To say Eydis had not expected this would be a lie. She had, naturally she had. She simply hadn’t scheduled time for such scintillating conversation so early in the term, partly because she had been inattentive.

Having just left the physics lab, Eydis wandered the underground hallways with her mind still lingering on today’s lesson. Electrostatic principles. Mr. Griffin’s Van de Graaff generator. How a highly concentrated charge could spread freely across the outer surface of a conductor while leaving the interior field neutral.

The teacher had also casually noted its similarity to a Faraday cage.

When she and Astra had explored the Aoraki base of the Van Nassau operation, they had seen a metallic mesh embedded in the lower chamber. At the time they had thought it was nothing more than a security measure — a Faraday cage designed to block signals and surveillance.

But there were more. Ruinous glyphs carved along the mountain walls seemed to harmonise with the mesh. Given the meticulous design of the entire facility, she doubted they were purely decorative.

Perhaps…

My Sins have adapted to this world’s technology. It is time I do the same. But— 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Deep in thought, Eydis nearly missed it. The scent was strong and intrusive, approaching from behind her and interrupting her mid-scheme.

Utterly inconsiderate.

The hallways were suddenly filled with the scent of pine needles on a cold, moody mountain drive, heavy with perpetual low cloud. Yes, yes. That specific. Astra had taken her on that drive, passionately explaining the difference between ancient podocarps and imported pines.

With her lungs filled with earthy freshness as the forest moved by, Eydis had smiled from the passenger seat, watching scattered sunlight dapple across Astra’s unearthly features as she spoke.

She knew Astra had been uneasy recently, knew too that her request for them to stay may have compounded it. But on their day trips through Alchymia’s quieter outskirts, Eydis preferred to think she had given her something other than worry to dwell on.

The corner of her lips curved at the memory.

A drawling, feminine voice froze the smile into cold neutrality.

“You don’t do that often. That expression.”

Eydis turned her head unhurriedly. Orion stood at about the same height as her, posture loose, blazer parted where a few shirt buttons had been deliberately undone.

“How perceptive. Especially since your study of me began approximately…” Eydis replied with a smile as warm as mid-winter, “nine seconds ago.”

Orion tilted her head. Her smirk read like a private joke. Instead of answering, she casually placed a hand near Eydis’s shoulder and stepped closer until Eydis was trapped between her and the cold metal lockers. The hallway lights flickered once above them.

Déjà vu. Unlike the pleasant, electric memory of Astra doing the same movement, this left only a faint distaste on Eydis’s tongue. Still. She kept her chin level.

“Why do I feel like we’ve met before?” Orion finally spoke up in a low, purring voice.

“I must possess one of those tragically forgettable faces,” Eydis let her lips curve pleasantly. “Or is that one of your usual courtship lines where I’m told I’ve been trespassing through your dreams uninvited?”

If Orion was confused by Eydis’s deliberate choice of words, she didn’t show it. She did, however, pause in her staring a moment too long as though reassessing Eydis, before giving a raspy huff of laughter.

“Oh, trust me, Eydis,” she drawled, “your face is extremely distinctive. Hard to scrub from my mind. Though scrubbing out something that pleasant would be lunacy. Even vandalism.”

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When Orion leaned even closer, the damp, earthy scent of pine needles seeped from her wavy green hair as the stifling heater above them breathed down.

Familiar. Not the scenic drive up the Warrungal Ranges that Astra had taken her on.

Very familiar.

Elias’s scent? Only considerably stronger.

Their features shared no similarity, however. Even the green of their eyes differed. Eydis filed that away regardless, keeping her expression composed while Orion’s gaze roamed over her with something close to ravenous fascination.

Lust thrummed at the back of her mind, affirming it.

What an inconvenience.

“And even if it weren’t…” Orion inhaled slowly, dragging the silence like the prelude to a confession. “I’m cursed, you see. Everything I’ve ever seen, everything I’ve ever tried to unsee… still there. Screaming until screaming stops meaning anything.”

Eydis blinked, caught slightly off guard by the monologue. “Fascinating.”

“Except you. You’re quiet.” Orion let the words roll off her tongue, savouring them, tasting each one. ”Why are you so quiet, Eydis?”

