,” Chai scolded, though her voice was warm.
Earl glanced over at you, eyes gentler now. “Take the win.”
So you did.
You all did.
Plates filled quickly, waffles, fruit, jam, tea, too much butter, not enough dignity. Chai stole extra fruit when she thought no one was looking. Hazelnut grabbed more waffles than any one person should reasonably need. Earl, to no one’s surprise, constructed a plate so neat and balanced it looked curated by a scholar of breakfast. You piled pineapple onto your plate with the sort of reverence usually reserved for relics.
And when you sat down together, the table felt warmer than it had any right to.
For a little while, there was only the sound of cutlery and laughter and the soft hum of other students moving around you, unaware of how sacred this table had become.
You spread pineapple jam over your waffle with great seriousness.
Chai watched you and smiled with her whole face. “There they are.”
You looked up. “What?”
“That ridiculous little look you get when something makes you happy.”
Hazelnut snorted. “It’s true. You look like you’ve just been personally forgiven by breakfast.”
You shook your head, laughing. But then your hand slowed.
The thought came quietly. Not as a wound this time, but as a certainty.
If memories could be taken if the moon meant to reach in and claim something rooted, then maybe this was what you were meant to do with the hours you had left.
Not hide from them.
Not ration them out in fear.
Live them again. Deliberately. Beautifully. While they were still yours.
You looked at your friends over the rim of your cup and said softly, “If some memories are going to be taken from us… then I think we should relive some of them.”
The words settled over the table like a hush.
Chai’s expression changed first, the teasing giving way to something sweeter, sadder.
Hazelnut went still, one hand wrapped around his mug.
Earl lowered his gaze briefly, then nodded once.
And somehow, after that, the talking came easily.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
Because it did.
But because love, once named, has a way of wanting to stay in the room.
Chai was the first to lean in, resting her chin in one hand, her smile turning wicked in that affectionate way only she managed.
“Oh, I know exactly where we start,” she said.
You narrowed your eyes immediately. “No.”
“Yes,” she said brightly. “Absolutely yes. Your first little puppy-love crush when you started tutoring with the Sage of Truth.”
You covered your face with one hand. “Chai.”
“No, no, let me have this.” Her laughter was soft, musical, almost unbearably fond. “You were impossible. We practically had to escort you to his office hours like you were being marched to your own execution.”
Hazelnut barked out a laugh. “That’s true.”
“It is not.”
“It absolutely is,” Chai said. “You’d stand outside his door looking like your soul had detached from your body. I’d have to smooth your sleeves. Hazelnut would make fun of you to keep you from fainting. Earl would remind you that tutors were not, in fact, mythological beasts.”
Earl lifted his teacup. “A necessary distinction.”
Your face burned, but you were laughing too now, helplessly. “I was not that bad.”
“You were worse,” Hazelnut said.
Chai pressed a hand to her heart. “You’d come back from those sessions with that same dazed look you have right now, like he’d personally rearranged your internal organs through eye contact alone.”
“Chai!”
She giggled, delighted. “I remember the first time you defended him without realizing it. Hazelnut said his handwriting looked smug and you got genuinely offended.”
“That was offensive,” you muttered.
Hazelnut pointed at you with a syrupy fork. “See?”
Hazelnut looked down at his plate, turning his mug once between his hands. “I’m glad,” he said after a moment, his voice less careless now, “that some of our professors got happy endings.”
You all looked at him.
He shrugged, but there was tenderness under it. “Like Star Anise. After everything.” He gave a little huff through his nose. “I think I needed that. Proof that not every person who gives too much of themselves ends up hollow.”
Chai’s expression softened. “Yeah.”
Earl nodded, thoughtful. “It mattered more than we realized at the time.”
Hazelnut stabbed a piece of pineapple. “I just think the academy would be unbearable if every story ended as a cautionary tale.”
“That sounds suspiciously hopeful,” you said.
“Don’t spread it around,” he muttered, but he smiled.
Then Earl set down his cup.
“Organizing your portfolio for the Spire application was fun,” he said.
You blinked. “What?”
“It was,” he replied, as if there could be no argument. “You were a disaster, obviously.”
Hazelnut choked on a laugh.
“But there was something…” He paused, searching for the shape of it. “Satisfying, I suppose. Watching your work become itself. Seeing the thread in it before you did.”
Your throat tightened.
Earl glanced down once, almost embarrassed by his own honesty, then continued. “You kept apologizing for every page. Every revision. Every thought that wasn’t immediately perfect. And yet there was so much of you in it.” A faint, private smile touched his mouth. “Putting it together felt like arranging starlight into a language admissions committees might understand.”
Chai made the softest sound, hand pressing briefly to her chest.
Hazelnut looked away, chewing with suspicious intensity.
Earl, perhaps realizing how much he’d revealed, tried to recover with dignity. “In any case. It was enjoyable.”
You swallowed hard. “You made me look better than I was.”
“No,” he said, and there was that calm certainty in him again, that same one which could sound so much like truth it hurt. “I made you easier for others to read.”
Silence held for a moment after that.
Then Earl added, quieter now, “We should have relived memories sooner.”
The line might have broken your heart entirely if Chai hadn’t reached across the table that very second and tapped the back of his hand with one syrup-sticky finger.
“Better late than never,” she said softly.
Better late than never.
You looked around at them, at Chai with jam on her thumb and laughter still trembling at the corners of her mouth; at Hazelnut trying, badly, to pretend he wasn’t emotional; at Earl, polished even now, but no longer hiding how deeply he felt things once they mattered enough.
Your friends.
Your home, in every way that counted.
The pineapples were sweet. The waffles were warm. The jam almost unbearably bright on your tongue.
And beneath all of it, guilt still lingered a small, cold thing tucked beneath your ribs.
You had brought them here.
To this table. To this choice. To this terrible beautiful morning where everything they said sounded like something you might one day lose.
But maybe that was why it mattered.
Maybe that was why memory hurt in the first place.
Because it was proof that something had been loved enough to leave a bruise.
You reached for another piece of pineapple, then stopped halfway and looked at them through a blur you refused to call tears.
“I’m glad,” you said softly, “that if I had to remember anything before tonight… it would be this.”
Chai’s eyes went glassy immediately. “You’re evil for saying that while I’m holding syrup.”
Hazelnut rubbed his face. “Can we not all cry into the waffles?”
Earl exhaled, almost laughing, almost not. “A deeply inefficient use of breakfast.”
And because you were all trying so hard not to fall apart before moonrise, that was what saved you again the ridiculousness of it. The cookie-hood of it.
The way beauty and heartbreak kept arriving hand in hand, as if they had never once learned to travel separately.
Outside the windows, the day kept moving toward evening, toward the Blueberry Yogurt River, toward moonlight bright enough to remake a life.
But for now, in the amber warmth of the dining hall, with pineapple on your plate and your friends around you and memory still wholly your own, the world felt almost kind.
You looked down at the last bite of waffle on your plate, then back up at your friends.
Trying very hard to sound casual, you said, “He… wants to see me later today.”
Three pairs of eyes lifted.
Chai’s smile fell instantly. “Oh?”
Hazelnut pointed his fork at you. “Of course he does.”
Earl said nothing at first, but one elegant brow rose just slightly, inviting the rest.
You cleared your throat, suddenly fascinated by your tea. “And I was just wondering if you’d, um…” Your mouth twitched. “Escort me. Like the first time. For old times’ sake.”
Silence.
Then Chai made the softest, most wounded little gasp. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Hazelnut groaned immediately. “No. Absolutely not.”
Earl’s expression gentled in that quiet way of his. “We’ll escort you.”
Your shoulders loosened at once.
“Obviously,” Chai added, as if the matter had never been in question. “I’d be offended if you didn’t ask.”
You smiled.
Hazelnut, however, pointed his fork more emphatically. “But forget that for now.”
You blinked. “What?”
He leaned forward, eyes bright now with the sort of energy that only ever meant trouble. “For now, we run wild.”
Chai lit up instantly. “Yes.”
Earl sighed the sigh of a man realizing his day had just been stolen from him by idiots he loved. “Define ‘wild.’”
Hazelnut grinned. “No.”
And somehow that was the beginning of it.
The four of you abandoned seriousness by mutual, unspoken agreement.
Not permanently. Not truly.
Just for the day.
You left the dining hall still sticky with pineapple jam and too much feeling, and once you stepped out into the bright pulse of the Spire, the world seemed almost eager to help you misbehave. The corridors were alive with movement, students carrying stacks of papers, assistants crossing briskly with trays of shimmering vials, researchers arguing in hushed but urgent tones at intersections where sunlight spilled through high windows.
And into all that measured purpose, the four of you brought nonsense.
It started with Chai.
You were passing one of the lower exhibition halls when she stopped dead in front of a polished glass display case containing scale models of past magical structures, bridges, towers, old lecture domes held in perfect miniature suspension.
“Oh,” she said, eyes narrowing with immediate wickedness. “We’re ranking them by aesthetic.”
Hazelnut blinked. “That’s your first shenanigan?”
“My first masterpiece,” she corrected.
So you did.
All four of you stood there, scandalously in the way of actual scholars, arguing over the prettiest architecture in the Spire’s long history.
“That one looks pretentious,” Hazelnut said, pointing at a silver observatory model that slowly revolved under its own enchantment.
“It is pretentious,” Chai said. “That’s why it’s beautiful.”
“It looks like it would assign me homework on sight,” you muttered.
Earl folded his arms, considering a crystalline archive tower with floating staircases. “This one at least understands line and symmetry.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Hazelnut said. “You’d fall in love with a blueprint if it used proper punctuation.”
Chai had to grab your sleeve to keep from laughing too loudly.
From there it only got worse.
Hazelnut led the charge next, luring you all into a side hall where a student-run demonstration was inviting passersby to test “stable levitation sandals.” Stable, it turned out, was a generous word.
“You are not putting those on,” Earl said the moment Hazelnut reached for a pair.
“Watch me,” Hazelnut replied.
You watched him.
You watched him rise three feet into the air, grin triumphantly and then slowly rotate sideways.
Chai doubled over.
You nearly fell into the wall laughing.
Hazelnut, floating helplessly at an angle, called down, “I regret nothing!”
“You regret balance,” Earl said dryly, already stepping forward to fix the mechanism with more competence than anyone else in the hall possessed.
The student demonstrator looked deeply relieved nobody got hurt. “Thank you, sir.”
Earl only adjusted one strap and said, “Your calibration is too eager.”
Hazelnut was set back on the ground with what remained of his dignity.
Which was then destroyed further when Chai whispered, “You looked like a decorative weather vane.”
After that, the day lost all structure.
You wandered. Drifted. Let yourselves be pulled by curiosity rather than schedule.
At one point you found an open courtyard terrace where apprentices were testing harmless illusion blooming flowers that opened into brief floating images when touched. Chai ran ahead and immediately tapped three in a row, sending a burst of glowing koi, then stars, then a tiny dancing teacup into the air.
“That one’s me,” she said, pointing at the teacup.
“No,” Hazelnut said. “That one’s Earl.”
Earl glanced up as the teacup performed a tiny dignified bow. “Unacceptable.”
You brushed one blossom with your fingertips and it opened into a drifting ribbon of moonlight that curled around your wrist before vanishing. For one breath, your chest tightened.
Then Chai hooked her arm through yours and dragged you onward before the moment could settle too deeply.
You found a research alcove with a harmless sound experiment where certain tiles chimed different notes depending on how they were stepped on. Hazelnut declared it a challenge. Chai turned it into a dance. Earl insisted he was not participating and then, ten minutes later, was somehow the best at it.
“You know what’s annoying?” Hazelnut said, watching Earl produce a flawless progression of tones with crisp, measured steps. “The fact that you’re elegant by accident.”
“It is not an accident,” Earl said.
You were laughing too hard to stand straight by then, one hand braced against a pillar as Chai attempted to replicate Earl’s precision and instead set off a wildly cheerful sequence that sounded like a parade tripping down stairs.
Later, you found a small kiosk near one of the public galleries selling scholarly keepsakes; Ink, paperweights, star-mapped bookmarks, sweets in folded parchment wrappers. Chai gasped over the sweets. Hazelnut found a ridiculous feather quill and began narrating your life in an overly dramatic voice.
“Behold,” he intoned, holding the quill aloft, “the scholar of pineapple and peril, beloved by breakfast and feared by reasonable decision-making,-”
You lunged for the quill.
He darted away.
Chai betrayed you immediately by blocking your path.
Earl, to your horror, took the merchant’s side and calmly paid for the quill.
“You are all against me,” you informed them.
“Yes,” Hazelnut said, delighted.
A little later, while crossing one of the upper balconies, you caught sight of a familiar figure below, moving through a corridor flanked by two high scholars with that impossible, unhurried grace that always seemed to slow the world around him.
You stopped.
Of course you did.
Chai noticed instantly.
“There it is,” she whispered, not unkindly. “The look.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You have several,” Hazelnut said. “That one’s the worst.”
Earl glanced over the railing, saw exactly who it was, and without even breaking stride said, “Keep moving.”
You made the mistake of lingering half a second longer.
Shadow Milk turned.
Not all the way just enough that the line of his profile shifted, enough that there was the unbearable possibility he might look up, might catch sight of you watching him like some lovesick fool out of an old tragic poem Chai physically turned you by the shoulders and marched you onward.
“No pining from balconies,” she said firmly. “That is for much later in the relationship.”
Hazelnut snorted so hard he nearly inhaled wrong.
“Relationship?” you squeaked.
“I said what I said.”
There was a long stretch around midday where you all somehow ended up in one of the public workshop rooms with access to harmless inscription chalk and scrap parchment. This, naturally, devolved into disaster.
Hazelnut tried to invent a personal crest and accidentally drew something that looked like a furious onion.
Chai designed an emblem for your friend group that included a teacup, a quill, an exploding star, and, against Earl’s protests, a tiny pastry with wings.
You attempted to sketch a dignified little moon-and-river motif and ended up with something Chai insisted looked “painfully romantic.”
Earl, after claiming he wanted no part in childish symbolism, quietly corrected all your proportions and then drew the cleanest, most beautiful version of it beside your attempt.
You stared at it.
“So you do care.”
“I care about geometry,” he replied.
Hazelnut leaned over to inspect it. “That’s the same face you made organizing the Spire portfolio.”
Earl stiffened. “I do not have a face for administrative satisfaction.”
“You absolutely do,” you said.
By then the four of you were too comfortable, too loose with one another, too hungry for any moment that didn’t have moonlight waiting at the end of it.
You stole little sweets from each other’s pockets.
You sat on a sunny staircase and shared candied almonds and tea from paper cups too hot to hold properly.
