His shoulders eased by a fraction, breath releasing through his nose as the tension bled out of him. The corner of his mouth lifted, just barely, and something unfamiliar tugged at my chest.
I wanted it back.
The thought came uninvited, and I shut it down as quickly as it surfaced, though the impulse lingered, irritating in its persistence. He ducked his head for a moment, lashes lowering as he adjusted the angle of his glasses. The movement was so instinctive, so faintly defensive, that my mind supplied a name before I could stop it.
Rabbit.
It wasn’t appropriate, wasn’t professional, and it sure as shit wasn’t anything I had any business thinking about a student.
And yet it fit in a way that had nothing to do with fragility and everything to do with alertness—with the way he seemed perpetually poised to bolt or listen, depending on which proved safer.
He lifted his head again, and met my eyes as if daring himself not to look away this time.
“I don’t think the goal is to come out unchanged. I think the goal is to notice when you’re changing and decide what you’re willing to let it take.”
I studied him without bothering to disguise it anymore, aware of the way the air between us had tightened. My hands stayed flat against the desk, spine straight and posture disciplined.
If Archibald Quinn had understood what it meant to be held in that kind of attention, he might have faltered.
Or maybe not.
His lips parted, breath catching shallow as if his body had registered the shift before his mind could catch up.
He didn’t look away.
The silence stretched, heavy and unbroken, and in it I understood—with a clarity that settled cold and precise in my chest—that whatever I’d been pretending this interview was, it wasn’t that anymore.
I’d crossed the threshold.
And I wasn’t stepping back.
3
ARCHIE
I’d spentyearsbelieving he was healed.
Surviving the fire. Writing a memoir. Crossing some invisible finish line I was still crawling toward.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
Maybe he hadn’t healed at all. Maybe he’d just learned how to build something impressive out of the wreckage and make it look intentional.
My mother used to do that—take broken things apart and reassemble them into something useful. She built something that passed for normal if you didn’t look too closely, and I admired her for it even while I watched it hollow her out.
“Archibald,” Rhys said, somewhere to my left. “If you disassociate any harder, I’m calling an ambulance.”
“I’m thinking.”
A dumpling hit me square in the cheek.
It startled the hell out of me—enough to snap me back into my body as grease slid traitorously down my cheek. I sucked in a breath and turned around.
Rhys stood by the stove, wooden spoon in one hand, the other reaching for another dumpling like he was prepared todouble down. His hair was still damp, pale strands catching on the overhead light in a way that made him look unfairly composed for someone who’d just committed an act of food violence.
“Welcome back,” he said. “You left your body for a minute.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “You just threw food at me.”