Thorn stood outside Xavier's dorm, breath uneven for reasons that had nothing to do with weakness anymore.
Her pulse felt too full. Too loud. Like something inside her had finally been permitted to wake up.
She lifted her hand, and for a split second, the corridor lights dimmed.
Her shadow stretched across the dark wood of his door, and then it moved, but not with her.
It twitched, sharp and curious, like it had noticed something on the other side.
Thorn froze.
The air shifted, subtle but wrong. The shadow along the frame of the doorway thickened, bleeding into the cracks in the wood as if it were testing them.
"What the fuck?" she whispered.
She pulled her hand back quickly.
The shadow snapped back into place. Obedient, flat, and harmless.
But her heart didn't slow.
She stared at the door as if it had betrayed her.
Her shadows weren't supposed to do that, at least not without her reaching for it.
Not without permission.
"Get a grip," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to whatever part of her was stretching its fingers in the dark.
She flexed her hand deliberately this time, watching to make sure the shadow stayed still.
Thorn shook her head once, dismissing it like a bad thought, and knocked softer than she meant to. The sound barely carried.
A pause.
Then she knocked again, firmer this time.
Inside, Xavier was bent over his desk, charcoal smeared across his fingers, a half-finished rune scrawled across parchment that had already been crossed out twice. His thoughts were loud tonight; they always were, but the knock cut through them anyway.
He froze for a moment, unsure if there had actually been a knock or if he was hallucinating from lack of sleep.
Then he heard it again.
Xavier stood, slower than usual, as if sudden movement might undo something fragile. He crossed the room in a few long strides and pulled the door open.
"Thorn," he said, surprise softening his voice before he could stop it. "You're—"
"Vertical," she said, stepping past him without waiting to be invited. "And breathing."
He blinked once, then moved aside automatically, the door clicking shut behind her a moment later.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
She looked different. Color back in her face. Light in her eyes. Her shoulders weren't pulled tight like they'd been bracing for impact. The air around her felt steadier and less jagged.
Xavier swallowed.
"…You look better," he said, careful, like the words might spook her if he said them wrong.
Thorn glanced over her shoulder, eyebrow arching. "Better as in 'not actively haunting the infirmary,' or better as in 'still deeply irritating'?"
A corner of his mouth twitched before he could stop it. "Both can be true."
She snorted softly and wandered farther into the room, eyes flicking to the scattered notes, the runes half-erased and rewritten. "Wow," she said. "You've really leaned into the whole 'sleep is optional' aesthetic."
"Someone has to," he replied. Then, quieter, more honest than he meant to be, "I'm glad you're here."
The words hung between them, and Thorn stilled for just a fraction of a second.
Then she turned back to him, expression sharp but warm in that way she only ever seemed to use on him. "Yeah," she said. "I figured you might like confirmation that I didn't spontaneously combust."
He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. "I was hoping for that outcome."
"Low bar," she teased. "But I'll take it."
Another pause. Softer this time.
"You shouldn't have done it," she added, quieter now, eyes flicking briefly to his charcoal-stained hands.
"I know," he said immediately.
She studied him, then sighed, like she'd expected that answer and hated that she did. "Good," she said. "Because I didn't come here to yell at you."
His shoulders eased, just a little.
"Then why'd you come?" he asked.
Her gaze met his, steady, unreadable, and threaded with something unspoken.
"To say thanks. In my own deeply unpleasant way."
He smiled then. Not wide, but just enough to show her he appreciated it.
"I'll take unpleasant," he said. "It's familiar."
She rolled her eyes, but there was fondness in it. "Don't get used to it, Thorpe."
"I wouldn't dare."
They stood there, close but not touching, the space between them charged with everything they weren't saying.
Thorn's gaze drifted once more, caught on something half-hidden beneath scattered sketches and loose charcoal sticks.
A raven mask.
Black lacquered wood. Sharp beak. Hand-carved grooves traced along the edges. It was too organic to be decorative.
She reached for it, then stopped herself just short.
"That's your mask from the dance," Thorn said quietly.
Xavier followed her gaze and groaned under his breath. "Oh. That."
"It feels old," she murmured, more to the air than to him.
His eyes stayed on the mask as he exhaled slowly. "Yeah. It is."
He hesitated, then added, "I used it back at Nevermore."
"The Nightshades?" she asked, already knowing.
He nodded. "Each member gets one. Tradition." His mouth twitched faintly. "We all wore the same mask. Same shape. Same weight."