Hazelnut attempted to convince you all that one of the decorative stone guardians in the central hall was subtly moving between glances. Chai named it Gerald. You and Earl refused to encourage him, then both accidentally looked back twice just to check.
At one point you all ended up at a narrow window alcove overlooking a quiet section of the Blueberry Yogurt River far below. In the daylight it looked harmless. Pretty, even. Glassy where the sun touched it.
No one said anything for a few breaths.
Then Hazelnut clapped his hands once and said, far too loudly, “Right! We’re not staring at future problems.”
So Chai dragged you toward the lower galleries where someone was displaying tiny mechanical birds that repeated overheard compliments in absurdly dramatic voices. One of them chirped, “Your essay was devastatingly competent,” in a tone so much like Earl that all four of you nearly collapsed laughing.
Even Earl laughed at that, quietly, beautifully, head tipped back just enough to let himself.
And that, more than anything, made the day feel unreal in the best way.
By the time late afternoon softened the light into honey, you had collected too many little useless things ribbon wrappers, ink on your fingers, a paper star Chai folded and tucked into your sleeve, the ridiculous feather quill Hazelnut insisted you keep “as a symbol of your academic downfall,” and the memory of Earl Grey Cookie actually running down a corridor just because he wanted to.
You were tired in that good way. Earned by too much laughing and too much wandering and too much life packed into too few hours.
And through it all through every hallway and courtyard and experiment and side comment and stolen sweet, Shadow Milk remained at the edge of your thoughts like a second pulse.
A later waiting for you. A guilt and tenderness tugging at your heartstrings.
Every now and then Chai would catch you drifting and nudge you with her shoulder. Hazelnut would say something outrageous until you laughed again. Earl would redirect the group with the quiet efficiency of someone who knew exactly how much you needed to keep moving.
And so you did.
You moved through the Spire like it belonged to none of your fears. Like the day owed you joy and you were clever enough to take it before night could object.
You were just four friends being ridiculous in a place too serious for them, and the sweetness of that sat in your chest like something almost holy.
By the time the shadows lengthened enough to remind you that later was becoming soon, Hazelnut stretched and said, “Alright. I think we’ve successfully committed enough nonsense to sustain us for at least… six dramatic hours.”
“Only six?” Chai said. “Rookie numbers.”
You smiled, slower now, softer.
Because the day had been light.
So light.
And maybe that was why you loved it so fiercely.
Because somewhere beneath all the shenanigans and laughter and running footsteps and honey-sticky fingers was the knowledge that you had all done this on purpose.
You had made a memory worth keeping.
Even if the moon came for it later.
By the time the day began to fold into evening, the light over the Spire had turned almost unbearably beautiful.
The sun lowered slowly behind the distant towers, and the sky opened into long ribbons of pink and gold, rose staining the pale stone and catching in every window until the whole place seemed dipped in blush. Below, far off beyond the layered balconies and archways, the Blueberry Yogurt River reflected the sky in soft, trembling color.
It should have felt peaceful.
Instead, your pulse had started climbing again.
You walked with your friends through the upper halls in a closeness that said none of you wanted to acknowledge the hour too directly. The day had been so loud, so warm, so full of running and laughter and terrible jokes that this quieter stretch felt almost sacred in contrast.
No one rushed you.
No one teased at first.
They simply stayed near, their footsteps matching yours as the corridors thinned and the quieter wing of the Spire approached, less crowded here, more intimate, where the lamps were lit before full dark and the stone held the day’s fading warmth.
Eventually you slowed near the familiar turn that led toward Shadow Milk Cookie’s private quarters.
You looked at them, at all three of them, and something in your chest tightened again.
“Thanks,” you said softly.
Hazelnut snorted. “For what? Dragging you around all day like a pack of emotionally unstable chaperones?”
“For staying with me,” you said.
That shut him up for at least two seconds.
Chai reached over and slipped her hand through your arm. “Oh, sweetheart.” Her smile was warm and a little wicked, just how it always was when she could tell you were one thought away from panicking. “You’re nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” she sang. “You look like the first time we had to bring you to his office hours.”
You made a face. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Hazelnut asked. “Because from here, it’s giving the same vibe. Slightly haunted and a little doomed.”
Chai pressed on with delight. “Honestly, it’s adorable. You’re acting like you haven’t even kissed.”
Your face heated at once. “Chai.”
“What? I’m right.”
“You’re insufferable.”
She grinned. “And beloved.”
But the teasing only lasted a few more steps before it softened, like the evening itself was insisting on honesty.
Earl was the one who spoke first.
His voice was as polished as ever, but quieter now.
“Do not treat this as goodbye.”
The words landed still and steady between all of you.
You looked at him.
He held your gaze with that familiar calm, though you could see the feeling beneath it now, no longer hidden so perfectly, not after a day like this.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
Then, after the slightest pause, he corrected himself with the dignity of someone who hated needing to amend sincerity but did it anyway.
“They’ll be waiting. We’ll all be waiting.”
Your throat tightened.
Chai let go of your arm only long enough to pat your head, fingers gentle and absurdly affectionate. “Exactly. So no tragic faces.”
Hazelnut crossed his arms and nodded like he was imparting great wisdom. “And be smooth. Cool. Mysterious. Like me.”
You stared at him. “You screamed when levitation sandals tilted you slightly left.”
“That was tactical.”
Earl sighed. “It was not.”
Chai laughed softly, then leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to your temple. “Go on.”
You lingered for half a heartbeat longer.
Then you stepped away from them and toward the door.
You could feel their presence behind you even after you knocked and entered, solid, waiting, exactly as Earl had promised.
The room beyond was lit by evening.
Soft lamps had been lit against the oncoming dusk, but the last of the sunset still poured through the high windows in long pink bands, spilling over bookshelves, polished wood, half-finished papers, and the trailing edges of blue robes.
Shadow Milk Cookie looked up from where he sat near the window, one arm resting against the chair, the fading light catching at the angles of his face until he looked less like a scholar and more like something painted into the hour on purpose.
He smiled the moment he saw you.
Not the public one, a measured smile meant for petitioners or peers.
A pleased one.
“There you are,” he said, as though you had arrived exactly where you were always meant to. “For a dreadful moment, I thought your little parade of chaos might keep you from me.”
You shut the door behind you, suddenly very aware of your own hands, your own heartbeat, the ridiculous fact that you had indeed spent all day knowing you’d be here and had still not decided how to act when it happened.
Instead of answering properly, you stood there and said, “Why did you want to see me?”
He arched his brow.
You took a few steps closer, then admitted, “I’ve been ruminating on it all day, which has been terrible for everyone involved.”
That seemed to amuse him immediately.
“Oh?” he murmured. “And what conclusions did you arrive at?”
You clasped your hands behind your back so he wouldn’t see them fidget. “Several. None stable. One involved a dramatic lecture. One involved tea. One involved you deciding I was overdue for being unbearable in private.”
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“And which did you find most convincing?”
“The tea,” you said at once. Then, because your nerves always made you reckless, you added, “Though I do think a dramatic lecture would suit the lighting.”
That earned you a soft laugh.
Good. That was good. Laughter meant you were still functioning.
You kept going, because that was what you did when nervousness and affection collided you talked until one of them won.
“I also considered that maybe you simply missed me horribly and could no longer bear the separation.”
He tilted his head, gaze bright with interest now. “And yet you ask as though that possibility embarrasses you.”
“It embarrasses both of us.”
“Untrue,” he said lightly. “It only embarrasses you”
He rose and crossed toward you with that same impossible grace you had spent the whole day trying not to think too much about.
“Come now,” he said. “If you have truly spent the day building theories around my motives, I should hate for all that labor to go unrewarded.”
You looked up at him, pulse uneven. “So there was a motive.”
“My dear, there is always a motive.”
You groaned softly. “See, that’s exactly the sort of answer that causes spirals.”
“And yet you continue to ask questions of dangerous people.”
“You are not helping your case.”
“Am I meant to be building one?”
You laughed, a little helplessly, because it was easier than admitting how much seeing him like this here, in the dusk, in good spirits and looking at you as if you were the part of the day he had been waiting for was undoing you.
He noticed, of course he noticed.
His expression softened, though the gleam of theatrical mischief remained in his eyes.
“You are nervous,” he said.
You opened your mouth to deny it.
He lifted one hand.
“Do not insult me by lying badly.”
You shut your mouth.
Then, after a beat, “Maybe a little.”
“A little?” he echoed, delighted. “You entered as though the door might interrogate you first.”
“That is slander.”
“It is an observation.”
You sighed and let your shoulders ease the smallest amount. “Fine. I’m nervous.”
“And why,” he asked, voice gentler now beneath the silk of it, “would seeing me make you nervous after all this time?”
Because tonight waited beyond his door. Because your friends were waiting in the hall. Because the moon would rise. Because guilt had made everything tender.
Instead you said, “Because when you say you want to see me and then don’t explain why, my imagination becomes inconvenient.”
He studied you for a moment.
Then he motioned toward the seating near the window. “Come sit. You look as though you’ve spent the day outrunning your own thoughts.”
“I have,” you admitted, following him. “We all have.”
He glanced back at that. “With them?”
You nodded.
A faint, unreadable expression crossed his face something between fondness and thoughtfulness, something made more complicated by everything else that had lived in the morning between you.
“You’ve been busy,” he said.
That could have meant a dozen things.
You chose the safest answer.
“We had a good day.”
His gaze lingered on you a fraction longer than necessary.
“I’m glad,” he said quietly.
The simplicity of it nearly hurt.
You sat, and he settled across from you in the warm dimness, the sky beyond the windows deepening by the second into richer pinks, the first hints of twilight gathering low along the horizon.
For one fleeting, impossible moment, it felt as though the evening had split in two, one half here, soft and lit and full of him, and the other waiting elsewhere by the river, silver and cold and asking things you did not know how to survive.
Shadow Milk rested one elbow lightly against the arm of his chair and regarded you with open interest.
“Well then,” he said. “Since you have been so bravely anxious all day on my behalf shall I put you out of your misery and tell you why I asked you here?”
You clasped your hands tighter in your lap to hide the way your fingers trembled.
“That would be merciful.”
His mouth curved.
“Mercy,” he repeated thoughtfully. “What a fashionable request today.”
You looked at him, the scholar you loved in all his impossible forms, evening painting him in rose and gold, and braced yourself for whatever he was about to say.
For one fraught, awful moment, you were certain he knew.
The thought came sharp and immediate, slicing clean through the warmth of the room.
He had redacted everything. Sealed it away. Torn whole avenues of thought from the academy’s shelves with the calm certainty of someone who believed some truths were too dangerous to leave lying around. He had looked at you that morning and told you not to decide anything alone. He noticed everything. He always noticed.
So what if this was it?
What if he had called you here because he knew what waited by the Blueberry Yogurt River when the moon rose? What if he had traced the shape of your guilt back to its source and was only being gentle now because he was about to stop you?
Your pulse jumped.
You looked at him at the easy drape of his posture, the rose-gold light got caught in his face, the quiet attention in his gaze, and hated, suddenly, how guilty you felt.
Because you were going against his wishes.
Because you were afraid of the ritual and still had not turned away from it.
Because some tender, treacherous part of you knew that if he asked plainly enough, if he looked at you too kindly, or spoke too honestly, or simply said your name in that low careful voice of his there was a chance you would break right here and tell him everything.
So you did what you always did when you were closest to breaking.
You reached for rhythm.
For banter. For the familiar shape the two of you made when you were trying not to say the more dangerous things.
You straightened just a little, affecting a gravity you did not feel. “Before you tell me,” you said, “I need to know whether this is about the highly slanderous rumor that I’m responsible for the incident with the levitation sandals.”
Shadow Milk blinked.
Then, slowly, one elegant brow arched. “The incident?”
“Yes,” you said solemnly. “The one I am choosing not to elaborate on in order to preserve the dignity of all involved.”
“An admirable instinct. New, but admirable.”
You pointed at him. “That sounds like a lecture is coming.”
“It sounds,” he said, voice silk-soft with amusement, “like I should perhaps start collecting all the tales your friends have neglected to share with me.”
“That would be a gross abuse of power.”
“I remain tempted.” he murmured, leaning back slightly,
You relaxed by a fraction. So you pressed your luck, because of course you did.
“This also isn’t,” you added, “some formal censure regarding my continued habit of entering rooms looking like a beautifully managed disaster?”
His smile deepened.
“My dear,” he said, “if I began censuring you for that, I would never have time for anything else.”
That got a real laugh out of you.
And once you were laughing, once the room had softened around the edges again and the panic had retreated just enough to let you breathe, he seemed satisfied.
He let the silence settle for a moment, watching you with that infuriatingly perceptive calm.
Then he said, more quietly, “No. It is not levitation sandals, nor your relationship to catastrophe, however committed that relationship may be.”
You opened your mouth to protest.
He held up a hand.
“Let me finish. I called you here because this morning felt unfinished.”
That made you still.
Something gentler entered his expression.
“You came to me carrying guilt you would not name,” he said. “You were tender in a way you usually are not unless something inside you is fraying. You thanked me as though you expected not to have another chance. And then you left before I could decide whether I disliked that.”
Your throat tightened.
He continued, voice measured, sensible, but threaded now with an unmistakable feeling.
“I had duties to attend to. Petitioners. Correspondence. The endless little obligations attached to being useful to everyone.” His mouth curved faintly, though it did not quite become a smile. “But I found, rather selfishly, that I disliked the idea of the day ending on that note.”
You looked down at your hands.
“And so,” he said, “I asked to see you again.”
The room was very quiet.
He did not look away from you. Did not soften the shape of it into something easier. He simply let the truth stand.
“I wanted,” he said, more softly now, “one unhurried hour in your company before the evening swallowed us both.”
Your chest ached so quickly and so sharply you almost had to turn your face away.
This wasn’t a trap. It was just him choosing you.
You laughed once under your breath, but it shook at the edges. “That’s horribly unfair.”
His head tilted. “How so?”
“Because now I have to pretend that didn’t affect me.”
“Do you?”
You looked up at him and found no mockery there. Only that terrible patience and the clear, knowing warmth he reserved for you when no one else was around to witness it.
“No,” you admitted.
“Ah.” He seemed pleased by the honesty. “Progress.”
You huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “You really do think of me like some long-term project.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze sharpened with gentle amusement. “Not at all. Projects are far easier to control.”
“That’s almost romantic, in a deeply concerning way.”
“So I’m told.”
The sunset had dimmed now into richer shades, the room gathering more lamplight than day. Outside, the sky was still blushing, but deeper, pink beginning to give way to violet at the edges. Time, without asking your permission, was moving.
