She did not stop until she had taken the nearest side passage, descended a short stair, and turned through an archway into a quieter cloister walk overlooking the lower herb terraces.
Only then did Lily force herself to slow.
The bench she chose was half-hidden between two square pillars and a climbing rose not yet fully in bloom. She dropped her bag beside her, folded forward at once, and covered her face with both hands.
"What a fool I am," she said under her breath.
The stone was warm from the noon sun. Wind moved lazily through the cloister, carrying rosemary, damp earth, and a faint trace of sea salt. Somewhere beyond the arches, students laughed, their voices softened by distance until they sounded like a life happening elsewhere.
Lily stayed rooted and methodically humiliated herself in thought.
She had smiled.
Repeatedly.
In class.
Like an idiot.
Like some lovestruck first-year with no dignity and a fatal weakness for tall girls with criminal cheekbones.
Then there had been the magical apology, the butterflies, the miniature versions of them, the public spectacle, the smiling afterwards, the fact that Samantha had smiled back, and now Lily had absolutely no idea what they were supposed to be.
All right? Not all right? In a ceasefire brought about by mutually assured embarrassment?
Could she look Samantha in the eyes after that and survive?
The answer seemed, on present evidence, to be no.
"I should know better than this," Lily informed her hands. "This should not be happening."
"I do not think better judgment protects against it either."
Lily went completely still.
Samantha's voice was close, though not too close. Careful, too, in a way it had not been before.
Lily lowered her hands slowly and found Samantha standing a few paces away in the cloister light, one hand hooked under her satchel strap. She had followed, but stopped at a respectful distance. Lily could still retreat if she wished. The breeze moved a strand of mahogany hair across Samantha's cheek. Her expression was composed, but watchful enough to make Lily's chest tighten.
For one dreadful heartbeat, she could only stare.
Then, because she had already been caught hiding her face like a child and because retreat was impossible while seated, she said the first thing that came to mind.
"You found me."
Samantha's mouth shifted, not quite into a smile. "You chose a bench in direct line of sight from the side stairs. I felt this was less hunting than basic observation."
Under other circumstances, Lily might have answered more sharply. Now she only glanced at the space beside her bag.
"I see."
Silence stretched between them.
Samantha did not rush to fill it. That alone told Lily she was choosing her steps.
At last, she said, "May I sit down, or would you rather I stand over you?"
Lily let out a breath that nearly became a laugh.
"Sit, I think. The other is worse."
Samantha sat at the far end of the bench, leaving a deliberate span of stone between them. For a few moments, they looked outward across the terraces instead of at each other.
It might almost have been peaceful.
Which made speaking harder.
Lily folded and unfolded her hands in her lap.
"I owe you an apology," she said.
Samantha turned her head slightly, but did not interrupt.
"Several, likely." Lily's fingers tightened together. "That Wednesday morning, in the cloister, what I said was cruel. Childish. I meant part of it, which I think makes it worse, not better."
The admission landed between them with nowhere to hide.
Lily drew a shallow breath and went on before resolve failed her.
"You were not pretending. I know that now. I think I knew it then. That was the problem." Her gaze stayed fixed on her own hands. "I did not know what to do with you, so I chose the least graceful option available to me and made it your problem too. I am sorry, Samantha. Truly."
When Samantha answered, her voice was quiet.
"All right."
Lily blinked and turned toward her. "All right?"
"That was the apology, was it not?" Samantha's expression softened. "I am accepting it." One corner of her mouth lifted. "I reserve the right to remember that you called me a stalker, because it was a little injurious to my pride. But yes. All right."
Something in Lily's chest unclenched so abruptly it almost hurt.
She had not realised how much of her had been braced for something harder.
"You are being surprisingly reasonable," she said before she could stop herself.
That earned her a brief, unmistakable smile. "Do not sound so disappointed."
"I am not disappointed." Lily hesitated. "Only suspicious."
