Wafting down the hall to greet me is the smell of warm bread and lemon tea before I even reach the staff breakfast hall.

  I went to bed far too late. But for the first time in weeks, I didn’t wake buried under the weight of it all. Sometime in the early hours, the tight coil in my chest gave way—just a little. Enough to breathe. Enough to remember how. The anger is still there, coiled, ready, but it’s not pressing against my ribs like it wants to tear its way out. It’s no longer flashing behind my eyes, clouding every word, every movement, like poison leaking through the seams of me.

  Now, it sits lower. Quieter. Contained.

  Not forgotten. Not forgiven.

  But maybe, finally, I can start to use it. Not let it use me.

  Isla noticed. She didn’t speak of it—she rarely does—but the shift was clear. Her shoulders sat a little lower. Her steps were sharper. She moved through the morning routine cleanly, with a rhythm that hadn’t been there for days. Her braid was neater. Her boots shined. Her posture straightened. Every movement was deliberate. Purposeful.

  Her hands were steady fastening the last button of my collar. Her eyes lingered, just a breath longer than usual, like she was checking I was still real. And when she handed me my coat, there was the faintest pull at the corner of her mouth. Not performative. Not for show. Just a quiet acknowledgment—like watching a storm break far off over water.

  There was relief in it, quiet and almost hidden.

  I step through the archway into the staff breakfast hall and pause—just for a breath.

  Light pours through the tall windows, golden and clean, slanting in sharp lines across the polished stone floor. It cuts the long table into segments of light, pools around the fruit bowl, and sets the oranges aglow like miniature suns. Everything is familiar. Gently ordered.

  And yet—

  As I enter, the room stills. Just for a moment. Conversations falter. Hands hesitate mid-motion. Then, like clockwork resuming, everyone exhales at once and continues on.

  I don’t flinch, but I feel it. The way they track my mood without meaning to. The tension I’ve wrapped around the room these past few weeks like a second skin. They’ve been walking on eggshells. And none of them know why.

  They think I’ve been sullen. Distant. Difficult. Just a child in a stretch of bad temper. But they don’t know about the weight I’ve been dragging like chains inside my ribs. They don’t know about the fury I’ve been swallowing down every morning like it’s breakfast.

  They can’t. I can’t tell them.

  I don’t deserve it, but I’m grateful. Even if I don’t know how to show it. And that makes their quiet patience feel heavier. Like kindness I haven’t earned.

  My eyes settle on my usual seat, filled with extra cushions and a ball of energy wrapped in skin and auburn hair. Clara.

  Her legs swing freely, too short to touch the floor, shoes tapping against the chair legs in a rhythm only she understands. One hand is clutching a half-destroyed bread roll dripping with jam. The other is trying to keep a spoon balanced upright in her juice cup like it’s a game with very high stakes.

  She doesn’t look up at first. She’s mid-battle with a particularly sticky bite.

  Then she spots me.

  Her entire face lights up like someone lit a lamp behind her eyes.

  “Relius!” she beams through a mouthful of crumbs. “You’re not ghosty!”

  I blink. “I’m not what?”

  “Ghosty,” she says again, as if this should be obvious. “Like see-through. But also kinda grumpy. Like a haunted pillow.”

  “A haunted pillow,” I repeat.

  She nods, serious now. “You’ve been floaty. And quiet. And your eyes were all..." She squints and widens her own eyes in a dramatic imitation of brooding gloom. “Like when Mister Bellum tries not to yell at the chickens.”

  “I wasn’t aware the chickens were such a trial.”

  “They steal things,” she says solemnly. “One ate Lena’s pen.”

  I glance at the adults at the far end of the room. A few staff members are smiling quietly to themselves behind their tea.

  I sit down—not reclaiming my usual seat, but taking the one next to her.

  “I’ll take not-ghosty as a compliment.”

  “It is,” she says through another sticky bite, nodding vigorously. “You look like you again.”

  “Do I?”

  She leans in closer, squints at me. “Yes. But you need more breakfast in your face.”

  Isla, standing behind me now, lets out the softest snort, quickly disguised as a cough. I don’t turn to look at her, but I catch the faintest tug of a smile in the reflection off a silver teapot.

