"What do you mean by different?" Alex asked, staring at the boy who sat across from him on his own bed. The boy had fox-like ears, which Alex had not paid much attention to before, but now that he looked carefully, a girl's image overlaid the boy's face so perfectly that he thought they were almost the same person.
"No need to be on guard." The boy pointed a finger at his own nose. "You know I have a good nose, and I can tell you are particularly different today. Just that, though I am not sure what is different exactly, other than you coming in so late."
Alex released the breath he had been unconsciously holding and his shoulders lowered as the tension dimmed, though he remained on guard. He had previously thought the boy was shy, because the first time Alex had entered the dormitory room, the boy had not turned his head toward him at all and had simply laid on the bed reading some book without so much as glancing over. Because of that, Alex had missed the boy's ears entirely.
"I am Leo Bloodclaw," the boy said, looking at Alex with an expectant expression. Alex decided then that he would have to revise the impression he had formed of the boy.
Bloodclaw. Alex thought he had heard that surname somewhere before, but where exactly he could not say. He pressed his memory a little further and suddenly the girl's image that had briefly overlaid Leo's face appeared in his mind again. A black-haired girl with a ribbon over her eyes flashed before Alex's mind.
"Natasha Bloodclaw?" Alex muttered, half dazed, more to himself than to the boy.
Leo's smile froze for just a second before he nodded. "Yes, that Bloodclaw."
So they are related. That is why I thought he looked so familiar. Alex observed the boy a little more carefully. Leo had black, mid-length hair that fell around his head like the petals of a flower, and he had a pale white face. He was slender and thin, but it was a regal sort of build. His eyes were black, and he was quite good-looking.
"It is late." Leo's voice drew Alex out of his thoughts, and Alex felt a flush of embarrassment at having studied the boy's features so intently. Leo must have felt uncomfortable, and Alex was just about to apologize when Leo continued, "How about you close the lamp? I want to sleep."
Leo dropped back onto the bed immediately before Alex could apologize or say anything at all.
"Sure," Alex managed. "Good night." He closed the lamp beside his bed and sank back against his pillow.
Leo did not particularly look pleased to hear Natasha's name. Alex had not missed how Leo's smile had faltered and how Leo had quickly stopped talking and also how immediately he had wanted the light turned off and had fallen back to his bed.
Alex shook his head and decided not to linger on thoughts of Leo. It was better to sleep now, for his eyelids were already growing heavy and it was becoming harder with each passing second to keep them open.
But how did he know I was different today? Alex thought. Is it really because of his nose?
No more thinking about him. Alex finally pushed the thoughts of Leo aside and reminded himself that the boy was not shy at all but rather dangerous, because Leo had noticed that something was different far too quickly. Alex would have to tread carefully around him. He had previously marked Leo as shy because, on the first day Alex had met both Leo and Blake, Leo had not once turned his head toward Alex, not even for a moment and had hidden his face with the book.
There was at least one thing that had gone well. Blake was still fast asleep, his occasional loud snoring filled the room with a threateningly rumbled sound. Blake was completely unaware of their conversation, and how Blake might have reacted to being disturbed so late at night was something Alex did not particularly want to imagine.
Now, let's sleep. Alex shut his eyes and shifted in his bed.
***
That night, Alex saw himself standing in the dark. He was in a place with no end and no walls, nothing but endless darkness in every direction. The floor beneath his feet was dark and the ceiling above, or the sky, or whatever one might call it, was dark as well. He kept walking through that space and no matter how far he went he did not feel tired, and when he called out asking if anyone was there, no answer came back to him. And yet for some reason he felt no fear, nor did he hate the place. Rather it felt as though he was a part of it, as though it were calling to him, and he walked with a singular focus in the direction that some deep intuition told him was right.
Alex did not know how long he walked, but it must have been for hours before he finally heard a loud voice, one utterly devoid of emotion, rising not from the direction he was heading toward but from all directions at once, from everywhere at once: "It is not time yet." His ears ached with the sound, and the place he stood in seemed to dissolve around him. Something was pulling him away. He fought against it until the very last moment, trying with everything he had to stop himself from being returned, because he wanted to stay, just a little longer.
He pushed his hands and legs outward and screamed. "No, please. I want to stay here."
No answer came, and he struggled until the very end.
"Oi!" A loud voice shook him and Alex fluttered his heavy eyelids open to find Blake shaking him with so much force that an internal tremor ran through his whole body. "Are you going to wake the whole building or what?" Blake muttered, irritation plain on his face. His black eyes stared at Alex with an annoyance, and his red hair seemed to match the heat of his expression perfectly.
"Huh." Alex was still half dazed and pushed himself up to sit. "Was that a dream?" he mumbled.
Alex was shaken again by a hand on his shoulder. He snapped toward Blake. "What now?" he shot back, matching Blake's tone exactly. Since Blake had not seen fit to speak nicely, Alex would return the same courtesy.
"The imperial princess is waiting for you outside the door."
***
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