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“Who’s your friend, Sylvain?”
Dimitri looked up from the printed schedule he’d been trying to memorize. A girl about his age had leaned into the lockers on the other side of Sylvain, and despite addressing him, was peering intently at Dimitri through the gap between.
She was very beautiful—this was impossible not to notice, though Dimitri was pinned more by her unwavering stare than anything else. He shifted nervously, wondering why it felt easier to endure the attention of press and paparazzi than the weight of a single stranger’s scrutiny.
Sylvain didn’t stop rifling through his locker. “Good morning to you, too, Hil. You don’t know already? That’s pretty surprising.”
It was presumptuous and a little rude of him to say, in Dimitri’s opinion, but Hil didn’t react except to send an exaggerated pout Sylvain’s way and move around him.
She wore the standard girl’s uniform, but Dimitri did not remember the way her skirt swished about her thighs as a feature of Ingrid’s; did not recall the same sliver of milky skin that flashed as she moved, stark between the hem and the tops of her stockings.
“Hi.”
Dimitri’s eyes snapped up to her face. “Hello,” he said, remembering some semblance of his manners as he extended a hand to her. The back of his neck felt hot. “I’m Dimitri. Pleased to meet you.”
She took it. Her hand felt small and delicate as birds’ bones in his, but her grip was surprisingly firm. “Hilda,” she said. “The pleasure’s mine. Today’s your first day?”
“Ah—yes, I. Yes,” Dimitri said, eloquently. Hilda’s eyes were the same lovely pink as her hair, glowing like rose quartz in the window light. “It is.”
“Welcome to Saint Seiros. Your father just won the recent election in Faerghus, didn’t he? I know my older brother was rooting for his campaign. I’m sure he’ll make an excellent governor.” One of Hilda’s pigtails slipped over her shoulder, the long silky hair sending a waft of sweet perfume Dimitri’s way.
“Thank you,” he heard himself say.
The silence must have lingered; Sylvain nudged Dimitri in the side, and it was only then that he realized he’d been holding Hilda’s hand for far longer than a handshake. He let go immediately, resisting the urge to wipe his sweaty palm on his pants.
“Dr. Blaiddyd wants Dimitri to graduate from his alma mater,” Sylvain said smoothly, shooting him a sidelong glance.
“Yes,” Dimitri said, clearing his throat. “And he would prefer that I have more than my tutors for company while he’s away from home. It’s been… quite the transition.”
“I can imagine,” Hilda said. “Let me know if you need anything. I’d be more than happy to show you around, or introduce you to some people. I know what it’s like to be the new kid.”
“Thank you,” Dimitri said again, at the same time Sylvain said, “I’ve got it covered.”
Dimitri looked at Sylvain, but Sylvain was looking at Hilda with an easy grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’m sure you’re still dealing with that cold you came down with yesterday.”
Hilda’s head tilted, one of her golden hoop earrings catching the light. “Oh, that? I got over it this morning. I feel much better, so it’s no trouble.”
“Sure it is,” Sylvain said. “Besides—nothing against you, but Dimitri here is super shy. Total nervous wreck.”
“Sylvain, ” Dimitri protested.
“Oh, believe me, I understand,” Hilda said to him. “This place was super overwhelming to me at first. It was the middle of the semester when I transferred, too! I needed all of the friends and help I could get.”
“You know,” Sylvain said, “he has friends—”
“A new friend sounds wonderful,” Dimitri said, placidly ignoring him. “I look forward to it.”
Hilda’s answering smile was so radiant that Dimitri felt something in his chest stutter. Then her gaze flicked past him, cooling a bit. “Lovely as always to see you, Sylvain.”
“Never as lovely as you are, Hil.”
Hilda hummed, then turned on her heel, her hair swishing behind her. “See you boys around,” she said over her shoulder. Dimitri stared after her until she disappeared into a throng of students further down the hallway.
“What in the world was that?” he asked. Before Sylvain could answer, perhaps a little damningly, he said, “Is she one of your… ?” Friends was the wrong term entirely, but Dimitri couldn’t think of one that was both polite and accurate.
“Hilda? No way. I mean, she’s hot, don’t get me wrong, but she’s a real piece of work.”
“Is that your way of saying she hasn’t fallen for your charms?”
Sylvain huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it. Why? Want me to put in a good word for you?”
“I. No, please do not. Put in a word of any kind,” Dimitri said. “But I must admit I’m curious. It’s rare to see you so bothered.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Sylvain said. He closed his locker, slinging his bag over his shoulder and facing Dimitri fully. “She’s an heiress from Leicester—a Goneril. She transferred in last year. And she doesn’t bother me, I can just tell when she’s up to something. It’s like a sixth sense.”
“Goneril,” Dimitri mused. The surname sounded familiar.
“As in Goneril & Associates. Her brother’s some big shot lawyer. And I mean, this is a great school and all, but if you ask me, I think he needed help keeping an eye on her.”
Dimitri shot him a look.
“Hey, you and I both know Ingrid keeps all of her eyes on me. Especially the ones in the back of her head,” Sylvain said. “But I’m just saying—wait, and you’ll see what I mean. She’s got every boy in this school wrapped around her finger. She manipulates us like little robots.”
“You understand how ridiculous that sounds.”
“I’m serious. You don’t even realize what she’s up to sometimes until it’s too late. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Uh-huh. A family of lawyers, was it?”
Sylvain rolled his eyes. “She’s cool sometimes, but seriously: watch out, or she’ll take you for a ride. Fair warning.”
“Duly noted,” said Dimitri.
“If you’re interested in finding a lady friend though, you won’t have any trouble around here. Pretty sure you could get any girl you wanted at this school.” His lips tilted up into the smirk Dimitri knew as one meant to prod at him. “Even the ones that have boyfriends.”
“I’m not,” Dimitiri said, grimacing. “Interested.”
“Whatever you say.”
It was an exaggeration, in any case. Hilda had been the first person to even say hello. Everyone else he passed by kept their heads down, veering around him in the corridors, giggling and speaking behind him in whispers.
“Don’t sweat it,” Sylvain had said yesterday. “Right now you’re just the talk of the town. School. Not a lot of things to get excited about up in the mountains, you know? You’re like a shiny new toy.”
“What Sylvain means is that people will stop being weird once you stop being the new kid,” Ingrid had said, patting him on the shoulder.
Felix had said, “Which instructor were you assigned for fencing? I’m getting tired of dueling amateurs.”
And all of that was to say: Dimtiri was grateful to have his friends here. The campaign had launched his family into the public eye in a new way, and while he was in full support of it, he hadn’t counted on his father’s political endeavors making it more difficult to integrate himself amongst his peers.
