Thornhill Academy. Chapter 119

I slipped out of bed once I realised sleep wasn't coming for me again. The candles on the table have since burned low, the wicks drowning in their own wax. The attic feels smaller at night, as if the shadows have pressed closer, just to listen. My tea had gone cold about an hour ago, but I'm still sitting here with my fingers wrapped around the cup as if I could wring warmth from it by force.

“I’m fine,” I whisper to no one.

“You are not.” The voice slips out of the corner of the room, but I don't startle. I already hear him getting up. Rhaziel steps from the darkness, all quiet grace and impossible stillness, the lamplight painting his horns in soft gold. He doesn't speak again right away, just studies me, head tilted in that way of his—half curious, half afraid to intrude.

“You felt that, huh?” I ask, nodding at the bracelet. “Sorry. Guess I was… broadcasting.”

He moves closer, the floorboards barely creaking under his weight. “I do not mind feeling you,” he said softly. “Only when the colour is sorrow do I become concerned.”

Something in my chest cracks. “It’s nothing, really. Just—thinking too much.”

Rhaziel’s tail sways once behind him, in a restless echo of concern. “What are you thinking of?”

I try to smile, but it comes out crooked. “Everything. Everyone. The fact that somehow I have all of this”—I wave a hand at the tiny room, the bed tangled in sheets, the mugs lined on the shelf, the faint snore from Kael—“and I can’t make myself believe it’s real.”

Rhaziel doesn't move, or push or ask for more than I'm willing to give. I find comfort in the fact that he understands my darkness and what it needs.

“I wasn’t always here,” I begin, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “Before Thornhill, before the festival, before all of you...I was just… running.”

His eyes flicker, the faintest glow catching. He takes a seat beside me, close enough that our knees brush, but not so close that he's crowding. “I don’t remember much of my childhood,” I say. “Not really. Just flashes of the forests, roads and people’s faces. There were good ones, sometimes. Like this woman who traded me bread for mending her coat and this man who let me ride in the back of his wagon until the next town. There were little glimpses of hope every now and then that I'd met someone who would stick around, but mostly it was just me.” The memories crawl up my throat like smoke. “Most nights I slept literally wherever I could. Under trees, behind barns, in old train stations, if I get lucky. I learned to listen for the bad kind of quiet, you know, the kind that means someone’s watching you? When you're constantly in fight or flight mode, you just learn to wake at every sound. You learn that if someone offers help, they usually want something in return.”

Rhaziel sinks slowly to one knee beside my chair so that we're at eye level. He makes me feel like he's hanging off of every single word that I give to him. He doesn’t touch me, but the air shifts around us, his shadows feeling like a gentle coolness brushing against my skin. “There are people out there,” I go on, staring at the candle’s flicker, “who wait until you fall asleep to press a knife to your throat. Others who push you toward danger just to buy themselves a head start. I got good at running. I got good at hiding. But I never got good at stopping.” My voice breaks on the last word.

Rhaziel reaches out then, carefully and cautiously, his hand closing over mine. The contact is cool and grounding.

“You survived,” he says quietly. “That is no small thing.”

“I existed,” I whisper. “There’s a difference.”

He looks down at our joined hands. His claws trace the edge of my knuckles without scratching. “And yet here you are. Existing still. Learning to live.”

I laugh once, a shaky, humourless sound. “It’s hard to believe any of this will last... That you’ll all stay. I’ve spent so long being the person people leave behind that I don’t know what to do when they don’t.”

Rhaziel’s gaze lifts to mine, soft and strange, as if he’s memorising every word and assessing what each word really means to me. “Every creature of the shadows knows loneliness,” he says finally. “But you were never meant to stay there.”

The tears that I usually try to withhold come before I can stop them. Hot and silent. He rises, slow and careful, and when he gathers me into his arms, I melt into his touch. His chest is cool against my cheek; his heartbeat, steady. His tail coils lightly around my ankles, like he wants to hold me close too.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble into him. “I don’t mean to keep falling apart.”

“You are not falling apart,” he murmurs. “You are remembering how to rest.”

Something deep inside me loosens at his words. The constant, invisible tension I’ve been carrying since the day I arrived at Thornhill eases just a little. He rests his chin on the top of my head, and the faint vibration of his purr fills the room, low and soothing. “You run so long that you forget what stillness feels like,” he says. “Rest here, hummingbird. You are safe.”

I believe him. For the first time, maybe ever, I realise that I am safe. That he won't hurt me, he won't leave me alone. We stay like that for a long while, saying nothing, breathing the same quiet air. The candle burns down to its base, the flame flickering blue before dying out completely, and the room sinks into shadow.

His voice is a whisper against my hair. “You fear losing control,” he says, soft as a promise. “Then perhaps it is time you learn what control truly feels like.”