Except he's not a stranger.
He's the opposite of a stranger.
He's the person who knows me better than anyone alive, who's read every confession and fear and hope I've committed to paper, who responded with his own words that I've memorized like scripture.
He's theleaststrange person in my life.
And I still don't know what his favorite color is.
Another giggle threatens.
I swallow it down.
The townhome appears through the sheets of rain—number 13, lurking at the end of the residential row like it's been waiting for me. Waiting forus. The windows are dark, the door forbidding, the whole structure radiating the specific kind of isolation that comes from being a space no one else has ever entered.
I haven't told him it's my place, yet I’m guiding him there.
Haven't told him anything, really, beyond my first name—which heguessed, somehow, like the bastard has some kind of psychic connection to my soul.
Seraphine, he said.
And the way it sounded in his mouth—like a prayer, like a claiming, like something sacred?—
I shiver.
Just not from cold.
My key card fumbles in my wet fingers as I press it against the reader.
The lock beeps—acceptance, welcome,home—and the door swings open to reveal darkness.
Safe darkness.
Mydarkness.
I pull him inside.
The door closes behind us, cutting off the storm's fury, and suddenly we're standing in my living space—completely drenched, breathing hard, surrounded by the quiet hum ofthe climate control system and the soft glow of Ro's standby indicator on the wall.
I realize, with a jolt of something between panic and wonder, that I've never had someone over before.
Never.
Not in the years of living here.
Not a friend—because I don't have those.
Not a lover—because the encounters I've had were always in their space, or neutral territory, or the shadowed corners of the academy where intimacy happened fast and impersonal.
This ismysanctuary.
My peace.
The only place in Ruthless Academy where I can close the door and pretend, for a few precious hours, that the world outside doesn't exist.
And I just... let him in.
My toe taps against the floor—tap-tap-tap-tap—four times before I force it still.