“The first bell has already sounded, gentlemen. Move along before you’re late.”
Dimitri turned to see a man with a neatly trimmed beard and a deeply settled frown on his face, his hands clasped behind his suited back. He was obviously part of the staff, though he looked a bit young to be one of the tenured professors here.
“Yes, sir,” Sylvain said to him. “I was just about to show our new student to his first class of the day.”
The man’s eyes flicked to Dimitri and back to Sylvain again, his frown deepening. “Yes, well. It still counts as a tardy if you’re late to your own because of it, Mr. Gautier. Hurry it up. Both of you.”
Sylvain gave the man a thumbs up before he pulled Dimitri along by the arm down the hallway. Once they’d turned the corner and were out of earshot, he sighed and let go.
“That was a warm welcome,” said Dimitri.
“That’s the headmaster’s aide. He has a stick up his ass. Don’t get on his bad side. Or let him catch you sneaking out of your room at night.” Sylvain made a face. “It won’t be pretty.”
“Fortunately, I do not plan on sneaking out of my room or indulging in the same sort of… escapades as you do,” Dimitri said.
“Escapades?”
“Whatever you want to call them.”
Sylvain snorted as they went up a short flight of stairs and made another right turn. “I call them getting laid. You should try it sometime. Loosen up a little.”
“Thank you for the sage advice as always,” Dimitri said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The second bell sounded, echoing through the empty corridor as they came upon an open door.
“Damn. Late again,” Sylvain said, wincing. “That’s you. I gotta run. Like, fast. Uh. Good luck, man.”
Dimitri peered inside, taking in the room—and promptly understood the sheepishness in Sylvain’s voice. Amongst the students talking and fishing their supplies from their bags, the effervescent Hilda sat in a window seat far in the back. She’d been gazing outside, but the moment the classroom hushed in the wake of Dimitri’s arrival, her eyes turned towards the door.
It quickly dawned on him that only one empty desk remained. He hesitated a moment in the doorway, but no professor was there to prompt him, and the longer he stood there, the more whispers floated about the room.
He needed to take a seat.
Hilda waved at him.
Watch out, or she’ll take you for a ride.
Well. Dimitri was capable of heeding a warning and not turning his nose up at the first person who’d made an effort to be friendly to him.
He ignored the whispers and stares as best he could as he made his way to his seat—he’d spent the better part of the summer enduring far worse.
“Hi again,” Hilda said when he sat down, grinning at him. She was absentmindedly twirling a lock of hair around a pen that was capped with a bright pink ball of fuzz. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hello,” Dimitri said, and perhaps he did look nervous, because she winked at him and leaned over.
“Don’t worry. Professor Manuela is always ten minutes late and at least a little hungover, so you have some time to settle in. You won’t get out of introducing yourself, though.”
“I suppose that’s to be expected,” Dimitri sighed, settling back in his chair. “I’m sorry about my friend earlier. Truly.”
“Sylvain? Oh, no, not at all. That’s just how we are. It was kind of cute to see him get all protective of you.” Dimitri didn’t know why, but he felt heat rise to his face when she said it. “You guys go way back, huh?”
“Yes. Since we were toddlers, practically. Sylvain, Felix, Ingrid and myself all grew up in Fhirdiad together.”
“Oh, I know them. Well, sort of. Ingrid’s really nice, but kind of serious.”
“She is,” Dimitri said fondly. “And Felix…?”
“Is… Felix,” Hilda decided. “He’s like, obsessed with fencing, but that’s all I really know about him. I tried to talk to him once, but it didn’t go over very well.”
“That is not difficult to imagine,” Dimitri said. “For what it’s worth, his bark is far worse than his bite.”
“I think I’d much rather talk to you,” Hilda said, her eyes twinkling. “No barking involved. And you haven’t even tried to bite me yet.”
Dimitri swallowed. He understood the remark as the flirtation it was, but he could not bring himself to confront it; nor could he find any reason or desire to discourage something so… harmless. Silly, even. Luckily, Hilda didn’t let the silence linger.
“I’ve been to Faerghus, but never anywhere near Fhirdiad. What’s it like up there? I’ve always wanted to visit.”
Ah. This, Dimitri could speak comfortably about. The Oghma mountains were downright temperate compared to the unforgiving climate of northern Faerghus. There were parts of the year when the weather was bad enough to halt supply chains for days at a time, even to Fhirdiad. And it wasn’t just that: the people could be harsh, too, as if they had been forged from the landscape. Dimitri lived under no falsehoods about general Faerghan hospitality.
But his eyes roamed over Hilda’s blushed cheeks; the lightly freckled bridge of her nose; the smile playing at her lips as she waited for his answer. He could easily picture her there: bundled in warm, colorful clothes, standing vivid against a backdrop of freshly fallen snow.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Dimitri said. “Though not for the faint of heart.”
Hilda thought about that. “Maybe I just need the right guide,” she said. “Tell you what: I’ll show you around Garreg Mach— my Garreg Mach—if you promise to show me around Fhirdiad when I visit. How’s that?”
“That… sounds like a fair exchange,” Dimitri said.
Hilda’s smile widened. “Tonight, then. Oh, here’s my number.” Her furry pen scribbled across a sheet of notebook paper. “In case we can’t find each other later.”
“Oh,” Dimitri said. He took the torn-off scrap she offered him. The neatly-written phone number on it was hot pink. She’d dotted the ‘i’ in her name with a heart.
Dimitri didn’t know if it was luck, but something had changed following his first class, because he found himself suddenly overwhelmed with new faces, names, phone numbers, and guide offers throughout the day—so many that fielding them all had inexplicably made him tardy to second, third, and fourth period.
“I wish I had your problems, dude,” Sylvain told him at lunch. “You’re kind of hurting my game today, actually.”
“Like you ever had any,” Ingrid said, ignoring the exaggerated way Sylvain laid a hand over his heart and hung his head. “You said Hilda was the first person to talk to you, right? That’s probably why.”
“The girls here are in heat,” Felix added. “Ow!”
“Ah-ah. No kicking, Ingrid.”
“Put a sock in it, Sylvain.”
“I don’t understand,” Dimitri said. “What does Hilda have to do with it?”
“Oh, wait, I didn’t even think of that,” Sylvain said. “That makes so much sense.”
Ingrid nodded at him as she chewed a mouthful of fruit gummies. “Right?”
Dimitri frowned. “What does?”
“For fuck’s sake, can we stop talking about this.” Felix pointed at Dimitri with his fork, scowling. “That girl made her move. Now all of the others are trying to get your attention before she snags it for good. So if you want everyone to leave you alone, just say you have a girlfriend back in Faerghus or something. Got it?”
