Alice was graduating today.

She realized this after she woke up in a hospital room next to an unconscious Luka, but not before she read her texts. Teagan and Nick echoed each other’s excitement in the texts, and Vision was blowing up with people getting ready for the event. It was late—later than she’d expected—and the ceremony would start in a little over an hour. She never meant to fall asleep at the hospital, and her body ached from sleeping in a chair.

She felt more tired than she had before falling asleep, as much as that shouldn’t be possible.

She reached out for Luka’s still form, just to reassure herself that his heart was still beating. The feeling of his failing pulse remained in her fingertips, but she wished she could overwrite it with the steady rhythm under her hand now. He was being kept sedated, but she still hated seeing him like this. She wanted him to be strong, to be invincible.

Luka was a legend, but looking at him now, Alice realized it wasn't fair to hold him to those standards. She had no doubt that he was very, very good, but the legend of him was based on something he had done a decade ago. It didn’t make him superhuman, it only made him someone who had once done something extraordinary.

It was disappointing, because she needed him. She couldn’t do this alone.

She couldn’t save him from the virus that was tearing through his body. She couldn’t save any of them.

A lock of his hair was curling towards his eyebrow, and she swept it back, only barely grazing his skin.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she said. Not because it was a promise she was in any position to keep, but because she had to. Somehow.

“You can’t.”

Alice startled. She wondered how long Hadley had been hovering in the doorway.

She took one last look at Luka, took one more moment to memorize the rhythm of his heartbeats, then left his bedside. Hadley stepped into the room, but Alice turned her back on him to gather her things.

“I didn’t forget that he’s a person,” he said.

It sounded like an apology, but one that was too self-serving to land right. Alice had exchanged her wet clothes for a pair of scrubs that had been provided by one of the Healers, and her clothes had reappeared, washed and dried at some point during the night. She shoved them into her bag before turning back to face Hadley.

“I just…” When possibility turned into definite silence at the shake of his head, Alice realized he didn’t have an excuse, but he still couldn’t admit that he’d been wrong. She brushed past him on her way out, but stopped dead when he caught her arm.

“Alice,” he said, almost pleading. “I didn’t do this.”

“Let go of me.” Her voice was flat with suppressed anger. “Please.”

He released her.

She was mad at Luka too, but it was harder to be angry with someone who was heavily sedated and also dying. Meanwhile, Hadley was the one who had allowed Luka to get to the brink of death because of his protocols and was now holding him hostage. Luka had infected himself with a plan in mind, and even if all the evidence suggested that he had been wrong, they didn’t actually know because they couldn’t talk to him. Hadley was the one who had transferred the responsibility to her.

She walked away from him, down the hall, and into the elevator. She couldn’t quite breathe, not until the doors closed behind her and the tension lifted. Her mind was cluttered with every single thought she didn’t want to focus on. She didn’t want to think at all, but least of all about what happened next. She couldn’t bear to think about all the lives that had been put in her hands or the fact that she didn’t have a plan.

She had to save Luka, but she couldn't do that without Luka. She simply didn't have the information she needed to do it.

And what if Luka was right? What if it was all for him?

What could she possibly do then?

She returned to her room, but paused when she opened her closet. She had never intended to go to her graduation. Her parents weren’t going to be there, so she’d decided to skip it, even before getting the apprenticeship. Then, she figured she would be too busy with the case, but now...

She was supposed to get back to work, but since she was rejecting every single thought about that, going to the graduation started looking like a much better idea. The only problem was that she had never gotten a dress for it. There was no formal dress code, but traditionally, graduates were supposed to wear their color. Her dress wouldn’t have to be fully green (and certainly not neon green), but it would have to contain some green. She flipped through her dresses and sighed. She didn’t wear a lot of green when she wasn’t in uniform, but Teagan would have something.

She texted her, and then headed for the showers. There was a line of people rushing to get ready, but when they saw her hospital scrubs and the blood, they let her through.

She thanked them and claimed a shower stall. The water wasn’t warm, and she would have showered quickly, but some of the blood proved stubborn. She tried not to focus too much on the vaguely reddish tint of the water and instead let the idle chatter from outside mute her own thoughts.

