She opens her mouth.
"I'll be back before lunch," I say, and close the door before she can turn that opening into a full conversation.
The hallways are louder than yesterday. Students cluster in groups near the notice boards, talking too fast and too quietly in the way people do after something frightening has been officially minimized. A new memo has replaced the old one.Last night's atmospheric event has been addressed. Normal schedule resumes. Students with concerns should direct them to their House advisors.No mention of wraiths. No mention of ward failures. Nothing about the fact that three students were apparently treated in the infirmary overnight for possession-adjacent symptoms, which I overheard Malik telling Sage about at four in the morning before I finally stopped pretending to sleep.
I pass the memo without stopping.
The Reaper wing is quieter than the main corridors. It always is. The students who belong here move differently, conserving energy, carrying their power close. I've gotten used to the atmosphere, the way the air goes slightly cooler as the stone changes from the main academy's pale granite to the darker slate that lines the older sections. What I haven't gotten used to is walking toward Ryder Ashford's classroom while the bond pulls in my chest like a compass needle pointing north.
It sharpens when I push open the door.
He's already at the front, back turned, writing a series of containment equations across the board in precise, even strokes. The room is half-full. I take the seat I always take, third row, aisle side, and pull out my notes.
He doesn't turn around.
The bond does something I have no vocabulary for. A recognition. A settling. Like a sound finding its echo.
I write the date at the top of my page and concentrate very hard on the equations.
Class runs fifty minutes. He doesn't call on me once, which he usually does at least twice. He doesn't look at my section of the room. He moves through the material with the kind of mechanical efficiency that means he's performing normalcy for the same reason I am, which is that neither of us has figured out what to do with last night yet.
After class, I wait until the other students clear out. Then I pick up my bag and walk to the front of the room.
"I need to talk to you about the bond," I say.
"Not here." He erases the board with three clean strokes. "Not now."
"When?"
"When I've had time to assess the situation properly."
"It's been twelve hours."
"Twelve hours is not sufficient time to assess a partial reaper bond with an unclassified null, Fairmont." He sets the eraser down. "I'll send word when I'm ready to discuss it."
"You'll send word." I put my bag on the nearest desk. "Like a memo. Like the one downstairs that doesn't mention the wraiths."
"Leave your bag on the floor, not the desk. Those are for students."
"I am a student."
"Then sit down."
"I don't want to sit down. I want you to stop treating this like a filing problem." I take one step closer. The bond flares immediately, warmth spreading across my sternum, and I watch his jaw tighten in response. "You can feel that," I say. "Right now. You felt it when I walked in."
A pause. "Yes."
"So we're past the part where we pretend it isn't happening."
"I'm not pretending anything. I'm applying appropriate professional distance to a situation that requires carefulmanagement." His voice is even. Controlled in the way that requires active maintenance. "This is not a personal failing on either of our parts. It's a consequence of the amplification contact. It can be managed."
"Can it."
"With discipline, yes."
"Whose discipline? Mine or yours?" I take another step. Three feet between us now. Two. "Because from where I'm standing, your professional distance is doing exactly nothing about the fact that you're broadcasting frustration through this bond so loudly I can feel it from across the room."
Something cracks in his expression. Fast and small, but I catch it. "I told you I'm working on the shielding."