"Fair." Samantha looked back over the terraces. "I was angry. Hurt, actually. Then you produced an entire wordless apology in front of twenty people and an instructor who now looks at us as if we are some sort of disease. It is difficult to stay mad at the same level after that."
Lily covered her eyes for one instant with two fingers. "Please never say that again."
"Which part? The twenty witnesses, or the wordless apology?"
"Any of it. All of it. I may die of embarrassment."
"You will not," Samantha said. "Though you may continue blushing in academically interesting ways."
Lily groaned softly. Samantha, the monster, had the decency to look pleased rather than merciless.
Another quiet settled, easier than before.
Lily glanced sideways. Samantha was not pinning her with that sharp, dazzling attention that scattered her thoughts. She was watching the garden instead, one arm stretched along the bench back, her posture easy but self-contained.
Careful, Lily thought.
Careful because of me.
The realisation was oddly sweet.
"So," Lily said, because uncertainty still sat under her ribs and would not leave otherwise, "what exactly are we now?"
Samantha turned her head.
Lily pressed on before courage failed. "I ask because I cannot tell whether we are all right, or merely in a ceasefire, or in some more humiliating category I have failed to identify."
For a heartbeat, Samantha only looked at her.
Then she laughed, soft enough not to sting.
"A ceasefire," Samantha said, "suggests I am waiting to resume hostilities. That seems inefficient, given how much effort went into the reconciliation tableau." Her eyes gentled. "No, Lily. We are all right. Embarrassingly, conspicuously all right."
Heat rose under Lily's collar. "That is a dreadful phrase."
"It is an accurate one."
"Can we be all right more quietly?"
"Almost certainly not. But we can try."
Lily studied her for a moment. The urge to hide her face again was strong. The urge to believe her was stronger.
"I do not know how to look at you after that class," she admitted. "Every time I try, I remember the butterflies, and then I feel absurd."
Something in Samantha's expression turned dangerous and tender at once.
"Lily," she said, "I assure you I am having a very similar problem."
The laugh escaped before Lily could stop it.
It was brief and real.
Samantha went still just long enough for Lily to notice. Then she exhaled through her nose and looked faintly triumphant, though she was kind enough not to comment.
Lily shook her head. "We are ridiculous."
"Profoundly."
This time, when Lily looked at her, she managed to keep looking.
It was not easy. Samantha's green eyes caught the midday light and held it. There was still mischief in them, still that dangerous confidence, but the sharp edge had softened into something steadier. No offence. No mockery. Only affection, and a trace of uncertainty that made her seem younger and somehow much dearer than was safe.
Lily felt her face warm again.
"Oh," Samantha said softly, watching her. "There. You can do it after all."
"Do not become unbearable again so quickly," Lily said, though there was no real force in it.
"I am showing restraint. Be properly impressed."
Lily's mouth betrayed her into another smile.
They sat a little longer, looking down at the terraces below and the sea wind moving through the arches, saying very little. The silence no longer felt like distance. It felt shared.
At length, Samantha glanced toward the upper path, where the next stream of students had begun to form.
"We should go."
Lily stood and slung her bag over her shoulder. Samantha rose as well, adjusting her satchel.
For one brief second, neither moved.
Then Samantha asked, in exaggerated innocence, "Would you prefer I walk beside you, or remain at a non-threatening distance to preserve the spirit of the thing?"
Lily gave her a flat look.
"Beside me," she said.
Samantha's brows rose in an immediate, delighted surprise, and Lily instantly regretted her concession.
"How generous," Samantha said.
"Do not make this a victory." Lily adjusted her strap with unnecessary precision and stepped away from the bench. "I see you have no intention of letting this go soon."
Samantha fell into step beside her, matching Lily's pace exactly. She did not crowd, overtake, or lean in - only remained there, solid and attentive.
"Let what go?" Samantha asked mildly. "The Wednesday? The butterflies? Your very moving public commitment to never handling emotional conflict in a normal way?"
Lily shut her eyes for one brief second as they passed beneath the first arch.
