Chapter 131 A BIT STUPID

Chapter 131 A BIT STUPID
LYRA

I looked at them both.

Kai was standing near the door and Yvaine… the short haired girl whose name I had learned and who I still could not find in any part of me was beside him. They were both looking at me the same way.
I was tired of being managed.

I was tired of the expressions, the measured responses and the silence that came whenever I asked something that apparently had a complicated answer. I was tired of the throbbing in my head that came every time I tried to think past the last clear thing I remembered, and I was tired of the ache in my chest that I had no name for. Frustration sat heavy in my chest, mixed with a quiet, lonely helplessness.

Kai crossed the room and sat on the edge of the cot.

I reached out and took his hand, because he was the only reasonable thing in the room since I woke up. His hand closed around mine and the contact steadied me.

Relief flickered through the confusion. “Were you reprimanded?” I asked. My voice came out rougher than I expected, the tiredness in it more audible than I had intended. “By the principal. For sneaking me in.”

Something moved through his face, fast before he masked it, but I caught it. Angst was the word that came to mind. Genuine angst that lives in the jaw and the eyes.

“No,” he answered. “I’m not in trouble.”

“You look like you’re in trouble,” I observed.

“I’m fine,” he replied, and the word came out with a slight roughness.

I looked at him steadily. “Kai.”

He met my eyes. “I promise I’m not being punished.” He paused. “But there’s something you need to know. Principal Cerys has said that you can’t continue to stay here. Once your injuries are healed, you’ll need to leave.”

I absorbed this.

It made sense, I was not a student here, I had been brought in without permission, and whoever Principal Cerys was she apparently ran a tight enough institution that uninvited guests did not simply take up residence in the dormitories indefinitely.

“That’s fair,” I agreed. “Kai, don’t risk your position here just to let me see the dragons. It’s not worth it.”

Something crossed his face again. That same complicated thing. The shift made my stomach tighten with unease.

“The dragons,” he repeated, carefully.

“Is that not why I came?” I asked. “It sounds like something I’d do.” I paused. “It does sound like something I’d do, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “It does.”

I squeezed his hand once and then let go, because the next question felt like it needed my hands free for some reason. “How did I get hurt?” I asked. “I know I fell. The healer mentioned that. But how? What exactly happened?”

Kai went quiet but not like he was considering what to say. Then I noticed Yvaine, from across the room, reach out and place her hand briefly on Kai’s shoulder, which was a gesture that communicated something private and significant between the two of them.

Which meant Yvaine, who I did not know, knew Kai well enough to offer him silent support.

Which meant she was more than a passing acquaintance.

I kept this observation to myself and waited for Kai to answer. A low thread of suspicion mixed with the exhaustion.

“You were climbing the Academy wall,” he explained finally. “To get in without being seen. I was supposed to catch you on the other side but—” He stopped. “I didn’t get there in time. You slipped and you came down wrong on your ankle and hit the boundary stone on the way.”

I reached up and touched the bandaging around my head.
“That explains the head,” I murmured.

“Yes.”

I winced, not from the touching but from the picture it produced, myself falling, the ground coming up, the helplessness of falling
before you can do anything about it. “Stupid,” I muttered, to myself more than to him.

“It wasn’t—” he started.

“It was a bit stupid,” I insisted. “Climbing walls. I could have just asked you to let me in through a door.”

“You wanted it to be a surprise,” he continued, and I could hear the effort in his voice. “You said you didn’t want me to have time to say no.”

I almost smiled at that. “Also sounds like me,” I admitted. A flicker of wry self-recognition cut through the fog.

He nodded, not meeting my eyes for a moment. I noticed this too. The avoidance sent another small spike of unease through me.

I looked past him at Yvaine. She was very good at not showing things on her face, I thought. Remarkably good, actually, given that whatever she was thinking while listening to us didn't appear at all on her face.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I don’t mean to be rude.” I paused. “You seem—” I searched for the word. “You seem to be friends or more than that. The way you’re looking at him, the way you knew to touch his shoulder just now.” I kept my voice without accusation. “Are you very close?”

She looked at me for a moment. “Yes,” she answered simply.

“Then why don’t I know you?” I asked. “If you’re close to Kai, and I’ve known Kai my whole life, shouldn’t I know you?”

Silence. The weight of it made the ache in my chest press harder.

“We became friends more recently,” Yvaine explained. Her voice was even. “You and I. We haven’t known each other as long as you and Kai.”

I looked at her. Something about the way she said it, the tightness of it told me she was being discreet. I nodded slowly and decided not to press. The headache was reminding me of its presence. Frustration mixed with the growing sense that I was standing outside a conversation they were having.

I looked around the room. At the narrow bed, the stone walls, the functional lamp and the window showing the same pale light it had been showing since I woke up.