It was strange how lucky I'd gotten.
Dorm assignments were supposed to be random. Three students to a room, usually strangers, usually awkward. A roll of the dice you just had to accept.
And yet, somehow, I'd ended up sharing a room with Shadowboon, and not just that, we were the only ones in it.
If the academy was going to be five years of pretending to be normal, then at least, behind one closed door, I didn't have to pretend at all.
But it was kind of unlucky that we weren't in the same class. Well, we could still be rivals, but it wouldn't be as effective as if we were in the same one.
My classroom, where I had taken a seat about two-thirds of the way up, center-right, was a good spot.
There were about eighty students, if I had to guess. Half of them are human, and half are other races. There were a few thoughts in my mind, and in all honesty?
They were the pleasant ones to look at. It was almost racist how the classes were divided. Or just straight up.
Here were the races you'd typically put into the "good" or "light" side, and in the others were the "evil" or "dark" ones.
I sighed. That's just how it was. Progress, if it ever came, came slowly.
The room was already alive with noise - conversations overlapping, different accents, different languages bleeding into one another. Laughter here. Tension there. Children talked a lot.
A few students already had notebooks open like they were afraid the teacher might materialize out of thin air and judge them for being unprepared.
I stretched my legs out a little and leaned back.
This was fine.
A shadow fell over my desk.
At first, I didn't register it. Big room, lots of movement, people standing, sitting, leaning, stretching. Shadows came and went constantly.
Then someone cleared their throat.
I opened one eye.
Three figures stood in front of me.
Then recognition hit.
Oh no.
"…Hello," I said, straightening slowly.
Catherine stood in the middle, tallest of the three. Hair pulled back with a tie.
Juliet was on the right; her blond hair was long and straight, like a veil around her.
Elizabeth, more than two heads shorter than even Juliet, was on the left; her dark red hair was the only one that was short.
They looked… correct. Belonging. Like they had every right to be here. The school uniform did fit them well.
The parent part in me thought that the skirts were too short, but for supposed teenage girls, it might have been completely appropriate. It wasn't salacious or anything, but still.
But they didn't belong here.
"Excuse me, but is this seat taken?" Catherine asked.
Her tone was casual but polite, as it usually was.
"No," I replied. "Go ahead."
"Thank you," she said, already pulling a chair back. "We were hoping to sit together."
"First day nerves," Elizabeth added. "You know how it is."
I nodded. We didn't know each other. Or we weren't supposed to.
For the public, this was the first time I'd met these girls.
They took the seats beside me. Too close. Close enough that I could feel Catherine's sleeve brush my arm when she settled in.
Anyone watching would see three girls chatting up a boy they'd just met. That was no good. I was just an innocent boy, being surrounded and maybe even harassed by these girls.
They were too comfortable around me, and they didn't seem to realize that they shouldn't be - at least not in public.
"So," Juliet asked, folding her hands on the desk and playing her part. "What's your name?"
I cleared my throat. "My name is Caleb. Caleb Lightbane. Yours?"
"Juliet Leo."
"Catherine Lepus."
"Elizabeth Aquila."
There was a painful expression on my face. I almost wanted to rip out my hair.
Those were their chosen last names?
I shut my eyes and tried to hold them closed. There was an absurdity here.
I almost laughed.
"Well, Caleb," Elizabeth said, leaning just a bit closer, half-standing in her chair to get closer to me, lowering her voice like we were already sharing secrets, "Guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other."
I tried to smile back.
"Looks that way."
They exchanged glances. Satisfied ones.
"Isn't this exciting?" Elizabeth said enthusiastically.
"Very," Juliet said and giggled softly.
I stared straight ahead, expression neutral, while internally screaming.
Then-
"Caleb Lightbane?"
I stiffened.
I knew that voice.
I turned.
Io Amoon stood there, hand on her hip.
"Oh," she said, glancing briefly at the three girls beside me.