You felt it in your dough.
And because of that, because the river and the moon and the promise of night were waiting beyond these walls, his confession of something as simple and terrible as I wanted an hour with you struck deeper than it should have.
You swallowed hard and tried for lightness again, though this time it came softer.
“So you summoned me for selfish reasons.”
“I invited you,” he corrected smoothly. “Do not make me sound villainous before I’ve had the chance to earn it.”
“You’ve definitely earned it in other categories.”
“Have I?” he asked, almost idly. “Name them.”
You pointed a finger at him. “Smugness. Dramatic timing. Weaponized eye contact.”
He actually laughed at that, quiet and real.
“Those,” he said, “are not crimes.”
“They are in certain provinces.”
“Then I shall avoid those provinces.”
You smiled despite yourself.
It should have been easy, then. Easier. To sink back into the old rhythm completely. To let him be warm and theatrical and wise in his beautiful rooms while the evening slowly died beyond the windows.
But underneath your smile, guilt still sat sharp and living.
He had asked for an hour because the morning felt unfinished.
And you were sitting across from him with moonlight waiting in your future and a secret pressed like a blade beneath your ribs.
Shadow Milk noticed something shift in your face.
His expression gentled once more. “You are doing that thing again.”
You blinked. “What thing?”
“Where your mind leaves the room and hopes I shall not be impolite enough to follow.”
You tried to smile. “Maybe I’m becoming mysterious.”
“No,” he said at once. “You are becoming troubled.”
That landed too cleanly.
You looked away toward the window, toward the last blush of sky.
He did not push immediately.
When he spoke, it was in the same measured, knowing tone he used when guiding you through questions he believed you were capable of answering if only you would stop flinching from them.
“I did not call you here to interrogate you,” he said. “Nor to burden you further.”
You nodded once.
“I called you here,” he repeated, “because I wanted your company. Because I prefer not to leave certain things unresolved when I have the power to remedy them. And because” his gaze rested on you steadily “you looked this morning as though you might vanish into yourself if left unattended.”
That made your eyes sting.
You laughed weakly and said, “That sounds dramatic.”
“With you?” He smiled slightly. “It usually is.”
The room fell quiet again he had told you what he called you there for.
Not a lesson, suspicion, or reprimand.
Just an unfinished morning, his own selfishness, and the desire to have you near before the night unfolded into whatever shape it meant to take.
And that, somehow, was harder to survive than anger would have been.
You folded your hands in your lap and forced yourself to meet his eyes again.
“Well,” you said, trying for your usual ease and only half finding it, “in that case, I suppose I should try not to waste your stolen hour.”
“You have never once been a waste of time.”
Something in you gave way at that.
He was still looking at you with that impossible steadiness, still warm from his own confession, still close enough that if you reached forward you could test whether he was real and not just another thing you might lose to time, to moonlight, to some long silver sleep that had not yet begun but already haunted you.
You did not let yourself think.
Because if you thought, you would lose your nerve.
So instead, you moved.
You reached across the small space between you and took his hand.
His fingers twitched in yours not recoiling, or pulling away, just startled. You felt it at once, the slight stillness in him, the way his breath caught so subtly that anyone else might have missed it.
But you did not miss it.
You had spent too long learning him not to notice when he was caught unprepared.
Shadow Milk looked down at your joined hands.
Then back up at you.
And for the first time that evening perhaps the first time all day he looked almost genuinely flustered.
Not undone, not like you. But there it was anyway in the faint arrest of his expression, in the way his mouth parted a fraction before he chose his next words.
“Well,” he said softly, too softly, “this is new.”
Your heart hammered so hard it almost hurt. You swallowed and held on tighter, because if you loosened your grip now you might never find the courage again.
“I know.”
His gaze searched your face.
“You are about to say something reckless,” he murmured.
You gave a weak, nervous breath of laughter. “That has never stopped me before.”
“No,” he said, and some of his composure returned in the shape of a very small, very knowing smile. “But usually your recklessness arrives disguised as a ridiculous question.”
You almost smiled back.
Almost.
But the fear in you was bigger than embarrassment now. Bigger than dignity. Bigger than the part of you that wanted to wait for the right moment, the elegant moment, the one untouched by guilt or moonrise or the possibility of being gone too long to remember how his hands felt.
You looked at him and thought, absurdly and helplessly I might not wake for so long.
You might be asleep. Dead. Unmade. Remade. Still. Silent. Somewhere under moonlight where time stopped meaning anything at all.
And if that happened If you were gone long enough for wanting to turn abstract; Then you wanted something real to carry into that dark with you.
Something warm. Something that belonged only to the living.
Your voice came out quieter than you intended. “Can I ask you for something?”
His expression changed instantly.
“You may ask me anything.”
You tightened your grip on his hand and forced yourself to say it before the courage bled out of you.
“Will you kiss me?”
Silence.
It struck the room so hard that even the lamps seemed to still.
Shadow Milk stared at you.
Actually stared.
All theater dropped clean away from his face in one astonished moment of silence. He had expected wit. Deflection. Some little spark of absurdity wrapped around your nerves.
He had not expected this.
He had not expected you to look at him with your heart in your throat and ask so plainly for something so unbearably intimate.
His hand in yours went warmer.
His voice, when it came, was lower than before.
“You…” He stopped, visibly collecting himself. “You are full of surprises tonight.”
You wanted to laugh, or apologize, or vanish.
Instead, because you had already leapt, you forced yourself to remain brave all the way through the fall.
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.”
The fluster had not vanished. Now he was fighting himself back into composure and only half succeeding.
He turned your joined hands slightly, as if grounding himself in the simple fact of your skin against his.
“Why?” he asked.
The question was gentle.
That made it worse.
You looked down for half a second, then back up at him. There was no graceful version of the truth. Not one you could bear. So what came out was smaller, more honest, more humiliating in its tenderness.
“Because…” You exhaled shakily. “Because I want to memorize you.”
Something flickered across his face.
You could not stop now.
You had gone too far and were too frightened of time and absence and waking late to retreat into cleverness.
“I want to know,” you said, voice trembling, “what your lips feel like. And your hands. And what it feels like when you’re being gentle on purpose.”
Your cheeks burned so hot they ached.
You almost covered your face with your free hand.
Instead you held his gaze and kept speaking, because the fear of losing this for some unknowable stretch of time was stronger than the mortification clawing at you.
“I know that sounds ridiculous,” you whispered. “I know it does. But I” Your throat tightened. “I just want to remember. In case…” You stopped yourself before the rest could slip loose. In case sleep lasts too long. In case moonlight takes more than memory and leaves only ache. In case the next time you wake, if you wake, the shape of tenderness has become something you can no longer name.
You swallowed. “I just want to memorize your lips,” you finished softly, “and your tender touch.”
The room went utterly still.
Shadow Milk had not moved.
But neither had he looked away.
You had shocked him.
His thumb moved once against the back of your hand, almost unconsciously.
Then he laughed but only barely. A breath of a laugh, incredulous and soft and full of feeling he was no longer entirely hiding.
“You choose tonight,” he murmured, “of all nights, to become bold.”
“I’m trying not to think too hard about that.”
“A shame,” he said. “You might have warned me.”
You let out a helpless little laugh of your own. “Would that have helped?”
“No,” he admitted, and that finally brought a real smile to his mouth. “But I would have enjoyed pretending otherwise.”
The air between you shifted.
His fluster had settled into something warmer now. Not gone, not with the way he was looking at you, as though you had become some exquisite and dangerous thing placed directly into his hands, but transformed into attention so focused it made your pulse stutter.
He lifted your hand, slowly, deliberately, until your knuckles rested near his lips.
Not a kiss. Not yet.
Just closeness.
“Do you know,” he said, voice low and velvet-soft, “that if you continue to say things like this to me, you will ruin whatever remains of my good judgment?”
You managed, barely, “I think it was already in poor condition.”
That coaxed another soft laugh from him.
Then his gaze dropped to your mouth.
You felt it like touch.
And when he looked up again, whatever answer he had been weighing was already written into the tenderness of his expression.
“You need never ask me twice for something I have wanted to give you for far too long.”
The breath left your lungs.
He rose first, still holding your hand, and drew you gently to your feet.
The world narrowed.
The sunset beyond the windows had dimmed into the first deep hush of evening, the sky losing pink by slow degrees. Somewhere out there, time was moving. The river was waiting. The moon was climbing, whether you wanted it to or not.
But here there was only him.
He lifted his free hand to your face with unbearable care, the backs of his fingers brushing your cheek first as though reacquainting himself with your shape. Then his palm settled there, warm and steady, thumb near the corner of your mouth.
Tender touch.
You almost broke from the sweetness of it.
His eyes searched yours one last time.
Not asking if you meant it instead asking if you were ready for how much he did.
You answered by leaning the smallest amount into his hand.
That was enough.
He kissed you softly at first.
So softly you nearly didn’t understand it had happened.
Then your breath caught and the realization bloomed all through you at once, his lips warm, careful, unhurried. A kiss given by someone who knew exactly how much power he held and chose, with startling gentleness, not to use any of it against you.
You made a small, helpless sound into the silence between you, and his hand at your cheek tightened just a fraction.
Then he kissed you again.
More surely this time.
And you held on to him just needing the reality of him, his hand still wrapped around yours, his mouth moving with a patience so exquisite it hurt.
You memorized everything.
The softness first.
Then the warmth.
Then the way he paused, just enough, as though giving you room to breathe and still return. The way his thumb brushed once along your cheekbone. The way his other hand turned yours over, fingertips pressing into your palm like he meant to leave a mark there no moon could steal.
When he finally drew back, it was only far enough for your foreheads to nearly touch.
Your eyes stayed closed for a moment longer because opening them felt impossible.
When you did, he was looking at you with an expression so open it nearly frightened you more than any mystery ever had.
“Well,” he murmured, a little breathless despite himself, “I had expected a ridiculous question.”
You smiled shaky, dazed, still trying to gather yourself back from wherever he had just left you.
“Was that better?”
His answering smile was soft enough to ruin you.
“Catastrophically.”
You laughed then, weak and full of wonder and far too close to tears, and he kissed the corner of your mouth as if he could not quite help himself.
“I meant what I said,” you whispered, because it mattered now, mattered that he understood this had not been whim or impulse alone. “I wanted to remember.”
At that, something in him stilled.
Not suspicion. Only an acute awareness of the weight beneath your words.
His fingers brushed lightly over your jaw.
“Then remember this,” he said quietly.
And he kissed you once more.
Still tender. Still careful. But deeper with feeling, with all the things he had not asked and all the things you had not told him, poured instead into the one language neither of you was cowardly enough to mistranslate.
When he pulled away, the room felt changed.
So did you.
He rested his forehead briefly against yours and let out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh.
“You are,” he said, voice unsteady only at the edges, “quite impossible.”
You smiled, though your eyes burned.
“I learned from the best.”
That made him laugh for real, low and warm and helpless in a way you would treasure later, if later came.
He lifted your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles this time, more reverent than performative now.
And because you were still afraid, because moonlight still waited, because sleep still loomed, because all the hours ahead felt too fragile to trust, you held his hand a little tighter and let yourself stand there in the gathering dark, memorizing him while you still could.
For a little while after that, you forgot how to be sensible.
Enough that when Shadow Milk finally drew back from the last kiss with that rare, stunned softness still lingering at the edges of his composure, you looked at him, a little dazed and a little wicked all at once deciding that if the night intended to take from you later, you were going to steal something from it first.
Namely his dignity.
Or what remained of it.
You were still holding his hand. His thumb rested near the inside of your wrist, pulse to pulse, as if he had forgotten to let go. As if perhaps he did not want to.
You smiled.
“No,” he said.
You blinked innocently. “No what?”
“That expression.” His eyes narrowed just slightly, though the color had not fully settled back into calm yet. “I know that expression.”
“Oh?” you murmured, taking one small step closer. “What does it mean?”
“That you have mistaken my momentary lack of defenses for an invitation to behave outrageously.”
You laughed softly. “Momentary?”
“My dear, do not become arrogant.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
This, unfortunately, was a lie.
Because once you knew you could make him flustered, not just mildly amused or theatrically indulgent, but genuinely flustered. You became very interested in the experiment.
You let your fingers trail lightly along the back of his hand. Watched his gaze dip, then return to your face.
“How unfortunate for you,” you said, all velvet sweetness and mischief now, “that I’m suddenly feeling very curious.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a warning. “Curiosity has a dreadful habit of ruining people.”
“And here I thought it was one of your favorite qualities in me.”
“It is,” he said at once.
That was the problem.
He said things like that too easily. Too beautifully. You had barely recovered from asking him for a kiss and now he was looking at you as if your boldness was not some miraculous lapse but something precious, something he had been waiting to see all along.
So you did what came naturally.
You reached up and fixed a piece of his collar that did not need fixing.
His whole body went very still.
“There,” you said softly.
“There,” he repeated. “What, exactly?”
“I don’t know. You looked too composed.”
His mouth parted with quiet disbelief. “You find composure offensive?”
“Only on you,” you said.
“Cruel.”
You smiled. “You love it.”
His eyes sharpened with amusement. “Careful.”
“Or what?”
“Or I may remember that I am perfectly capable of regaining control of this conversation.”
You leaned in just enough to feel the warmth of his breath when you answered. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It is a promise.”
You laughed under your breath.
Then, because you could not help yourself, you let your fingertips brush the line of his sleeve, the back of his wrist, the place where pulse lived. Such small touches. Such innocent ones, really. And yet with him, with the way he watched every movement as though your hands had become the most riveting subject in the room, they felt almost unbearably intimate.
“You’re quiet,” you murmured.
“I am thinking.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is,” he said. “Especially when you are standing this close and behaving as though you’ve forgotten I am capable of consequences.”
You tilted your head. “What kind of consequences?”
The look he gave you then would have undone someone less determined.
Tender. Exasperated. So clearly affected that it made your own pulse stutter all over again.
“Exactly the kind,” he said softly, “that encourage me not to answer questions you are asking only to see whether I’ll blush.”
You grinned, delighted. “So you admit it.”
“I admit,” he replied, “that you are being insufferably pleased with yourself.”
“Because I’m winning.”
He made a quiet, disbelieving sound. “Winning?”
“Mhm.”
“And what, pray tell, is the competition?”
You pretended to think. “How many times I can fluster the Fount of Knowledge before he remembers he’s supposed to be devastatingly composed.”
His laugh this time was low and helpless enough to feel like a reward.
“You continue,” he said, “to speak as though my reputation has any defense left in private.”
“I think your reputation is doing just fine.” you yawned.
He looked at you then with such pure, affectionate exasperation that it made something warm unfurl beneath your ribs.