Thorn hummed softly. "Oh." She tilted her head, studying it again. "I thought it was a raven because you're a raven."
Xavier blinked once, then turned to her, curiosity cutting through his usual reserve.
"You know I'm a Raven?"
She nodded. "Your visions have teeth. They don't just show you things, they take something from you when they come." Her gaze flicked briefly to his hands. "That kind of curse usually belongs to Ravens."
He scoffed quietly, shaking his head. He shouldn't have been surprised. Thorn had always noticed more than she let on.
"What about you?" he asked. "What kind of psychic are you? Dove or Raven?"
Her smile was small. Almost fond. "My mom's a Raven."
Something in his shoulders eased, like the answer settled a question he hadn't realized he'd been carrying.
"But I'm a Heron."
Xavier blinked. Then blinked again. "A… what?"
She finally looked up at him, head tilted slightly. "There are more types than just Doves and Ravens, you know. And you can be more than just one."
"There are?"
She crossed her arms, a hint of dry amusement in her eyes. "What? Did Nevermore not bother teaching you?"
"No," he said quickly. Then, quieter, "They didn't." He hesitated before he looked down at her. "Or maybe they did, and I just wasn't paying attention."
"What's a Heron?" he continued.
She studied him for a moment, measuring. Not mistrust, but careful consideration.
"Herons are... anchor-bound," she said at last. "We don't just see people. We see places where they remember what's been done to them. Rituals. Deaths. Things that never fully leave."
Xavier's expression shifted, interest sharpening into something more careful. More aware.
"That's why certain locations react to me," she went on. "The Chapel. The Lake. Big, old rooms that still think they matter."
He swallowed. "What other types are there?"
"There are Owls, the oneiric seers. Magpies, the memory thieves. Crows, the death-adjacent seers. And then Hawks, the long view precogs."
Xavier nodded slowly, taking in this new information. He had thought Nevermore would have taught him about all these other types of psychics. He couldn't help wondering, suddenly, what his parents had been.
His mother, especially.
"You said you can be more than one," he said after a moment.
Thorn nodded. "It's rare to be only one type. I mean—" her gaze flicked back to him, deliberate, "—you're not."
He huffed out a soft, incredulous laugh. "Yeah. Apparently, I'm also a Da Vinci. Because I can make my drawings move." His fingers flexed unconsciously, charcoal dust smearing deeper into the lines of his skin. "I've heard that before. Just… not in a really long time."
His voice trailed off.
The memory came uninvited. His mother sitting at the small kitchen table back home, sleeves rolled up, graphite smudged along her own fingers as she watched his sketchbook with reverent focus. The way she'd smiled, not proud, but certain.
It's not about control, she'd told him. It's about listening. The art knows how to translate you.
After she died, that chapter of his life stayed closed.
Not consciously at first. He'd told himself he was just tired. Busy. That grief had made everything fuzzy. But weeks turned into months, and months into years, and he never pushed. Never asked what else his power could do.
Because learning it without her felt like betrayal.
Or worse, like admitting she was really gone.
After that, Xavier had stuck to what Nevermore wanted from him. Safe visions. Predictable outcomes. Warnings instead of understanding. He let the school box his power into something manageable and stopped digging for the rest.
Until now.
Until runes began reacting to his touch, until Thorn started playing music that bent anchors and the world itself seemed to look at him and say, Now.
Her eyes dropped to the sketches scattered across the desk. Half-formed runes, layered charcoal lines, shapes that weren't quite symbols yet but wanted to be.
"Your visions don't just come to you," Thorn said quietly. "They come through you."
He looked up.
"And your art," she continued, tapping one of the pages lightly, "is just the door your instincts choose to speak through."
Something loosened in his chest at that.
Not relief. Recognition.
He didn't argue. Couldn't. His art had always known things before he did, had moved ahead of his thoughts, reached for answers he wasn't ready to name. Even now, with the anchors destabilizing and the runes resisting, his hands understood patterns his mind was still catching up to.
"I stopped trying to learn," he admitted, the words rough in his throat. "After my mom died. I figured… if I didn't push it, I couldn't mess it up."
Thorn didn't interrupt. She never did when it mattered.
"And now," he added quietly, glancing back at the runes, "I don't really have a choice anymore."
"No," she said softly. "You don't."
But there was no judgment in it. No pressure.
Just truth.
