I sat on the stone parapet, watching the sky turn into a bloody-orange mess. The sunsets in this country were always too bright. But inside my head, it was even hotter.

  That moment in the gym wouldn't let me breathe. The hole in the glove. His skin. My skin. Did I really touch him? And if so... why does he still exist?

  Down below, Greg was dragging himself lazily across the empty courtyard. His gait was so relaxed, as if he were strolling through his own backyard rather than the most dangerous Academy in the world.

  I couldn't take it anymore.

  POP.

  The distance was at the very limit of my abilities. I swayed, the world flipped upside down for a second, and I nearly plowed the lawn with my nose, landing a couple of meters away from him. Greg stopped and waved at me with complete indifference. Like an old acquaintance.

  I looked at him, my heart pounding somewhere around my throat. Slowly, holding my breath, I pulled at the edge of my left glove. My skin reluctantly appeared in the cold air.

  I forced a smile, trying to keep my voice from trembling. "High five, Greg!"

  I held out my bare palm. Bare skin. No barriers. No protection.

  Everything inside me was screaming: "What are you doing?! Stop! You're going to kill him! You'll simply erase him!"

  The fear was almost tangible. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, expecting a flash, a scream, the smell of burning flesh—everything that usually happened when I touched living creatures.

  SMACK.

  The sound of palm hitting palm. Dry. Crisp.

  I snapped my eyes open. Greg stood before me, still unperturbedly keeping his other hand in his pocket. "Why did you freeze?" he grumbled from under the mask. "Did I miss? I thought my aim was fine."

  He apparently decided that I was dissatisfied with the quality of the high-five and slapped his palm against mine one more time—shortly and confidently.

  This wasn't a dream.

  I felt his warmth. Real, human warmth. My curse, which was always ready to devour anyone who came too close, simply... fell silent.

  "Alright, I want to sleep," Greg yawned, nearly dislocating his jaw under the mask. "See ya, Alastia. Catch you when the sun decides to torture us again."

  He turned around and trudged toward the dorms, leaving me alone in the gathering dusk.

  I stood there on the path, unable to take my eyes off my palm. The wind chilled my skin, but I could still feel that momentary touch.

  Could it really be...

  I stared at my palm. It was still burning from that short, mundane "high five." Greg had left, and I fell into the abyss of my own memories. Into those cellars of memory that I had meticulously boarded up for years.

  I was born, and my first cry became the last sound my mother ever heard. My existence began with the murder of the person closest to me. I never knew her warmth—only the cold of her cooling body, which I was forbidden to touch.

  I never knew what physical warmth was. For me, the world had always been wrapped in thick fabric, in the leather of gloves, in protective spells.

  I remember trying to be "normal" in childhood. A sleepover at a friend's house. We were eight. We were whispering under the blanket, laughing, sharing secrets. At one point, laughing, she jokingly shoved me and accidentally brushed her fingertips against my bare neck.

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  She didn't get to finish her joke. She didn't even have time to be scared.

  Right before my eyes, her skin cracked like dried clay. A second later—a handful of gray ash crumbled onto the bed. Ash that I couldn't even gather without destroying it completely.

  I remember Kael's dog. A huge, kind dog who didn't understand the rules. One night he sneaked into my room. I was asleep, one arm hanging off the bed, my glove had slipped down... I woke up to a wet, warm touch. He licked my palm.

  Just once. I only heard a quiet wheeze. In the morning, I found nothing but an empty spot by the bed and the smell of burning.

  Those who touched me crumbled to dust. Those who were stronger—evaporated in a blinding flash. The most resilient ones screamed. A long, agonizing scream, while their flesh withered, turning into nothing.

  Thanks to Kael and his infinite patience, I learned to live in this prison of clothing. I got used to being the "anomaly," the "destroyer," "the one you cannot approach."

  And then he appeared.

  I closed my eyes, letting the evening wind blow over my bare palm. My memory stubbornly dragged me back to the only time when the world didn't feel like a torture chamber.