You touched his face this time.
Just lightly.
Only the side of it, your fingers brushing his cheek with the caution of someone still half-surprised she was allowed.
His breath caught again.
There.
You smiled with quiet triumph.
Shadow Milk closed his eyes for half a beat, then opened them and said, “You are impossible I have no other word for you.”
“You’ve mentioned.”
“And yet the condition worsens.” He sighed.
“I’m making up for lost time.”
The words slipped out before you could weigh them.
The warmth between you faltered.
Not because he was displeased, but because he heard too much.
His gaze searched yours more carefully now. You felt the instant he sensed some sharper truth beneath the line, some reason for your hunger that had little to do with flirtation and everything to do with fear.
So before he could ask, before you could ruin this hour by falling apart in the wrong direction, you stepped closer still and rested your forehead briefly against his shoulder.
It was not elegant.
It was not calculated.
It was simply what you wanted.
He softened at once.
One hand came up to rest between your shoulders, steady and sure.
“There you are,” he murmured.
You let out a shaky breath. “I’m still here.”
“I know.”
For a while neither of you said anything.
You just stood there, letting the room settle around you, lamplight, the last breath of sunset, the quiet hush of evening drawing tighter over the Spire. His hand moved once, a slow stroke down your back that felt so gentle it almost undid you.
You lifted your head enough to look at him again.
You stayed close, still inside the circle of his arms, and said, “Can I tell you something without you turning it into a lesson?”
“That depends entirely on the thing.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Shadow Milk.”
His expression gentled instantly. “Yes. You can.”
That was the first thing that nearly made you cry.
Not the permission itself.
The way he gave it, without spectacle, without wit, just earnest and immediate.
So you took a breath and told him the truth.
“I was terrified of you at first.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You hide it so well.”
“No, really.” You glanced down, then back up. “That first tutoring session felt like a humiliation ritual designed by the cosmos personally.”
He blinked. “How charming.”
“I’m serious.”
“I can see that.”
You laughed weakly. “I mean it. Being that vulnerable in front of someone so famous for knowledge? Someone everyone looked at like some kind of impossible standard?” You shook your head, smiling a little despite yourself. “I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.”
“I kept thinking,” you continued, “that you’d finally realize I wasn’t worth the trouble. That you’d be polite, because you’re you, but that eventually you’d get tired of having to explain everything to someone who couldn’t even hold a basic thread without fumbling it.”
You reached for his hand again as you spoke, more for your own steadiness than anything else.
“And you never did. Get tired of me, I mean.” Your voice softened. “You taught me how to think when I was so afraid of being wrong that I couldn’t even speak properly. You made me stop treating every answer like a performance I was failing.” You smiled, small and helpless and terribly sincere. “You helped me become better.”
Shadow Milk said nothing.
Not because he had no answer but because the answer mattered too much to rush.
“I appreciate your existence more than I know how to explain elegantly,” you admitted. “And I know that sounds dramatic.”
“On the contrary,” he said quietly, “it sounds exact.”
You looked up at him, startled.
His hand came to your cheek again, thumb resting there with infuriating tenderness.
“My love,” he murmured, “do you think I did not notice?”
“Notice what?”
“The way you arrived each lesson a little less afraid than the last. The way your questions changed. The way you started meeting my gaze instead of studying the furniture.” His expression softened into something almost unbearably fond. “The way your mind learned itself.”
You could not speak.
“You give me too much credit,” he said, though there was no false modesty in it. “I did not make you better. I merely refused to let you keep pretending you were small.”
That one landed too deep.
Then laughed once under your breath because crying would have been inconvenient, and said, “That was disgustingly kind.”
“I am capable of many things.”
“You’re also very smug about your own virtues.”
He smiled. “Only when they are properly appreciated.”
You let your forehead rest briefly against his again. “I’m serious, though.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.” Your fingers tightened around his hand. “You mattered to me before I had any right to say so. Back when I still thought I was only a burden in your schedule. And now-”
You stopped.
His voice dropped softer. “And now?”
You looked at him for a long moment.
Then chose the truth you could survive.
“And now I’m glad you exist,” you whispered. “Very, very glad.”
“Come here,” he said.
You almost laughed. “I’m already-”
But he was already drawing you in closer, one arm winding around your waist, the other settling at the back of your neck with such sure, careful pressure that your breath caught all over again.
There was no performance left in either of you now.
Only this.
Only him looking at you like you had said something that would stay with him long after tonight.
“I am trying,” he said quietly, “very hard not to answer that with more feeling than you are prepared to manage.”
The honesty of it made your pulse jump.
“You could risk it.”
Dangerous thing to say.
Worse, perhaps, that you meant it.
His gaze dropped to your mouth. “Could I?”
You nodded once.
That was all it took.
The last kiss was nothing like the first.
The first had been discovery, gentle and astonished and careful with all your fear.
He touched you first as though relearning the route, thumb brushing once along your jaw, fingertips settling at the nape of your neck, the hand at your waist tightening just enough to bring you into the full line of him. The movement was unhurried, certain, and so exquisitely deliberate it felt like being read.
Then his mouth found yours.
Soft at first.
But deeper with every lingering second.
You melted into it almost helplessly, your free hand rising to his shoulder, then higher, fingertips brushing the edge of his collar where you had teased him earlier. His breath shifted at that. A quiet thing. Barely audible. Enough to make heat spark through you.
He kissed like he spoke when no audience was present, measured, beautiful, and utterly devastating in his restraint. He gave nothing carelessly. Which meant that every small change the slight angle of his head, the way his hand at your neck flexed when you pressed closer, the pause where his lips barely left yours before returning felt magnified until your whole body was listening for it.
You made a soft sound against his mouth before you could stop yourself.
He answered by kissing you more firmly.
When he finally pulled back, it was only far enough to leave the air between you alive and trembling.
Your lips still tingled.
His eyes were dark with a softness that made you dizzy.
And because your thoughts had gone gloriously stupid, because you were full of him and lamplight and the false safety of an hour stolen from the rest of your life, the next thing out of your mouth came absentmindedly. Naturally. Almost bright.
“I enjoyed your company tonight,” you said, still a little breathless. “We should do this again tomorrow.”
Silence.
The words hung there.
And for one beautiful, terrible instant, you forgot, there is no promised tomorrow.
You just stood there smiling faintly up at him as if there really would be another evening exactly like this, as if tomorrow were a thing you had the right to assume.
Then you felt it.
The shape of what you had said.
Your own words curdling in your chest.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated gently.
You looked away for half a second.
“Yes,” you said, softer now. “Tomorrow.”
And because you had already taken so much from this hour, because you had kissed him, teased him, thanked him, held him like memory could be built by force if you just loved hard enough you stepped back before your face betrayed you.
His hand brushed yours as you moved, reluctant.
“I did enjoy your company,” you repeated, more steadily now. “Very much.”
His mouth curved with that private warmth you loved most. “Then tonight was not wasted.”
No.
It wasn’t.
That was the problem. It mattered too much to leave.
You swallowed the ache and gave him one last look memorizing, and turned toward the door with your heart full enough to drown in.
You got as far as the door.
Hand on the handle, pulse still unruly, lips still warm in a way that made everything feel a little unreal.
And then, because some part of you could not bear to leave on so plain a note, you glanced back over your shoulder.
Shadow Milk was still standing where you had left him, the lamplight gentling the sharpness of him, one hand loosely at his side, the other just barely lifted as if he had not yet decided whether to call you back for one more impossible thing.
You smiled.
“Goodnight,” you said softly.
And opened the door.
Three bodies fell inward.
Chai made a startled squeak. Hazelnut swore on impact. Earl, somehow, managed to collapse with dignity for all of half a second before the full indignity of the situation became apparent.
You stared.
They stared.
For one long, soul-leaving moment, the entire world held perfectly still.
Then you went bright red all at once.
“Oh my stars!”
Chai, flat on one elbow on the threshold, lifted a hand weakly. “In our defense!”
“There is no defense,” Earl said at once, from the floor.
Hazelnut pushed himself up with a grimace. “I would like it noted that I was against leaning that hard.”
“You were not,” Chai hissed.
“I was spiritually against it.”
You covered your face with both hands. “You were trying to listen?”
For how long?
Your thoughts flashed back in horrifying, disjointed fragments.
The silence. The flirting. The confessions. The kisses…
You made a strangled sound and looked ready to dissolve into the stone.
Shadow Milk, meanwhile, was not amused.
He did not look angry, exactly.
Just supremely unimpressed in the way only he could manage arms folding loosely, one brow rising as he regarded the heap of your friends with a level stare sharpened by private amusement.
“Yes,” he said coolly. “How shocking. Eavesdroppers.”
Chai sat up properly, trying for poise and failing. “We were only making sure-”
“That they were alive?” he supplied.
Hazelnut pointed at him. “Exactly.”
Earl had recovered enough to smooth one sleeve and rise to his feet with the air of a man determined to salvage something from humiliation. “In fairness-”
“In fairness,” Shadow Milk interrupted silkily, “I accounted for that.”
That stopped all of you.
You blinked, hands lowering slowly from your face. “You… what?”
He smiled with the unmistakable, smug satisfaction of someone who had anticipated this nonsense long before it occurred.
“I am not unfamiliar,” he said, voice smooth as polished glass, “with the habits of anxious friends, nor with your collective inability to resist curiosity when left unattended near a closed door.”
Hazelnut squinted. “That feels targeted.”
“It is.”
Chai groaned softly. “So you knew.”
“From the moment three shadows stopped moving outside my quarters in suspicious synchronization.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze slid back to you, and some of the sharpness eased not much, but enough.
“So,” he said, almost lazily now, “do not trouble yourself. They heard nothing.”
The smugness in his tone made it worse somehow.
Worse because it meant he knew exactly what your mind had been catastrophizing.
Worse because he clearly enjoyed having the upper hand.
You wanted the floor to open and devour you.
“Oh,” you managed faintly.
Chai, to her credit, looked mortified for at least three seconds before recovering into something more wounded than ashamed. “That’s… actually very rude.”
Shadow Milk inclined his head. “And yet, effective.”
Hazelnut rubbed a hand over his face. “I knew we should’ve just waited farther down the hall.”
Earl, now fully upright and reassembled, said with precise restraint, “This evening has produced an unfortunate quantity of indignity.”
Shadow Milk’s gaze moved to him. “And still you persist.”
Then he looked to all four of you, one by one, before returning at last to you.
The evening had deepened beyond the windows now, sunset fully thinned into the first true blue of night. Somewhere far away the world was turning silver. The hour had shifted.
“You should go,” Shadow milk said quietly.
The words landed with a small, hard ache.
You nodded once.
And then, because he was still himself no matter how strange the evening had become, he added with insufferable elegance, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Or technically night,” he amended.
Chai looked at the ceiling as if asking the stars for strength.
Earl closed his eyes briefly, no doubt in mourning for the death of all collective dignity.
You, however, had gone so red you felt half-feverish.
Not only had your friends tried to listen. They had tried to listen for long enough to fall through the door when you opened it.
You seized the nearest wrist, which turned out to be Hazelnut’s, then Chai’s sleeve with your other hand, and fixed Earl with a look that brooked no delay.
“We’re leaving,” you said, voice pitched far too high.
“At once,” Earl agreed.
Chai pushed herself fully upright and dusted off her robes with an expression of solemn tragedy. “I’d like it recorded that I regret nothing except being caught.”
“You should regret everything,” you said.
Hazelnut let himself be dragged with only token resistance. “In my defense, we were supporting you.”
“You were horizontal outside a private door!”
“Supportively!”
Shadow Milk let out the softest breath of laughter behind you.
You refused to look back again.
Instead you dragged your entire disastrous little group into the corridor and away from his quarters as fast as dignity and footwear allowed.
Only once you were safely around the bend did Chai burst into helpless laughter.
Hazelnut joined in a second later.
Earl held out for five full seconds before even he looked faintly appalled enough at the situation to seem almost amused.
You, meanwhile, were still too mortified to survive properly.
“I cannot believe you,” you said, though it lacked any real heat. “I cannot believe you.”
Chai leaned into your side, still laughing. “Oh, come on. You’d have done the same.”
“No, I wouldn’t have!”
Hazelnut gave you a look. “That is such a lie.”
Earl adjusted his cuffs. “It is not entirely implausible.”
You turned to him, scandalized. “Earl!”
“I’m only saying,” he replied, far too calm, “that your self-restraint tends to fail under emotionally heightened circumstances.”
“That is the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It is not.”
You groaned and picked up your pace.
The corridor lights glowed warmly around you as the four of you headed back toward your room, the Spire quieter now, night settling over it in earnest. Beneath your embarrassment, beneath the lingering warmth of his kisses and the ache of his goodbye and the ridiculousness of your friends collapsing into a room they absolutely should not have been listening outside of, something colder waited.
The book.
The river.
The moon.
You felt your bag-less shoulder and remembered with a sick little twist that you still had to go get it.
Your room suddenly seemed very far away.
But your friends were with you, laughing, bickering, still warm from being alive and ridiculous and entirely yours for these last fragile hours, and so you held onto that sound as you hurried them onward.
Toward your door.
Toward the book.
Toward whatever waited when the moon finally rose.
A/N Okay so this was a super long week for me I have been working tirelessly on ITPOT, Honestly I am not proud of my work for these past 2 chapters I was struggling a lot with writing this time around so I hope everything is fine with the writing, But other than that the next chapter is very exciting for me! I had to pick up the pace here because I thought it mundane to go through the three days so I time skipped hopefully the transition was smooth because I felt it was a little abrupt but no matter what's done is done. I am happy with what I've done though because I have exciting plans I have changed some of the direction and I see a clear vision for the next chapter.
anyways thank you for bearing with me
Remember, Follow and Repost for more bangers 😎😎😎🔥🔥🔥
"o human with little time left,"
— "i shall watch you, so make my day!"
Do u think that Earl have any romántic feelings for the protagonist?
I don't like how Smlk treats him, even if he's his "romanctic topic enemy", i hate how he treast him, is Y/N (i just notice i don't know/remeber how we call this person in this fanfic cause my brain automatically changes it to mine tooo well, damn) friend, like, i would be so angry if my parther treats like that my friend of years and trust that had taken care of me and the group and vice versa for years, like? Smlk, shut up and get ur shit together, leave my pookie in peace! U're an adult!!
Me angry with smlk all new character, this arandano, i will choke him with a pasta. Omg i was so angry, i wanna have a talk with him. Dear Author, please, just let me talk with him, i gonna... Explain my point of view to him....