“That what you did, Fe?” Sylvain asked, grinning. “Woah there, watch where you’re aiming that fork—”
Her move. Was that what it was?
“She’s showing me around,” Dimitri said. Felix’s rampage stopped in its tracks. He dropped back into his seat, staring at Dimitri like he’d grown a second head. Sylvain was looking at him funny, too—they all were. “After class,” he added. “She… she offered.”
“Are you insane?” Felix asked. “Genuinely. Did you hit your head?”
“I— no I didn’t hit—” Dimitri sputtered, “ What is the big deal? Am I not allowed to make new friends here?”
“Friends. Right.” Sylvain pressed his lips together, but Dimitri could see the way the corner tilted up on one side. “Uh, the thing is. I don’t think Hilda has friendship in mind, exactly. This is what I was trying to warn you about.”
“That’s rather presumptuous,” Dimitri said sternly. “Perhaps this is exactly the reason you spend your summers lamenting your girl troubles.”
Sylvain’s eyes narrowed.“Oh yeah? After class , right? Where’d did she invite you back to?”
Dimitri opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.
“Hm?”
“I. She.” Dimitri closed his eyes. “She told me to meet her at the girls’ dormitory.”
“Ha!”
“You’re all idiots,” Ingrid said. “Marianne goes back to their room every day right after eighth period to check on her hamster.” It was her turn to be stared at, now. “Kind of a vibe killer, isn’t it? Hilda’s smarter than that.”
Dimitri sighed in relief. He didn’t know that. “You see?” he said to Sylvain.
“No, I mean, she definitely wants in your pants,” Ingrid said. “I’m just saying she’s not going to try to get into them on your first day. So. You know. You have time.”
“Time?”
“To decide if you want to let her in your pants or not.” Straight-faced, serious as ever. Sylvain snorted blue Powerade out of his nose, and Felix looked over at him in blatant disgust.
“I. Thank you,” Dimitri said, flatly. His face burned. “What would I do without you all.”
“Be clueless,” said Felix.
“And bored,” added Ingrid.
Sylvain stopped hacking into his sleeve long enough to speak up, too. “And sad. Like, so sad.”
He hated that they were right. But for the first time all day, despite his apparent new dilemma, he felt completely at home.
Ingrid, of course, had been right.
Not about Hilda wanting to ‘get into his pants,’ but about Marianne, who answered the door for him in the girls’ dormitory later that afternoon.
“Hello,” she said softly, looking up at him through her lashes.
Dimitri smiled. “Hello. I—”
“Hilda. It’s for you.” Marianne turned from the doorframe, disappearing again into the room.
“Oh.”
“Just a sec!” Hilda’s voice floated out into the hallway. “I’ll be right out.”
Dimitri swallowed as a small huddle of girls made their way through the hall, whispering amongst themselves.
“ Hello, Dimitri,” one of them said, her face a distantly familiar thing from the morning, and the rest of the group broke out into giggles.
“Yes, hello.” Dimitri pulled at his collar, shifting uncomfortably until they passed by. They peered back at him with all the subtlety of a circus act until they turned the next corner. Felix’s earlier words ricocheted through his mind, and Dimitri thought that he would have rather stayed in the dark about why his luck had turned since the morning, and why it was only girls who had so far introduced themselves.
Luckily, Hilda slipped through the doorway just then.
“Hi,” she said, and Dimitri took her in: no longer in the solid-black ensemble of her uniform, she opted to change into a comfortable-looking light pink sweater and a pair of jeans. She’d let her hair down, and it spilled long over her shoulders as she pulled the door shut behind her. “You ready?”
“I am,” he said. And then, as they made their way back out into the courtyard: “I hope I wasn’t intruding.”
“Oh, back there? No way! Marianne’s just a little shy. Sort of like you.” Hilda nudged him. “She likes animals more than people. So naturally, I took her under my wing.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?” Dimitri asked, smiling fondly. “Taking me under your wing?”
Hilda’s face scrunched. “I can’t really help it. It just sort of happens, y’know? Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
Maybe Ingrid had miscalculated—there was nothing duplicitous about the way Hilda spoke of her friend. And beyond the most lighthearted flirtations, she’d been nothing but a friendly student guide since first period. She’d even swooped in to distract Manuela from using the entire hour-long class to have him talk about his life in Fhirdiad.
“I’m grateful to have made a friend here,” Dimitri. said. He held out his arm, a peace offering. Hilda beamed at him.
“I think we’ll get along swimmingly,” she said, looping through. “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask you all day: do you happen to know someone named Claude Riegan?”
Dimitri froze, briefly. He recalled a glass of champagne, a coat closet, and a pair of eyes so green he could see them in the dark. And a mouth, nearly as good at kissing as it was at talking him in circles.
“Ah. I think we’ve met, yes.” Dimitri cleared his throat as they continued along. “How do you know him?”
“I knew it! Oh, we go way back,” Hilda said. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to our first stop.”
“Which is?”
“Where else?” Hilda said. “The cathedral, of course.”
“Of course.”
Garreg Mach, the Monastery in which the school had been founded, was beautiful: a sprawling, solemn fortress hewed by time. Some parts of it dated as far back as the 1100s, he’d recently learned, when it had served as the very foothold of the Central Church. Every summer it was open to the public for sightseeing, which was, according to a chagrined Felix, the only time its historic artifacts were put on display.
He had never been one for the faith, but attendance to the morning prayer was only mandatory once per week.
“I’m in the choir,” Hilda informed him, winking, “so it won’t be all bad.”
“Now that is something I look forward to.”
“Oh? Why don’t you audition, in that case?”
“For the choir? Me?” Dimitri balked. “Oh, no, I couldn’t. You see, my voice is—well, that is, I’ve had lessons, but. It’s not. Suitable for—”
“Relax!” Hilda laughed, and Dimitri could feel the color his face was, the warm wash of it over his cheeks. “You’re too easy to tease. It almost makes me feel bad.”
Dimitri’s chin lifted a little. “Yes, well.”
“It’s cute,” Hilda said, sobering. Her eyes twinkled, and it made something flip in the bottom of Dimitri’s stomach. A moment later, the expression was gone. “Anyway. You didn’t hear it from me, but if you ever get the urge to do your own exploring, Seteth’s patrols end at midnight. And he almost never checks the cathedral. Too obvious, right? But you’d be surprised…”
And so went the most colorful tour he’d ever elected to be taken on. After, he parted with her amicably in the courtyard—and maybe it was because he’d already calibrated to Hilda’s particular brand of friendliness, but nothing about it seemed as dire or dangerous as his friends had made it out to be.
Two months later, naturally, it hit him like a bat to the head.
