— Caelum POV —
It started because of a book.
Not an important book. A history of the northern provinces, third shelf, spine cracked from being opened too many times in the same spot. He pulled it for a reference and a piece of paper fell out.
A drawing.
Child's drawing, pencil, slightly smudged. Two people and what was possibly a horse or possibly a very confident dog. Written underneath in uneven letters: Papa and Mama and Biscuit.
He stared at it.
Biscuit. Someone had named their dog Biscuit and then lost the drawing in a library book and nobody had found it until now.
He put it back inside the book, carefully, in the same spot. Then he stood there with his hand on the spine for a moment longer than made sense.
Seraphine was at the far table. She'd been there when he arrived — apparently the library was her default location when she didn't want to be found, which he filed away as useful. She had a cup of actual tea this time and was reading something she'd clearly already read before, based on the way she kept skipping pages.
She didn't look up. She had this quality — she could be in a room with you and give you the space of being alone. He'd noticed it. He wasn't sure if it was deliberate or just how she was.
He suspected both.
"My mother named our dog Disaster," he said.
He had not planned to say that.
Seraphine looked up. Her expression said: I am not going to react to this in a way that makes you stop talking.
"She named the dog Disaster," he said again, since he'd apparently committed to this. "Because my father brought it home without asking and she said — this is a disaster, Edwyn, we can't afford a dog — and then the dog heard its name and sat and she ended up keeping both." He looked at the book in his hand. "She called it Dis for short. It bit everyone except her."
Seraphine said nothing.
That was the right thing. If she'd said something warm he would've stopped.
"My father drove that road every week because he delivered medicines to a village two hours out. He did it before I was born. He'd been doing it for fifteen years." He put the book back on the shelf. Didn't look at her. "The wheel failing — that's not a thing that happens on a road someone drives for fifteen years. Wheels don't just—" He stopped. "I was thirteen. The constable told me it was an accident and I said okay and I went home to a house with a dog that bit everyone and no one else in it."
Silence.
Rain on the library windows. Distant.
"I believe you," Seraphine said.
Just that. Three words.
He turned around.
She was looking at him straight. No careful expression, no managed distance. Just — looking.
"I know," he said. "You have the documents."
"Not because of the documents."
He didn't know what to do with that so he went back to the table and sat down and opened his own folder and stared at it without reading anything.
A minute passed.
"What happened to the dog?" she asked.
He blinked. Of everything she could have—
"A farmer two villages over," he said. "She needed a working dog. Dis seemed to like her." A pause. "She was the only other person the dog didn't bite."
"Good dog," Seraphine said, with complete seriousness.
Something cracked open in his chest. Just slightly. The way ice cracks in early spring — not breaking, just shifting, making a sound you weren't expecting.
He looked at his folder.
"Yeah," he said. "Good dog."
— Seraphine POV —
She was not equipped for this.
That was the honest truth. In her old life she had been very good at staying uninvested. It was professionally required. You cared about the job. You cared about the outcome. You didn't care about the thirteen year old who came home to an empty house with only a dog that bit everyone.
She cared about that.
She had not signed up to care about that.
He had gone back to his work like he hadn't just handed her something that weighed that much. That was the Caelum thing — he gave you something real and then immediately looked at a document so you couldn't react properly, which was either very smart or very avoidant and possibly both.
She wanted to say something. She was good with words usually. Precise, efficient, she knew how to use language.
She had nothing.
"Did you eat today?" she said instead.
He looked up from his folder with an expression that said: that is not a response to what I just said.
"Breakfast," he said slowly.
"It's fourth bell."
"I'm aware of what bell it is."
"That's not an answer."
"I had breakfast," he said. "I'll have dinner. I'm fine."
"The dining hall closes at sixth bell and you're always here past sixth bell." She said it like she hadn't just revealed she knew his schedule in specific detail. She noticed him noticing this. She kept her face neutral. "I'm going to have the kitchen send something."
"You don't need to—"
"I'm aware I don't need to."
She went to the library door and gave the instruction to the footman in the hall. When she came back he was watching her with the expression he got when he was updating a mental file.
"You know my schedule," he said.
"I'm observant."
"You knew I miss dinner."
"I said I'm observant."
"Seraphine."
First time he had used her name. Not Lady Valdros, not the careful formal nothing — her name. She felt it land somewhere in her chest and ignored it with great discipline.
"Yes?" she said pleasantly.
He looked at her for a long moment. She could see him running the calculation — how much to push, what it would cost, whether it was worth it.
He decided it wasn't. He looked back at his folder.
"Thank you," he said. Same as last time. Quiet. Not making it a whole thing.
This was going to be a problem.
She sat back down.
She picked up her book. She looked at it.
She was not reading it.
— Nessa POV —
The footman came back and told her Lady Seraphine had requested a library supper tray — for two.
Nessa was in the middle of organizing the evening schedule.
She stopped organizing the evening schedule.
For two.
She stood very still for a moment. Outside the window the academy grounds were going dark and peaceful in the way that evenings do when they have no idea what they're enabling.
She went to the kitchen. She supervised the tray personally. She made sure it had actual food — nothing like last week's grain situation — and a proper tea service and two of the good cups because if this was happening it was at least going to happen with the good cups.
She sent it up.
Then she sat down and added a fourth branching scenario to the contingency plan.
She labeled it: Already Too Late.
She stared at that for a second.
Then she crossed it out and wrote: Proceed With Caution.
More professional.
* * *
End of Chapter Eight