Sleep did not come. Long after the estate quieted, Cassandra lay awake, thoughts knotted around the cloaked man and the way unseen eyes had followed her through the market. Every floorboard creak sharpened her nerves. By dusk the next day, the tension clung to her like a second skin.
She sat before the tall mirror, hair unpinned, half-dressed in her evening gown. Her hands trembled in her lap as if they belonged to someone else.
On the vanity, a comb quivered, lifted, hovered—then dropped soundlessly to polished wood. A book slid across a chair. The surface of the water glass rippled.
Her stomach tightened. The strange pull had grown stronger—headaches at first, whispers at the edges of thought; now objects bent to her will, or worse, to her fear. She pressed her palms into her skirts, willing stillness. No one could know. Not yet.
A knock startled her. Cassandra smoothed her gown, masking her unease with practiced calm.
The door opened to reveal Liaerin, dressed in soft silver, hair pinned neatly. She moved with the steady assurance of someone born to stand at Cassandra's side.
"Let me help you," Liaerin said, stepping in. She gathered scattered pins and combs with deft fingers.
Cassandra forced a smile and let her work, though her skin still prickled where the comb had lifted on its own.
"You should wear this," Liaerin said, fastening a pendant at Cassandra's throat. "It softens you."
In the mirror, mistress and handmaiden looked back—one perfectly composed, the other pretending. The thought stung more than she would admit.
When Liaerin finished, she offered her hand. "Come. We shouldn't make them wait."
Cassandra rose, heart unsettled, and followed her into the hall.
The dining hall glittered with silver and candlelight. Voices overlapped in polished tones beneath the vaulted ceiling. Cassandra entered at her brothers' side, chin lifted, steps measured.
Memories of a cloaked man's stare rose, and her pulse quickened, as if he'd followed her into these walls.
A servant hesitated while pouring wine, gaze flicking to her hair before darting away. She did not recognize him.
At the far end of the table, a young man rose smoothly. Violet eyes caught the light like amethyst—striking, unnatural. His bow was flawless, every movement polished into grace, and yet too deliberate, a performance more than a greeting.
"Lady Cassandra," he said warmly, each syllable placed with care. "An honor at last."
His smile was easy. His eyes were not.
She blinked and glanced to her brothers.
"Lunick Virellan," Alfonse supplied. "Your new tutor. We thought it time you had a proper guide in your studies. Trained at the Academy of the Arcane Arts—highly regarded."
A tutor? For what?
Her gaze slid past her brothers to Leoleta, standing behind them, impassive as ever. Their eyes met for a breath; his posture revealed nothing.
Lunick's smile warmed as if sensing the tension. "The young Lord Delmars spoke highly of your pursuits."
"I suppose it's a hobby," she said with a careful smile. "Welcome to Delmar. We are honored by your presence."
She sat between her brothers, pale silk pooling at her wrists. Across from her, Lunick settled as if the seat had always been his.
Conversation began with innocuous threads—Alistar's jabs at trade rivals, Alfonse's questions about the city council. Cassandra feigned politeness and listened to the steady rhythm of fork on porcelain.
Then Lunick turned to her, violet eyes glinting faintly. "I must admit, Lady Cassandra, your reputation precedes you. Curious, outspoken… and yet you decline all formal requests to study abroad.." He lifted his glass with practiced ease. "Intriguing."
Her fork paused
"It isn't criticism," he said lightly. "Merely surprise. Your brothers clearly value your education. Most noble daughters would leap at such an opportunity."
Alfonse's brow knit, but he held his tongue.
"Perhaps," Cassandra said, setting her fork down with care, "I prefer choosing how I spend my time."
Alistar smirked into his cup, amused.
"Of course," Lunick replied, all deference. "And yet I wonder—what can dusty bookshops offer that an academy cannot?" His gaze flicked—not at her—past her, to where Leoleta stood in shadow.
The fork beside Cassandra's plate rattled, then stilled beneath her palm. A lantern guttered with no draft. No one seemed to notice, but her chest tightened.
Before she could answer, Leoleta spoke. His voice was low and formal, carrying without rising.
"My lady's pursuits are her own," he said. "They require no defense."
The words landed like a closing door. He didn't look at Lunick when he said them. His eyes stayed forward, posture stone-still, jaw taut.
Silence spread, the faint clink of cutlery pausing in its wake.
Lunick laughed softly and leaned back, unruffled. "Indeed. Well said. Lady Cassandra is fortunate."
Alfonse's posture eased. Alistar hid a grin in his cup.
But Cassandra couldn't shake the sense that her brothers had invited an examiner into their home and asked her to sit for the test. She bit her lip.
To them, Leoleta had sounded like a guard doing his duty. To Lunick, perhaps, a nuisance.
To her, there had been steel beneath Leoleta's restraint—an edge meant not only to serve, but to shield.
She wondered if Lunick had heard it, too.
Silverware resumed its quiet music. Lanterns flickered. The talk drifted back toward trade and politics, but a coil of tension lingered under Cassandra's ribs.
Lunick folded one leg over the other, pleasant smile in place. "If I may ask one final question," he said, eyes fixing on hers, "have you ever been tested for magical affinity, Lady Cassandra?"