  Clara grabs my hand with a jam-streaked grip and tugs. “C’mon. You have to eat or you’ll go back to ghost mode. Also there’s lemon rolls and I only took one.”

  I let her guide me through collecting items to eat, her preference for sweets obvious. I snag a couple meats to help balance the meal.

  She grins, big and gap-toothed as I settle back to tuck into the food. “Mama said you’d get tired of pretending to be fine. I said maybe you were just getting better.”

  “And which one of you is right?”

  “Me,” she says without hesitation. “Mama’s smart, but she’s not five.”

  Isla stands with one shoulder resting lightly against the wall. Her arms are folded, and she’s not pretending not to listen. Her eyes track every motion in the room, but she’s not guarding. Not exactly. I can feel the difference.

  “You slept,” she says, not loudly. Not quite a question.

  “I did.” I meet her eyes. “Eventually.”

  There’s something close to approval in the nod she gives. It’s small. Almost nothing. But I catch it. She’s more at ease than I’ve seen her in days, though she doesn’t show it when others are nearby.

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember how,” she says under her breath.

  “I practice when I can.”

  Clara tries to reach for the butter without standing and almost falls off her chair. I catch her plate just in time.

  “Careful.”

  “I am careful,” she huffs, “except when I’m not.”

  She talks through most of the meal—about a bird she saw nesting in the upper courtyard eaves, about the new boots someone left outside the barracks, about how she’s sure the guard named Barrett is secretly afraid of horses.

  I let her talk. I even listen. Not because it’s polite, but because I want to. Her voice feels like sunlight filtered through glass. Too warm for this early in the day, but I won’t shut it out.

  And for once, I’m really here.

  Not drifting. Not lost in memory, chasing ghosts through smoke. Not bracing for the next shadow I’ll have to explain away or bury under silence. Just… here. Present. With Clara’s fingers sticky in mine. With Isla at the wall, arms crossed, watching but at ease. With a cup of tea that isn’t just a prop in my hand, but something I might actually finish—warm, real, and still whole.

  Eventually, the plates are cleared, and it is time to move on with the day.

  I push my chair back and rise.

  Clara looks up, mouth still full of toast crumbs.

  “Are you going to lessons again?” she asks. “With the scary one?”

  “Lord Alistair is not scary,” I say. “He just talks like he’s solving a puzzle no one else can see.”

  She nods solemnly. “That’s the same thing.”

  I pause beside her and hold out my hand. She stares at it for a beat too long, like she’s waiting to make sure this isn’t a trick. Then she wipes both hands on the hem of her tunic and slides her small fingers into mine.

  “You walk fast,” she reminds me.

  “You talk fast. Seems fair.”

  As we head for the door, Clara’s grip tightens like she thinks I might let go.

  I don’t.

  Behind us, I hear the quiet shift of weight, Isla pushing off the wall where she’s been stationed like a watchtower in plainclothes. Normally, she’d fall in behind me without a word, steps silent, eyes everywhere. But today, she doesn’t move immediately.

  I glance back and catch her watching us. Not scanning. Not braced. Just watching.

  There’s a softness in her expression I haven’t seen in weeks. Something unguarded. Proud, yes—but also relieved in a way that doesn’t show in posture, only in her eyes. That the fog has thinned, that the rage has cooled enough not to burn straight through me.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  She gives me a small nod. Barely more than a blink.

  And then, for the first time in what feels like a long while, she turns away. Not to follow, but to breathe. She slips through the side door towards the kitchen, quiet and easy, her shoulders a shade lighter than they were yesterday.

  She’s going to find Lena, I think. Maybe to check on Clara’s schedule, maybe just to speak to someone without watching every word. Whatever the reason, she trusts I won’t shatter in the next hour. That, for now, I’m steady.

  She’ll meet me outside Alistair’s study just before lunch. She always does.

  Clara chatters beside me as we walk the corridor toward Lord Alistair’s study. She skips rather than steps, her shoes barely touching the floor before springing forward again. Her hand is still in mine, though now she’s swinging our arms with more energy than is strictly necessary.

  “I hope it’s letters today and not numbers,” she says, then adds with gravity, “I don’t trust numbers.”