One moment Dimitri was walking briskly down the corridor, fretting about how little time he had until lights out, and the next he was taken by the arm and pulled forcefully into one of the doorway overhangs. He couldn’t react before his back met the stone wall, and by the time his body had prepared him for fight, he realized his abductor had long pink hair and smelled like vanilla.
“Hilda?” he said, blinking past his confusion. “What on earth—”
“Oh, wow,” Hilda said. Her eyes raked down his body. “You’re all… sweaty. Were you working out?”
“I—Yes.” He’d agreed to a single practice match with Felix in the outdoor practice yard, which had, of course, turned into seven. He likely didn't smell very pleasant, but he hadn’t been the one to force them into close quarters. “It’s almost curfew, and I desperately need a shower, so—”
“I know. I’ve been waiting here forever! I was starting to think I’d totally missed you.”
“You—why? You could have asked around if you needed me. Or called.”
“I did call you,” Hilda said. “Your phone’s dead.”
Dimitri checked. It was.
“And anyway, I needed you completely alone. I have something to show you.”
He opened his mouth.
“And before you ask, yes, it’s urgent. You can’t tell anyone about it, though. Not a soul—not even your friends.”
“That’s… ominous,” Dimitri decided, crossing his arms. “Hilda, what do you have?”
Hilda shook her head. “Promise.”
“Alright,” he said, exasperated. “I promise.”
Hilda looked absolutely delighted as she unzipped the front pocket of her bag. She glanced around before dipping her fingers in, and in the dim hallway light he could see the glint of metal between them—a key, he realized, though she didn’t pull it all the way out.
Dimitri squinted at it. “What is that?”
“Oh, you know. Just the key to the Holy Tomb.”
“The key to—what.”
Dimitri’s head spun.
The Holy Tomb was an underground place so sacred that it was not even open for guided tours in the summer the way the rest of the Monastery was. Few had knowledge of its location—certainly not anyone Dimitri knew. Some people thought it had been made up entirely.
He waited a moment for Hilda to rib at him for the look he knew was on his face, to throw her head back in good-natured laughter the way she sometimes did when she teased him. But her expression didn’t change.
“Is that even possible? How do you have something like that?”
Hilda slipped the key back into its pocket and zipped it up. “I asked for it very nicely.”
“Is that all,” said Dimitri.
“Well, alright, it might have also been stolen from Lady Rhea’s residence.”
“Hilda.” Dimitri blinked at her. “Don’t tell me you—“
“Hey, woah, don’t freak out. It’s not like I stole it myself. Besides, it’ll be returned before anyone even notices it’s gone.”
Dimitri didn’t dare ask which poor soul was risking their expulsion for Hilda’s favor. “Why?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Because I happen to have it on good authority that the Heroes’ Relics are down there.”
“That’s not possible. They were destroyed.”
The only evidence that such weapons had existed in the first place were disjointed written accounts. Paintings and illustrations of them had been lost to time, and modern day interpretations were so mythologized that the true Relics might not have even been recognizable—if they hadn’t perished in the war that unified the continent, which was the scholarly consensus.
“Except they sort of weren’t ,” Hilda said. “They were sealed away, right here in Garreg Mach Monastery.”
“I… see,” Dimitri said after a moment.
“You don’t believe me.”
“It isn’t that I don’t believe you, it’s just—you do realize how unbelievable that sounds? Legendary ancient weapons, sealed away in a secret tomb?”
“Felix thinks they exist,” Hilda said, crossing her arms. “And you guys are way more alike than I’d have ever thought possible, honestly.”
“You talked to Felix about this,” Dimitri said.
“Well, I didn’t tell him what I was doing. But a little birdie whispered in my ear about the Relics recently, and I figured, you know, he’d probably be a good person to ask. He’s surprisingly talkative about that sort of thing.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in weapons,” Dimitri said. They’d been classmates for nearly two months now, but she’d never shown more than polite interest in the topic, at least in Dimitri’s presence.
“I’m not,” Hilda said. “But you are. And I had access to the key, so I just thought… oh, you can put away the puppy dog eyes. It’s not like I’m getting nothing out of it.” If it weren’t for the dim light in the alcove, he could have sworn he saw her cheeks color. “But planning it all out was pretty troublesome, so… you will go with me, right?”
Dimitri wavered. He wanted to, but…“If what you’re saying is true, it has to be closely guarded. We’ll be caught immediately if we aren’t incapacitated by whatever security measures they have in place.”
“Nope,” Hilda said. “No guards, no alarms, no booby traps. I made sure of it. You think I want to Indiana Jones my way out of some old tomb? Give me and my source a little credit, would you?”
Dimitri held himself very still as Hilda took another step forward, narrowing the already intimate space between their bodies. If they were closer in height, their faces might have been a breath apart. As it was, he felt the near warmth of her like that of a stovetop, and regarded it with equal caution. Every nerve ending on his body stood at attention.
“Besides, even if I’m wrong, the door this key unlocks has to lead somewhere. ” Hilda must have known she had him, then, because the smirk on her face was suddenly mischievous enough to rival one of Sylvain’s. “Don’t you wanna know where it goes?”
“What are you getting out of it?” Dimitri asked, narrowing his eyes.
Hilda didn’t answer his question, not really. That would have been too easy. “Aren’t you tired of being a good boy, Dimitri?”
Sylvain really had tried to warn him.
He hadn’t been wrong to do so, Dimitri thought. Not at all. In fact, Dimitri had severely underestimated what it meant to be wrapped around Hilda Goneril’s finger.
The feigned incompetence he could spot. The ridiculous flattery and white lies he could ignore, for the most part. The thoughtfulness Hilda tried so hard to hide from everyone, he could pretend for her sake not to notice.
But this—whatever this was, he didn’t know how to navigate. The feeling that struck him was hot and quick. Thinking through it was like treading water; saying no to her was out of the question. It wasn’t irritation he felt, or pride, or anything he knew how to tamp down in the face of such a patronizing remark. But surprise flickered across Hilda’s face, and Dimitri knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever he’d just unwittingly revealed to her, she’d use to her advantage.
The danger with Hilda had never been in being taken for a fool and realizing it too late. The danger was this: Dimitri was okay with being Hilda’s fool, sometimes.
“Where,” he said carefully, “and what time do we meet?”
Dimitri slipped from his room later that night like Hilda had instructed: in dark, comfortable clothes. Well, all right, she’d told him to dress like he was going to ‘pull off a heist in a spy movie’, but a black long-sleeved shirt and a fitted pair of athletic pants would have to do.