Eydis did not miss the near-imperceptible tightening at the corners of her eyes. Whether Orion had sensed yesterday’s mind-touch or simply suspected it hardly mattered. What mattered was that her particular flavour of unravelling was…

Entertaining.

“Forgive me.” Eydis tipped her head back and let her amusement show. “At what point did I agree to act as your counsellor? I’m certain this world has someone Gifted enough to help you manage all that… exhausting noise in your head.”

“Exhausting? Amusing, actually,” Orion corrected. “It’s the quiet that bothers me. Screaming at least tells you where the monster is. Quiet feels like it’s already inside my head.” Her smile didn’t reach anything. “I don’t like that.”

A velvety laugh escaped Eydis. “I would advise you to keep your distance from the Student Council President if it troubles you so deeply.”

“Dear Thena.” Emerald light sparked in Orion’s eyes. “Frightening, what she can do. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Glad to know you’ve done your reading. Though the endearments do seem premature, given you’ve only heard of her, don’t they?”

Orion’s expression remained unchanged. “How sharp.”

“Flattered.” Eydis shifted her weight. “In any case, as amusing as this conversation has been, however pointless, whatever your name is, I do have somewhere to be.”

Orion had the audacity to take her wrist, though her grip remained deceptively light. Eydis let her. The facade of an unGifted student required a certain passivity she found distasteful but necessary.

“Orion will do.”

“Will do?” Eydis dipped her chin. “Do you go by any other name I should remember?”

Orion’s lips curved with genuine amusement. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Coming from someone who has just called our chat pointless.”

She dragged two fingers slowly along the pulse on Eydis’s wrist. “But I also want to know more about you. I’m trying to solve a puzzle. A rather fascinating one…”

The pulse beneath those cold fingers beat evenly, utterly unaffected. That displeased Orion. Eydis could tell by the way she paused her “innocent touch”, by the way her eyes flicked back to Eydis’s face too quickly to conceal the flash of surprise.

Then she chuckled with dark delight. “There it is. You see. Exactly like this. You aren’t afraid. You aren't even bored. Or even bothered by me.” A more deliberate pause this time. “You are a puzzle piece. I keep rotating it and still I can’t complete it.”

Ah, I see your game.

“Afraid?” Eydis allowed a hint of canine to show in her smile. “How presumptuous of you to assume you are anything other than inconsequential.”

With a hand on Orion’s shoulder, she smoothly reversed their positions and pressed the woman against the green locker with a dull thud. Though surprised by the lack of resistance when she had only used her human strength, Eydis kept her amusement to herself.

“And inconsequential things do not deserve my attention.” Leaning down slightly, she tucked a stray lock of green hair behind Orion’s ear with two fingers and added, “You might consider ceasing to litter my locker with your cringe-inducing threats disguised as love letters. They lack originality.”

Eydis stepped back, releasing Orion and, at the same time, dismissing her like a court jester before turning to leave.

Orion didn’t follow. Her voice did. “What if I touched something you actually cared about? Would you stop pretending I’m invisible?”

A declaration of war? How bold.

“Careful now,” Eydis replied without slowing her steps. “I don’t respond well to unsolicited advances.”

I respond far worse.

Eydis’s lips curled into a smirk as she slipped one hand into her blazer pocket. She tightened her grip on the stray strand of green hair she had taken from Orion.

She knew, without needing to look, that Orion’s sea-glass eyes were fixed on her shoulder blades, bright with a nauseating, unmoored fixation when the woman falsely believed she wasn’t watched.

Eydis was also aware, because her Sins saw everything, of the moment Orion’s tongue dragged across her lower lip and her fingers drifted to the shell of her ear where Eydis’s breath had ghosted.

Yes. Definitively unhinged. And, as a secondary observation, definitively gay.

Lust thrummed in affirmation again, annoyingly delighted. Before Eydis could silence the pest, someone beat her to it.

The link to her Sin flickered sharply as those sea-glass green eyes began to glow.

Ah. She still needed to resolve that inconvenience. But Orion. The Boundary Breakers. Ares Van Nassau. Eydis would remove them from the board if it came to it. One piece at a time.