The mask came off on a Friday.
Not metaphorically. Not gradually. Not through a series of incremental adjustments that allowed the academy to acclimatize to a changing Cedric Valdrake. On a single morning, in a single act, in front of three thousand students who'd spent six weeks building their understanding of the Valdrake heir around a performance that was about to become irrelevant.
I woke at 7 AM. Ren was already at his desk — writing, always writing, the pen's rhythm as constant as the academy's Aether-crystal hum. Tea was waiting on the corner of his desk. The tea station. The small Aether-crystal heating element and the supply of Starlight Tea leaves that Ren had acquired and maintained because he'd noticed, sometime during the second week, that his roommate needed warm beverages the way other people needed sleep.
