Lyra's dorm room felt smaller than usual. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the way Kael's words—or lack of words—still clung to her like smoke. She sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, notebook open, pen hovering. Her letters had always been safe. Now, they were urgent.
I saw everything, Kael. I can't pretend I didn't. Tell me why. Tell me who you really are.
She wrote quickly, letting her emotions spill, letting the ink catch the edge of fear and fascination alike.
A knock at the door startled her.
"Talia!" Lyra said, half-laughing, half-panicked.
"Relax," Talia replied, stepping in, cheeks flushed from her own excitement. "I brought tea. You're going to drive yourself crazy sitting here brooding all night."
Lyra smiled faintly, letting Talia settle in. For a moment, the world narrowed to tea steam curling in the dim light, the scratch of pen on paper, and the quiet presence of someone who didn't need answers yet.
She handed the notebook over. "Read it?"
Talia hesitated, then shook her head. "Not yet. It's yours. Just… promise me you're not going to spiral too hard."
Lyra laughed softly. "I'm not spiraling. I'm… thinking."
Thinking felt dangerous. Thoughts of Kael crowded her mind—the way he had shifted when she spoke, the way his shadows bent unnaturally toward him, the way centuries weighed behind those dark eyes.
The next day, classes felt… different. Louder, somehow. The other students' chatter felt shallow, unreal. Every glance at Kael's friends made her pulse quicken. Cassian's teasing smirk. Riven's calculating stare. Serene's serene smile, almost unreadable.
Lyra tried to focus, jotting notes, keeping her hands busy, her eyes mostly on her paper. But Kael's shadow lingered in the corners of her mind. Every question she had—about the school, the professors, even the way certain buildings were locked for no reason—kept her glued to the edges of observation.
During a short break, she slipped outside. The evening air smelled of damp leaves, faint smoke from distant dorms curling into the sky. She pulled out her notebook again, writing faster now, sentences jagged with frustration and curiosity:
Why do you disappear? Why are you always in shadows? Who are the people around you, really?
A sudden flicker of movement caught her eye. Kael. Always too fast to notice directly, but she sensed him before she saw him—leaning against a tree, head slightly lowered, watching.
Lyra froze.
He didn't approach. He didn't step forward. He simply observed. There was no menace. Just… patience.
And that terrified her.
Her pen scratched again: I can't stop thinking about you. I shouldn't. But I do.
Later, Madame Selvara appeared near the main courtyard, distant and calm as ever. Lyra caught her eyes once. The old vampire's expression was impossible to read, but the faint tightening at the corners told Lyra one thing: she had been noticed. Not in danger yet, but… watched.
Lyra felt a shiver. Part fear, part anticipation.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Cassian striding past, giving her a playful wink. "Keeping busy, Lyra?"
She looked up, heart skipping. "Just… writing."
"You're going to need that brain when Kael notices," he said lightly, and Riven's gaze flicked toward her briefly, sharp and measured.
Kael notices everything, Lyra reminded herself.
That evening, in the quiet of her room, she wrote her next letter:
I see you, even when you don't want me to. I know you're not just… human. And yet… I don't run. I want to understand. I need to.
She hesitated before signing it.
Lyra.
A soft knock at the door startled her again.
"Talia?"
But it was her mail slot. A single folded note rested there—ink she didn't recognize. No return address.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she opened it.
"I know what you are. And I know what you want. Don't mistake curiosity for safety."
The handwriting was precise, elegant, but the words were sharp enough to make her stomach tighten.
Kael. She knew it before she read another line.
Her heart pounded, and for the first time, she felt the weight of their connection—an invisible thread that bound her to him and his world.
She pressed her palms to her notebook. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll see him. I'll make sense of this. I have to.
The night stretched on, shadows crawling across her ceiling, and she realized that nothing would feel safe again.
Not her dorm. Not her studies. Not her own heart.
But for the first time, she didn't want it to be.