The parchment in your hands is warm. That’s wrong. Letters aren’t warm. They don’t hum against your palms like they’re alive.

You sit at your desk. Candlelight wavers, shadows crawling up the wall like they’re trying to overhear. The ink blooms slow—deliberate. It writes itself while you watch.

Why'd you only want to hang out when you were high?

Your chest tightens. Burns. The question sits there, unfinished, waiting for your answer to touch it.

Across the room, Theo shifts in his sleep. Blaise breathes steady. The castle hums distantly, and somewhere in the darkness, her quill hovers too.