Before I can answer, a Silver Squad girl edges closer to her friend and whispers, not even pretending she doesn’t want us to hear, “That’s him. Straits mentioned his family name?—”
Her friend makes a soft sound, almost awed.
Noa’s jaw flexes once. He doesn’t look at them. But I feel the shift in him—like a door clicking shut.
I stop in front of him, suddenly hyper-aware of my hands, the way my throat feels too tight.
“You okay?” he asks, voice low.
I try to joke. It comes out thin. “History class is… uplifting.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “Yeah. Straits has that effect.”
Two boys from Green Squad drift close, eyes bright. “Hey, Gallegher,” one of them calls out, too casual. “Is it true your grandfather was a Service general? That you’re, like, pure fire line?”
Noa’s jaw tightens. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Is it true you can’t mind your own damn business?”
The boy laughs like it’s a joke, but he shuffles back into the crowd, away from Noa’s stare.
Noa looks at me again, and there’s apology there—quiet and immediate—as if he hates that I have to stand in the blast radius of his name. His gaze flicks briefly to the clusters of students forming, the way their eyes keep tracking him—me—like we’re items on a ledger.
He leans closer, just enough to make his voice mine. “Ignore them.”
I swallow. “Is it true?” I ask, softer. “About… all of it?”
His eyes hold mine for a beat—then drop, like the question lands somewhere tender.
“Governments got involved a long time ago,” he says quietly.He doesn’t sound proud. He sounds tired. “They learned how to keep power from leaving. How to make sure the strongest lines stayed where they wanted them. Some families fought it.”
His gaze lifts back to me, sharp with something protective. But it flickers—showing something beneath the pointed edges, something like…shame.
“Some didn’t.”
I think of Straits’s tone. The cold certainty.
I think of the chart. The lines. The crests.
I glance at Noa’s hands and I can almost see it: the magick prowling under his skin, powerful and a little bit wild.
He catches my glance and huffs out something like a laugh. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m… inevitable.” A muscle in his jaw ticks. Discomfort crosses his face. “I don’t—” He stops. Swallows. “I don’t like being reduced to my bloodline.”
“And yet,” I say, the words slipping out before I can stop them, “when you wield fire… it makes sense.”
His eyes flicker—heat, then something softer.
“You’re devastatingly good,” I add, quieter, because it’s true, and now it feels like a piece of this new puzzle clicking into place. “The kind of good that doesn’t come from one person. The kind of good that comes from generations of knowledge encoded into your bones.”
His throat works. “Celeste?—”
“I’m not judging you,” I say quickly. “I just…” I glance down at my hands, at my ring, at the skin Straits stared at like she could read my entire history from it. “I didn’t realize how much of this world is… inherited.”
Noa’s gaze drops to my hands, watching the way I twist the ring on my finger. “It’s complicated,” he says carefully. “And it makes people stupid.”
Across the corridor, two girls whisper and glance at meagain—giving me looks that hold both curiosity and calculation, like I’m a question they want answered.