It would be all the same to anyone who caught him where he wasn’t supposed to be, which was in bed fast asleep. Seteth should have finished his nightly hall check by now, but with every step through the silent Monastery, Dimitri ate his past reprimands. If Sylvain could see him now, sneaking out to see a girl.
Admittedly, Hilda was not just any girl. And the place she had asked him to meet was not one of the many spots that Sylvain had desecrated—and described to him in torturous detail.
“Why would they leave a place like this wide open for anyone to walk in and find?” Dimitri asked. The door he and Hilda stood before was massive and ancient-looking, the stone carved so ornately that it stood out even in the dim. Anyone would recognize its sigil: the Crest of Flames.
“According to Linhardt, no one is supposed to be able to find it,” Hilda said. “I didn’t know what this door led to when I came across it last year. When I asked the first person I saw, they looked at me like I was crazy. They couldn’t see it, apparently. I didn’t know if you’d be able to, either. But would you look at that!”
“Are you saying—”
“I know it sounds like I’m making it all up—”
“—that this place is magic?”
“Yeah, alright, it’s a little bonkers. But how else do you explain the fact that no one knows this is here? Like, even if it’s a little out of the way, shouldn’t it be common knowledge? It’s not exactly a subtle door.”
“I. Don’t know,” Dimitri said.
“Linhardt thinks the way it appears to people has something to do with Crest lineage—you know, assuming the mythology is… not actually mythical.”
Dimitri’s eyebrows drew together. Hilda was a good student, but her avid interest in the history of Crests, again, was news to him. “Linhardt’s the one who took the key for you?”
Hilda scoffed. “Him? No way —if I’m lazy, he’s an actual sloth. The key was a called-in favor.”
“And you’re not going to tell me from whom.”
“A girl doesn’t scheme and tell.” Hilda slipped her fingers into her skirt pocket, retrieving the key. “Could you imagine a world like that, though? Where Crest magic is like, a thing.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Dimitri said. “I’ve never been an avid believer in the Goddess or any of her… gifts.”
“This whole endeavor is pretty ironic, then,” Hilda said, turning the key. The ancient components of the massive door groaned and creaked and shuddered in their holds, as if they had not been disturbed for quite some time, and were not pleased to be now. “You’re the expert on the Relics, after all.” Hilda pulled on the handle—nothing happened. No give, not even a creak for her effort.
“Is it stuck?”
Hilda braced her feet and tried again, to no avail. “Ugh,” she grunted. “It’s so old I think it’s rusted shut.”
Dimitri stepped forward to help, realizing too late that doing so put Hilda’s back against his front—and that she was rather unobtrusive there. His arms fit around her comfortably, his hands settling above hers on the door handle.
“On three,” Hilda said after a moment, her voice betraying nothing. Dimitri’s fingers tightened around the cold iron. “One.”
He could smell the perfume in her hair.
“Two.”
Her skirt brushed his pants. Every minute shift between them in this small, private space could be felt.
“Three.”
Dimitri pulled, putting his back into it, and the door gave so quickly that they both stumbled back as it swung on its hinges, Hilda into Dimitri, Dimitri catching himself on his feet, keeping the grip he had on the handle with one hand. The other wrapped instinctively around Hilda’s middle, steadying her.
“Oof,” Hilda said, belatedly.
“Are you alright?” Dimitri asked. He straightened and backed away once she’d lifted herself from him, ignoring that he could still feel the heat and weight of her like a brand on his body, the curve of her waist still corporeal beneath his palm. “You must have loosened it.”
“Or you’re just freakishly strong,” Hilda said, pulling the door further ajar. Through its opening, an old stone staircase descended into pitch-dark nothingness. “You didn’t happen to charge your phone before you left the dorms, did you?”
“Ah…”
“Thought so. And I didn’t bring mine.”
Dimitri bit the inside of his cheek. “Then… shall we turn back?”
“Just because we don’t have a flashlight? No way. Our eyes will adjust. Probably.” It didn’t seem likely. There was no light source other than the remnants of the dimmed lights in the corridor—and who knew how far down the staircase led. “They probably have some old lamps down there or something, don’t you think? Besides, we’ll never have another opportunity to come down here,” Hilda reminded him. “I have to return the key in the morning. And I’m out of IOUs for the rest of the semester.”
“I see,” Dimitri said. He thought about it—the Relics, the true probability of their existence, that might be right under his nose. How much it would matter when they would hardly be able to see a few inches in front of their faces. Lamps, perhaps, but usable ones? A way to light them?
He thought about Hilda—the bounce in her step, how much she’d risked for this. He doubted she’d tell the headmaster who’d stolen the key for her—she’d take the fall herself. Every moment they spent outside this mysterious door was a moment that left them vulnerable to discovery.
And above all else—something inside was telling him to go. It felt nearly like a push, the rush of missing a step.
He held out his hand. “It’ll be safer this way, then. Won’t it?”
Hilda’s eyebrows rose. Then she reached out, grinning. “I knew you weren’t as uptight and stuffy as Sylvain said you were.”
“He said that?”
“Oh—don’t tell him I told you!” she said quickly. “I’m pretty sure he was just trying to get me to leave you alone.”
She might have been right, Dimitri thought, but there was a bit of truth to everything Sylvain said. After all, mere weeks ago, he could not have imagined himself trespassing on school property with a stolen key in hand.
Or his hand in Hilda’s: the delicate press of her palm against the back of his fingers as he led them into the darkness. The door shut behind them, a solid, final thud.
“Oh,” Hilda breathed. “It’s. Really dark, huh?”
“Watch your step,” Dimitri said, feeling out the width of the stairs, the cool stone of the wall beneath his free hand. “And stay close. We’ll descend slowly.”
“How far could I go with you holding my hand?” Hilda teased, but her own tightened around his.
He couldn’t say how long it took or how many stairs there were, but after some time, Dimitri’s eyes adjusted enough to see the faint outline of the last of them, the opening of the room beyond, lit by some faint light.
Hilda bumped into his back.
“Dimitri?”
“Are you sure you have the only key?” he asked. “That we came through the only entrance?”
“As far as I know,” Hilda said. “Maybe Lady Rhea likes to chill down here? Who knows what that woman gets up to in her free time.”
“Yes, well, if that’s true, we can kiss our futures here farewell.”
“Totally worth it though, right?”
Dimitri sighed, shaking his head fondly. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
Hesitantly, they turned the corner into the room.
They didn’t see the relics right away. How could they? Beyond them, at the opposite end of the chamber, was what could only be described as a throne. Cast in an eerie green light that seemed to spill from the heavens—the cause of which he could not determine when the ceiling of the chamber was black as a void—it sat atop a flight of stairs, overlooking the rows of graves.
The rows of graves.
