Chapter 4
HARPER
Ileft the Vespera corridors the moment Sebastian vanished into the shadows, my steps brisker than I wished to admit, the lingering warmth of his breath still ghosting beneath my ear like a phantom touch.
Even after I’d placed one turn, then another, between myself and the place where we stood, unease laced through my ribs as though I had swallowed something sharp.
The wing felt unnervingly alive behind me, watching, waiting. ..remembering.
So when I finally round the corner toward the dining hall’s far exit, relief floods me at the sight of Liam leaning against a pillar, balancing two plates in his hands as he scans the crowd flowing from the hall. His expression brightens the instant he sees me.
“There you are,” he says, pushing himself upright with an eager half-step. “I brought you food. Nearly got my hand slapped by one of the matrons for it, too. You can thank me with undying loyalty.”
“I will extend you gratitude,” I reply, though my voice is thin, my nerves still unsteady. “Loyalty is a bit extreme.”
“Well,” he says with a shrug, nudging one of the plates into my hands, “extremes make life interesting.” His grin fades for the briefest moment as he searches my face. “Are you all right? You look… pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just tired.”
He doesn’t believe me, not entirely, but he lets it pass. Liam has always been excellent at granting me the dignity of my discomforts without demanding explanations I am not ready to give.
“Come on,” he says, hooking his arm through mine with a brotherly tug. “Since I brought your supper, I declare payment due. We are going to my quarters first. I want to see everything.”
“I hardly think my presence is required for you to marvel at furniture,” I say, though the protest lacks conviction as he pulls me along the corridor.
“You underestimate my need to have an audience,” he retorts with a smirk. “Also, there’s carpet in there thicker than anything in our old house. Carpet. You could sleep on it.”
He is exaggerating, surely. Yet Liam remains practically buoyant, thrilled by everything the academy offers, recounting details from the dining hall, describing the endless assortment of dishes, offering bits of gossip he overheard from other Vespera students.
His exuberance should be comforting, should steady the strange churn in my chest, but the echo of Sebastian’s voice keeps slipping beneath my thoughts, like a whisper beneath the surface of water.
Girls with eyes like yours…
I force the memory back as we enter the Vespera wing again.
Liam is right about the carpets, they are thick and dark, embroidered with deep crimson threading that shimmers faintly beneath the lantern light.
His quarters are not far from mine; the corridor curves around the perimeter of the wing, and each chamber door bears the Vespera crest carved in polished blackwood.
“Look!” he announces, swinging open the door with far more flair than necessary. “A bed big enough to drown in, a desk carved with real vinework, and, Harper, there’s a fireplace. A fireplace.”
I attempt a smile for him, though my nerves coil tighter with each step inside. Something about the wing feels different now that I return to it, not quite sinister, but aware, as if the air itself remembers the conversation whispered in its halls.
Liam, oblivious to my tension, walks from corner to corner with delighted commentary. “And the window, have you seen the view? You can see the entire eastern quad from here. And, Harper, wait, come look at this wardrobe.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely,” I say softly, setting my untouched plate on his desk as the room presses in with too much warmth, too much expectation, too many shadows that remind me of the one Sebastian had leaned against.
He glances back at me, brows pulling together. “You’re certain you’re well?”
I nod, again, falsely, and he gives me another moment of his steady, searching gaze before letting the matter drop. Liam has a talent for knowing when a question’s answer will not soothe.
“Fine,” he decides. “If you’re not going to admire my unnecessarily extravagant furniture, then we’re going to the common area. You can owe me your awe there instead.”
He loops his arm through mine once more and pulls me back into the corridor, his excitement filling the space with something bright.
I cling to it, silently grateful for its simplicity.
As we walk, lantern light flickers across the painted portraits lining the walls, their distant ancestors watching every movement, every breath.
The Vespera common area lies at the heart of the wing, accessible through an archway framed by carved stone serpents.
The moment we step inside, the room opens into a wide chamber warmed by a grand fireplace whose flames flicker with crimson enchantment.
Velvet sofas and high-backed chairs are arranged in small conversational clusters.
Tapestries stretch along the walls, depicting scenes of ancient battles and magical rites performed by Vespera’s founders.