  Grandma. The word "grandma" didn't suit her at all. She looked no older than twenty, and sometimes it seemed—even younger. She was a frozen moment of beauty: smooth skin, radiant eyes, and two elegant little horns crowning her head. Kael and I often visited her. Near her, all bad things went quiet, as if afraid to disturb that peace.

  I remember an evening in her garden. I was six, and I had just accidentally destroyed her favorite rose bush simply by touching a leaf.

  "Grandma... is this a curse?" I stared at my hands, wrapped in thick fabric. "I'm cursed, aren't I?"

  She didn't recoil. On the contrary, she stepped right up to me. Her hand—also in a thin glove—softly touched my cheek. "Depends on how you look at it, little spark," she smiled so warmly it made my chest ache. "Power isn't always a gift. Sometimes it's just too heavy a burden for those who don't know how to fly."

  Grandma taught us everything. While other adults hid their children from me in terror, she told us bedtime stories. But they were strange stories. There were no princes on white horses or evil sorcerers in them.

  She often told us about a certain man. About one whose eyes changed color like the sky before a storm. One—always black as the Abyss, and the other—new every day. She described him in such detail, with such strange tenderness, as if she herself were part of that fairy tale. Or as if she had seen him very recently.

  Kael and I listened with bated breath. We didn't inherit her little horns. We didn't inherit her magnificent dark wings, which she sometimes unfurled, blocking out the sun with them.

  Oh, how she flew... I remember tilting my head back, watching her silhouette in the sky. She was the embodiment of freedom. No boundaries, no heaviness, no fear of destroying the world with a single flick of a finger.

  Back then, I thought the man from her fairy tales was just a dream. A beautiful image for children who were afraid of their own shadows.

  But today, I touched his hand. And he didn't crumble.

  I returned to room four hundred and four and just collapsed onto the sofa. The silence of the room pressed pleasantly against my ears after the shrieks of the maniac teacher and the clamor of the gym.

  An hour passed. The Dragonkin, who had been sitting motionless in the corner, finally opened his eyes. His yellow slit-pupils focused on me.

  "Greg," he began without preamble. "You aren't an idiot. You see that you're being used. Why do you allow it?"

  I didn't even turn my head. I stared out the window, where the Fourth Building was chasing clouds. "It's better this way," I replied lazily. "Let them use me. At least it creates the illusion of meaning. My life... it's empty. Without this noise, without other people's whims and head pats—there's absolutely nothing in it. Just a cold, endless grayness."

  The scales on my roommate's cheekbones twitched, he bared his sharp teeth, but immediately got a grip on himself. "You're strange. You don't seem weak. You managed to avoid Alastia's 'Triple Trap'—the binding, control, and suggestion. Care to share how?"

  I snorted, remembering Alastia's face in the cafeteria. "The secret is in the first step," I sat up and looked at my palms. "Manipulation isn't just mana. It's psychology. To control someone, you have to make their soul believe they owe you."

  I ticked off a finger. "It could be anything: a gift, help, a greeting, or just a handkerchief offered at the right time. As soon as a person says 'thank you' or rejoices at a gift, a tiny thread of debt is born inside them. 'Someone did me a kindness, I must repay it.' In that moment, the thread turns into a leash."

  The Dragonkin listened intently without moving.

  "Alastia gave me a piece of candy," I continued. "She expected me to feel gratitude. That her 'kindness' would bind me. But... I was too busy eating the candy." I shrugged. "There was no room in my head for a 'thank you.' There was only sugar, the taste of cocoa, and the working of my jaws. I didn't feel obligated, so her magic simply had nothing to latch onto."

  The Dragonkin slowly stood up. His tail with the bone spike twitched nervously from side to side. "What a weak heart you have, Greg," he spat, heading toward his scorching-hot corner. "Since you're afraid of even a simple 'thank you'."

  I lay back down and closed my eyes. Weak? Maybe. But at least I sleep soundly. As long as I'm fed and not forced to think about the future, this heart can be whatever it wants.