  “You’re not supposed to trust them,” I reply. “You’re supposed to understand them.”

  She squints up at me, clearly unimpressed with that answer. “Still suspicious.”

  We reach the carved wooden door—thick, dark-stained oak, reinforced with iron bands. Clara doesn’t wait for me to knock. She bounces forward and pushes it open with both hands.

  The scent of old parchment and dry ink meets us first, followed by the warm, faintly musky smell of Lord Alistair himself. The dogkin is already seated at his massive desk, quill in one paw, spectacles perched delicately on the bridge of his muzzle despite his poor habit of never using them. His shaggy fur, mostly a brindled grey and cream, is neatly groomed today, and his scholar’s robe—a deep blue with silver trim—has been fastened all the way up, though his ears still droop lazily over halfway before curling. His long tail sways idly as he scribbles something into a ledger.

  “Ah,” he says as we enter, voice deep and warm with a kind of gravelly kindness. “Punctual. A good sign. Miss Clara, to the rug, please. We’ve letters to conquer.”

  Clara gasps like he’s offered her a dragon to fight and races toward the corner reading mat, already digging in her satchel for her wax tablet and chalk.

  Lord Alistair gestures me toward the armchair by the fire, beside a stack of weighty tomes.

  “For you, young lord,” he says with a sly glance, “something thrilling. Judicial precedent in pre-Unity merchant states.”

  I raise one brow. “You mean tax law.”

  He grins, tongue briefly visible between his teeth. “Yes, but with dramatic phrasing.”

  I sit, open the heavy book on my lap, and begin reading. It’s not difficult, just dense—paragraphs wound with qualifiers and archaic phrasing, the sort of writing meant to look important rather than be clear. But I understand the point of it. Alistair never assigns without reason.

  The segment he’s chosen is about why laws form. About the difference between rule and justice. How fear governs swiftly, but never cleanly. How law exists not to control, but to protect the boundaries of fairness. How it fails when enforced without grace.

  He doesn’t explain any of it aloud. He doesn’t need to. The book makes its argument. My job is to hear it.

  Clara hums softly as she works, mumbling to herself while she traces each letter. They're still wobbly, but legible—steadier than last week. Lord Alistair offers quiet praise with each success, though he doesn’t miss a single reversed or crooked character.

  It’s a far cry from the first time I brought her. He’d wrinkled his nose at the idea of instructing her, insisting his time was better spent on noble education. But when he saw I’d spend our lessons helping her myself if he refused, he’d relented—grudgingly, at first. Now, I suspect he enjoys teaching her more than he does me.

  The lesson stretches quietly. It’s calm. Comfortable. The kind of quiet that settles instead of suffocates.

  When the bell chimes the half-hour to noon, Clara jumps up and announces, “I’m brilliant now,” and brushes dust off her tunic as if she’s graduated from the entire academy.

  I close my book and rise.

  Lord Alistair caps his ink, tail flicking once. “Well done, both of you.”

  Clara darts for the door ahead of me and throws it open. “Isla!”

  She bounds into the hallway like she’s been waiting a week, not hours.

  Isla straightens as we appear, her arms loosely folded, one boot braced against the opposite wall. She looks rested, calm, but her eyes flick over us in a practiced sweep, checking Clara and I from head to toe.

  “Still alive,” she says with a single nod. “Well done.” Dry as ever.

  “I didn’t even try to escape,” I reply, matching her tone.

  Lord Alistair clears his throat gently. “If I might steal a moment of your time, Young Master.”

  Clara twirls past her, then slows when she realizes I haven’t followed.

  “Go ahead,” I tell her. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  Clara gives a dramatic sigh but obeys, skipping off down the corridor with Isla falling into step behind her.

  I turn back into the room, quiet now without Clara’s light echo.

  I face Alistair. “What is it?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. He gestures back to the chair.

  I sit. Slowly. Whatever this is, it isn’t casual.

  Alistair leans forward, folding his paws over the edge of the desk. His ears, normally drooping in quiet disinterest, perk slightly. Just enough to betray his mood. Serious. Intent.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he begins, voice low and even, “about what comes next in your education.”

  “That’s a broad topic.”

