Chapter 4

The smell of ozone and singed wool lingered in the air of the Chancellor’s Sanctum, a sharp contrast to the biting frost that usually defined Dorian’s presence. Mira stood by the heavy mahogany desk, her fingers trembling slightly as she smoothed the floor plan she was now forced to defend. The ink was already dry—the allocations had been finalized in a fever of compromise earlier that morning—but the parchment felt like a shared confession between them.

“The Spire students need the western wing,” she said, her voice more even than her heart. “The thermal vents there are stable. They won’t melt your precious ice statues by mistake.”

Dorian didn’t look at her. He was staring at his right hand, curled into a loose fist. He had shoved the heavy wool of his sleeve back, exposing the telltale pink of his knuckles where Mira’s heat had bled through his defenses. The scorched cuff of his shirt remained a jagged black line against the pristine white fabric of his under-layer.

“Stable,” Dorian repeated, the word sounding like a foreign language. “We aren’t very stable right now, Chancellor.”

“It was a reflex, Dorian. The feedback loop was—”

“It was a choice,” he interrupted, finally meeting her eyes. For the first time, the absolute zero of his gaze had cracked. There was something fascinating and terrifying behind the blue—a hunger for the very chaos she represented. He didn’t back away. He didn't even correct her when she stepped into his personal space to retrieve the map.

Outside the heavy doors, the distant sound of a tray crashing punctuated the silence. Kaelen and Lyra were waiting in the hall. Mira could feel Kaelen’s suspicion through the wood; his vigilance was like a prickle on the back of her neck. He’d seen them earlier—the way they’d been forced to touch to ground the mana surge—and as he shifted in the corridor, the sharp, metallic scent of ozone clinging to his own robes seemed to heighten his unease. Kaelen wasn't the type to believe in accidental intimacy.

“The Ministry won't wait much longer,” Lyra called through the door, her voice a model of professional impatience. “They want the residency allocations by dawn.”

“They have been sent,” Mira snapped back, though her focus remained on Dorian. 

He reached out, his hand hovering inches from hers. The air between them hummed with a binary star’s tension—two bodies locked in an orbit that was either going to stabilize the school or tear it apart. For a second, the wild joy of the sensory bleed returned to her, a secret fire she kept behind her ribs. Dorian stayed silent, his eyes fixed on the scorch mark on his wrist, choosing the reminder of his failure over the comfort of his discipline. He was learning, and Mira realized with a jolt of fear that she was the curriculum.

“Then let them burn,” Dorian breathed.