The afternoon melted into early evening, sunlight stretching long and golden across the academy grounds. The garden hummed gently around us, alive with lazy bees and swaying petals, the scent of lavender and early jasmine riding on the breeze. We'd spent hours together—talking, teasing, existing—and not once had I felt like I was catching up.
I was just… here. Like I'd never left.
Eventually, Claire was dragged away—literally—by a third-year who reminded her she still had three disciplinary reports to file by tonight, and Diana followed soon after, something about a council meeting she'd "gracefully neglected all day." Lillian offered a soft promise to meet me tomorrow with tea and something "delightfully sweet," before disappearing through the back gate of the greenhouse with Tessa in tow, the two of them moving like shadow and sunlight—opposites, always in orbit.
And suddenly, it was just me and Camille.
She hadn't said much after the group broke apart. She stayed seated beneath the willow tree, cross-legged, sketchbook still in hand. Her pencil glided smoothly across the page, eyes calm, focused—yet I knew better.
Camille Winters was never just focused. She watched. She noticed. Even when she pretended not to.
I hesitated, hovering near the bench for a moment. Then, quietly, I stepped over and sat beside her.
She didn't look up.
"You're sketching me again," I said softly.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Always."
My cheeks warmed. "I'm not that interesting."
"That's where you're wrong," she murmured, still not looking at me. Her pencil slowed, then stopped. Gently, she closed the sketchbook and set it down beside her. Finally, her eyes met mine.
"I wasn't sure you'd come back," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
The softness in her expression caught me off guard. Not because I hadn't seen it before—but because I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed it.
"I wasn't sure either," I admitted. "Not until I did."
Camille nodded once. "But you did."
Silence stretched between us for a moment, not heavy, but full.
I glanced down at the sketchbook. "Can I see?"
She hesitated, then reached over and opened it, flipping through pages slowly. Each one was delicate, careful—moments captured in charcoal and graphite. A curl of Lillian's hair as she leaned over a flower bed. Claire laughing, mid-fall from a stone fence. Diana from behind, sitting on the council balcony. Tessa's silhouette in the garden, half-shadowed.
And then—me.
Dozens of me.
Me laughing. Me staring out a window. Me asleep on a bench. Me with petals in my hair. Me holding a cup of tea, my eyes distant.
Me, from angles I never saw myself.
"They're beautiful," I said quietly.
"You're beautiful," she said, just as quietly.
My breath caught.
Camille didn't blush. She didn't flinch. She said it like it was simply true, like there was no reason to pretend otherwise.
"I missed this," I murmured, fingers brushing gently against the edge of the page. "Being seen like this. Through your eyes."
She turned toward me then, her eyes serious. "You've always been beautiful, Sera. Even when you didn't want to be."
I blinked, caught off guard. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she said softly, "that even when you tried to hide—behind sarcasm, or silence, or distance—you were still radiant. I don't sketch you to flatter you. I sketch you because you move like someone who thinks no one is looking. And that's when you're the most breathtaking."
I didn't know what to say to that.
My throat tightened, my fingers clutched the edge of the book a little tighter. Something stirred in me, deep and warm and terrifyingly fragile.
"I'm not good at this," I whispered.
"At what?"
"This. Letting people close."
"I know." Camille's voice was gentle. "But you're getting better."
I looked up.
And she was closer than I thought—just a breath away, her ice-blue eyes watching me with such calm clarity it made my chest ache.
"Camille," I said, the name a breath on my lips.
She reached up and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. Her fingers were cool, gentle. Reverent.
"You don't have to say anything," she whispered. "Just let me be here."
I nodded, because anything more might've shattered me.
So we sat together, side by side, as the sun dipped lower in the sky, staining the clouds in gold and crimson. She leaned her head lightly against my shoulder, and I let mine rest atop hers. Her fingers, always precise and graceful, found mine and laced them together.
No confessions. No pressure. Just closeness.
Just… us.
And for that moment, I forgot the fear. I forgot the questions. I forgot the looming shadow of time and endings and choices.
There was only the warmth of her beside me.
The smell of jasmine on the air.
The hush of evening slowly unfolding.
And the knowledge—quiet and steady—that I didn't have to rush.
That I could love them all in different ways.
That maybe, just maybe, they would let me.
The sky burned with colors I didn't have the words for.
The last of the sun's rays spilled across the courtyard in slow, molten strokes—golds slipping into pinks, purples deepening into indigo. Camille still leaned against me, her breath soft against my collarbone, our fingers loosely intertwined, like neither of us were quite ready to let go. And neither of us said a word. We didn't need to.