“Caskets…” Hilda said. “I mean, I know it’s a tomb and all, but that’s… a little creepy, don’t you think? Why are there so many?”
A dawning realization struck Dimitri. “You know what the Relics have been said to be made of, don’t you?” He saw the moment she realized what he meant.
“You don’t think… they’re all buried here?”
“Laid to rest,” Dimitri said, walking slowly down the row.
He felt drawn to them. To kneel before them, one by one. To place a hand over the risen lids and feel the way they beat in time with his heart.
“It’s… glowing.”
Dimitri’s eyes found the throne again, the way it seemed to tower above them. “So it is,” he murmured.
“Stairs again,” Hilda sighed, but she made for the staircase anyway, her skirt fluttering behind her.
“Hilda? Are you sure we should—”
“It’s a throne,” Hilda said, looking back at him. “Sothis herself could have sat there once! I’m totally checking it out.”
“That may be a tad far-fetched,” he said, but even he could not deny the single-minded he pull he felt towards the dais, the curiosity its ethereal light stoked in him. Dimitri trailed after Hilda, the buried relics drifting to the back of his mind as they began their ascent. It was revealing, unnerving—here there was no wall, no guard rails to brace themselves against, to keep them from plummeting to the ground below.
He kept his eyes on Hilda, trying very hard not to notice the alluring swing of her hips, the way her skirt was just a little too short from this angle.
The throne looked even larger from the dais. Hewed from the same ancient stone the tomb was made of, it was taller than it was wide, though when Hilda spun on her heel and took a seat there, the entire thing seemed to engulf her.
Dimitri gaped at her, but she only grinned cheekily at him and leaned back into it like it was nothing more than an armchair in her living room.
“How do I look?”
Beautiful. Untouchable. Dangerous.
“Like you’re sitting on the Goddess’ throne,” Dimitri said, carefully.
“You don’t believe in the Goddess.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“What about me?”
“You?”
“If you won’t kneel for a Goddess,” Hilda said, shifting, her legs parting just so, “what about me?”
Dimitri didn’t breathe. He tried very hard not to look at the tops of Hilda’s thighs; the apex of them beneath the edge of her skirt, just out of sight. “Hilda,” he said, swallowing.
“It would be fun,” Hilda sing-songed. “Plus, when will we ever have the opportunity again? Humor me. Pretend I’m Sothis. You can be my trusted knight.”
She had to have been joking. Maybe she was; maybe it was a half-joke, more of those lighthearted flirtations he’d learned to let roll off his shoulders. But what it stirred in him was not shock, or exasperation, or embarrassment.
Dimitri didn’t know why he felt it, not here of all places—the insistent surge of longing that strobed through him, the helplessness he felt towards it. Ingrid’s words came back to him once more, but they were distant echoes.
“Do not make fun of me,” he said, quietly. “Please. Not like this.”
Hilda leveled her gaze with his, holding it. Very seriously, more so than usual, she said, “I’m not.”
Dimitri went easily, then, his legs folding beneath him as he kneeled before the throne. An ache radiated through his knees as they hit the floor, but it was a distant thing.
Like this, Hilda was haloed by the faint glow above, her hair silky and shining and falling around her like a veil. Her eyes shone. “You can touch,” she said, her legs shifting further in offering. “I’d never deny my knight a reward.”
Hesitantly, as if in a dream, Dimitri reached out. His fingertips brushed the delicate bend of her knee, featherlight. He heard Hilda’s breath go stilted, fluttery, as he dragged them up, curving them around her calf; the juncture of her knee, just beyond that sliver of skin that always flashed between her stockings and her skirt. Slowly, he pushed just beneath it, the skin warm and plush beneath the pads of his fingers. The fabric bunched over his hand as it slid fully around the curve of her thigh.
“Dimitri,” she said, breathless. Her legs parted further for him. “You know, on second thought? Who cares about this dusty old tomb? Let’s get out of— oh.”
It was accidental. That was what he told himself, anyway, the barely-there scrape of his thumb down the seam of her panties, right in the juncture of her thigh. He nearly recoiled at his own presumptuousness, at getting carried away, except that the moment he drew back, Hilda actually whimpered. Her hips tilted forward, chasing that ghost of a touch.
Dimitri looked up into her eyes again, wetting his lips, swallowing. His mouth felt dry. And all he wanted—his sole desire in this moment, in this Holy, ancient tomb was to taste her.
Still, he could barely force himself to say the words.
“I wish to…”
“Yes,” Hilda gasped, pressing herself further into the touch he’d returned to her leg. “Yes.”
Yes.
His fingers sought out and curled into the thin, satin-smooth fabric at the jut of her hip, pulling them down. Hilda lifted herself up, her chest rising and falling hard, one of her own hands cupped over her breast, the other yanking her underwear down in tandem. They fell easily down her legs in a pink, slippery pool, and as soon as she slipped one dainty ankle out of them he found himself pushing her thighs apart, found his hands curled around her legs as he pulled her gently forward.
“Oh, this is a little—” Hilda said, squirming a bit in his hold, “No one’s ever looked that closely before.”
“Why?” Dimitri heard himself ask, but if she responded, he didn’t hear her. He was too busy taking her in. She was bare beneath the bunched-up skirt, her skin creamy and smooth, her cunt soft and pink between the frame of her stocking-clad legs. “I’ve never…” breathed Dimitri.
“It feels the best,” Hilda said, her fingers drifting down her body, brushing lightly over her clit, shivering a little, “right here.” Dimitri was utterly transfixed as he watched her; as her manicured fingers dipped lower. One pushed gently into the glistening wetness before dragging back up and circling in a slow, practiced manner.
Dimitri leaned forward, and Hilda’s hand slid gently to the back of his head, encouraging. His tongue brushed the place she’d shown him, drawing from her a halted, surprised breath. She was warm under his mouth as he licked, the musk of her filling his senses. He dragged the flat of his tongue over her clit once in curiosity, and she jolted suddenly, her nails digging into his scalp until he eased up.
Gentle, he realized. The lightest stroke of his tongue was enough.
“Mm,” Hilda sighed. “Like that.” Her hips tilted this way and that until she seemed to find where it felt best, and he did his best not to move, to let her guide him as he drew a litany of sighs and gasps from her mouth. He could feel her body drawing tight, twitching, bucking of its own accord whenever he found a particularly sensitive spot.
“Inside,” Hilda said suddenly, “Need—your fingers—”
He brought two of them up obediently, prodding gently at her opening, her hand around his wrist all but pushing them inside herself. Something in him unfurled, yearning to burst forward, to move through his body. He wanted to rise, stretch, grab— bury himself in—
“Don’t stop,” Hilda gasped.
