Astrid
I woke to sunlight instead of dread, which felt strange enough on its own to make me lie there a moment longer than usual, just listening to the quiet hum of the apartment settling into another ordinary day.
For the first time since the carnival, I didn’t wake up thinking about the King. I noticed the ordinary sounds of the apartment instead, Xander complaining loudly about something down the hall, the faint clink of dishes that meant Reed was already awake, moving through his morning routine with the same quiet precision he brought to everything else.
I’d survived the carnival. The King hadn’t come for me. Nobody had discovered anything.
Normal felt strange. I wasn’t used to it, and some small, wary part of me kept waiting for the feeling to be snatched away.
"Are you planning to sleep through breakfast?" Xander called through my door.
"Yes."
"Excellent. I’ll tell Reed you died."
I got up despite myself, the familiar banter pulling me out of bed faster than any alarm ever could have, my feet already moving toward the door before I’d fully decided to give in.
In the kitchen, Xander had clearly attempted something simple and made a mess doing it, flour dusting the counter in a way that suggested at least one small disaster along the way, plus a suspicious scorch mark on the edge of the pan he was pretending not to notice. Reed sat at the table already eating, calm as ever.
Xander reached over and stole something off my plate the moment I sat down.
"Did you just take my food?" I asked.
"I was checking if it was poisoned."
"And?"
"Tragically, it’s delicious."
I reached to take it back, and Reed, without a word, slid part of his own plate toward me.
"I’m not taking yours," I said.
"You weren’t eating enough," he said simply.
I paused. It was such a small thing, but it landed somewhere I hadn’t expected, the realization that he’d been paying attention to my habits closely enough to notice something like that.
Xander caught the exchange, amusement flickering across his face, but he didn’t make a scene of it, which somehow made the moment feel even more real.
Ivy caught up with me on the walk to class, immediately launching into carnival talk, still buzzing about half the things we’d seen the night before.
"Did you have fun?" she asked.
"It was fine," I said.
"You spent half the night with the Ashwood twins."
"They were there."
"That’s not an answer."
I insisted nothing had happened, though Ivy gave me a knowing look that suggested she wasn’t buying a word of it. As we walked into the academy, I noticed something had shifted in how people looked at me. I was no longer just the scholarship girl who’d insulted the princes on her first day. I was becoming something people actually recognized.
History class gave me a chance to prove it further. The professor posed a difficult question about an old political conflict tied to the royal family’s history, pacing at the front of the room while he waited, and the room fell silent, nobody quite willing to risk an answer.
I raised my hand, and gave what I hoped was a thoughtful response, focused less on dates and more on the reasoning behind the decisions that had shaped that conflict, the way I’d learned to think about history from the archives Reed and Xander had dragged me through weeks earlier.
The professor praised me openly, the kind of praise that used to make me want to shrink into my chair, though today it landed differently. Somewhere behind me, I caught a whisper. "She really is smart."
"Maybe that’s why she got the scholarship," another voice answered.
I didn’t react outwardly, though something in my chest warmed at the shift.
Reed happened to be passing the classroom on some council errand, and I caught his eyes briefly through the open doorway. He gave me the smallest approving nod before continuing on.
Something fluttered unexpectedly in my chest. I looked back down at my notes immediately, refusing to examine that feeling too closely.
Combat class provided the necessary contrast. I still struggled, still tired faster than everyone around me, and still ended up flat on my back more than once during practice, the ache in my shoulders a familiar reminder of exactly how far I still had to go. But unlike my first week, the humiliation didn’t sting the same way.
I got back up anyway.
Lyra noticed. "Again," she said, during a brief pause.
I exhaled. "You really enjoy watching me suffer."
"I enjoy watching you improve."
That caught me off guard enough that I performed the next movement slightly better than before.
Lyra gave a small nod. "Better."
I stared at her. "Was that praise?"
"Don’t become spoiled," she said, already walking away.
At lunch, Ivy noticed a cluster of students whispering nearby, huddled a little too close together at the next table over, though this time the whispers had nothing to do with insults.
"Do you think she’s actually close to them?" one voice asked.
"Xander gave her his jacket at the carnival."
"Reed was practically guarding her."
I wanted to sink straight through the floor.
Ivy looked positively delighted. "You know they’re making you famous."
"I’d rather be invisible."
"Too late."
I denied that anything real was happening, and Ivy gave me a look that said exactly how much she believed that.
"Astrid," she said.
"What?"
"You blush every time Reed looks at you."
I nearly choked on my drink.
After lunch, I walked alone through the corridor for a few minutes, letting my heart rate settle back to something normal after Ivy’s teasing, the hallway quieter now that most students had already filtered off toward their afternoon classes. Up ahead, I spotted Reed and Xander mid-argument about something I couldn’t make out.
Xander noticed me first. "Astrid! Tell Reed he’s wrong."
"I don’t even know what you’re arguing about."
"Exactly. Take my side."
Reed glanced at me. "Don’t encourage him."
I laughed, and as I walked toward them, something settled quietly into place.
Moonshade didn’t feel quite as unfamiliar anymore. I had Ivy. I had classes that actually interested me, teachers who’d started noticing what I could do instead of only what I couldn’t. And somehow, without meaning to, I’d started looking forward to seeing two people I’d once wanted nothing more than to avoid entirely.
I didn’t fully understand what that meant yet.
But I knew, undeniably, that something had changed.