"You see?" she said. "This is precisely what I mean. I have the distinct impression we are in a ceasefire, and you are merely preparing to become even more intolerable than before."
Samantha considered this with a seriousness so clearly counterfeit it would have been offensive from anyone else.
"That depends," she said. "Are you worried that I might?"
Lily glanced sideways. Samantha's face looked calm, but there was a glint in her eyes that suggested she already knew the answer and intended to use it.
"I am worried," Lily said, "that you are far too pleased with yourself, especially since less than an hour ago you were being represented as a sulking miniature version of yourself."
Samantha smiled. "It was a good likeness."
"It was unbearable."
"Again, accurate."
Lily ought to have looked away.
Instead, she looked a little too long and became newly aware of Samantha beside her: her height, her easy stride, sunlight catching in her dark hair. The shared air carried jasmine, clean linen, and sun-warmed stone.
For one brief, treacherous moment, the corridor split in two.
Not Samantha beside her, but Ren in another corridor long ago, close enough that Lily could feel her shoulder. Ren moved through silence gently, almost apologetically, as though asking little of the world.
The impression vanished at once.
Samantha did not move like that. Samantha occupied space with certainty. Brighter, sharper, entirely herself. The correction hurt almost as much as the mistake.
Lily's greatest problem with this new honesty was no longer knowing whether she feared it more than she wanted it.
She shivered.
Samantha noticed immediately. "Lily?"
"Nothing." The word came out thinner than Lily intended.
"All right." Samantha was quiet for a few steps. Then, in a tone so light it was dangerous, she said, "Though you almost sounded as if you wanted me to abandon restraint."
Lily nearly walked into a pillar.
She recovered with as much dignity as she could, which was not much. "I said nothing of the sort."
"No," Samantha said. "You only sounded remarkably disappointed."
"That is not what happened."
"Mm. Then perhaps you should explain what did."
Heat gathered in Lily's face again. "You are impossible."
"And yet you chose 'beside me'."
That struck cleanly enough to silence her.
Samantha's expression softened before the silence could turn cruel.
"Not that we should get ahead of ourselves," she said, and now the flirtation was unmistakable, wrapped carefully in gentleness rather than sharpened into a weapon. "I would not want my cute, little friend to become angry at me again."
Lily stopped walking.
Samantha took one more step before stopping too. She turned, one hand settling lightly against the strap of her satchel, and had the decency to look only a little smug.
"Cute," Lily repeated.
"Mm."
"Little."
Samantha's eyes brightened. "That part is objectively true."
Lily stared at her with all the severity she could gather while blushing, which unfortunately made her less formidable than she would have preferred.
Then she realised, much too late, the grave tactical error she had made. Samantha was already looking at her as if Lily had handed over a loaded weapon and trusted her not to enjoy it.
"You have no self-control, do you?" Lily demanded.
A pair of passing students glanced their way.
Lily dropped her voice at once to a fierce whisper, somehow more agitated for being quieter. "There are people around. And you are saying things like that."
Samantha's expression changed with dangerous slowness.
Not into apology.
Into delight.
"Lily," she said softly, "I only said you were cute and little. I had not yet started saying things."
Lily nearly choked.
This, she thought with blistering clarity, was why one should never allow Samantha too much room inside a conversation.
She wanted to flee.
She wanted to hide.
She also wanted, with equal force, to wipe that look off Samantha's face before it settled into full smugness and became truly unmanageable.
So, in a burst of offended courage, Lily retaliated.
"Maybe my beautiful, tall, talented friend," she said, placing each word with the care usually reserved for knives, "should stop trying to make me angry again."
If one had been feeling charitable, the line might have passed for indignation.
Apparently, if one were Samantha, it did not.
For the first time in several minutes, Samantha said nothing.
She just looked at Lily.
The change was so abrupt that Lily felt it like a shift in the weather.
