Azrael walked a step behind them.
He felt it immediately. The weight of it. Conversations dimming as they passed, students slowing, eyes following without pretending not to. Two women in black uniforms one a princess, one whatever Violette was and him. A boy from the slums walking beside them like something that had ended up in the wrong place and hadn't been removed yet.
I look like a misplaced ornament between them.
The silence stretched. Heavy. The kind that accumulates when no one wants to be the one to break it.
He broke it.
Azrael: "Violette. Do you know my professor? What is he like?"
She stopped walking.
Half a second of stillness.
Then she laughed. Not a polite sound a full, unrestrained laugh, shoulders shaking, one hand over her mouth.
Violette: "Oh. That's adorable!"
Azrael's eye twitched.
Violette: "It's me. I'm your professor."
He raised his hand and pressed it against his forehead.
Of course. Of course.
The whispers around them had grown. He didn't look. He simply filed the information away and kept moving.
They reached the main courtyard.
White marble statues along the edges ancient heroes, past rulers, figures frozen mid-gesture in stone. Golden and white banners between tall pillars. The entrance ceremony still running somewhere below, distant laughter drifting up.
The academy sat at the highest point of the city.
From here everything was visible.
Selena had stopped completely.
Azrael noticed before he understood why. She was simply standing, looking outward, her silver hair catching the last of the light. He followed her gaze.
The sky had changed without him realizing. The sun was going down beyond the horizon, spilling pink and orange across layered clouds, painting the marble statues in warmth that softened their cold edges. And rising behind the fading glow the two moons. One deep blue. The other lighter, like lake water reflecting starlight.
Below them the city was beginning to glow. Lanterns flickering on one by one, warm orange and pale blue and golden windows, different colors at different intensities, filling the streets in a way that from this height looked almost like something deliberate. Distant sounds children, music, the ongoing celebration softened by distance into something that almost resembled peace.
The most beautiful façade this country has to offer.
He looked at Selena.
Her expression wasn't pride. It wasn't the satisfaction of someone surveying something they own. It was something quieter and heavier than that. Melancholy sitting alongside protectiveness. The way she held the city in her gaze careful, resolute, a look that contained something that functioned like a vow.
Something shifted in his chest. Unfamiliar. Unwelcome.
Pity? For her?
The thought irritated him immediately. He turned back to the city.
So that's what you have to protect. Then find the strength to do it.
He would never say it out loud.
He shifted slightly and became aware that Violette was watching him.
Not laughing. Not teasing. Just watching, with the particular attention of someone cataloguing something they find interesting.
Their eyes met.
Her lips curved. Slowly. Deliberately. She gave him a small wave light, casual, the gesture of someone wishing luck to someone who doesn't know they need it yet.
His stomach tightened.
She had seen him looking at Selena.
And she had drawn a conclusion.
Idiot. Why did I let myself get carried away?
He replayed the moment. The weight in Selena's eyes. The burden she was carrying without showing it. The protectiveness that had nothing performative in it.
It wasn't attraction. It was recognition. Of weight. Of something neither of them had chosen. Of what it looked like when someone carries more than they're supposed to and keeps moving anyway.
He knew that look. He had worn it.
The last light disappeared. The two moons ruled the sky now, cool blue replacing warm orange, the city below settling into its night version of itself.
He put his hands in his pockets.
This place is built on beauty. And beauty always hides something underneath.
The whispers around them hadn't stopped. If anything they had grown.
He let them.
The night had only just begun.