"But," Thorn continued, her voice lowering, something careful threading through it now, "you're not doing it alone."
Xavier swallowed and nodded once, like he needed the motion to anchor himself.
The room settled around them.
"Then…" He hesitated, glancing back at her. "What's your mix?"
Thorn stiffened, not much, just enough for him to notice. Her fingers curled loosely at her side, knuckles whitening for half a second before she let the tension go.
Normally, she would've deflected and made a joke, but after what he'd just given her, she couldn't.
"I'm a Raven–Heron," Thorn said at last. "With a latent Magpie bleed."
Silence fell between them.
"You're saying a lot I don't understand," Xavier said.
She winced a little. "It means sometimes memories stick to me when they shouldn't. I don't steal them. They just... I don't know... linger. Like someone needed to remember them."
His gaze sharpened, but there was no fear in it, only understanding, slow and dawning.
"That sounds... heavy."
She shrugged. "Sometimes,"
His eyes flicked back to the raven mask on the desk, then to her.
"Guess Nevermore really didn't tell us everything," he said quietly.
Thorn smiled again. This time with something sharper beneath it. "Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't. I'm sure there were different types of psychics in your... potato people club."
Xavier stared at her for a moment.
"…My what?"
"Your potato people club," she repeated patiently, like this should've been obvious. "The Nightshades."
"That..." He frowned. "That doesn't—"
"Potatoes are nightshades," Thorn said calmly. "Tomatoes. Peppers. Eggplants, too."
He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it immediately. "That can't be right."
"It absolutely is," Thorn said with a small smile.
"But Belladonna—"
"Is the most dramatic," she agreed. "But not the most popular."
She leaned back against the wall, eyes bright now, wickedly amused.
"You can eat potatoes every day if you want to," she continued. "But you can only eat Belladonna once."
There was a beat.
Then Xavier laughed, shaking his head.
"What? Is this just common knowledge to you?"
Thorn couldn't help the soft chuckle that escaped past her lips. "Come on, you've seen my dorm. I like plants. This feels very on-brand for me."
Xavier pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth and just watched her for a moment like he was recalibrating something internal before he nodded,
"Okay... yeah. That's fair."
"I know," she said, smug but not unkind.
He rolled his eyes, smiling despite himself. "You're impossible."
"And yet," she said softly, "here you are."
The moment stretched for a beat. The air between them wasn't awkward or heavy like they had come to expect.
Xavier hesitated, then reached for the mask. His fingers ran along the detailed grooves of the carved wood.
"Do you want to try it on?" he asked.
Thorn's brows shot up. "Absolutely not."
"Why not?" he asked, brows raised.
"Because it's yours."
"That's not a reason."
"It is to me."
He studied her for a moment, something thoughtful shifting behind his eyes.
"Then don't try it," he said lightly. He shrugged and pretended to place his attention back on the runes splayed against the desk.
She relaxed, just a fraction.
But then it was too late.
Before she could react, he stepped closer and gently lifted the mask toward her face.
"Xavier!"
"Just for a second," he said. "I promise."
She should've moved, but she didn't.
The mask settled over her features, cool and unfamiliar. The world narrowed through carved slits. Her breath hitched slightly. Not from fear, but from the way his hands lingered, careful and reverent as if he were afraid of doing it wrong. He carefully adjusted the strap that rested against the back of her head so it wouldn't get caught in her hair. A lesson he's had to learn on his own.
There was something intimate about it.
Too intimate.
He stepped back, eyes dark and unreadable.
"Well," he murmured. "That's unfair."
Thorn reached up, fingers brushing the edge of the mask. "What?"
"It actually looks good on you."
Her chest tightened dangerously before she pulled it off. Thorn handed it back before the moment could tip into something neither of them was ready to name.
"You're not allowed to say things like that," she said lightly.
He accepted the mask, their fingers brushing again.
"Uh, yeah. Duly noted."
She exhaled, then straightened.
"Anyway," she said. "I came to say thank you."
He blinked. "For the—"
"For everything," she corrected. "The blood. The planning. The not-going-to-Maren-yet. The… showing up."
His jaw tightened, emotion flickering dangerously close to the surface.
"You don't owe me thanks," he said quietly.
"I know," Thorn replied. "That's why I'm doing it."
Silence settled again before she turned towards the door.
"I should go," she said. "Before this turns into... a thing."
He smiled faintly. "It's a little too late for that."