The easy tease vanished from Samantha's face. Her mouth parted slightly, then closed. Something startled moved through her expression before she could hide it. Not triumph. Not smugness.
Something worse.
She looked genuinely affected.
Lily had not planned for success.
Her own composure wavered at once.
"That," Samantha said at last, very evenly, "was an exceptionally reckless thing to say to me in public."
Lily lifted her chin on instinct, still flushed but distinctly triumphant.
"Good," she said lightly. "Then now you understand. Even this amazing, strong, mature Samantha can be made to fluster."
Samantha blinked, caught off guard for the first time all afternoon. The silence stretched. Lily seized it.
"Cat got your tongue?" she asked with a wicked little smile. "You went very quiet for someone who had so much to say a moment ago."
For a heartbeat, Samantha only stared, as though searching for a response and finding none that would not betray her further. The colour in her cheeks deepened, and a wild, giddy satisfaction bloomed in Lily's chest.
She knew she was playing with fire. She knew she should stop while she was ahead. But the look on Samantha's face was too rare, too precious to let go.
"I suppose I shall have to be careful around you from now on," Lily said, feigning innocence. "I would not want to make you blush in front of everyone."
Samantha inhaled.
It was a small sound, but Lily heard it clearly because she was watching far too closely.
The corridor continued on around them in perfect normalcy. Students passed. Robes rustled. Someone farther down the stairs muttered about practical assignments. Pale bands of sunlight lay across the stone.
And in the middle of all that ordinary academy life, Samantha Valois was staring at Lily as if Lily had struck a match directly beneath her ribs.
The realisation landed a beat late and all at once.
Oh. That was real.
Lily's victory lasted perhaps two seconds.
Then it turned on her.
Because Samantha was still flushed, still silent, and now there was something in her expression that was not embarrassment but focus - intent and fixed entirely on Lily in a way that made Lily abruptly aware of her own pulse, her own hands, the exact distance between them, the fact that there were witnesses, and the much worse fact that she had apparently just discovered a reliable method of rendering Samantha speechless.
With compliments.
Which meant Samantha knew it too.
Lily's smile faltered.
When Samantha spoke, her voice was low enough not to carry beyond them, which was somehow more dangerous than if she had answered loudly.
"Lily."
That was all. Just her name.
But there was a warning in it, and amusement, and something less manageable beneath both.
Lily's stomach dropped.
She tried for hauteur. "Yes?"
Samantha tipped her head, studying her with unsettling composure for someone who had visibly lost it a moment ago. The flush still lingered high in her cheeks, and Lily treasured that on principle. But Samantha was recovering, and in exactly the way that meant she was about to become intolerable again.
"You seem very pleased with yourself."
"I am," Lily said at once.
"Mm."
Samantha's mouth curved slowly.
"That is unfortunate," she said softly, "because I am now very interested in exactly how pleased."
Then she stepped closer.
Not abruptly. Not enough to cause a scene. Just one measured pace that shortened the distance between them and made Lily, on instinct, give ground.
Her heel clicked against the stone.
Lily narrowed her eyes, trying to gather dignity before it leaked out through the heat in her face. "What are you doing?"
Samantha's brows lifted with maddening innocence. "Walking."
"Toward me."
"Yes."
That alone should not have felt like a threat. Samantha was not crowding her, not yet. The corridor remained full of ordinary life around them: low voices, pages shifting, footsteps on the stairs. But all of it had blurred at the edges. Lily was suddenly aware of Samantha's attention as something almost tangible.
Samantha took another easy step.
Lily stepped back again before she could stop herself.
The look in Samantha's eyes sharpened. Nothing cruel in it. Only notice, and the dangerous satisfaction of being allowed to see.
"Lily," she said, very calm now, "did you think you were the only one permitted to discover useful things this afternoon?"
Lily's pulse gave an ugly jump. "I do not know what you mean."
Samantha's smile said she knew that was a lie. "No?"
"No."
"Then perhaps I should explain."
She advanced another pace.
