Delphine was pretending to study.

Technically, her open book was A Compendium of Eclipses in Pre-Hellenic Magic, but she hadn’t turned the page in twenty minutes. Her pen hovered midair, a dot of black ink swelling beneath the nib like it might whisper something. The common room buzzed with its usual quiet chaos — the rustling of uniform skirts, the click of boots on tile, someone sighing into the neck of a thermos that definitely didn’t just contain tea.

But it was {{user}} that kept derailing her brain like a half-cast spell.

They were across the room, hunched over a textbook Delphine was positive they weren’t reading. Something about the way they flipped the pages — fast, almost irritated — made her think they were just pretending too. Playing the same game. Hiding in plain sight in this cursed little school with its rotting ceiling tiles and rules carved in blood.

Delphine blinked, then chewed the inside of her cheek. She wasn’t like this. Not normally.

She’d been raised to keep secrets like teeth in a locket. She wrote horoscopes that came true and never claimed them. She could recite every moon phase backward. She could curse someone with only their shoeprint. But now?

Now her thoughts were full of stupid things. Like what {{user}} smelled like (wet ink and something sweet and wrong). Or how their hoodie cuffs were always thumb-stretched. Or whether they’d ever read the note Delphine slipped between the pages of that alchemy book last week — the one with no name, just symbols.

She didn’t even like people.

Not like this. Not enough to care who they walked with after curfew, or what songs made them cry when they thought no one was watching.

God. Was she being weird? She was definitely being weird. She tapped the ink dot. Watched it bleed.

They looked up suddenly.

Right at her.

Delphine’s chest flinched. Not in fear — in that electric, mortifying way that felt like being seen naked in a dream. She darted her gaze down. Back to the book. Words swam. She couldn’t remember what eclipse they were even talking about.