  He lets out a short huff. Not irritated—amused, maybe—but there's something behind it. “True. But I mean something specific.”

  He opens a drawer, pulls out a small sheaf of papers, blank, except for the official red wax seal of the Archduke’s court pressed in the upper corner. His claws tap the edge.

  “I intend to submit a petition to Archduke Sven when he returns from his inspection rounds,” he says. “A formal one.”

  I tilt my head. “Petition for what?”

  “To begin your magical instruction.”

  The words don’t register immediately. When they do, I blink. “Now?”

  Alistair nods once. “Yes. If the Archduke approves.”

  I sit back. “Most don’t start until ten.”

  “You’re not most.”

  It lands harder than I expect. Not unkind. Not a boast. Just truth, laid bare.

  “You said ‘petition’ like it’s not guaranteed.” I pause. “Father’s never refused a request on my behalf.” Another beat. “He may allow it, but the nobles will whisper. Say I’m too young.”

  “They might,” Alistair says. “But they already know you’ve used magic.”

  A tightness coils low in my chest. Not fear. Not guilt. Just inevitability.

  “They can’t prove it.”

  “They don’t have to.” His gaze is steady, unblinking. “We both know you’ve done more than light a candle or move a cup. And those who are paying attention see the edges of it. Even if they don’t speak of it aloud.”

  I don’t look away. “Why now?”

  Alistair’s tail flicks once, deliberate. “Because you’re ready. Not just in power, but in control. And because if you’re going to continue walking the path you’re on, you need every tool sharpened before you use them.”

  He pauses. The weight in his shoulders shifts. Then he sighs—long, quiet, unguarded.

  “And… because you don’t really need me anymore.”

  That catches me. I open my mouth, but he lifts a paw before I can argue.

  “Don’t flatter me, Aurelius. You’re already learning faster than I can guide you. What I offer, you’ll find in books. In practice. In debate with minds sharper than mine. And you’ll seek them out—you always do.” He leans back, a little heavier in his chair. He only uses my name without honorifics when we are in the middle of a serious topic. I am not even sure he realizes he does it, but I have never cared. “My pride in that doesn’t make it less true.”

  His spectacles slide down his muzzle. He pushes them up absently, then rubs at the corners of his eyes with the pads of his fingers. And just like that, the image slips. The scholar at the desk, the practiced posture, the dry wit, all the little shields he wears in the study room fall away, just a little.

  And for the first time, I see him not as the instructor I’ve always known, but as the man beneath. The lines around his eyes. The faint slump in his shoulders. The quiet fatigue of someone who’s held himself in careful measure for years and is finally, gently, letting go of the reins.

  He’s not just a scholar. Not just a tutor. He’s tired. And proud. And ready—for me to take the next step, not just in study, but in standing.

  I nod slowly, the idea settling in my chest like a shifting stone. Magic—formally, with structure, with oversight. Not the quiet, instinctive kind I’ve hidden, but something public. Documented. Observed. It’s not the magic that gives me pause. It’s the scrutiny. The attention. The inevitability of being seen.

  But that was always coming. At least this way, I choose the moment. I meet it on my terms.

  Alistair watches me, steady. Then says, voice softer than usual, “I wouldn’t offer this if I didn’t think you could carry it.”

  And I believe him. He’s never sugar-coated a lesson. Never wasted praise. If he’s saying this now, it’s because he sees the road ahead, and wants me equipped to walk it.

  “I’ll agree,” I say, “if you’ll stay at the estate.”

  That gets his attention.

  “I can learn on my own,” I continue, “but having someone I can ask, when I get stuck—it would help. And Clara deserves to keep her lessons.”

  A sly smile breaks across his muzzle. Then a short bark of a laugh. “You clever little fox. You want me to stay for the girl.”

  I smile back, not denying it.

  “Lord Alistair,” I say, “I do believe you enjoy it.”

  He flicks his tail twice—once for the jest, once for the truth beneath it.

  “She is a delight,” he admits. “Very well. If your father allows it, I’ll remain. As long as you’ll have me.”

  That last line lands differently. It’s not said to a student. It’s said to the heir.

  I nod once. Then again, slower. “All right.”