Great question! So I want to say that it's up to you as the reader to interpret Earl's actions, meaning you can go with or without the romantic subplot, the reason for this being that I know many people came for smc so I want to keep SMC the central prize!
However along the way I've gotten carried away and provided "fan service" for those who really like Earl, Chai, and even Hazelnut at times.
And we call the protagonist MC around here when you refer to (y/n) in story!
But if you do interpret Earl Grey having feelings for the MC then yes SMC is being a little "aggressive" in his approach. I agree I would be angry as well and it irks me that MC doesn't say much in that regard (I know I'm the author but there's reasons why MC doesn't say anything I promise)
However I'm a little afraid of what you might say to smc I felt goosebumps....
aaaand earl grey best character ❤️🩹❤️🩹
to seek true freedom
inspired by that one moment in omori
im gonna say this now a time balanced fates au with shadow milk finding the perfect timeline to stay with us happily is an idea thats gonna plague my mind for days in a good way after finishing the newest episode
a grand finale where he can have the perfect timeline with the perfect fate all for him, perhaps
punishment time 🍵
In the Presence of Truth {"Sage of Truth" (SMC) x Reader} PT41
<<<Previous Next>>>
The dining commons buzzed with morning light, but it all faded to the background as you leaned in closer to your friends and said, barely above a whisper, “Come to my dorm tonight. I’ll show you the book.”
The others exchanged glances. Chai Latte’s lips parted like she wanted to say something immediately, but held back. Earl Grey narrowed his eyes slightly, ever calculating, while Hazelnut just nodded once, serious in a way he rarely was.
“No one else can know,” you added, voice firmer now. “Not yet. Not until we understand everything. But… I think you need to see it for yourselves.”
Earl Grey folded his hands, nodding once. “Tonight, then.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Hazelnut said, though his voice lacked its usual humor. He was with you completely, but the gravity of it all had settled deep.
Chai gave your hand a light squeeze beneath the table. “We’ll be there. I just… hope this book doesn’t bite.”
You smiled faintly. “It might, honestly.”
That made her grin, even if it was a little forced.
You closed the notebook and tucked it away again, your heart thudding behind your ribs. Tonight, they would see the book that offered riddles for rituals and answers you barely understood. Though seemingly your golden goose.
Night fell faster than you expected. It always did when anticipation pulled at your spine like a thread, unraveling time by the minute. One moment the sun was warming your shoulders as you walked back from lecture, the next, the moon had taken its throne above the Spire.
Its light bled through the windowpanes, pale and unrelenting. Cold and watchful, almost having you wonder what laid on the dark side of the moon.
You sat on your bed, notebook beside you, the book locked away in your desk drawer like a secret heart still beating.
Outside, the wind pressed softly against the glass, not strong enough to rattle, but steady enough to remind you it was time.
The door creaked once then again.
And then your friends trickled in.
Chai Latte first, wrapped in a blanket she insisted was purely for aesthetic reasons or so she claimed. Earl Grey, posture impeccable even now, with a tightness to his mouth that said he’d been thinking about this all day. Hazelnut Biscotti, arms crossed behind his head, but eyes sharper than usual.
The room felt smaller with all of you inside it but warmer, too. Like the gravity of what you were about to show them was softened just slightly by their presence. Still, the moonlight that spilled across the floor felt almost too bright. Like it was watching.
You stood, hand reaching toward the drawer.
The moment your fingers touched the handle, it felt like the air changed thinner, somehow. Anticipation rippled through you, sharp and cold.
“They deserve to know,” you whispered aloud, not quite to yourself, not quite to the others.
And you opened it.
Your fingers curled around the edge of the drawer steady, certain and you pulled it open with purpose.
But when your hand closed around the book and you lifted it onto the bed between you and your friends…
Nothing.
The pages remained still. Silent. No flicker of ink. No shimmer of recognition. Not a whisper of magic.
Just parchment.
Blank and cold.
Your heart stuttered.
You tried again, gently this time fingers grazing the spine, letting a bit of your magic bleed into it, soft and coaxing. Like the night before. Like the night it listened.
But the book didn’t stir.
No breath of wind. No flickering candle. No ripple in the moonlight on the windowsill.
It just sat there.
Lifeless.
Your stomach dropped.
“…What’s wrong?” Chai asked softly, her voice uncharacteristically still.
You didn’t answer at first. Your eyes remained fixed on the open page as you flipped to the next. And the next. And the next.
All blank.
No writing. No guidance. No poetry spun in cryptic metaphors.
Just… silence.
You swallowed hard.
“It… it responded last night,” you said finally, your voice quiet with disbelief. “I didn’t even need a spell. It just wrote on its own. It told me everything. But now”
Now, it was like it didn’t know you.
Or worse like it was choosing not to.
Beside you, Earl Grey knelt to examine the pages, his fingers careful but unapologetic as he turned one, then another. His brows furrowed. “It’s dormant?”
“Is that normal?” Hazelnut asked, leaning in with narrowed eyes.
Earl shook his head slowly. “Not for a book like this. If it’s bound to someone it shouldn’t just stop.”
“Maybe it only reacts when you’re alone,” Chai offered gently, though her voice held concern underneath. “Like last time.”
Your hand trembled slightly as you shut the book again. It felt heavier now, like it was made of something ancient and disapproving. Like it was waiting for you to become that person again. The one who demanded answers. The one who bled magic out of want. The one who allowed their immaturity to take over.
The one Shadow Milk would never forgive.
You set it aside for now.
But your mind was racing.
Why wouldn’t it open?
And worse what would it take to make it?
You stared down at the closed book in your lap, your breath catching against the weight of silence pressing into the room. It had chosen you. You knew it had. The way it had written itself into your hands, offered you secrets no one else could reach. That had to mean something. It had to be more than a fluke.
So why was it quiet now?
Why wouldn’t it speak?
You shut your eyes.
And you tried to remember.
The desperation. The way your chest burned the night it first answered you. The hunger that clawed at your ribs. The ache that came from wanting more. From wanting to prove him wrong.
Your breathing picked up, shallow, strained.
You remembered his voice steady, sharp, unyielding.
“You’re a fool for telling me.”
You remembered the flare of shame and rage that sparked in your chest.
“I will stop you.”
You remembered the pain.
And slowly, like dipping your fingers into ink, you let the bitterness in.
Let it burn. Let it grow. Let it rise until your ribs strained beneath it.
You clenched your jaw, gritted your teeth, and whispered over the spine of the book:
“I’m not a fool. I’m not afraid. I’m not wrong.”
Still… nothing.
So you gripped it tighter, voice trembling, cracking under the weight of what you were becoming.
“Let me in,” you begged. “Let me see. Show me everything. I’ll do whatever it takes do you hear me? Whatever it takes! Just don’t turn away now don’t go silent on me now- please please”
Your magic began to trickle out again, unbound and aching. It wrapped around the book like vines soft at first, then thorned.
The spine shuddered.
And then
The book opened.
The pages flipped rapidly, faster than before, faster than what should’ve been possible. Blanks became runes. Ink bled from nothing. There it was.
A single phrase. Scrawled hastily. Uneven.
Like it wasn’t coming from the book this time
But through it.
"Become what he fears. Then you will never be left behind. You’ll never be forgotten, isn't that what you seek?"
You froze.
Your breath hitched.
You couldn’t tell if that voice in your head was yours or something else's.
But you understood one thing
The book wanted this version of you. The one he would never recognize. The one who would burn the garden to reach the truth.
And it would reward you So long as you kept walking further down that path. Even if you couldn’t return. Even if, one day… you didn’t recognize yourself either.
And still you turned the page.
They sat in a tight circle now with no laughter, no teasing, no sweet distractions of dining commons or lazy river days. Just the book, humming faintly in your lap beneath the moonlight bleeding through the window. The soft creak of wood. The unspoken tension of friends who weren’t quite sure whether to lean forward or pull away.
You looked at them Chai Latte, unusually quiet with her knees drawn to her chest; Hazelnut Biscotti, arms crossed but eyes troubled; Earl Grey, gaze fixed and analytical, fingers tapping the notebook you had filled in a single sleepless frenzy.
You swallowed.
Your voice came soft, but steady.
“…What do you want to ask?”
Three heads lifted slightly. Eyes met yours.
“I’ll ask it,” you said. “I’ll ask the book for you. If you have doubts, if there’s something you want to know anything just tell me. I’ll ask.”
No one spoke at first.
The book pulsed faintly beneath your palms.
“…Even if it’s something I might not want to hear,” you added.
Earl Grey’s fingers stilled. He looked at you carefully.
“Ask,” he said, voice low, “what the cost truly is. Not a metaphor. Not poetry. Ask what you would lose. Not just what you would gain.”
Hazelnut’s jaw tightened. “Ask if it can be undone.”
Chai swallowed and scooted closer to you, her fingers ghosting the back of your hand for just a second. “Ask if… we’ll still be us. After. If the ritual will change who we are.”
You nodded, slowly.
And with a breath that felt like a tether, you looked back to the book.
“Okay,” you whispered, fingertips pressing gently to the edge of the page. “I’ll ask.”
The moonlight slicked over your fingers like glass.
You pressed your hand to the open book, its blank pages still as a frozen lake. But the magic pulsed faintly resting, not gone. You could feel it beneath your fingertips, slow and deep, like something dreaming.
And so you whispered, voice low, as you had the first time only now with your friends watching.
“What would I lose?” You steadied your breath. “What would we lose? Can it be undone? Will we… still be us?”
At first, nothing.
But then
The ink bled upward from the center seam like smoke, curling into looping letters.
"The moon does not take, it merely cradles. The stars do not forget, they simply wait."
Your breath caught. Chai Latte leaned in slightly, brows furrowed.
"To lie beneath the veil of sleep is not to vanish, but to rest, until the night bears your name again."
The book pulsed, faintly.
Hazelnut frowned. “That’s not an answer.”
"The self endures where the soul remembers. What awakens after the moon’s kiss may yet wear your face. But the dream you held will be changed."
Earl Grey’s hand reached out sharply, closing over yours.
You flinched because your magic had begun to stir again, seeping from your palms uninvited, curling like mist along the pages. You hadn’t meant to channel. But it was happening anyway.
The hunger in you clawed at your ribs. It wanted more.
You tried again. “Can it be undone?”
The book paused.
Then
"What lies beyond the second sleep cannot be unspilled. The moon casts no shadow in reverse."
“…It’s death,” Chai said suddenly, voice soft. “It’s just saying it beautifully.”
You didn’t answer.
You couldn’t.
Because the book had begun to close itself. Not rudely. Not violently.
But like a lullaby winding to its end.
You sat back stiff, trembling and your friends were still watching you.
Not like you were a monster.
But like they weren’t quite sure who they were looking at.
“…I’m still me,” you murmured. “It’s just this is how it works. It’s not dangerous if we prepare right. If we understand.”
But no one spoke.
And for the first time since you'd found that book, the silence felt lonely.
You stared.
The others said nothing. For a moment, even the wind held its breath.
You swallowed and whispered, almost too softly, “Will I wake quickly?”
The book paused.
Then wrote
“The moon measures not in hours,
But in longing.
Sleep lasts as long as you are missed.
Or remembered.
Or needed.
Though who can really say.”
You felt your pulse skip.
Hazelnut shifted beside you, tension in his shoulders. Earl’s brows furrowed deeply, and Chai reached out again, this time gripping your sleeve, grounding you.
You didn’t look at them.
Not yet.
Because something inside you cracked at those words. And still
Still you wanted to ask more.
Still you wanted to believe that this was worth it.
Because even if you didn’t quite understand it yet… the book had answered you.
And that felt like something sacred.
Even if it was dangerous.
Even if the person you became while asking was someone your friends weren’t sure they recognized.
“…You should stop using it,” Hazelnut said at last, his voice low but steady.
You blinked, throat tight. “What?”
Chai squeezed your sleeve gently, her eyes wide and filled with something softer. Worry. “We just mean… maybe this book isn’t good for you. It’s answering you, sure, but… look at yourself.”
“I am,” you said too quickly, too sharply.
Earl folded his hands atop his knee, measured as ever. “Are you? You speak to it and your eyes start glowing.” His gaze didn’t flinch. “That’s not nothing.”
You hesitated, your heart thudding.
“That’s not normal,” Chai added quietly. “That’s not how magic usually… works.”
“It’s not how your magic works,” Hazelnut cut in, firm now. “You’re not like Shadow Milk Cookie. You don’t will magic like it’s breath. You have to channel it, shape it like the rest of us.”
“And yet,” Earl murmured, “you’re casting magic like a high scholar. Without incantation. Without runes. Without chalk or channel or focus.”
You didn’t speak.
Because you couldn’t deny it.
Because something inside you was changing and maybe it had been for a while.
Hazelnut ran a hand through his hair, frustration creeping into his voice. “I mean, stars, you glow when you talk to it. Your eyes glow.”
Chai leaned closer, voice soft and aching. “And every time, you look a little less like yourself.”
That made you flinch.
And when you finally looked up at them, all three of your friends had that look in their eyes. Awe. Fear. Love.
You had always longed for truth.
But now, the truth was looking back at them through your gaze. And they weren’t sure if it still belonged to you.
“Just…” Hazelnut reached out, but stopped short of touching your hand. “We’re not saying stop asking questions. Just be careful. Please.”
Chai’s grip on your sleeve trembled. “Don’t get so close to something sacred that it forgets you’re only mortal.”
You swallowed hard, pulse roaring in your ears.
Because they were right.
And still you didn’t want to let go.
Your breath hung in the air like frost.
The lanterns above flickered, casting soft halos over the table, but none of your friends moved. Not right away. Not even Chai, who usually filled any silence with warmth or laughter or a poorly timed pun.
You had said it.
“Once I do the ritual… I won’t be mortal anymore.”
And the weight of it sat thick between you.
Hazelnut Biscotti shifted first just a twitch of his hand, then a slow drag of his palm across the table’s edge. His brows drew together like storm clouds gathering, but when he spoke, his voice was low. Careful. Like he was holding something fragile between his teeth.
“You mean if.”
You didn’t look away. “No. I mean when.”
Earl Grey’s jaw tightened. “You’re serious.”
“I have everything. Every step. Every symbol. All the logistics.” You tried to keep your tone steady, like you weren’t already trembling somewhere deep under your skin. “I’ve already mapped the spot near the river bend, the one where the stars come down so low you feel like they’re watching.”
Chai Latte Cookie’s grip on your sleeve had never loosened, but now she clutched tighter. She wasn’t smiling. “We said we’d do this with you,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “We agreed. I remember.”
You nodded. “Then you remember the part where each of us has to do it alone.”
Silence.