Dimitri didn’t stop. He doubled his efforts, fucking his fingers into her in tandem with the desperate undulation of her hips, feeling her slick and his own saliva drip down his hand, smearing across his face.
“Dimitri,” she said, high and tight, her body going rigid, her thigh tensing in his hold, solid muscle beneath the give. “I’m—”
She cut herself off with a gasping whine. He felt it— felt her coming, felt her grip twist so tightly in his hair that it hurt, felt her body spasming and her cunt clenching hard around his fingers. He moaned into her, let her rock against his face as she rode it out. He felt it in his own groin; his cock seemed to pulse in time, straining against his pants.
Then she went lax, twitching a bit under the last strokes of his tongue before pushing him away.
“You’re good at that,” she sighed, her chest heaving, her head lolling a bit. “Knew you would be.”
Dimitri dragged his sleeve across his face, his eyes locked on hers. He was so hard—and so wound up, so restless. Any sort of release would be mercy: his hand around his cock, over his pants, the barest pressure of Hilda’s shoe.
“You wanna fuck me?”
Dimitri forced himself still despite the shudder that rippled down his spine. The words curled in his gut. “I…”
Hilda stared down at him, her eyes lidded. “You want to, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Dimitri said, and didn’t recognize the harsh, guttural sound of his voice.
Hilda grinned, and leaned forward grabbed the front of his shirt, tugging him up. He rose from his knees like a man possessed, crowding her against the back of the throne, casting her in shadow. Hilda’s eyes seemed to glow even in the dark, glittering between her lashes.
“Yeah,” she said, her hand sliding slowly to the back of his neck, as if she were soothing him. The heat of her thigh around his hip was like the cut of a knife. She tipped her face up in offering—or in challenge, maybe. Her breath ghosted his mouth. “I want you to.”
He kissed her, hard.
Dimitri had kissed before. Felix: on a dare when they were twelve. Ingrid: once, during a very awkward game of spin the bottle, at the age of fourteen. And Claude Riegan: last year, in that coat closet at a fundraiser party. At the time, it had been the most sensual moment of his life. Claude’s kisses were insistent, loaded, yet totally controlled. He’d left him flushed and flustered, but he had eventually left him there and gone back to the party.
This wasn’t anything like that.
This was open, messy, electric. This was Dimitri’s lip between Hilda’s teeth, his tongue in her mouth, fucking in. She moaned into him and it made his scalp tingle, made his whole body shudder in anticipation.
It happened in a blur—he shoved the front of his pants down until his cock was freed, and in the next second Hilda had her hand around him; was guiding him to her heat. His mouth fell open as he pushed inside—the slide was wet, easy, slicked by them both, so hot his vision briefly whited out. Pleasure curled violently in his belly, and he fucked in hard on instinct, chasing it until he was hilted. Hilda’s nails dug into his scalp—he barely felt it, barely heard her cry out.
He felt her mouth on his neck, though, scalding and wet, the scrape of teeth across nerve endings that felt like livewires. He felt the tight sheath of her cunt around his cock, squeezing him, the urge to stay buried there. He felt her thigh beneath his palm, the curve of her ass as it slid up, pushing her further down on his cock.
“Yeah, c’mon,” Hilda said into his ear, breathless. “You can move.”
He seemed only to remember this as she said it, that he could withdraw, hissing at the slide, the way her body seemed to suck him back in. She made a wounded noise as he did so, panting in his ear as he fucked her in short, rolling strokes.
It felt good like this, but he wanted to be deeper—wanted to drive himself into her harder, needed to feel—
“Oh!” Hilda cried as he grabbed her hip with one hand and pulled her further down the seat of the throne, her hand slapping the backrest as she fell down into it, a loud, echoing sound that seemed to go on forever. He lifted a knee to the seat to balance himself as he braced his hand over one of the stone arms. Like this he could pull out nearly all the way before thrusting back into her, could hear himself moving inside her, the slick sounds of it, the impact of his hips against her. His eyes were fixed there, where his cock disappeared over and over again until Hilda reached up and touched his chin, urging his face up.
“Dimitri,” she gasped, and he grit his teeth as he took her in; her face flushed and damp with sweat, twisted in pleasure.
There was—a cracking sound. Hilda’s eyes widened, and he distantly registered where his fingers had dug into the throne, where it had broken under his grip and dust had caked beneath his fingernails.
“You—” Hilda said, “Did you just—oh, fuck, oh my g—”
Whatever else she said, it was garbled. He didn’t stop fucking her, couldn’t stop, needed the feeling curling inside him to crest, needed to feel himself flooding her. Hilda urged him on, her heels digging into his back, her nails cutting into his chin as she yanked him down to smash their mouths together again, licking inside and moaning into him as his hips sped. It started between his shoulder blades and crawled down his spine like a chill, his muscles tightening, his mouth falling open against hers as he broke, as it shot off like an arrow. He came, fully hilted, shuddering, unconscious of how hard his fingers still dug into rock, her hip, how it might bruise beneath them.
He could feel the harsh way Hilda was breathing as he came back to himself, her chest brushing his, her skin slick against his everywhere they touched. He relished in the way she clenched around him, the friction drawing out the last pleasant dregs of his desire, all the desperation gone.
"Wow," Hilda said into the silence. "If I knew it was going to be like that, I'd have invited you back into my room on your first day."
Dimitri pulled back a bit to look at her, his softening cock slipping out. He couldn't help the way they darted down, the curiosity he felt, the satisfaction in seeing his spend leaking out of her, dripping down the friction-pink curve of her thigh.
"If I had known it was going to be like that," Dimitri said, "I might have agreed."
“I feel strange,” Dimitri said a while later, when they’d dressed and fixed themselves up to the best of their abilities. Hilda lounged on the throne, and he was on the ground beside her, leaning against it.
“Is it because you aren’t a virgin anymore?”
Dimitri frowned and tilted his head back to look at her. “How do you know I—”
Hilda raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well, I can’t say it’s not. But I don’t think so. Did you feel different when… after your first time?”
“Mm. Not really,” she said, tracing down his cheek with a fingertip. Her forefinger tapped his nose. “But I totally do feel different now. I wonder why. Maybe it’s because we just desecrated a tomb?”
“We should probably take our leave soon,” Dimitri said, wincing. His fingers ached from when he’d cracked the stone. He didn’t have any faith in Sothis, but if she was up there, he hoped she had at least averted her eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere right now unless you princess-carry me down the stairs,” Hilda said, her lashes fluttering. “My legs feel like jelly.” Dimitri’s face warmed at the implication, but he couldn’t keep the fond smile from it as Hilda lazed back on the throne, one knee thrown over the arm.
“That, I can do.”
