Page 166 of The Fifth Heir

“You believed you were being accurate.”

“I believed information mattered more than your right to know what I intended to do with it.”

The answer sounded rehearsed only because Sebastian had probably examined it from every possible direction before speaking.

“Is there a difference?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“You are the difference.”

The wall runes softened from red to clear.

I looked down at the scattered pages on the desk.

Sebastian reached for the nearest chair.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

He sat.

He did not ask me to explain Leander’s betrayal before I was ready. He did not offer reassurance he could not prove. He simply placed himself within reach and allowed the room to be quiet around us.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The silence with him did not feel like waiting. He took the black return-channel fragment from his coat and set it beneath the rune lamp. I opened my notebook and tried to record the sequence of the demonstration.

We worked at the same desk until the lamps dimmed for the evening bell.

Sebastian found three marks on the black metal that did not match the academy’s standard inventory seals. I wrote half a page before realizing I had repeated the same sentence twice.

He noticed that too.

Without comment, he turned my notebook facedown and moved the rune lamp so its beam no longer struck my wrist. The scale faded to a clear edge. For the first time since it appeared, someone deliberately chose not to look.

“You need rest.”

“So does everyone.”

“You nearly collapsed.”

“I didn’t.”

“Torren caught you.”

“I was lowering myself carefully.”

“Into his arms?”

“It seemed safer than the floor.”

Sebastian’s mouth shifted slightly.

The wall runes turned gold.