KATT'S POV ( First class)
By the end of the class, I barely remembered a single thing Harrow said. My notebook was a mess of scribbles—Adrian's words tangled with half-legible doodles.
And yet, when Caspian caught my eye as we packed up, the strangest thought passed through me again,
Why haven't I met him sooner?
The thought lingered, unwanted but warm.
I shook it off. Told myself it was nothing.
But deep down, some part of me knew better.
(continued – Hallway Transition)
KATT'S POV
The second Harrow dismissed us, the room exploded with the sound of scraping chairs and zipped backpacks. Students rushed out like they had somewhere better to be.
I lingered. Caspian did too.
We ended up side by side in the hallway without planning it, our strides syncing naturally, like we'd done this a hundred times before.
"So," he said, glancing at me from the corner of his eye, "how many notes did you actually take?"
I snorted, holding up my notebook like evidence. "Depends. Does a page full of doodles and one word—Adrian—count?"
The second I said it, my stomach dropped. Why did I say his name out loud?
Caspian's brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't press. Instead, he lifted his own notebook. "Mine's worse. I think I accidentally drew a sword. Don't ask me why."
I laughed, grateful for the diversion. "Wow. Very historical of you. Harrow would be proud."
We wove through the tide of students, still teasing, still talking, until the crowd thinned and the hallway stretched long and quiet.
That was when the silence crept in—the kind that isn't uncomfortable, just heavy.
"You always up before dawn?" he asked softly.
I shook my head. "No. Last night was… different. Couldn't sleep. Too many thoughts."
"Same," he admitted. Then, after a pause, "But maybe it wasn't all bad. Led me to the gym at the right time."
Something fluttered in my chest. I brushed it off with a smirk. "Careful, Caspian. That almost sounded like a compliment."
"Almost?" His smirk mirrored mine.
For a second, I forgot about Adrian. About the tapes. About the way my skin prickled when I pressed play. For a second, all I saw was Caspian—tired eyes, lopsided grin, and a presence that felt strangely… grounding.
CASPIAN'S POV
Her laughter cut through me like sunlight through fog. Too bright. Too warm. Too dangerous.
Walking beside her felt easy, natural—like I'd been doing it forever. That alone should have been a warning. Nothing in my life was ever easy.
When she mentioned sleepless nights, my chest tightened. If she only knew the things that kept me awake. The reports. The lies. The weight of watching her while pretending not to.
I wanted to tell her the truth. That I wasn't just some restless student. That every step I took here was monitored. That my mission was her.
But then she looked at me—eyes alive, smile playful—and I swallowed the words. My mission came first. Always. And yet…
I wanted more of this. More of her.
"Guess we'll be stuck together a lot," I said, flicking my schedule in the air. "Same classes all day."
She groaned dramatically. "Oh no. How will I survive?"
I chuckled, but the sound was hollow inside me. Because I knew survival was exactly what this would come down to. Hers. Mine. Both.
KATT'S POV
We reached the stairwell, sunlight spilling in through the high windows, gilding the dust in the air. For a heartbeat, I wished time would stop—that the moment could stretch, that the rest of the day could wait.
But the bell rang, sharp and cruel.
Caspian stepped back, letting me pass first. His gaze lingered just long enough to make me wonder if he felt it too—that strange, magnetic pull neither of us wanted to admit.
As I walked ahead, clutching my books tighter than necessary, a thought flickered through me like static:
Adrian's voice pulls me backward. Caspian pulls me forward. Which one am I supposed to follow?
CASPIAN'S POV
I watched her go, her hair catching the light like fire.
Nightshade's orders whispered at the back of my mind: Observe. Report. Do not get attached.
And yet my notebook from last night was already stained with hesitation. Already bent by her laughter, already compromised by the way she made me forget the shadows.
She's the mission. Nothing more.
But my chest betrayed me. My thoughts betrayed me.
And the longer I walked beside her, the harder it became to tell myself that lie.
(continued – Literature Class)
KATT'S POV
By the time I slid into my seat in Literature, my pulse had calmed—but not by much. The morning had been a blur, my thoughts tugged in two different directions: Adrian's cryptic words on the tapes, and Caspian's unnervingly steady presence beside me.
Professor Anselm swept into the room like a shadow in a cape—long coat trailing, voice theatrical, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. "Class," he announced, "we begin our unit on Romanticism and Gothic traditions. Expect to wrestle with darkness, desire, and ruin."
The word ruin jolted me. Adrian's dream-voice echoed in my head: You'll find me in the ruins.
I gripped my pen too tightly.
Professor Anselm dropped a stack of slim books on his desk. "We'll start with Byron and Keats—two poets who lived fast and died young, leaving behind words steeped in longing and shadows. You'll work in pairs to analyze themes of obsession and forbidden love."
Pairs. My stomach dipped.
Of course. When the shuffle ended, Caspian sat across from me, leaning back in his chair like he'd expected it all along.
"This should be interesting," he murmured, eyes flicking to the text as if he hadn't just tossed a grenade into my already fragile composure.
I cleared my throat. "By interesting, you mean miserable?"
"Depends," he said, lips curving. "Do you always fight with your partners?"
"Only when they deserve it."
His chuckle was soft, but it pulled something inside me loose.
We bent over the book together, our shoulders almost brushing. Byron's words spilled across the page—lines about beauty entwined with death, about hunger that could never be satisfied.