Then back to me.
"I hope I'm not interrupting."
"No," I said quickly, standing halfway before realizing how awkward that was and sitting back down. "Not at all."
Her gaze flicked again to Catherine. Juliet. Elizabeth.
They all smiled at her.
Io took the empty seat to my right.
Very deliberately.
The space suddenly vanished.
I was now sandwiched between four girls.
At some point, I became acutely aware of my own body in the seat. My shoulders had nowhere to go without brushing someone.
Io, especially. She leaned far into and over me to try and dominate the conversation. And slowly, the other girls did too.
Catherine, who leaned the furthest, said. "We were just getting to know him."
Io smiled. "All of you?"
Juliet tilted her head. "Is that a problem?"
Io's smile sharpened. "I just didn't expect him to be so… popular."
I could feel the tension like static crawling over my skin.
"I wouldn't say popular," I said quickly. "We only just met."
Elizabeth grinned. "So modest."
Io's fingers tightened briefly on the edge of the desk.
I stopped moving entirely after that. Stillness became the safest option. If I didn't shift, didn't react, didn't breathe too deeply, maybe I could pretend it didn't bother me.
"I wanted to speak with Caleb," Io said calmly. "We've known each other for a long time now, and I wanted to catch up."
That was true. I've known Io since I was three, and after the visit from her father to get a meeting with Grandfather Gregorio, they visited us every year at least twice.
But I didn't think that much of it, and my relationship with Io wasn't that deep. Maybe that was just in my eyes, and she saw it very differently.
"Well, we wanted to talk to him about class matters," Juliet said. There was almost a jealousy in her voice.
"Oh? Already?"
Io met their gazes without backing down.
"I don't believe we've been introduced," she said, with some fire in her tone.
Catherine smiled. "Oh, how rude of us."
She gestured down the row. "This is Juliet and Elizabeth, and I am Catherine."
Io inclined her head. "I am Princess Io Amoon of Asolar."
That should have impressed the girls. It would have been understandable if their reaction would have been a bit understated, as Io was a princess of a nation the girls didn't have to be from, especially Juliet and Elizabeth, but their reaction was almost complete neutrality, maybe even coldness.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "Explains the confidence."
Catherine clapped her hands softly. "Well! Looks like we'll all be seeing a lot of each other."
That didn't stop the argument, and they kept on their passive-aggressiveness while I sat between them.
I didn't know my girls could be this petty, but seeing how another girl was vying for my attention, and this was the first time something like that happened while they were present, maybe it was a natural reaction?
But I discarded that when, by the entrance, like someone had stepped into a spotlight, my full attention had been caught.
Shadowboon stood there.
He had just stepped inside, one foot over the threshold. His eyes scanned across the room until they finally landed on me.
Or more specifically, on the situation around me.
Three girls pressed in on my left. A princess pressed firmly against my right. Voices raised just enough to be inappropriate for a lecture hall. More than a few students openly staring now.
He stopped dead.
For half a second, his expression was that of understanding.
For that same half a second, I thought he would do something.
Maybe say something or walk over, or pull me out of this joke, but he didn't.
He raised his hands. He waved them around, playing charades.
It was clear what he wanted to say: what the hell.
I saw it then in his face and in the stiffness of his shoulders. There was something going on with him too. He was stuck and only found this moment to get to me, but I was stuck in it already.
He wasn't choosing not to help me - he simply couldn't.
I grimaced faintly and shook my head slightly.
He winced in sympathy and then gave me a thumbs-up. "Good luck."
Around him, the students nearby had noticed his waving around.
A human boy in the row ahead kept glancing back and forth between Edward and me, clearly trying to piece together what invisible conversation was happening.
Shadowboon lingered at the threshold a heartbeat longer than he should have.
Edward clicked his tongue softly and looked away as if he'd merely been lost, rolling his shoulders back into something casual. He adjusted his jacket, ran a hand through his hair, and then left.