  He inclines his head in return. “Good. I’ll send the draft for your approval before submitting it. If Archduke Sven agrees, your lessons will begin within the month.”

  I rise from the chair. There’s weight in the decision. But it’s not the weight I’ve carried lately—dark and dragging. This feels balanced. Forward-facing. Like something I can hold without drowning in it.

  I reach the door and pause.

  “Alistair?”

  He looks up.

  When I speak again, my voice is different. Measured. Not student to teacher—but heir to advisor.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For asking first.”

  He gives me the smallest bow of his head. Not deep. But deliberate.

  “Always.”

  By the time I leave the study, the midday sun is leaning high and steady over the slate roofs. A clean breeze moves through the estate courtyards, lifting the last of the morning’s fog into light. I cross the vestibule and find Isla waiting at the front steps, leaning against the carved stone balustrade like she’s been there for hours—though I know she hasn’t.

  She looks up as I approach, arms crossed, eyes shaded against the light.

  “Survived the lecture?” she says.

  “Barely,” I answer. “I’m to be magically educated now. There may be scrolls.” I waggle my eyebrows conspiratorly.

  Her brows lift. “Spoken like a man condemned.”

  “Condemned with reading comprehension.”

  She snorts. “That’ll serve you well. Especially when the fireballs start.”

  We fall into step, heading down the long walk toward the courtyard. The sound of steel striking steel rings out from the training yard beyond. I catch the scent of spiced stew on the wind and know lunch is already being set out.

  Clara appears before I see her—just a blur of motion and pale sleeves as she darts between two hedges and comes skidding to a stop beside us, cheeks pink with exertion.

  “You’re late,” she announces.

  “We weren’t expected,” I reply.

  “You’re still late.”

  She grabs my hand again without asking, fingers slightly damp from running and God-knows-what, and swings our arms dramatically as we cross the gravel toward the guardhouse yard.

  The tables are already out in the sun—long and sturdy, the kind used for drills or quartermaster checks, now draped in rough linen. Hearty fare covers them: thick-cut bread, root vegetable stew, roasted meat in slices, rough cheese and apples still dew-cold from the storage cellar.

  Captain Valcroft stands at the head of one table, arms folded, speaking with a pair of senior guards. He’s a broad man—thick in the shoulders, squared at the jaw, his salt-dark hair cropped close. His uniform’s sleeves are rolled, the crest of House Merrow sewn into the shoulder in silver thread. He’s always neat, even when he sweats.

  Normally, he’d be halfway across the duchy with my father and Catharine, but this time, he stayed behind. Sent his best three lieutenants instead, claiming they needed the field experience. I suspect it was more about me than them, though he’s never said so aloud.

  As we approach, Valcroft glances up and gives a sharp nod.

  “Lord Aurelius,” he says in greeting. “You’ve survived the morning.”

  “Barely,” I answer again, drawing a chuckle from the guards nearby.

  “Pulled through just in time for stew,” Isla adds.

  “That’s our secret, isn’t it?” Valcroft replies. “No one dies before lunch.”

  I take my usual seat—third down from the captain, near the middle of the table. Clara hops up beside me like it’s her right by birth.

  The guards are already halfway into the meal, but my arrival sparks a ripple of acknowledgement. A few nods. One or two grins.

  “Don’t worry, my lord,” someone calls down the table, “we saved the good crust for you.”

  “I’ll try not to disappoint it,” I call back, grabbing a ladle and filling a bowl.

  “Careful,” another voice pipes up. “Last time he got the good crust, we ended up with a rationing lecture.”

  “That was two years ago,” I say, waving my spoon like a gavel. “And only because someone counted seconds instead of portions.”

  Laughter follows, easy and familiar. It’s always like this here. Light. No one tiptoes around me in the yard. I earned that, I think, over years of quiet presence and steady listening. Of being here more often than anywhere else.

  I’m halfway through my second bite of stew when a voice I don’t recognize speaks up.

  “So… who’s the young lord bringing to the end-of-winter soiree?”

  Silence falls like a dropped hammer.

  Even Clara stops chewing.

  Every movement at the table stills. Even the wind seems to pause.

  I set my spoon down.