Astrid
Who is that girl?
The words kept echoing in my head, refusing to settle into anything I could make sense of. I strained to hear the official’s answer, but the carnival was too loud, students laughing, a performer somewhere shouting for applause, someone cheering nearby over a game I couldn’t see through the crowd.
I caught nothing.
Then the royal delegation began moving again. The King didn’t approach. He simply turned and walked on, his guards falling into step behind him.
Relief hit me first, immediate and overwhelming, loosening something that had been coiled tight in my chest since the moment his gaze first landed on me. Then, right behind it, something far less comfortable settled in.
If he knew who I was, why hadn’t he come for me?
That question bothered me more than the first one ever had.
I told Ivy quietly that I wanted somewhere less crowded. She agreed immediately, but before we could move, Xander stepped up beside me.
"You’re pale," he said.
"I’m fine."
"You said that earlier."
"And I was fine earlier."
He gave me a skeptical look. "You’re terrible at lying."
I almost snapped back, but Reed cut in first. "Don’t push her."
Xander glanced at him. "I’m trying to help."
"Then help."
The difference between them showed clearly in that single exchange. Xander wanted to make me laugh through it. Reed wanted to make sure I actually felt safe.
I finally admitted what had happened. "He asked who I was."
Xander’s playfulness dropped instantly. "He asked who you were?"
I nodded.
"Maybe he was asking about someone else," Xander offered.
"He was looking directly at me," I said.
That silenced him for a moment, no joke ready this time.
"Did anyone answer him?" Reed asked.
"I don’t know."
His expression tightened slightly. "Then we don’t assume anything yet."
I let out a short, bitter laugh. "That’s easy for you to say."
Reed met my eyes. "You’re right."
That unexpected agreement caught me off guard. He didn’t tell me I was overreacting. He didn’t dismiss it. He simply stayed beside me, steady, present.
Xander noticed me spiraling and pointed toward a stall glowing with enchanted light, ignoring Ivy’s protest that she wasn’t finished with her own game yet. "Come on."
"Where?"
"Somewhere you’re not allowed to look terrified."
"Is that an actual carnival rule?"
"I just made it one."
I rolled my eyes, but let him pull me toward the game stall anyway. He challenged me to another round, and I beat him again.
He refused to accept it. "You cheated."
"You lost."
"There’s a difference."
"Yes. One is cheating. The other is what happened to you."
Ivy burst out laughing behind us. Xander looked personally offended, and for a few minutes, I actually managed to relax.
While Xander and Ivy argued over the next game, I noticed Reed standing slightly apart, watching the crowd rather than participating in it.
I walked over. "You’re quiet."
"I’m usually quiet."
"Quieter than usual."
His eyes flicked toward where the royal delegation had disappeared. "I’m thinking."
My stomach tightened. "About him?"
"About you."
I looked at him.
"You were frightened before he even looked at you," he said carefully.
I didn’t know what to say to that. "You notice too much."
"Someone has to."
A pause stretched between us, comfortable in a way I hadn’t expected.
"You don’t have to tell me everything, Astrid," he said, voice lowering. "But don’t disappear without telling us."
That landed somewhere deep. I’d spent years surviving by disappearing, by making myself small enough to slip past notice entirely.
"I won’t," I said quietly.
It was a small promise. It felt like a significant one.
The carnival continued around us. Eventually I caught another glimpse of the royal delegation in the distance, the King speaking with academy officials, his posture calm, unhurried. I looked away quickly, bracing for him to look toward me again.
He didn’t.
That should have reassured me. Instead it just left me more confused. Maybe he really had been asking about someone else entirely. Maybe I was reading danger into every shadow because of what had happened to my mother, seeing threats in places they didn’t actually exist.
For the first time, I let myself consider that possibility seriously, and it eased something tight in my chest, at least a little.
The group drifted further through the carnival, the crowd thinning slightly as the night wore on and some of the younger students got called back toward the dormitories. Ivy got pulled toward another attraction, and Xander returned a moment later holding some ridiculous festival snack shaped like a tiny glowing star.
"I don’t want that," I said.
"Too late. I already bought it."
"Then you eat it."
"I bought it for you."
"That’s unfortunate."
He grinned. "You’re welcome."
Reed watched the exchange with that same unreadable expression he always wore.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"You’re staring."
"I wasn’t."
Xander jumped in immediately. "He was."
Reed gave him a flat look. "You talk too much."
"And yet you keep me around."
I laughed, and for a moment, the three of us felt like something close to a real unit, despite everything I’d told myself about not getting attached to either of them.
As the carnival began winding down, lanterns dimming one by one as staff moved through to start the slow process of closing up the stalls, some of the tension finally started leaving my body. Maybe I was safe after all. Maybe the King hadn’t recognized me. Maybe tomorrow everything would simply go back to normal.
I watched Reed and Xander walking a few steps ahead, Xander still arguing with Ivy about something absurd, Reed listening quietly beside them. I smiled without meaning to.
Then I glanced back toward the royal pavilion one last time.
The King was gone.
But one guard remained near the empty platform, still and watchful. For a brief moment, his eyes found mine directly across the distance between us.
My smile disappeared.
I didn’t know if he was actually watching me, or simply scanning the crowd out of habit. I didn’t know whether the King had recognized me, or simply asked an idle question about a stranger in a crowd of hundreds. I didn’t know if anyone here truly understood who I was.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
Someone had noticed me.
For the first time since arriving at Moonshade, I wondered if hiding had actually made me safer, or simply made the moment they finally found me that much more dangerous.