Lily retreated with it, chin high through sheer will. "Why are you getting closer?"
"Because you called me amazing, strong, and mature in front of witnesses," Samantha said, as if discussing the weather. "And then implied you could make me blush whenever you pleased."
"I implied nothing."
"Oh, did you?"
Lily hated the hitch in her breathing. She hated even more that Samantha probably heard it.
She gave ground again.
This time, the corridor wall met her back in a wash of cold stone. Lily stopped with a faint, involuntary stiffness, every line of her body going alert at once.
Samantha stopped too.
Not enough to trap. Only near enough that the space between them had become something with shape and pressure of its own.
Lily looked up at her and regretted it immediately.
Samantha was still flushed. Worse, she was visibly trying not to look too pleased about the fact that Lily had nowhere left to retreat. The effort only made it more obvious.
"Why are you getting closer?" Lily asked again, and this time the question came out thinner than she intended.
Samantha's eyes flicked over her face, catching every treacherous sign Lily wished she could conceal. "Because," she said quietly, "you were very brave when there was an entire corridor between us."
Lily gathered what remained of her pride and wrapped it around herself like armour. "I am still being brave."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
Samantha leaned in by no more than a fraction. Barely any movement at all, and Lily felt it everywhere.
"Then say it again."
Lily stared.
Samantha's expression turned almost sweet, which was infinitely worse than smugness. "Go on. Since you are so triumphant. Tell me once more that I am beautiful, tall, and talented."
Lily's face burned hot enough to count as a practical demonstration. "You are unbearable."
"That was not the phrase I remember."
"It was the spirit of it."
Samantha laughed under her breath. "Coward."
That did it.
Lily straightened despite the wall at her back and glared up at her with all the force she could gather while pinned between humiliation and an appalling amount of awareness. "I am not a coward."
"No?"
"No."
"Then perhaps," Samantha said, "you can survive hearing something in return."
The terrible thing was that Lily knew instantly she could not.
She also knew that if she fled, Samantha would never let her forget it.
So she lifted her chin another dangerous increment and said, with what she hoped sounded like disdain rather than self-destruction, "You may try."
For one heartbeat, Samantha simply looked at her.
Then she smiled - not broadly, not teasingly, but with a softness that landed harder than any smirk could have managed.
"Lily," she said, voice low, "if you are going to use that tone while calling me beautiful, I should warn you it does interesting things to my self-control."
Every thought in Lily's head dissolved into white noise.
Her heart slammed so hard it seemed to fill her throat. Heat flashed across her face and down her neck; tension ran out of her knees with humiliating efficiency. Whatever control she imagined she still possessed vanished on the spot.
The yelp that escaped her was small, strangled, and catastrophic.
Samantha's reaction was immediate.
Triumph lit across her face in one bright, unguarded flare - delight, satisfaction, and something more dangerous for the way it softened her at the same time. For half a second, she looked almost startled by the scale of the damage she had done. Then the expression settled into something slower and more deliberate.
Oh no, Lily thought wildly. That is a terrible look on her.
Because Samantha did look victorious. Not cruel. Not mocking. Simply intensely, unmistakably pleased to watch Lily's defiance collapse into blushing ruin under a few carefully chosen words. And knew Lily was trembling. Knew she had gone scarlet from throat to ears. Knew every sharp little retaliation had dissolved into panic so complete it had stolen her language.
Samantha took all that in with the composure of someone receiving tribute.
Which was intolerable.
Lily opened her mouth. Nothing emerged.
Samantha's smile deepened a fraction.
Lily made a sound that was not a word and shut her mouth again at once.
That only made Samantha look more pleased.
The corridor still existed, which was perhaps the worst part. Students still passed at the edge of Lily's vision, though whether any of them were actually paying attention, she could not tell. The world had narrowed to the space between herself and Samantha, the cold wall at her back, the weakness in her knees, and Samantha's unwavering stare fixed so thoroughly on her that Lily felt almost pinned by it.