The quiet wasn't awkward—it was whole. Complete.
And for the first time since I returned, I didn't feel like I was balancing between past and present.
I just… existed.
Eventually, Camille pulled back with her usual elegance, brushing nonexistent dust from her skirt and smoothing the pages of her sketchbook. She didn't say goodbye, just smiled that soft, knowing smile and whispered, "Rest well, Sera," before disappearing between the hedges like a drifting petal.
The moment she left, the weight of the day seemed to settle back onto my shoulders.
I stayed on the bench a little longer, watching as the lanterns flickered to life around the courtyard. Their golden light cast dancing shadows across the cobblestones. The breeze grew cooler, tugging gently at the hem of my uniform jacket.
The garden, which had been full of laughter and voices earlier, was now quiet.
I should've returned to my room. Washed up. Tried to sleep.
But my feet didn't move.
Instead, I found myself walking.
Not fast. Not aimless.
Just… letting the academy guide me. Like it remembered me even after I'd disappeared.
I passed the reflecting pool where Claire once dared me to race her across stepping stones. The library windows still glowed faintly, no doubt because Diana was inside organizing something none of us would ever see. I could almost hear her voice now—smooth, sarcastic, lightly scolding.
"You left your notes on the desk again, darling."
I smiled to myself.
When my steps finally stopped, I was at the old rooftop garden—the one hardly anyone used. Overgrown, quiet, with broken stone planters and ivy climbing the walls like it was trying to reclaim the academy piece by piece. It had always been my secret place. And I hadn't realized how much I missed it.
The sky was nearly dark now. The stars had begun their quiet dance, blinking into view one by one.
And then—
A voice.
"I thought I'd find you up here."
I turned slowly.
Diana stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the glow of the corridor behind her. Her golden hair spilled over her shoulders, the ends touched with warm light. She was still in uniform, her green cloak half draped over one shoulder, but she held a teacup delicately in one hand like she always did, as if she hadn't just climbed three flights of stairs for this moment.
"You really do make a habit of showing up when I least expect you," I murmured, surprised I didn't sound as breathless as I felt.
She stepped closer, her heels clicking softly against the rooftop stones. "It's because you don't expect enough of me."
"I expect too much, actually," I replied, folding my arms. "You just like surprising people."
"And you like pretending not to notice," she said, her smirk growing as she stopped beside me.
The silence that followed was layered—full of all the things neither of us had said since I returned.
"You're quieter," she said eventually, after a long sip of tea. "Not softer. Just… steadier."
"I feel steadier."
Her gaze flicked to me. "You scared me."
I blinked. "What?"
"When you left." Her voice was calm, but it lacked its usual edge. "You didn't run away like a coward. That would've been easier to get mad at. You left like someone who knew she had to. And that… scared me."
I turned to face her, heart aching. "I wasn't trying to hurt you."
"I know." She set the teacup down on the ledge beside us. "But you did anyway."
The honesty in her voice struck something deep inside me.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
Diana stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell her perfume—jasmine and old books and something soft I could never name. She reached up and touched my chin, tilting my face toward her.
"I forgive you," she said.
And then, with the gentleness of falling petals, she leaned in and kissed my cheek.
My breath caught.
Not because it was the first time she'd kissed me—but because it was the first time it didn't feel like a challenge.
It felt like a promise.
"You've grown," she said, brushing her fingers down my arm.
"So have you," I whispered, not even sure what I meant by it.
Her smile was sad, sweet. "You think we waited for you."
"I know you did."
She shook her head. "No, Sera. We didn't wait."
My stomach dropped.
"We kept going," she continued. "We hurt, and we missed you, and we wondered if you'd ever come back—but we didn't freeze in place waiting. We grew, too. All of us."
The words stung. But not because they were cruel.
Because they were true.
"I'm glad," I said after a moment. "You deserved to."
She took my hand, laced our fingers slowly. "And now… you're back. And we're all here. But nothing's frozen."
"No," I agreed softly. "It's changing. Still changing."
"Are you afraid of that?"
I looked down at our joined hands.
"Terrified," I said. "But I think that's okay."
Diana nodded once, satisfied.
"Good."
And then she stepped closer, until there was nothing between us but breath.
"I'm not going to fight for your love, Sera," she said, voice like silk. "Because I already know I have a part of it. Whether I'm your first or your last… that doesn't matter."
"It matters to me," I whispered.
She smiled. "Then let it matter."
We stood like that beneath the stars until the cold began to settle in.
And when she finally left, it wasn't with dramatic words or heavy silence.
Just a parting glance over her shoulder.
A look that said: I see you.
And now, I was learning to see myself, too.