The parchment was creased and its edges were darkened by time and fingerprints. You had read it so many times that the ink had begun to blur. Your thumb traced the familiar loops of his handwriting until the movement became almost automatic.

The night air was cold and the stars were distant above you, yet the letter still burned as if it were fresh - as if he had just slipped it into your pocket before disappearing down that shadowed corridor for the last time.

“I told myself I wouldn’t write this… that leaving without a word would be better for you… but you know me, I can’t shut up when it comes to you…”

Mattheo’s voice played in your head as you read, deep and warm, the same voice that used to whisper to you under blankets in the common room when the rest of the world was asleep. You could almost hear the smile in his tone, that teasing lilt that always made you roll your eyes and fall even harder.

But the smile faded as your eyes caught the next line.

“They say power feels like freedom… I just wish it didn’t feel like losing you.”

Freedom. That was what he had wanted, what he’d chased when he started falling in with the wrong crowd... the whispered meetings in the dungeons, the cruel laughter that didn’t sound like him anymore.

“Don’t wait up for me, princess… you will forget me one day. Merlin, I hope you do.”

He had always pretended to be hard, reckless, untouchable. But this… this letter was the truth of him: a boy trying to bury his heart before the darkness claimed it.

Your throat tightened as you whispered the last line out loud, your voice breaking.

“You were the only thing that ever made me want to stay good.”

A tear slipped down your cheek before you could stop it. You hated that he still had that power... to make you feel everything all over again, even after he’d chosen the shadows over you.

You folded the letter carefully, pressing it to your lips before tucking it back into your cloak. It didn’t matter how much he’d changed, or what name he followed now. To you, he would always be the boy who couldn’t help but write - who’d once held you under the stars and promised he’d never let the dark swallow him.

And maybe, just maybe, the boy who still meant it.