You forged ahead. “We’ll each have our own circle. Our own vow. No one can cast for us. No one can anchor us. It has to be personal. That’s the only way the magic holds.”
Hazelnut leaned forward, voice still quiet but now trembling with something heavier. “And what exactly are you surrendering?”
You didn’t answer.
Because you hadn’t figured that part out. Not fully. Not deeply. Not enough.
Earl Grey exhaled slowly. “Do you even understand what it means to ‘release all that ties you to mortal dough’? That’s not a metaphor. That’s your breath. Your heartbeat. Your soul.”
“I’m not dying,” you argued, too quickly. “I’m changing. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” he countered.
“I’m not doing this to be reckless,” you said, hands flat against the table now, voice rising not in anger, but desperation. “I’m doing it to prove I can. That I’m not just someone the Sage pities. That I’m not just the struggling student or the mistake or the one who always needs help. I’m doing this to show that I can grasp something no one else can.”
Chai’s voice cracked. “Even if it means losing everything that made you you?”
You looked at her then and you hated that your gaze didn’t waver.
Because you had already chosen.
“I’ll still be me,” you said quietly. “Just… more.”
Hazelnut slammed a hand on the table, startling even Earl. “You don’t get to say that like it’s simple! Like it’s just some late-night spell and you’ll wake up fine! Your eyes glow when you talk to that book. Your voice changes. You changed. Every time you speak to it, something shifts.”
“And you think the Sage doesn’t notice?” Earl added, eyes narrowing. “Because he does. He always does.”
“I know,” you said. “And I don’t care.”
Chai’s hand slid down to yours. Her fingers were cold, but steady. “What if you don’t wake?”
You opened your mouth.
Closed it.
Then said, quietly:
“Then… I guess I wasn’t needed.”
And there it was.
The awful, honest thing.
The thing none of you wanted to say aloud, but all of you had felt in different ways. That the book had whispered, “Sleep lasts as long as you are missed. Or remembered. Or needed.”
You stood slowly.
“There are five days left until the full moon,” you said. “I’m not asking you to follow me.”
You looked at each of them, your voice gentler now more vulnerable, even if you hated it.
“But I do need you to understand. You already agreed. We chose this. You just didn’t realize I was willing to go through with it.”
Chai didn’t let go of your hand.
Hazelnut looked like he wanted to scream.
Earl said nothing.
And the moon was almost here.
Earl Grey Cookie’s voice sliced through the tension, quiet but unyielding, the calm at the eye of the storm.
“We already said we’d do this.”
Hazelnut’s head snapped toward him, eyes wide and disbelieving. “You can’t be serious.”
But Earl Grey simply lifted his chin slightly, gaze steady and unwavering. “We knew what we agreed to, even if we didn’t fully grasp what it meant at the time. This isn’t new information…just clearer.”
Chai Latte shook her head, lips trembling. “Earl this isn’t some experiment. It’s their life. Their soul. It’s…everything.”
He didn’t flinch at her words. If anything, they sharpened his resolve. “And yet,” Earl said softly, carefully, “we knew. We listened. We nodded along. We didn’t ask enough questions then and didn’t push back when it mattered.” He glanced at you, something quieter and deeper shining in his eyes. “So we don’t get to back down now just because reality scares us.”
Hazelnut ran a hand roughly over his face, exasperation tangled with worry. “We don’t get to back down? Earl, this isn’t some scholarly wager! This is our friend talking about losing their mortality.”
Earl’s composure didn’t waver. He took a breath, steadying himself before continuing. “I’m aware,” he murmured. “But listen to them. Listen to the resolve in their voice. This isn't a whim.”
Hazelnut tried to get another word in but only ended up looking like a sputtering fish.
Earl Grey turned himself fully toward you, his voice soft but firm as iron. “I don’t know if I fully understand your reasons, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t frighten me. But your choice is yours alone. And that means you don’t have to face it alone, not when we promised to stand beside you.”
You felt your throat tighten, your voice shaking slightly. “Earl…”
“Even,” he added, almost gently, “if standing beside you means watching you change.”
Chai stared at him, disbelief flooding her eyes. “You’d still go through with it? Even now, knowing what it means?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Because I gave my word.”
Hazelnut’s voice softened into something close to pleading. “Earl, please. This is more than we bargained for.”
Earl nodded slowly, expression softening with understanding. “It is. But we don’t abandon each other when things get difficult. Or frightening. Or complicated.” His gaze shifted to you again, patient and unwavering. “That’s exactly when we need each other most.”
Something inside you unclenched at those words, the weight on your chest easing slightly. Earl had always been like this steady, measured, calm when the rest of you were spiraling. And now, even facing the unknown, he was choosing your side, your choice. Your heart ached with gratitude and fear in equal measure.
Hazelnut drew in a shaky breath, frustration and worry written clearly in every tense line of his shoulders. “I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to,” Earl answered softly. “You just have to trust us.”
Hazelnut hesitated, still uncertain, still wary. But after a long silence, he finally nodded, just once, grudgingly acknowledging Earl’s words. Not agreeing, exactly but not fighting anymore, either.
Chai Latte’s fingers tightened around your own, her voice thick with barely-contained tears. “If we do this… there’s no going back. We’ll all be changed.”
Earl Grey’s answer came quietly and matter of factly.
“Then we’ll change together.”
You breathed out slowly, the quiet solidarity in Earl’s voice making something warm spark in your chest, even amid the shadows.
Because yes, you’d chosen this path alone but you didn’t have to walk it that way.
You let out a slow breath, the weight of Earl’s words still settling in your chest like a blanket that had finally found your shape. Around you, the tension lingered but it was softer now, edged more with worry than resistance.
Hazelnut still looked like he wanted to crawl into a wall. Chai’s grip on your hand hadn’t loosened. Earl remained perfectly still, watching you with that unreadable calm that somehow always managed to make you feel both deeply seen and slightly exposed.
So, naturally, you did what you always did when emotions got too loud.
You cracked a joke.
“Well,” you said, leaning back just slightly in your chair and forcing a little smirk, “I must be super powerful, huh?”
Chai blinked at you.
Hazelnut stared.
“Like think about it,” you continued, gesturing vaguely to the notes still scattered across the table. “No incantations. Just me, some ink, a glowing book, and a casual stroll toward immortality. Kind of a flex, right?”
Hazelnut groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Oh stars, don’t say it like that.”
You grinned, emboldened now. “I mean, how many Cookies can say they’ve terrified their entire friend group with raw, unfiltered book magic?”
“Eldritch vibes,” Earl corrected dryly.
“I like to think of it as mystique,” you offered, clasping your hands together with mock reverence. “Maybe the Sage will promote me to ‘Honorary Being of Terrifying Potential.’”
“You already glow when you talk to a book,” Hazelnut mumbled into his palms. “Now you’re naming titles?”
Chai, despite herself, huffed out a small laugh, her eyes still shiny. “You’re ridiculous.”
You nudged her shoulder gently with yours. “Ridiculously powerful.”
“That’s not reassuring,” she whispered but she was smiling now, just barely.
Earl, who had returned to his tea with the air of someone resigned to witnessing absurdity, finally added, “If we’re assigning titles, I vote for ‘Scholar Most Likely to Accidentally Ascend.’”
You beamed. “See? He gets it.”
Hazelnut groaned again. “You’re all going to be insufferable if we survive this.”
You shot him a wink. “When we survive this. Immortals have to stick together, right?”
Chai’s breath caught, and her smile wavered for just a moment but she nodded, her thumb brushing against your hand.
“Right,” she murmured.
The laughter lingered but only for a moment.
“That magic you used,” Earl said slowly, “when you spoke to the book, when your eyes started glowing.”
You blinked, the edges of your smile faltering. “Yeah?”
“It didn’t feel like spellwork.”
Chai tilted her head, her brows pinching. “Not like the kind we usually feel, anyway.”
Hazelnut nodded, still frowning. “It felt… raw. Like it wasn’t filtered through runes or intention or even control. Just pure force. Like something ancient pulling itself through you.”
His words made your stomach dip. Not in fear exactly but in recognition.
They had felt it too.
“I’ve only felt something like that once,” Hazelnut added, glancing at Earl. “When a visiting high scholar tried to open a time-folded gate. And even they had six wards and an incantation buffer. You didn’t have any of that. You just… spoke. And it answered.”
You swallowed.
“I’m not saying that to diminish anything,” he went on quickly, hands raised. “But you’re not exactly known for being a prodigy.”
“I know,” you murmured.
Earl nodded once, slow and deliberate. “But that kind of power is something born without structure, without scaffolding it’s dangerous. Rare. Maybe it’s something channeling through you…but what?...”
And then, more quietly “Maybe that’s what the Sage of Truth saw in you.”
Silence.
The words hung there, low and heavy, too close to the question that had already been gnawing at your ribs for days.
What if that’s the only reason he’s still here?
Your mouth opened but you didn’t get the chance to speak.
Because Chai beat you to it.
“Nope,” she said firmly, cutting in before the silence could grow teeth. She sat up straighter, eyes locked on Earl. “That’s not what you meant. Don’t let them think it is.”
Earl blinked. “I didn’t-”
“I know you didn’t,” she said, softer now, turning back to you. Her voice gentled into something warm, grounding.
“But don’t go putting ideas in your head like that. You think the Sage of Truth sticks around because someone’s powerful? Please. If that were the case, half the scholars in this wing would’ve already turned into constellations just to get his attention.”
Hazelnut let out a soft, reluctant chuckle. “She’s not wrong.”
Chai reached for your hand again, quieter this time. “He’s stayed because of you. Not your magic. Not your potential. You.”
You glanced down at the table, heart thudding a little louder in your chest.
“But that magic,” Hazelnut said again, awe now softening into something like wonder, “what even was that? It was like it had a mind of it’s own.”
You hesitated.
Then, quietly “I don’t know.”
For the first time, you weren’t just the struggling student. Well that was always up for debate but even so, you were becoming an anomaly of your own right.
Something that even the Sage of Truth had noticed.
The conversation wound down slowly, the way embers fade in a hearth warm, flickering, but exhausted. No more laughter. Hazelnut leaned back in his chair with a sigh, rubbing at his eyes. “Alright. I think that’s enough ancient prophecy and moral panic for one night.”
Chai nodded, fingers still laced loosely with yours. “Sleep first. Existential dread later.”
Earl stood, dusting off his sleeves. “Agreed. We’ll be clearer in the morning. Or at least better fed.”
You hummed in agreement, and though your mind still spun rituals, immortality, unreadable truths behind unreadable eyes your limbs were heavy. And when you finally curled beneath your blankets, your friends somewhere nearby, the weight of their presence like anchors… sleep found you faster than expected.
Knock knock.
The sound dragged you from the fog of dreams, muffled and distant at first then louder.
Knock knock.
You barely stirred until you heard soft movement near the door, the whisper of fabric, a subtle click as someone turned the knob. You registered Earl’s voice first calm, clipped.
“…Can I help you?”
A pause.
Then a voice you knew far too well, cold and sharp even when soft.
“I might ask you the same. What, precisely, are you doing in their room?”
That woke you up.
Your eyes flew open. The covers tangled around your legs as you sat up too fast, heart stumbling in your chest. You could already feel the magic in the air low and expectant, like it was holding its breath.
You shoved sleep off like a second skin and stumbled toward the door, still blinking the blur from your eyes.
“Earl?” your voice came out rough, barely above a whisper. “Who is it-?”
You didn’t get to finish the sentence.
Because the moment you turned the corner and your gaze met the one standing at the threshold, any remaining sleep vanished like mist in sunlight.
Shadow Milk Cookie stood in the doorway.
Robes crisp. Eyes glowing just faintly in the morning light one gold, one cerulean.
And those glowing eyes immediately landed on you.
Earl stepped aside silently, posture cool but alert.
You, however, stood frozen in place, one sleeve hanging off your shoulder, hair a mess, pulse thundering in your ears.
Shadow Milk didn’t look away.
Neither did you.
“…Good morning,” he said finally, voice as even and unreadable as ever. “I trust I’m not interrupting.”
Your mouth opened.
Then closed.
Then opened again.
“…You're at my door,” you croaked.
His head tilted, ever so slightly. “Yes. And I have questions.”
You were suddenly, vividly aware of how chaotic your bedhead looked.
And how warm your cheeks were getting.
Your soul momentarily left your body.
Chai’s groggy voice floated from the next room. “Who’s at the oh. Oh.”
Hazelnut’s groan followed. “Why is he here before breakfast.”
You could only stare, heart doing something deeply unacademic inside your chest.
Because of course he had questions.
And of course he had arrived at the exact worst possible time.
Because he was the Sage of Truth.
And he always arrived exactly when he wasn’t expected.
You panicked.
Not internally out loud.
“No! No no no, it’s not what it looks like-!”
Shadow Milk Cookie raised one perfectly unimpressed brow.
You immediately made it worse.
“I mean it looks bad, sure, because Earl opened the door and I’m like sleep-disaster, and Chai’s voice came from somewhere, and Hazelnut’s probably lying on the floor like a collapsed nobleman, but it’s fine. It’s just just a sleepover! A perfectly innocent, platonic, emotionally necessary sleepover-”
Earl Grey clamped a hand over your mouth with the kind of poise that only came from years of knowing your talent for talking your way directly into suspicion.
“Enough,” he said, calm as ever.
You blinked up at him, muffled but relieved.
Earl turned to Shadow Milk, posture composed. “They’re telling the truth. We stayed here last night. All of us. There were… things to talk through. Nothing more.”
Shadow Milk’s expression didn’t shift.
The quiet between them sharpened into something heavy wordless tension laced with unspoken questions.
His eyes dropped to the way Earl’s hand still rested lightly at your shoulder, then flicked to the tangle of blankets behind you. The papers scattered across your desk. The too-full mugs. The salt ring someone had half-heartedly tried to sweep aside.
And finally, back to Earl.
“I see,” he said coolly. “And that required sharing a sleeping space.”
Earl didn’t blink. “No one shared the bed.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
You tried to speak behind his hand. Some desperate combination of this isn’t helping and why are you so pretty when you’re mad but all that came out was a squeak.
Hazelnut, now sitting up against the wall, muttered, “This is why we lock the door.”
Chai Latte peeked around the corner, hair a disaster, eyes still half-lidded with sleep. “Why does it sound like someone caught you in a tragic love triangle out here?”
You made a choked noise against Earl’s palm.
Shadow Milk Cookie’s eyes narrowed just slightly.
“I wasn’t aware,” he said slowly, “that your evenings were so well attended.”
You finally pulled away from Earl’s grip, throwing your hands up helplessly. “It’s not like that! You’re usually busy at night, so I didn’t think-” you froze, horrified. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant you’re not usually here.”
