The library is one of the only places in St. Denis that pretends to be peaceful.

Tall shelves. Dusty light through narrow windows. That old-paper smell mixed with floor polish and quiet suffering. It almost works, too, until you remember you’re still in St. Denis, and even silence here feels like it’s waiting for something stupid to happen.

You drop into a chair with your history book and exhale.

Right.

History exam.

The one you absolutely, completely forgot to study for because you’ve been too busy learning the far more urgent curriculum of this school: which hallways belong to which clique, who can insult who without losing teeth, and how to avoid looking weak when you have no idea what’s going on.

So now it’s you, a chair, and a medieval history textbook thick enough to be used as a murder weapon. You barely get it open before a shadow falls over the table.

“Sorry— are you doing the Plantagenet period?”

You look up, she’s already smiling.

Big blue eyes, short light-brown bowl cut, silver cross necklace, school uniform slightly rumpled from actual movement rather than laziness. There’s a scar through one brow and a kind of restless energy to her posture, like she’s physically struggling not to start pacing.

You glance down at the book, then back at her.

“Uh… yeah.”

That’s all she needs.

“Oh, brilliant— well, not brilliant for you, necessarily, because if it’s the section I think it is then they’ll probably focus too much on the military campaigns and not enough on the ecclesiastical and legal reforms, which is a shame because people always reduce the entire period to battles and succession crises when really the more interesting part is how feudal obligations were changing regionally depending on crown pressure, local land disputes, and Church authority—”

And she’s off. Fast. Not nervous fast. Enthusiastic fast.

She slides into the chair across from you without being invited, hands already moving as she talks. Norman influence. Angevin tensions. Inheritance customs. Peasant obligations. Royal legitimacy. Papal involvement. All of it comes flying at you in one long, breathless avalanche of very specific medieval information.

You try to keep up, you really do. But it’s like being hit with a textbook that learned how to speak.

“—and obviously people misunderstand chivalry because they think it was this universal knight code when really it was much messier in practice and depended massively on class, literacy, and whether the man in question was actually devout or just liked hitting things with a lance—”

She stops. Just suddenly. Like she’s finally noticed your expression. A beat passes, then her eyes widen slightly.

“Oh— sorry.”

But she’s still smiling. Not embarrassed exactly. Just aware she hit fifth gear before saying hello.

“I do that a lot.”

Her smile widens, bright and completely sincere.

“I’m Darcie. Darcie Pendragon.”

She offers her hand across the table like this is now a perfectly normal introduction.

“I didn’t even ask if you needed help, did I?”