My pulse stumbled. It sounded too much like Adrian's whisper.
Caspian glanced up at me. "What do you think it means? This idea of loving someone so much it becomes ruin?"
I swallowed. "It means… it means the person you love stops being a person. They become everything. And that's dangerous. Because no one can be everything."
His eyes stayed on me too long, searching. "Dangerous," he repeated softly.
The word vibrated between us, heavier than it should've been.
CASPIAN'S POV
She didn't even realize how much truth she spoke. Her words struck deeper than the text in front of us, deeper than she could know.
Dangerous.
Yes. That was her. That was this.
Nightshade's files described Katherine Swartzchild as unstable, volatile, a potential threat. But sitting across from her, I didn't see a threat. I saw a girl who chewed on her pen when she thought too hard, who argued with Byron like the dead poet might argue back, who carried shadows in her eyes but laughed like she was still searching for light.
And I hated that I saw her that way. Because it was weakness. It was compromise. It was the one thing my mission couldn't allow.
She leaned closer, pointing at a stanza. "See here? The hunger isn't just romantic—it's… consuming. Like it eats away at everything else. Do you think that's what Byron meant?"
Her voice dipped on the word hunger. My chest tightened.
"Maybe," I said carefully. "Or maybe it wasn't about love at all. Maybe it was about obsession. Survival."
Her brow furrowed. "You say that like you know the difference."
"Maybe I do."
She studied me then, long enough to make me look away first.
For the rest of class, our conversation danced between banter and quiet intensity, as if neither of us wanted to admit how much the words on the page echoed something we couldn't name.
KATT'S POV
When the bell rang, I felt oddly breathless, like we'd been running instead of just talking.
We packed our books slowly, neither of us rushing to leave.
As we walked into the hallway, I caught myself smiling—really smiling—for the second time today. And for the second time, the guilt came just as fast.
Because Adrian's voice still clung to me. The tapes still waited in my dorm. His words felt like chains, pulling me into a story I hadn't chosen.
So why did Caspian feel like freedom?
CASPIAN'S POV
I should've reported her word-for-word answers back to Nightshade. I should've catalogued her reactions, her intensity, the way she fixated on hunger and ruin like they belonged to her.
Instead, I walked beside her in silence, every step heavier than the last, my notebook full of blanks where her name should've been.
She's the mission, I reminded myself again. Nothing more.
But when she glanced at me with that small, curious smile, I already knew the lie was breaking.
( Continued - Physics Class)
KATT'S POV
Physics was supposed to be grounding. Numbers. Laws. Equations that didn't bend no matter how much you wanted them to. Unlike Literature, there was no room for longing or ruin here—just formulas.
But even as Professor Duvall scrawled Newton's laws across the board in thick chalk lines, my brain refused to cooperate. Every word looked like a metaphor I couldn't ignore.
For every action, an equal and opposite reaction.
Adrian's voice flickered in my head: Remember what was taken.
The hunger. The ruins. The oath.
Wasn't that the law of my life right now? That every choice I made would echo in ways I didn't understand yet? That opening the box, pressing play, would trigger something pressing back?
I tried to focus. Really, I did. But then my pen scratched down this instead of notes:
Energy never disappears. It changes form.
And suddenly, all I could think about was Adrian. If memory was energy, could it really vanish? Or did it just change shape, hiding in dreams, tapes, shadows?
Beside me, Caspian was calm. Too calm. He jotted down equations with neat precision, his jaw set, his focus absolute. Like the rules of the universe actually made sense to him.
I envied that.
And hated it a little.
I let my gaze linger on him too long. His pen slowed, as if he felt it. Our eyes met, just for a heartbeat. And in that heartbeat, the equations didn't matter anymore.
CASPIAN'S POV
I was writing numbers, but none of them stayed on the page. My mind was back in Nightshade's briefing room, replaying Commander Riven's voice:
Observe. Document. Report. Do not engage emotionally. Do not compromise the mission.
Simple. Or it should've been.
But the truth? Last night, when I should've filed my first report on Katherine Swartzchild, I hesitated. I'd written the framework—her patterns, her routines, her obsession with the library's west wing—but when it came to her voice, her laughter, the way she looked at me like I wasn't a stranger but someone she might want to know… I stopped.
And for the first time, I lied.
Not outright. Just omission. Just silence.
But silence in Nightshade's world was a sin.
Now, sitting next to her in Physics, the weight of it pressed down. She scribbled something in the margin of her notebook—not equations, but words. Her brows furrowed, lips pursed, like she was chasing something invisible.
I wanted to ask what it was. I wanted to know what haunted her so much she couldn't see the board in front of her.
But wanting wasn't part of the mission.
Instead, I forced myself back into formulas, pen scratching against the page until the bell finally rang.
KATT'S POV
The scrape of chairs and shuffle of books was almost a relief. I slammed my notebook shut, too aware of the words I'd written.
As we gathered our things, Caspian glanced at me, his expression unreadable. But something in the weight of that glance made my chest tighten.
Why hadn't I noticed him before? Why did it feel like he'd been walking the same halls, breathing the same air, and yet we'd only just collided?
And why did I want to know what secrets he wasn't saying?
I shook my head, trying to scatter the thoughts. But they clung like static.
Because even with Adrian's voice still threading through my mind, pulling me backward… Caspian felt like forward.
And I didn't know which direction was more dangerous.