Hilda snorted. “You would say that. I was joking. Wha—Dimitri? I was joking!”
Dimitri stood and scooped her from the throne, ignoring her spluttering protests as he adjusted her in his arms. She was small to begin with, but she felt nearly weightless there now—a warm presence against his chest and nothing more.
“You know,” Hilda said into his neck, as he began down the steps. “You really are like a prince sometimes.”
“I’m simply helping—ah.” A friend? Was that what they were? Still? “I wouldn’t want you to fall.”
“Sorry you didn’t get to see the Relics.”
“Well, we cannot very well unearth them—if they do happen to be buried beneath those headstones.”
“Something tells me you could. If you wanted to.”
His palm ached. The piece of stone that had broken off in his hand was a heavy weight in his pocket. “If they really are remains… perhaps it’s best they stay buried. Besides, I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t think Felix will be nearly as excited to hear about what you really got up to down here.”
Dimitri propped her higher against his chest. “Felix knows? You said not to tell anyone!”
“He was too suspicious about all of my questions! I had to tell him the truth. Come on, it’s Felix. Like he’d tell. But he’s definitely going to grill you about it.”
Dimitri groaned. He was too obvious—if Felix didn’t pick up on it, Sylvain surely would. He'd never hear the end of this—of their ‘I told you so’s.
And yet. He didn’t regret it—this. What he’d done.
When they breached the corridor, they realized that the sun had nearly risen. Dim light shone down the hallway, blue and silent. “That’s not a good sign,” Hilda said. Dimitri set her gingerly back on her feet. When he turned around to close the heavy door, it was gone. Not missing. Not broken. It was as if it had simply never been there at all.
“That’s. That’s impossible.”
“How do you explain that?” Hilda breathed.
“I don’t know,” Dimitri said. He reached into his pocket again, fitting his hand around the shard of the throne. It had been real. That, he knew. “The key—you should return it.”
“Right. Oh, she’s going to kill me. Walk me back to the dorms so I have a witness?”
“I thought you said you don’t scheme and tell,” Dimitri shot back, but he was already leading the way.
As they approached the girls’ dormitory, Dimitri recognized the student who was standing in front of the entrance, her small hands clasped together anxiously. He didn’t have any classes with her, but from what he knew, she was Seteth’s little sister.
“Hilda! I was starting to get worried. My brother realized the key was missing this morning, and I do not think I can stall him for very much longer.”
“Sorry, Flayn! I didn’t realize how late it’d gotten. Time flies.”
“Yes, well,” Flayn said, her eyes darting suspiciously to Dimitri. “I am just relieved nothing bad happened.”
“Everything is exactly as it should be,” Hilda said, pressing the key into Flayn’s small, waiting palms. “Well, the big creepy throne might be a little worse for wear, but if no one looks too closely…”
“I am afraid I didn’t quite hear you. Could you repeat that?”
Dimitri stepped forward to explain—it’d been his fault, after all.
“Ah! You know, never mind,” Hilda said quickly. “Thanks again. I think we can definitely call ourselves even.”
“You never saw me,” Flayn said to Dimitri, her voice like birdsong. She held a finger to her lips. Dimitri blinked at her.
“I. Never saw you,” he said.
“Good.” And with that she turned on her heel and went back into the dormitory, her ringlet curls bouncing with every step.
”That went…well,” Dimitri said after a moment. “I think.”
“If I may ask,” came Seteth’s voice from behind Dimitri, “why is it that you’re in front of the Girls’ dormitory so early in the morning? And why are neither of you in uniform?”
Dimitri stiffened, his head spinning with a multitude of excuses, all of which sounded suspicious to begin with and would betray themselves as outright lies as soon as he spoke them. “I—well. I,” he stammered, glancing helplessly at Hilda, who looked nervous for once. “You see, I—”
Hilda put on her sweetest smile. “Seteth—can I call you Seteth? Dimitri’s here because—”
Seteth held up a hand, and pinched his brow with the other, silencing her. “Ugh. Nevermind. Consider yourselves lucky that I do not have the time for this today. See that you’re dressed and on time to your classes. If you’ll excuse me.”
He moved past them both, walking briskly down the corridor, apparently in search of something. Flayn, perhaps. Dimitri realized then that Sylvain’s particular brand of antics and his own association with him might have come in handy after all.
“He’s in a mood today, huh?” Hilda said to Marianne, who only dared approach from where she’d been peeking standing in the corridor once Seteth was around the corner and out of earshot.
“I guess so,” Marianne said quietly. “Phillip told me earlier that he could smell magic in the air.”
Dimitri frowned. “Phillip?”
“Marianne’s hamster,” Hilda said, waving him off like it was obvious and very normal that a girl could talk with her hamster, and not at all ridiculous or impossible. But then, Dimitri recalled the Holy Tomb, and what had happened there , and how it had disappeared, and how he still—
“It’s old magic,” Marianne said. “He said it smells like waking up from a long sleep. And also like—”
“Oh, really?” Hilda said too loudly. She laughed nervously. “Marianne, let’s talk about this later, yeah? I’ve gotta get ready for the day.”
“Alright,” Marianne said after a moment, glancing back at Dimitri. Even eight weeks into his semester, they’d talked little past an overdue introduction in Hilda’s doorway. He waved at her, awkwardly. She smiled in kind, her eyes finding the floor as she made her way around Hilda and down towards the east entrance.
“Why do I feel as if she already knows,” Dimitri said, once she’d gone.
“Hamsters love to gossip,” Hilda said. “Plus, I guess we are kind of obvious. Don’t worry—she won’t tell anyone.”
“I wasn’t—worried,” Dimitri said, his heart slamming suddenly against his chest. Hilda’s expression was unreadable. “Of course, I wouldn’t tell anyone, but if you think that I think—that I. Am. Ashamed of—”
“This is so painful,” Hilda said, grinning suddenly behind her hand. “I get it, Dimitri.”
“Something happened down there,” he said after a moment, and he meant more than what they’d done. “You feel it too, don’t you? Something’s… different.”
The air. The temperature. The feeling of the blood in his veins.
Hilda’s expression sobered. “I mean… yeah, honestly. That place was super strange. I’m hoping a good mornings’ sleep will ward it off.”
“You’re skipping class?” Dimitri said. He likely could have used a few hours’ rest himself, but he didn’t feel particularly sleepy.
Hilda shot a sly look at him. “What can I say? You wore me out.” Dimitri couldn’t stop himself from flushing. Even now, she was buttering him up.
Well. Hilda Goneril would be Hilda Goneril. Dimitri was exactly where Sylvain said he’d end up—wrapped around her little finger—and when he thought about it, he found he truly didn't mind.