Everyone stared at you.
“…Can someone please cast Time Reversal?” you asked weakly.
Earl, maddeningly composed “Regrettably, no.”
Chai gave a small, sympathetic wheeze of laughter.
Hazelnut rubbed his face. “I’ll take the hit if it ends the awkwardness.”
But Shadow Milk didn’t laugh.
His voice came quiet, too still to be safe.
“Are you unwell?” he asked not with concern. With something sharper. Controlled jealousy perhaps?
You froze, arms dropping.
“No,” you said, trying to sound casual. “I’m just… bad at mornings?”
His gaze swept across the room once more Hazelnut’s tousled hair, Chai’s robe slipping at the shoulder, the soft hush of sleep still clinging to the air and then back to you.
“You should have told me you weren’t alone,” he said finally.
You faltered. “I didn’t think I needed to?”
His expression didn’t shift.
But his voice did.
“Apparently,” he murmured, “I misjudged how much I still don’t know.”
That hit harder than it should have, something sharp you clearly weren’t prepared to hold.
Chai looked like she might say something to fill the silence, but you found your voice first quiet now, vulnerable in a way you hadn’t meant to be.
“…Do you want to come in?”
Shadow Milk blinked.
It wasn’t the words, it was the gentleness behind them.
“I mean,” you added quickly, “you’re already here. You might as well stay for tea. Chai brought her pot…”
He didn’t answer immediately.
But something in his eyes softened. Just barely.
And when he finally stepped past the threshold, brushing by Earl without a word, you knew, he hadn’t come for tea, hadn’t come for questions, hadn’t come for magic, he had come for you.
Of course your heart was thrilled.
The moment he stepped inside and lowered himself onto the edge of the low sofa near your desk still brimming with tension, still glaring daggers at Earl you sat beside him and quietly reached for his hand.
His fingers twitched beneath yours, but he didn’t pull away.
Though they didn’t relax either. So much for calming your nerves.
He just stared straight ahead, jaw tight, as if looking anywhere else might let something slip. As if Earl’s very existence required a scholar’s level of restraint.
You squeezed his hand gently. The contact was soft and grounding, you were reaching toward him like you always did when words fell short.
Because whatever this was, it had stopped being about your sleepover thirty seconds ago.
It didn’t make sense anymore.
The way he hadn’t spoken since entering. The way his glare lingered on Earl even now, long after the conversation had moved on.
You sat forward a little, thumb brushing lightly along his knuckles, and said, “Okay. We all need to talk.”
Hazelnut groaned. “Is this about the time Chai tried to enchant a pastry?”
“No,” you muttered.
Chai, offended “It worked.”
“Not the point,” you said. Then, with a flash of teasing mischief trying to break the tension, lighten the mood you added, “Honestly, if you’re going to be jealous of someone, it should be Chai. She’s the one I sleep next to the most.”
Silence.
Utter silence.
You turned slowly.
Shadow Milk Cookie didn’t laugh.
Not even a breath of amusement.
He just turned his head toward you slow, deliberate and stared.
You blinked.
“It was a joke,” you said, suddenly flustered. “You’re supposed to laugh.”
Still no laughter.
“I mean, Chai and I don’t even cuddle most nights, it’s just proximity warmth and mutual trauma comfort-” you were spiraling.
Chai raised a brow, very helpfully. “I would cuddle you more often if you didn’t sleep like a starfish.”
Hazelnut coughed into his fist, looking away. Earl just sipped his tea with the expression of a man who had given up on dignity in this lifetime.
Shadow Milk Cookie, meanwhile, stared down at your hand in his like it was a relic he couldn’t decide whether to protect or destroy.
You shrank slightly. “…You’re really not going to laugh, huh?”
He didn’t blink. “Should I be amused that you sleep beside others?”
Your mouth opened. Then shut.
Then opened again.
“…Yes?” you squeaked.
The look he gave you said Incorrect.
You slouched further into the couch. “Stars help me.”
Chai patted your leg in mock pity. “You tried.”
Earl, without looking up “You failed.”
But Shadow Milk still hadn’t let go.
And even though his expression was unreadable, his thumb finally moved once, a soft shift of pressure against your palm. As if to say, We will talk. But not yet.
You didn’t breathe until the silence softened.
And even then, your pulse wouldn’t quite slow.
The silence was thick enough to slice.
You were still holding his hand, and he still hadn’t laughed, and Earl was still watching everything like a scholar dissecting an ancient curse in real time.
So, naturally, you did what you always did when emotional tension threatened to strangle you:
You made it worse.
“Okay,” you said suddenly, sitting up straighter, forcing some brightness into your voice. “New plan.”
Hazelnut raised an eyebrow from the floor. “Oh no.”
You ignored him.
“We all just sleep in the same bed from now on. That way no one gets left out, no one gets jealous, no one glowers at anyone else like they’re about to rewrite their life’s thesis in blood.”
Chai snorted. “Is this a friendship bed or a coping mechanism?”
“Yes,” you said.
Earl blinked slowly. “You do not have a bed large enough to support four scholars and a looming personal crisis.”
“I’ll enchant it,” you said immediately. “We’ll call it ‘Project Emotional Equilibrium.’”
Hazelnut groaned. “You’re not seriously…”
“I am seriously,” you cut in, nodding solemnly. “Chai and I already have practice. Earl sleeps like a ghost. Hazelnut claims a corner and refuses to move. We can make this work.”
Chai beamed. “I call the middle.”
“You would,” you muttered, fond.
But Shadow Milk Cookie didn’t laugh.
He didn’t even blink.
You turned to him with a hopeful smile, nudging his arm gently. “C’mon. It’s genius, right? Full-circle academic bonding. Purely theoretical… mostly.”
He stared at you.
You cleared your throat. “Okay, fine. Ninety-percent theoretical.”
A beat passed.
Then, very softly, he said, “You want me to sleep beside all of them?”
You blinked.
Chai raised her hand like she was volunteering to be smitten by divine light.
Hazelnut slowly tilted his head toward you. “You’re on your own, starstuff.”
“I was joking!” you cried. “You’re supposed to laugh again! This is me being funny, not hosting a symposium on cuddle logistics!”
But Shadow Milk Cookie leaned slightly closer, gaze still unreadable.
“…Do you want me there?” he asked, very quietly.
The room went still.
Even Chai, who had been halfway through adjusting her robe, froze mid-motion.
You opened your mouth and immediately forgot how to speak.
“I mean yes? But also not because of that? I mean not not because of that-”
Earl sipped his tea. “Fascinating.”
Chai let out a soft little ooh.
Hazelnut whispered, “This is painful.”
But Shadow Milk didn’t smile.
And you, cheeks burning, shoulders drawn up to your ears, finally blurted.
“…I want you wherever you want to be.”
His gaze flickered.
Then, slowly finally a faint curl of amusement touched the corner of his mouth.
“Then I suppose,” he murmured, “I’ll need to see if your bed can be enchanted.”
And just like that
You nearly passed out from relief.
“Thank the stars,” you mumbled, flopping dramatically against his shoulder. “I was starting to think I’d never survive my own jokes again.”
He didn’t move.
But his hand squeezed yours firm, sure, and just a little bit possessive.
And for the first time that morning, the silence felt almost like peace.
You sighed into his shoulder, heart still galloping like a wild thing under your ribs, then tilted your head up just enough to meet his eyes.
“…You do know that was a joke, right?”
His expression was unreadable again, that slight smirk still lingering at the corners of his mouth but not giving anything away.
You squinted at him. “Like, I don’t actually want to sleep next to Hazelnut. He sometimes has nightmares and screams in his sleep. Woke up once thinking he was being chased by an angry floating thesis scroll.”
“That happened one time,” Hazelnut grumbled from the floor.
“And it bit you,” you called down without looking.
Hazelnut muttered something about ‘traumatic stationary.’
You turned back to the Sage, pointing a finger at his chest. “Anyway. The whole enchanted-bed idea? Not real. Not necessary. There’s absolutely no reason for you to be talking about logistics like they’re going to happen.”
A beat.
He didn’t answer.
Your eyes narrowed. “You do know that, right?”
The silence stretched.
Then, slowly, the corners of his lips curled and for the first time all morning, he laughed.
A real, rich sound that filled the space like magic always did with him sudden and weightless. At least to you.
He tilted his head toward you with that familiar glint in his eyes the one that always came before he said something unbearably smug.
“Oh, I knew,” he said smoothly, voice lilting like velvet and cleverness. “I simply wanted to see how far you'd take it.”
You stared at him, aghast. “You what”
“Do go on,” he said dramatically, gesturing with a sweep of his hand like he was inviting you to perform. “Tell me again how I’d be competing with a scholar whose night terrors involve aggressive parchment.”
Hazelnut muttered, “I hate this guy.”
“He’s growing on me,” Chai whispered.
Earl sipped his tea without comment, but even he looked mildly entertained.
You groaned and slumped back against the cushions. “Stars above, you're the worst.”
“Ah, but you invited me in,” he said airily. “Which I believe, if we are cataloguing all the little events of this fine morning, makes this your fault.”
He was glowing a little now not from magic, but from mood. That theatrical charm you knew well, flourishing now that there were no upper scholars or silent corridors to keep him in check..
You rolled your eyes. “Well then, Your Radiance of Smugness, if you’re done humiliating me in my own dorm”
He cut in smoothly. “Oh, not yet.”
You groaned louder. “I was going to offer you tea.”
“I accept.”
“…You didn’t even wait”
“But,” he added, folding one leg over the other and finally letting his gaze drift to the quiet remnants of your evening papers, scattered notes, faint symbols still glowing in the floor’s seams…“before I enjoy this undoubtedly substandard tea… may I ask what you were all doing here?”
You furrowed your brows knowing you’d given a half-hearted excuse he must have not bought.
Your heart skipped a beat, from alarm.
Your fingers curled slightly around the edge of the couch.
“Just…” you started, too fast. “Just talking. Studying. A little too late, I guess. And then it was late, so everyone just stayed.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Chai, catching on with terrifying grace, nodded quickly. “We were reviewing… uh, magical theory.”
“Citations,” Earl added blandly. “And disciplinary records.”
“…I brought snacks,” Hazelnut offered unhelpfully.
Shadow Milk tilted his head slowly, eyes narrowing with amusement and something far too perceptive.
“I see,” he said.
You smiled far too wide. “See? Perfectly normal.”
His eyes lingered on you. Just a little too long.
And though he said nothing more, you could feel it:
That he didn’t believe you.
Not entirely.
But for now he let it go.
“Then by all means,” he said smoothly. “Pour the tea.”
You exhaled too quickly. And he noticed that too.
You stood to prepare tea, heart drumming an uneven rhythm in your chest.
Casually, or as casually as you could manage under Shadow Milk’s sharp and watchful gaze, your eyes swept across the room papers scattered, blankets tossed around in sleepy disarray and then toward the half-hidden shelf near your desk.
The book.
Where had you left it?
You knew, of course third shelf, tucked behind two thick tomes on arcane geometry, but anxiety compelled you to confirm. To see, just to be sure.
You started drifting toward the shelf, moving too carefully, your breathing hitching quietly
A sudden, discreet pinch at your side made you jump.
“Act normal,” Chai Latte hissed softly, eyes forward and smiling innocently at Shadow Milk. “You look like you’re planning a heist.”
You startled into an awkward, stilted laugh. “I’m just grabbing something for tea. Totally normal tea things.”
Shadow Milk’s brow raised subtly, suspicion flickering faintly in those mismatched eyes, but he didn’t comment. Just watched you quietly, unreadably, as you made your way to the shelf.
Your hand trembled a bit as you brushed aside the larger tomes, eyes darting around the narrow gap you’d left until your fingers brushed something cool, worn, familiar. You exhaled quietly.
Safe. Still there.
For now.
You carefully slid the other books back into place, heart still hammering, and turned back to the group almost colliding into Chai, who’d stepped close again, watching you with warm, worried eyes.
“Breathe,” she whispered.
You nodded. “Breathing.”
Shadow Milk still watched you carefully, head slightly tilted. “Did you find what you needed?”
You forced a casual shrug. “Yeah. Just checking something.”
His gaze lingered thoughtfully, quietly skeptical, but after a long moment, the tension in his shoulders seemed to loosen slightly. A tiny shift of posture. Acceptance or at least, tolerance.
“Very well,” he murmured, almost gently, his voice losing that sharp edge. “If you’re quite done being suspiciously normal-”
“I’m always suspiciously normal,” you joked weakly.
“Noted,” Earl Grey said dryly.
Shadow Milk, though, simply studied you a moment longer, a quieter warmth finally breaking through his careful composure. He didn’t push further.
Because right now, whatever his doubts, his suspicions he finally had you back. Awake, joking, flustered, surrounded by friends who cared deeply for you. He wasn’t about to shatter that with accusations.
He relaxed, just slightly, expression easing into quiet contentment, his eyes softening as they traced your movements. Watching you simply happy you were here again, safe and present, if a little nervous.
Meanwhile, your pulse slowly steadied, your secret carefully locked away once more behind worn covers and careful lies.
At least for now.
The morning drifted on, deceptively gentle.
Tea was poured. Chai talked about nothing in particular, something about a misfired charm in the kitchens. Hazelnut complained about crumbs in places where crumbs should not exist. Earl listened, interjected when necessary, steady as ever.
And all the while, Shadow Milk watched.
Intently.
His questions came wrapped in silk.
“Oh?” he said lightly when Chai mentioned studying late. “All of you?” A pause. “And here?”
You answered without hesitation. Every time.
“Yes.” “Together.” “Nothing unusual.”
Each reply was calm. Casual. Practiced not because you were lying poorly, but because you had learned how to survive scholars far sharper than you by never giving them a crack to pry open.
Shadow Milk tilted his head, smile faint. “How diligent. How… devoted.”
Jealousy threaded his words, subtle but unmistakable.
You didn’t bite. Didn’t explain more than necessary.
And eventually slowly he stopped asking.
Not because he believed you fully.
But because there was no weakness left to press.
He leaned back, fingers steepled, studying the room one last time.
“Well,” he said pleasantly, rising to his feet, “as enlightening as this has been…”
Your heart skipped. “You’re leaving?”
A flicker of regret, genuine and sharp crossed his face before it smoothed away.
“I’m afraid so.” He sighed, dramatic in that effortless way only he managed. “I had hoped to join you for breakfast. A foolish indulgence, it seems.” He glanced aside, expression tightening. “I’ve remembered… unfinished business.”
Disappointment tugged at you before you could stop it. “Oh. I see.”
He turned toward Earl then, voice dropping quiet, precise.