Samantha saw that realisation cross her face.
Her expression changed again. Not less triumphant, exactly, but more careful at the edges. She did not step nearer. She did not touch her. She only tipped her head, watching Lily with that same devastating attention.
"My poor brave girl," she murmured, fondness making the words even worse. "Was that too much?"
Lily's eyes widened in outrage.
She tried to answer with dignity and produced only, "I..."
Nothing.
Samantha nearly laughed.
"Lily."
The gentleness of it made Lily want to scream.
"You are blushing so hard," Samantha said in a low, wondering voice, "that I am beginning to feel quite accomplished."
Lily finally forced out, "Do not."
"Do not what?"
"Sound so pleased."
"I am pleased."
Lily yelped again.
Samantha, the absolute menace, looked delighted by that too.
But then she exhaled, as though steadying herself. When she spoke again, the flirtation remained, but something more restrained had settled beneath it, some recognition of how thoroughly Lily had come apart.
"I should be kinder," she said, without sounding particularly repentant. "You look as though one more sentence might finish you off entirely."
Lily, who strongly suspected that was true, managed to say, "You are monstrous."
"Mm. And yet you did start this."
"I complimented you."
"In a tone generally reserved for duels."
"That was your fault."
Samantha's mouth twitched. "Probably."
Lily swallowed. That was a mistake. Samantha's gaze dropped, tracked the movement, then lifted back to her eyes with a slowness that sent heat flaring under Lily's skin all over again.
No. No, absolutely not.
Lily tried to push herself off the wall by force of will alone. Her legs had very little interest in assisting. Samantha noticed that, too, because, of course, she did, and this time the triumph in her face softened into something more openly affectionate.
That combination was devastating.
"You really did not know," Samantha said quietly.
Lily's voice came out thin. "Know what?"
"That you could do this to me."
Lily's pulse stumbled.
Samantha held her gaze. "And now you know I can do it back."
The truth of that settled between them with frightening clarity. Whatever little game Lily had thought she was winning had become something much more mutual, much less safe, and she was suddenly aware that Samantha was not merely teasing for sport. She was watching Lily this closely because she liked her this closely. Because Lily's reactions mattered. Because Lily had called her beautiful in a furious tone, and Samantha had nearly stopped breathing over it.
That should have been reassuring.
Instead, it made Lily feel as if all her internal organs had turned to birds.
She pressed one hand against the stone at her side, as if she could steady herself through it. "You are doing this on purpose."
Samantha considered that with insulting calm. "At this point? Very much so."
Lily made another strangled noise.
The look Samantha gave her then was openly victorious, flirtatious to the point of indecency, and edged with a confidence that came close to domineering - not in pressure, but in the simple fact that she knew exactly who held the upper hand and was enjoying it. Lily's bratty little defiance had not merely cracked. It had folded completely, leaving her flushed and trembling while Samantha stood before her looking like she had won something she intended to keep.
And still, for all that, she kept herself controlled.
She did not move closer.
She did not touch.
"If I come any nearer," she said softly, "will you run?"
Lily's answer failed twice before it became words.
"I..." She stopped, fingers curling into the front of her uniform as if she could hold herself together by force. She turned her face away, unable to bear the full weight of Samantha's attention for another second. "I do not know."
It was, Lily thought dimly, a disastrous thing to admit.
Not because it was weak.
Because it was true.
Part of her did want to flee. Every instinct shaped by old solitude, old caution, old wounds said this was too close, too fast, too dangerous. She had known this girl for scarcely a week. She could vanish if she wished. She could step through folded space and be gone before Samantha drew another breath. She could put wards and locked doors between them, and no one here would have been able to stop her.
Instead, she stood with her back to a corridor wall, blushing so hard her skin hurt, unable to decide whether what frightened her more was the thought of Samantha coming closer.
Or Samantha choosing not to.
That realisation was so humiliating that Lily nearly made a sound.
Samantha went very still.
When she spoke, the earlier triumph had gentled into something more attentive.