She paused, glanced back over her shoulder. Her eyes lingered a little too long on Xavier sitting at his desk, the moonlight somehow making the green in his eyes pop even more.
"Goodnight, Thorpe."
"Goodnight, Rosales."
The door clicked shut behind her.
Xavier stood there for a long moment, staring at the space she'd left behind. He sighed deeply, hands running through his hair as he looked out the window.
"Shiiiit,"
Malrick's voice drifted in from the other side of the room.
"You gonna tell me why the hottest, most terrifying girl on campus just left our room in the middle of the night?"
Xavier groaned. "Go back to sleep, Mal."
"No," Malrick said cheerfully. "I feel like this is important."
Xavier stood up from the chair and crossed the room to his bed. He sat down heavily, hands falling into his lap.
"It's not important."
"I don't know, man, I wasn't tryin' to eavesdrop, but that conversation sounded pretty intense... and important. So go on, do you have a thing for creepy girls who can eat your soul?"
"She's not creepy."
Malrick snorted. "See? That's how you know you're screwed. The predator with the biggest teeth isn't scary to you."
Xavier rolled his eyes, "Dude, she's not a predator. She's a regular girl."
"Who pulls shadows out from the walls! Dark things literally react to her, and she was in here smiling at you. Do you not know how big that is? You guys have the whole school wondering what's happening between you two."
Xavier huffed, "Nothing is happening between us; we're just friends."
"Thorn Rosales doesn't do friends." Malrick smirked, "You totally have some of the dudes jealous. Especially Marcellus."
"What?"
"Marcellus has had the biggest crush on Thorn since freshman year."
Xavier shook his head as he could physically dislodge the thought.
"What? There's no way that's true."
Malrick scoffed. "Oh, it's true. Painfully true."
"You're messing with me."
"I wish," Malrick said, stretching his arms behind his head. "He used to sit three rows back in every class Thorn was in. Never talked to her. Never even waved. Just… watched. Like a sad little gargoyle."
Xavier grimaced. "That's weird."
"Yeah," Malrick agreed. "Welcome to the Thorn Rosales Fan Club. Population: too many, meetings held exclusively in silence and yearning."
Xavier rubbed his face with both hands. "She doesn't even... she barely talks to anyone."
"Exactly," Malrick said, pointing at him. "That's the problem."
Xavier glanced up. "What problem?"
Malrick sat forward now, expression sharpening just a notch. "She talks to you. Walks with you. Trusts you. Let's you see her when she's not invincible."
"That doesn't mean—"
"It means everything," Malrick cut in. "At this school? That's basically a public declaration."
Xavier laughed once, short and disbelieving. "You're dramatic."
"Am I?" Malrick raised an eyebrow. "Because I'm not the one who just had her in my room at two in the morning, wearing my mask."
Xavier opened his mouth and then closed it, unsure how to combat what was just said.
"…That wasn't—"
"She left smiling, dude," Malrick added lightly. "Do you know how rare that is?"
Xavier stared down at the floor.
"She's just—" He exhaled. "She's been through a lot."
Malrick softened, just a little. "Yeah. And she picked you to be near while she's going through it."
Silence stretched.
Xavier leaned back on his hands, staring at the ceiling now. The image of Thorn standing there—mask in her hands, eyes bright despite everything—pressed in on his chest.
"I don't want to mess this up," he said quietly.
Malrick's voice gentled. "Good."
Xavier frowned. "Good?"
"Means you actually care," Malrick said. "Which is already more than half the idiots circling her."
A pause.
Then, almost casually, Malrick added, "Also, rumor mill says Danny Gonzalez is coming back to school."
Xavier's head snapped toward him. "What?"
"Administrative clearance," Malrick said. "End of the week, maybe sooner."
The air shifted.
Xavier sat up straighter, all the humor draining out of him. "You're sure?"
"As sure as I can be without getting expelled," Malrick replied. "But yeah. It's everywhere."
Xavier stared at the far wall, jaw tight. The room felt smaller all of a sudden.
"That doesn't make sense," he said quietly. "After everything that happened—"
"I know," Malrick cut in. "That's why people are freaking out."
Silence stretched between them, thick and uneasy.
Xavier dragged a hand down his face and finally exhaled, slowly and in control. "I'm gonna go to sleep."
Malrick didn't argue. He just smiled faintly in the dark. "I bet you're already dreaming, man."
Xavier laid back and stared at the ceiling.
The shadows above him didn't move, but his thoughts did...