The air stilled. Even Alistar's grin faltered.
"No," Cassandra said, fingers tightening on her knife. "I haven't."
"Curious," Lunick murmured. "Most noble children are evaluated before their tenth year. Even those… born under uncertain circumstances."
Her jaw set. "House Delmar handles its children as it sees fit."
"Of course." His tone remained smooth. "And yet some signs speak for themselves." His gaze lifted to her hair where light caught its pale shimmer. "For instance—its color. Starlight. Rare. In your family gallery, your portrait at four shows golden-brown hair, does it not? Quite different."
Alfonse's calm expression tightened. "A theory, Lunick. Not a certainty."
"Certainly," Lunick said with a shallow nod. "But color shifts, sudden illness, heightened perception—sometimes they mark a change."
His words were reasonable, academic. Cassandra's pulse climbed anyway, dragging her back to the storm—and to her hands trembling now.
"My hair changed after a fever," she said evenly. "I nearly died at seven. When I recovered, it was lighter. That is all."
Lunick's eyes lingered, unblinking. Then he smiled. "Of course. An ordinary explanation."
She knew he didn't believe it.
The silence stretched until Alistar raised his glass. "More wine?"
Chuckles rose; servants moved with trays; conversation drifted toward safer shores. Cassandra heard none of it. Her fingers trembled on the edge of her plate. She flicked a glance toward Leoleta. He hadn't moved, hadn't spoken—but the weight of his attention sat behind her like armor.
When her gaze met Lunick's again—violet, intent—she understood:
He wasn't curious.
He was testing.
The clink of silverware returned. Each polite laugh sounded far away.
When at last the meal ended, she stood with care, hands steady though her chest felt tight. She offered her brothers a small smile, excused herself, and slipped into the corridor.
The heavy doors thudded shut, sealing in light and voices. Outside, the hall breathed cooler air, moonlight pooled along the floor from tall windows. Sea salt drifted in from the cliffs.
Her steps quickened. She needed distance—from the table, from Lunick's eyes, from the fear curling in her chest.
Leoleta matched her stride, silent. After a moment he lengthened his pace and drew alongside.
They walked on in silence, steps muffled by woven runners. Lanternlight flickered across ancestor portraits. Outside, the sea wind whispered against the glass, filling the spaces between footfalls.
Leoleta did not lead or follow. He kept pace—measured, constant—a sentinel in shadow.
But as she walked, the lanterns along the hall guttered and flared, one after another, as if the flames bent toward her passing. Her palms dampened against her skirts, sweat prickling down her back. She willed them still—please, still—but the fire only leapt higher.
Her pace quickened.
"Lady Cassandra?" His voice was low, questioning.
The sea outside roared against the cliffs, louder than it should have been, until the thunder of waves merged with the thunder in her blood.
"Cassandra." His tone sharpened, cutting through.
She stumbled, one hand reaching for the wall—just as a lantern nearest her burst, glass shattering across the stones in a shower of sparks.
Leoleta moved instantly, drawing her behind him, sword half-drawn before he realized the danger was not from without. His gaze darted to her trembling hands, the flicker of light bending unnaturally toward her, the wild brightness in her eyes.
Their eyes met. He knew.
Her throat closed. She wanted to deny it, to bury it beneath silence—but the evidence still hissed on the floor between them, smoke rising from shattered glass.
Leoleta's grip on his sword slackened, but he did not sheath it. He was staring at her as if the world had tilted, yet his face held no fear—only certainty, grim and unyielding.
"Since when?" His voice was quiet, low enough that only she could hear, but it carried the weight of a demand.
"I…" The word strangled in her throat. She had no answer that would make it less damning. The air still hummed around her, flames guttering toward her skin like moths to a flame.
"You should have told me," he said, softer now.
Tears pricked her eyes. "It began the night I went into the sea." Her voice broke, trembling with the memory of salt and waves swallowing her whole. "Since then… it's like the water never left me. It pulls, it presses, it—" Her hands shook, helpless. "What is happening to me?"
For a moment, silence hung between them, broken only by the hiss of cooling glass and the distant crash of waves outside the cliffs. At the archway to the western bridge, Cassandra slowed, looking toward the stained-glass windows, to the scatter of stars beyond.
Leoleta's eyes narrowed, not in suspicion but in calculation, as though searching the fragments of memory for an answer he did not yet hold. His voice came low, certain.
"We will find answers. This is not something for you to fear, Cassandra. If the tide can be measured, the sea charted, and the stars read—then you will never be lost."
For a heartbeat she only stared at him, caught off guard by the gentleness beneath his iron steadiness. Then, to her own surprise, laughter slipped through her tears—light, brittle, but real.
"Who knew you could be so kind?" she murmured, smiling despite herself.
For the first time since her father's death, Cassandra felt the faintest spark of something other than fear. Not safety. Not certainty. But the possibility of both.
She held to it as they crossed toward the West Tower, Leoleta's presence steady at her side. Outside, the waves battered the cliffs in tireless rhythm—as though the sea itself was waiting. Yet when she looked into its vast darkness, she felt less the promise of refuge and more the slow pull of something vast enough to swallow her whole.