"You do not know," she repeated softly, as if testing the shape of the answer and finding it precious. "All right."
The fierce heat in Lily's face began, little by little, to ebb. It did not leave relief behind. It left something worse: a small, aching pull under her ribs. Wanting and fear tugged at her in opposite directions so hard she could scarcely tell which was which.
Honesty pressed at her throat.
So did silence.
Part of her wanted, with reckless desperation, to tell Samantha everything at once: that she was afraid of this, afraid of being seen, afraid of being wanted back; that Samantha's kindness hurt almost more than her teasing because it made hope feel possible; that every time Samantha looked at her too closely, Lily felt the ground beneath centuries of careful solitude begin to crack.
Another part wanted to say nothing. To let the moment pass. To keep what little she had without risking it by naming it wrongly.
For one terrible instant, she wanted neither speech nor choice nor thought. She wanted to vanish into that old quiet where nothing could reach her because she was barely there herself.
"Sam..."
The shortened name escaped before she could stop it.
Samantha's expression altered at once. Not dramatically. Just enough that Lily saw it: the sharpened attention, the answering softness, the unmistakable fact that being called that mattered.
Lily almost regretted it.
Almost.
"It would be simpler," she said unsteadily, "if you were only one thing."
Samantha did not interrupt.
"If you were merely insufferable," Lily went on, staring somewhere near Samantha's shoulder because her eyes were still too much to bear, "or merely kind. Or merely reckless. Or merely thoughtful. But you insist on being all of them, often in the same breath, and it is..."
She broke off.
Too much, she had meant to say.
Too confusing. Too easy to misunderstand. Too easy to believe in.
Lily swallowed. "I do not know what to do with that."
She shut her eyes briefly, then forced herself a little farther into the truth.
"That is not even the worst part," she said. "The worst part is that I want it. I want you closer, and I am frightened of how much I want it, and of all the things in me that wake the moment I do."
The silence after that was brief, but not empty. Samantha seemed to take the confession with unusual care, as though it had enough weight to bruise if mishandled.
Lily drew one breath, then another. Neither helped.
"If I..." She hesitated, then pushed onward. "If I wanted you to take a step..."
Her knuckles had gone white around her sleeve.
"Would you?"
At that, Samantha's whole attention sharpened into stillness.
She did not move. She did not answer at once. Lily, who had not truly been prepared to ask, was even less prepared for the pause that followed. Her heartbeat felt humiliatingly loud.
When Samantha finally spoke, her voice had gone low and very clear.
"Yes," she said.
The single word struck straight through Lily.
But Samantha was not finished.
"Only if you wanted it. Not because I cornered you into asking. Not because you felt you had to. And not if you said it while looking as though you might break apart over it."
Lily's breath caught.
Something in her chest twisted painfully.
Samantha watched her a moment longer, then added, softer, "If you asked me plainly, I would come closer. If you changed your mind, I would stop. Immediately."
The gentleness of that nearly undid her more thoroughly than the flirting had.
Lily turned a little, no longer flat to the wall but not facing Samantha either. She folded her arms around herself, one hand gripping the opposite sleeve, posture gone guarded in a way that looked less defensive than simply overwhelmed.
She was not ready for yes.
She was not ready for no.
She was certainly not ready for an answer that careful.
"We have classes," she said, and the words came out thin and uneven.
It was not a refusal.
It was not consent.
It was, perhaps, the only retreat she could manage without running.
Samantha understood at once.
"We do," she said.
Then, before Lily could brace for the wrong thing, Samantha took one measured step back instead of forward.
The movement was small. It should not have mattered as much as it did. But Lily felt the return of space between them with an almost physical jolt: relief first, immediate and cooling, and then beneath it a sharp, quiet disappointment she wished very much she did not recognise.
Samantha saw that too. Lily knew she did, because Samantha's mouth softened at one corner in a way that was not mockery.
"Not now," Samantha said quietly. "I am not going to take what you are not ready to give."