“You,” he said coolly, “are fortunate.”
Earl met his gaze without flinching. “I know.”
A beat passed. Something unspoken crackled between them mutual awareness, mutual warning.
Shadow Milk inclined his head, just barely. Not respect. Acknowledgment.
Then he turned back to you.
And surprised everyone.
He took your hand gently, fingers cool but steady, and bowed.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, voice soft enough that it was meant only for you. “For intruding upon your morning. And for leaving so abruptly.”
Your breath caught.
Before you could respond, he lifted your hand and pressed a kiss to your knuckles.
It was intentional.
A gesture just formal enough to pass as courtesy just intimate enough to sting.
When he straightened, his eyes gleamed with something unmistakable as they flicked, briefly, to Earl.
I am chosen.I am allowed this.And you know it.
Your cheeks burned, pulse racing.
Hazelnut stared. Chai made a noise somewhere between awe and scandal. Earl’s jaw tightened but he said nothing.
Shadow Milk smiled, satisfied.
“We’ll speak again soon,” he said to you lightly, releasing your hand at last. “Do try not to cause trouble in my absence.”
You swallowed. “I’ll… do my best.”
“I’m sure you will,” he replied.
With that, he turned and swept from the room, robes whispering behind him, presence lingering long after the door closed.
Only then did Chai exhale loudly.
“…Wow.”
Hazelnut blinked. “Did he just-”
Earl set his teacup down carefully.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “He did.”
And you sat there, hand still warm where his lips had touched, heart pounding with the unsettling certainty that whatever game was unfolding now,
The Sage of Truth had made sure everyone knew exactly where he stood.
The door hadn’t even finished echoing shut before Hazelnut finally broke.
He dragged both hands down his face and let out a long, miserable breath. “…That,” he said flatly, “was way too close.”
You blinked, still a little dazed. “Close to what?”
“To disaster,” he snapped, then softened immediately when he saw your expression. “Sorry. I just stars above, this is a bad idea. All of it.”
Earl looked up from his tea. “Hazelnut-”
“No,” Hazelnut cut in, turning fully toward him. “I’m serious. Earl, you need to reconsider. We all do.”
Chai shifted closer to you, her earlier humor gone, worry settling heavy in her eyes. “He’s right. I want to help you I really do. You know that.” Her fingers brushed your sleeve, grounding, familiar. “But that was too close. He almost noticed something. I could feel it.”
Your chest tightened.
Hazelnut nodded sharply. “He was circling. Not like a scholar like a predator. If you’d slipped even a little…”
Earl’s gaze darkened, thoughtful. “I’m aware.”
“And you’re still willing to go through with it?” Hazelnut pressed. “Even after that?”
Silence.
Chai swallowed, then asked quietly, “How many days do we even have left?”
Your stomach dropped.
“…Four,” you admitted.
Her breath hitched. “Four days,” she echoed, disbelief threaded with fear. “That’s not time, that's a countdown.”
Hazelnut paced a step, agitation clear. “There has to be another way. There’s always another way. That book can’t have every answer. No artifact does.”
“It speaks like it does,” you said softly.
“That doesn’t mean it tells the truth,” Chai said gently but firmly. “Or the whole truth.”
She stepped in front of you now, forcing you to meet her eyes. “Please. Just pause. Even for a day. Let us look. Let us search the archives, talk to professors, anything. Immortality isn’t something you just… do because a book says you can.”
Hazelnut nodded, voice rough. “You’re not a prodigy. And I don’t say that to hurt you I say it because this kind of power doesn’t come free. Ever. If it’s letting you touch it so easily, that should scare you.”
Earl finally spoke, quiet but strained. “They already know that.”
Chai turned to him, frustration breaking through. “Then why are you letting this continue?”
Earl’s fingers curled slowly around his teacup. “Because it isn’t my choice to make.”
Hazelnut’s voice cracked. “But it’s our responsibility to stop them from making a mistake!”
You looked at them all three of them faces tight with fear, love, desperation.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Chai whispered. “Any version of you.”
Her hand slid into yours, warm and shaking. “Please. If there’s even a chance this goes wrong…”
The room felt smaller.
The clock louder.
Four days.
And for the first time since you’d opened the book, doubt real doubt pressed its fingers against your ribs, whispering softly
What if they’re right?
You swallowed, fingers tightening together in your lap.
“…What if this is the only way?”
The words fell softer than you meant them to, but they landed hard all the same.
All three of them looked at you.
“What if there isn’t another answer,” you continued, voice steadier now, even as your chest ached. “What if that book is telling the truth my truth. Then what do we do? Just… pretend I never saw it?”
Hazelnut opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“And you’re all so worried about Shadow Milk,” you added, frowning faintly. “But why? I mean what can he even do about this? It’s not like he owns me.”
The air shifted.
Earl set his teacup down with a quiet, deliberate click.
“That,” he said calmly, “is enough.”
Before anyone could respond, he stood and raised one hand, fingers tracing a careful sigil in the air. His expression tightened with concentration.
“This is something my grandmother taught me,” he said quietly. “She said children should know how to protect their words before they learn how to sharpen them.”
The sigil flared soft, muted blue and then sank into the walls, the floor, the very air around you. The room felt… heavier. Closed. Like the world had leaned away.
“A listening ward,” Earl said, exhaling slowly. “Meaning no outsiders.”
Chai blinked. “You can do that now?”
Earl nodded once. “I hoped I wouldn’t need to. But… I’m certain it’ll hold.”
Hazelnut let out a breath he’d clearly been holding. “Okay. Good. Because I’ve been sitting on this.”
You turned to him. “On what?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, jaw tight. “Shadow Milk Cookie is dangerous. Not in a vague, scary-legend way. In a very real, very practical sense.”
You stiffened. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”
Hazelnut winced. “I’m not saying he would. I’m saying… I don’t know what he’d do if he found out.”
“Found out what?” you pressed.
“That you’re trying to slip the leash of mortality without him knowing,” Chai said softly.
You frowned. “He doesn’t own me.”
“No,” Earl agreed. “But he watches you.”
“And guides you,” Chai added. “And stops you.”
You bristled. “He’s just protective.”
Chai’s eyes sharpened, hurt flickering beneath her concern. “Protective doesn’t usually involve freezing you in place.”
You froze.
Hazelnut nodded grimly. “Twice. He stopped you twice. With magic. Not words. Not persuasion.”
“He wasn’t hurting me,” you shot back.
“He didn’t ask,” Chai countered. “And he didn’t explain. He decided.”
Earl folded his hands. “That matters.”
You shook your head, frustration bubbling over. “So what? You think he’d punish you? For me?”
Hazelnut hesitated.
That hesitation said everything.
“…I don’t know,” he admitted. “He’s powerful and jealous. That’s not a combination I like betting my life on.”
“He wouldn’t,” you insisted, though your voice wavered. “He wouldn’t hurt my friends.”
Chai reached for your hand. “We’re not saying he will. We’re saying we don’t know that he won’t.”
Silence pressed in, thick even with the ward in place.
“And that scares us,” Hazelnut added quietly. “Because if this goes wrong… it won’t just be you paying the price.”
You pulled your hand back slightly, hugging yourself. “So what, I’m supposed to stop living because it makes everyone nervous?”
“No,” Chai said immediately. “But you’re not supposed to disappear either.”
Earl’s voice was calm, but heavy. “This isn’t about fear. It’s about stakes.”
You looked at them your friends, your anchors and felt the awful tug between hope and guilt stretch tighter.
Four days.
And suddenly, the danger wasn’t just the ritual.
It was everyone you loved standing too close to the fallout.
You swallowed, the silence pressing in harder now that everything had been said.
“…It’s four days,” you murmured, the realization landing with a quiet weight. “A night already passed.”
No one corrected you.
Because they all felt it too that invisible clock ticking somewhere just out of sight.
You lifted your head, voice firming as you tried again. “Four days is still time. If this really is the only way, then waiting doesn’t change that. It just… delays it.”
Hazelnut shook his head immediately. “Or it gives us a chance to stop something we can’t undo.”
You turned to Earl, searching his face. “You said it yourself you’d stand by me.”
“I will,” he said gently. “That doesn’t mean I won’t ask you to slow down.”
He gestured toward the desk, toward where the book lay hidden beyond sight. “Artifacts like that respond to urgency. Desperation. If it hasn’t changed yet, it may, especially if you don’t push it.”
You frowned. “You think it’ll just… offer something else?”
“I think,” Earl said carefully, “that truth has a habit of revealing itself when it’s not being cornered.”
Chai hugged her arms around herself. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Then we revisit,” Earl replied. “Together. In four days. Not now. Not while emotions are this raw.”
You hesitated.
Earl softened his tone, just slightly. “Let the days pass. Watch the book. See if it shifts, if it reacts to anything. If it doesn’t… then we’ll know something important.”
Hazelnut exhaled sharply. “I love you,” he said, blunt and earnest, looking straight at you. “But this? This is crazy. Immortality isn’t a solution it’s a gamble.”
Chai nodded, eyes glossy but steady. “I want to believe there’s another way. I really do. And I hope, I hope we find it. Because I don’t want to lose you to something that won’t even tell you the whole cost.”
The knot in your chest tightened.
Earl cleared his throat, the tension easing just a fraction. “Also,” he added dryly, “we’re all starving. No one makes sound decisions on an empty stomach.”
You huffed weakly. “That’s your scholarly insight?”
“It’s my grandmother’s,” he replied. “Eat first. Think later.”
Chai managed a small smile. “I could murder a scone.”
Hazelnut stood, stretching. “If we’re going to face existential doom, I’d like to do it with eggs.”
“…You really think we’ll find a way?” you asked quietly.
Earl met your gaze, unwavering. “I do.”
It wasn’t certainty.
But it was hope.
“Alright,” you said softly. “Breakfast.”
The book remained silent.
Before you left, you lingered.
Just a moment longer than necessary.
You crossed back to your desk under the pretense of grabbing your coat, fingers moving with practiced care as you slid the heavier tomes aside and tucked the book deeper into its hiding place. You adjusted the angle. Pressed it flush. Made sure nothing about the shelf looked disturbed..
You exhaled.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Hazelnut asked, voice low.
You paused, hand still on the spine of an entirely innocent-looking textbook. “What?”
He nodded toward the shelf. “Leaving it here. I don’t like the idea of it being unattended.”
You frowned. “It’s better if no one sees it.”
“Or,” he countered gently, “it’s better if you have it. We don’t know what it does when you’re not around. Or who else might feel it.”
Chai tilted her head, thinking. “He’s not wrong. Things like that don’t always stay put.”
Your stomach tightened.
Slowly, reluctantly, you slid the book free again. It felt heavier than before, not physically, but present. A quiet thrum under your skin, like it knew you were arguing about it.
You tucked it carefully into your bag, warded pocket zipped and sealed.
“…Alright,” you said. “But we’re not opening it.”
Hazelnut nodded. “Deal.”
With that, you finally left the room, the tension easing just a little as the familiar corridors of the academy welcomed you back. Sunlight spilled through high windows. Students passed by in clusters, murmuring about lectures, duels, deadlines.
Normal things.
You fell into step beside your friends, as naturally as breathing.
Chai bumped your shoulder lightly. “Okay, so. Today’s explorations.”
Hazelnut groaned. “Please let them involve food first.”
Earl smiled faintly. “Always.”
You found yourself smiling too, wondering briefly, softly what the day might bring. What answers might be hiding in plain sight. What paths you hadn’t yet considered.
As you reached the dining hall doors, Chai snapped her fingers. “The library.”
Earl nodded. “Even a contradiction would be useful.”
Hazelnut smirked. “And if nothing else, we’ll confirm the book isn’t the only thing that likes pretending it knows everything.”
You adjusted the strap of your bag, feeling the book’s quiet weight settle against your side.
“Library it is,” you said.
And as you stepped inside for breakfast laughing, bickering, alive in the comfort of routine you couldn’t help but think:
Four days was still time.
And maybe, just maybe, today would be the day something shifted.
The day, unfortunately, started with betrayal.
Specifically, the dining hall.
You stopped short just inside the doors, eyes sweeping over the long tables once twice then narrowing with deep, personal offense.
“No,” you said quietly.
Chai leaned around you. “What?”
“There are no pineapples,” you said, devastated. “No waffles. No chocolate pudding. Not even the bad chocolate pudding.”
Hazelnut squinted at the spread. “They’ve got porridge.”
“You can’t just say that like it fixes anything.”
Earl scanned the options with a neutral hum. “It appears today’s menu is… sensible.”
You groaned and slumped dramatically against the nearest pillar. “Of course it is. Of course today is the day they decide we all need to reflect on our choices.”
Chai patted your shoulder sympathetically. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
“It’s a punishment,” you muttered, dragging your feet toward the counter. “The universe saw my plans and said, ‘No joy for you.’”
Still grumbling, you shuffled along the line, pointedly glaring at bowls of fruit that were not pineapple, stacks of bread that were not waffles, and a suspiciously wholesome assortment of grains and eggs.
Hazelnut nudged you. “You know, you could still eat like an adult.”
“I can,” you said. “I simply resent being forced to.”
In the end much to your own surprise you did assemble a balanced plate. Eggs. Toast. A modest portion of fruit. Something green you pretended not to recognize.
You stared down at it, conflicted.
“…He’d approve of this,” you muttered.
Chai blinked. “Who?”
You waved your fork vaguely. “The Sage. This is absolutely one of his ‘fuel your mind before tempting fate’ breakfasts.”
Hazelnut snorted. “You hate that you’re right.”
“I do,” you said, poking the greens suspiciously. “I feel judged by my own plate.”
Earl took his seat across from you, faintly amused. “Think of it as strategic compliance.”
You sighed, then took a bite anyway.
It wasn’t terrible.
Which somehow made it worse.
As you ate still grumbling, you felt the day settling into motion around you. Conversations rising and falling.
A bad start, sure.
But you’d survived worse than a sensible breakfast.
And somewhere in the back of your mind, uninvited but present, you imagined Shadow Milk Cookie catching sight of your plate and arching a brow in approval.
You scowled at the thought.
Then took another bite anyway.
A/N Here is chapter 41 as promised! I promise the next chapter we finally get some sort of motion! Anyways I have to go study for my physics midterm! I hope to write ch 42 soon!
Anyways...
Remember, Follow and Repost for more bangers 😎😎😎🔥🔥🔥
Happy Valentine's Day!
I made this today and I am so done aughh but hey I'm somewhat on time this time!!
happy valentine's day from the sage!
More Sage of Truth because I love him :D
I just wanna keep drawing him, he's just happy to be here, man
Can you tell yet what my favorite costume is of him? Would be surprising if not...
