(Lina’sPov)

I had a dream.

A very bad one.

A forest which was burning and in the middle of the fire Kael was leaving. Walking away down a road I could not see the end of, and I was standing at the start of it watching him go and my feet would not move and my voice would not come out and he did not look back once.

Nobody ever did.

Leaving me alone.

I woke up in the dormitory room and lay still for a moment with the ceiling above me and the dream still sitting in my chest.

I sat up.

***

The dormitory room was smaller than the guest room at the Ardyn estate.

I stood in the doorway and looked at it. Stone walls, a single window, a desk with a chair whose armrests had been worn smooth.. Academy-issue linens folded at the foot of the bed.

A small mirror propped on the desk.

My name was on the door.

Lina Vale. S Class. Room 14.

I sat in the chair and looked at my reflection.

My face was red.

Yesterday he did something bad. I’m not going to talk to him.

Why do you ask?

Because Kael was talking to someone else.

Is he going to leave me like everyone else?

Am I bad?

I pinched my left cheek and watched it get worse and then let it go.

I tried the right side. Same results.

I put both hands flat on the desk and looked at my reflection, neither of us had anything useful to offer..

You won’t fall.

I pinched my cheek again.

The problem was the memory of waking up without knowing who I was and the first clear thing in all of that being a voice and a hand and a potion delivered in the most unreasonable way anyone had ever delivered anything.

The problem was also the cave entrance in the mornings. The pillow down the middle of the bed.

The problem was the laugh that came out.

I pressed both palms against my face.

Not helpful.

I had been without my memories when it was happening. I had not known who I was. And in all of that the one consistent thing had been him every morning, every evening, talking to me directly. He talked to everything without adjusting it for the fact that I could barely respond.

He had not treated me like someone who was broken.

I don’t understand.

Am I bad for wanting him to stay with me?

I looked at my reflection.

The girl in the mirror looked back at me with red cheeks and the expression of someone who had asked a question.

No. Not bad.

Just someone who had been left before and recognized the shape of it coming from a long way away.

My parents had left. It was not their choice,I knew that, the memories had come back clear enough to know that. But knowing the reason did not change the space the leaving created.

And then a forest. And then a voice saying hey.

I understood why that had landed the way it had.

I pressed my palms flat against my face and breathed.

Sylph moved at the edge of my awareness. At the side of my consciousness.

You had the dream again.

"Yes."

The same one.

"Yes."

You have had it four times since arriving here.

"yeah"

It’s not real.

"I know..."

"But It does not feel like it is not real."

I know, Sylph said.

"He is not everyone else,"

Sylph did not answer immediately.

No, he is not.

I lowered my hands from my face and looked at my reflection.

Still red. The dream was still sitting somewhere in the upper part of my chest doing its unhelpful thing.

Can I ask you something?

"Yes."

When you were in the Ardyn estate. Before your memories come back. What did you feel when he was not there?

I thought about that

"It felt like something was missing and the space felt empty."

"I followed him to the forest that morning because I woke up and he was not there and the room felt empty and I went looking without a thought."

You have always known where he is, Sylph said. Even before your memories come back. You could feel where he was.

I looked at her.

"What does that mean,"

I do not know exactly, she said. But I think it is worth noting.

"Sylph."

Yes.

"He is going to leave."

I don’t think he will.

The right question is what you do with the time that is not yet over. You are standing at the start of a road and watching the end of it. But you have not walked it yet. You are grieving a loss that has not happened.

"I am trying to be practical about it."

You are trying to be finished with it before it starts, That is not practical. That is just a kind of fear.

...

"He said you won’t fall," I said quietly. "On the road. When I was going to get on his back and I hesitated ."

"He meant it. I could tell he meant it."

Yes.

"People who are only leaving do not say things they mean."

Yeah, Sylph said. They do not.

When he leaves. If he leaves. I’m going to..."

I stopped again.

Sylph waited.

"Never mind,"

You already know the answer, That is why you stopped.

I looked at her.

"Come with me,

Where.

"I do not know yet. Somewhere that is not this room."

I stood up and wrapped my coat around myself and looked at the door with my name on it.

The academy was quiet at this hour. The corridors would be empty. The grounds would be cold and dark except for the mana-lit paths that ran between the buildings.

I opened the door.

The corridor was empty.

I walked in.

I did not have a destination.

I walked past the stairs and along the upper corridor and down the far end where the corridor turned and there was a window that looked out over the northern grounds.

I stopped at the window.

The grounds below were quiet. Academy buildings visible in the dark, mana-lit at the edges, the eastern tower the tallest thing visible from this angle.

I leaned my forehead against the glass.

Stop treating it like something that is already over, Sylph said.

It has not happened yet.

I looked at the grounds.

The cold coming off the glass where my forehead was resting.

I stayed at the window until the grounds lightened, the sky doing the slow thing it did before sunrise.

Then I went back to Room "..." and opened the door. Light were off.

My face was still slightly red.

I left it.

I just went to sleep.

Next morning.