It is beautiful. And imposing. And, in a way I cannot shake, expectant.
Liam spins slowly on his heel, taking in the chamber with wide-eyed awe. “All right,” he declares with a grin, “I think I could live here. Forever.”
His voice seems to echo faintly beneath the vaulted ceiling, soft but sure.
I try to match his enthusiasm, but the quiet unease from earlier slips around my throat once more, cool and persistent. No one else is present, most are still lingering over their suppers, but the room feels anything but empty.
It feels watched. Held. Not by a person, perhaps, but by the house itself.
Before Liam can launch into another breathless catalog of everything he intends to explore in the common chamber, a quiet voice drifts from the far side of the room, uncertain, soft, and laced with the faintest tremble.
“Are you one of the new students?”
Both Liam and I turn.
A blonde boy stands several paces away, his wand lifted slightly before him.
The tip emits a steady sphere of white light that illuminates the space around him in a soft halo.
His eyes are unfocused, their pale blue irises wavering from side to side as though searching the room without truly locking onto anything.
He steps forward with careful, practiced movements, and it takes me only a moment to understand that he isn’t merely scanning the room, he is trying to find us through sound, not sight.
His face is strikingly pretty in its delicacy, almost ethereal, but it is the distant quality in his expression that tugs at my memory. Something about him seems strangely familiar, though I am certain we have never met.
“Yes, actually,” Liam says, recovering first. He moves forward with the radiant politeness he reserves for new acquaintances. “My name is Liam, and this is my sister, Harper.”
The boy smiles faintly, but his gaze does not meet ours. Instead, his attention hovers somewhere just past Liam’s shoulder, guided more by sound than sight.
“You’re the new siblings Sebastian was talking about,” he says, voice gentle and unassuming.
The statement is so unexpected, so wildly inconsistent with the Sebastian I encountered earlier, that a small, startled laugh escapes me before I can contain it. Liam shoots me a sidelong look, puzzled by my reaction.
The blonde boy’s eyebrows lift in alarm. “I-I apologize. Did I say something amiss?”
His tone is so sincerely uncertain, so earnest in its confusion, that I instantly regret letting that sound slip from me.
“No,” I say quickly, softening my voice with what warmth I can gather. “Not at all. It’s simply that… Sebastian’s only interaction with me thus far was less than pleasant. I’m surprised he had anything to say about us at all.”
The boy tilts his head as though processing my words not with his eyes, but with his ears, weighing them carefully before replying. The light from his wand shifts across his features, revealing faint freckles and a worry-crease between his brows that deepens when he’s confused.
“I see,” he murmurs quietly, though the way his gaze falters suggests he is imagining the encounter rather than recalling anything Sebastian might have told him. “Sebastian… well, he can be brusque. Difficult, I suppose. But he rarely speaks about people he doesn’t find noteworthy.”
Liam’s brows jump. I feel a flush crawl up my throat, annoyance, confusion, and something unnervingly warm all tangled together.
“Noteworthy,” I repeat under my breath, uncertain whether to scoff or shiver.
The boy hums a soft, thoughtful sound, one that suggests he meant his words kindly. Then, shifting his grip on his wand, he steps closer to us with a cautious grace, moving in the direction of the faint sound my robe makes as it brushes the floor.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” he says. “I only heard voices and wondered if it was the new arrivals everyone has been whispering about.”
His expression is apologetic. His posture tentative. Yet his presence feels strangely grounding after the intensity of Sebastian’s earlier attention, gentle where Sebastian was sharp, cautious where Sebastian was bold.
“For the record,” a voice cuts through the dim common room like a blade sheathed in velvet, “I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be speaking to you either, Whitlock.”
The words, arrogant and unbothered, strike with such precision that a cold prickle climbs the length of my spine. I turn, and there he is.
Sebastian stands just inside the archway, framed by the flickering crimson light of the lanterns, his posture effortless in its quiet authority.
The black Vespera robe he wore earlier has been replaced by the academy’s formal uniform: pressed charcoal jacket, crisp white shirt, and a red tie knotted neatly at his throat, the color burning bright against his collar like a brand of his house.
The absence of the robe reveals the sharp lines of his shoulders, the lithe strength in his frame.