She paused, then added, just as quietly, "And if there is some part of this you still cannot explain, I will wait for that too."
Lily shut her eyes for half a second.
That was somehow worse than if Samantha had laughed.
When she opened them again, Samantha was still watching her, but the look had changed. Less triumphant. More certain, perhaps. Not of winning, but of being allowed this close at all.
"You did ask," Samantha added after a moment, with the faintest trace of rueful amusement. "Which I will try not to be unbearably pleased about."
Lily made a helpless, offended sound. "Please fail in silence."
That coaxed a real smile from Samantha.
"Very well."
The corridor reasserted itself by degrees: footsteps, voices, the draft from the stairwell, a pair of students hurrying past with books hugged to their chests and their eyes fixed conspicuously elsewhere. Lily wanted to die of embarrassment and also, absurdly, to remain exactly here until she understood what had just happened.
She understood almost none of it.
Only that she had asked.
Only that Samantha had said yes.
Only, Samantha had then stepped back.
It was unbearable.
It was also kinder than Lily had expected.
Samantha glanced toward the far archway where the next bell would soon ring, then back to Lily. "Do you want me to walk with you," she asked, "or shall I give you the dignity of pretending this never happened for at least ten minutes?"
Lily looked at her at last.
Samantha's expression was composed again, but not distant. The flirtation had banked into something gentler, threaded through with restraint Lily could now feel rather than merely infer. She was still affected. Lily could see that. The flush had not entirely left her either.
That helped. A little.
"You are not permitted," Lily said, with what remained of her severity, "to pretend it did not happen. I would only suspect you of plotting."
Samantha's brows rose. "So that is not the option you prefer."
Lily hated how warm her face threatened to become again.
After a beat, she pushed herself properly off the wall. Her legs worked this time, though only just. She smoothed the front of her uniform with needless precision, refusing to acknowledge how disordered she felt inside it.
"You may walk with me," she said. "At a sensible distance."
"Sensible," Samantha echoed gravely.
"Yes."
"How scholarly of us."
Lily gave her a look.
Samantha lifted both hands in immediate surrender and moved to fall in beside her, carefully beside, not close enough to touch unless either of them drifted.
They started down the corridor.
For several steps, Lily could do nothing but concentrate on walking in a straight line and not visibly combust. Samantha did not press. She matched Lily's pace exactly, unhurried, steady, a presence rather than a demand.
At last, because the silence had grown too full to bear, Lily said, "You may not call me brave when I am very obviously falling apart."
Samantha turned her head, considering. "No?"
"No."
"I see."
"You do not."
"I see that you object to the accuracy, perhaps."
Lily nearly stumbled. "I object to your entire manner."
"And yet you are still walking beside me."
That, infuriatingly, was true.
Lily fixed her gaze forward. "I am beginning to suspect that you become more intolerable when you are trying to be careful."
A quiet laugh answered her. "That may also be true."
They walked a little farther.
Then Samantha said, more softly, "Thank you for answering me honestly."
Lily's throat tightened. "I hardly answered at all."
"You did," Samantha said. "You said you did not know. That is an answer."
Lily had no reply to that.
By the time they reached the turn toward their next lecture hall, the worst of her shaking had passed, though she still felt oddly translucent, as if too much of her had been seen through in a single corridor conversation.
At the doorway, Samantha slowed.
"I will behave," she said.
Lily eyed her with well-earned suspicion. "For how long?"
Samantha's mouth curved. "Let us be ambitious and say until we are seated."
Despite herself, Lily let out a brief, helpless sound that was almost a laugh.
The look Samantha gave her in response was small, bright, and fond enough to send one last aftershock through Lily's chest.
Then, as promised, Samantha behaved. She held the door, let Lily enter first, and followed with all the maddening composure of someone who knew perfectly well that the ground between them had shifted again - and that, this time, perhaps, neither of them truly wanted it shifted back.82Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8yz3E1CJ5
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