“When do you get to stop playing patient?” Rozsen asks, already raiding the candy stash someone else left on his bedside table.
“I’m not playing,” Finn mutters. He jerks his chin toward the sling. “I’m actually injured. In case you couldn’t tell.”
“You’re still annoyingly unavailable for sparring.” Rozsen sighs like she’s mourning a tragedy. “Ryan’s doing his best—good lad—but alas… it’s just not the same.”
Ryan’s brows lift. “Wow. Rude.”
Noa’s mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile. He sets a tin on Finn’s bedside table. “Celeste made you this. Emberveil… with a few of her own modifications.”
“I added frostbloom thistle,” I say, stepping closer. “And a few things for inflammation. It’ll help with swelling and pain on top of healing the burns.”
Finn lifts a brow. “I knew we kept you around for a reason.”He smiles then—his first real one. “A brilliant alchemistanda water Magick to boot.”
Noa’s arm loops around my waist immediately, pulling me into his side. “Hands off,” he tells Finn, dry as dust. “She’s already taken.”
Finn snorts. “Only because you saw her first,” he teases before looking around at our little half-circle. “So now you’re all my handlers?”
“Correct,” Rozsen says, patting his crown. “Try not to die out of spite.”
Finn groans, but he’s still smiling.
I hover at the foot of the bed, watching the bandages, the healing skin, the faint wince on Finn’s face when he adjusts his sling. My stomach twists.
It was Tsvetan—Gavrail’s friend—who did this. And I watched it happen. I saw the scorched pattern under Finn’s feet, saw the trap tightening, and didn’t do anything to stop it. The guilt clings to me like the frost that coats the campus every morning—cold, stubborn, impossible to shake.
Noa shifts closer behind me, reading me like he always does now. His hand slides to the small of my back—subtle, protective—and his thumb presses one slow circle through my sweater. When I lean back into him, his chin dips briefly to my temple.
“He’s going to be just fine,” he murmurs, so low only I can hear.
Rozsen turns bright as poison. “Merry Christmas, Finnian.”
Finn squints. “I hate when you call me that. Also—thattonemeans you’re ten seconds away from stealing something.”
Rozsen smiles. “Already did.”
“What?”
She taps his paper crown. “Your dignity.”
Finn growls at her, but his eyes are bright.
Above us, Madame Ching’s light constellations drift in slow loops, throwing soft gold across Finn’s too-white sheets,turning a room made for injuries into something almost gentle. Noa’s hand stays warm at my back, steady as a heartbeat, and for a few minutes—cocoa steaming, Rozsen bickering with Finn like it’s her religion, the fountain tinkling in the corner—it almost feels like a real Christmas.
* * *
The treeson campus are now bare and brittle, their branches often rimmed with snow from the night before. Lake Caldrith’s smooth surface is beginning to surrender to winter’s grasp. A delicate sheen of ice shimmers across the surface—thin, fragile, not yet solid, but enough to dull the water’s usual luster.
Noa and I spend much of our break in the Cavern, warming up in the natural hot springs while enjoying private moments in his officers’ quarters in the furthest chamber. At least in here, I know I won’t accidentally run into a certain silver-eyed student. Which means I can truly relax—or at least pretend to.
The afternoon got away from me today; I lost track of time in the Potions lab before rushing to meet Noa. I pause at the Crystal Cavern pool, taking in the icicles now sparkling above it like crystal daggers. A light dusting of snow glistens over the surface from the open sky above. Oddly, the water here doesn’t freeze, nor does the snow just melt into it, but instead hovers like a breath made of stardust, its tiny, perfect flakes catching the light from above and below.
The pool’s song tugs at me like it always does—a louder, deeper whisper these days. I step closer, boots crunching on frost, crossing the runed circle that surrounds it. My gaze drifts to the rocks scattered like a crumbling wall just above the waterline on the left.
Something carved into the stones catches the light: three interlaced symbols, half buried in lichen and veined with mineral deposits. I kneel, breath fogging the air, and look closer.
Curious, I tug off my glove and brush away the frost, then peel the moss away from the stones. The carvings are even more beautiful up close—weathered, yes, but still pulsing with some long-buried intention.
The first is chipped and faded but I can just make out a long, curling tail that, on closer inspection, resolves into the hidden silhouette of a mermaid in profile. The shape is familiar somehow.