When she returned to her room, Nick was lounging on her bed, while Teagan was leaning on her desk. Nick wore black slacks and a black shirt, but gold jewelry, including a pair of laurel branches pinned to his collar. Teagan was in a deep blue dress with beading that might have been branches but looked more like lightning striking down the skirt. Their conversation halted when Alice entered, and she remembered that things were still tense between them. She’d been too busy to worry about it, and then too burdened, and now she honestly didn’t even care anymore.

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“Hi,” she said, just to break the silence.

“Alice—” Teagan took half a step towards her, the instinct to reach out warring with her guilt.

The bed creaked as Nick sat up. "We have been meaning to apologize, but you've been MIA since the briefing."

"We've decided to be supportive," Teagan said.

"And we're sorry," Nick added.

"But," Teagan continued, sending a pointed look at Nick, "we want you to be careful, Alice. The way this sounds, it's not an apprenticeship; it's throwing you to the wolves."

Alice nodded, because she did feel like she had been thrown to the wolves. Although not before Hadley had handed her the entire case.

"Are you okay?" Teagan asked.

"No."

"What happened?" She asked, but in a way that sounded a lot like What did he do? and Do you need me to hurt him?

She told them the shortest possible version. From the case being about the missing students to finding out it was a spell that made them sick, and finally to Luka being put in a coma after infecting himself. She skipped past the part where Luka had spilled nearly half his blood volume in front of her.

"Hadley put me in charge," she finished, "but I don't… I don't know anything. If there is another clue, Luka is the only one who knows what it is."

They shared a glance, and Alice thought maybe they were starting to regret their decision to be supportive.

“So, what are you going to do?” Teagan asked.

Alice turned away from both of them and towards the closet, where Teagan had hung her dress.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Today, I just want to graduate. Tomorrow, I guess I’ll have to think of something.”

Only the bodice of the dress was green, dark, and velvety, while the skirt was a shimmering gray.

“Thank you for this.”

“Any time,” Teagan said.

She shrugged out of her robe and put on the dress. Teagan stepped in to help with the zipper on the back, then added several pieces of jewelry. They were rose gold rather than silver, but it suited the warm gray of the skirt, while the emeralds matched the bodice.

“Alice,” Nick said. “You know that Hadley can’t put an apprentice on a case alone.”

“Who’s going to stop him?” Alice asked. “He’s in charge, and the Council won’t care. They just want it solved.”

“If Luka is the only one who can solve it, then let him solve it.”

She glanced at him, trying not to move too much, while Teagan was putting the finishing touches on her look.

“What are you saying?”

"I'm saying that Hadley doesn't need to get involved. Go to the hospital, get Luka off the drugs, let him deal with Hadley."

As good as that sounded in theory, it wasn't going to be that easy. "I can't do that. He's going to have people watching Luka if he isn't still there himself."

Nick shrugged. “We’ll help you distract them.”

“Really?”

He smiled and looked at Teagan, who nodded. She couldn’t believe them. Even Teagan was willing to deceive Hadley to help her. How could she ever have considered leaving them forever?

“Fine,” she said, allowing a smile to touch her lips.

Once Alice had been deemed ready, they left for the graduation ceremony. It was close to starting now, but the entire day was dedicated to the event, so there was plenty to do otherwise. The ceremony itself mostly involved Headmaster Bailey making the same speech he made every year about how inspiring their journey was, and then he read out the names of every graduate. There was no walk, no diploma, no handshake. The whole thing was fairly uneventful, but it was also brief. There were a few more speeches, and then they got to move on to the party.

Alice struggled to pay attention to any of it. The more she thought about Nick's offer, the worse it seemed. She loved that they would do that for her, but they could really get in trouble if they helped with this. Maybe not Teagan, since she was Council Legacy and Hadley was only moderately powerful, but certainly Nick.

She slipped off, moving back towards the hospital. She didn't think Hadley would still be there, but at least it would give her the chance to check out the security situation, just in case she was going to have to do something really stupid. She rode the elevator up, and it opened on an empty hallway.

Her heels clicked against the floor, echoing around the deserted floor. Luka should have been in with the early stage infected, but he had been granted his own room. Not that he would notice or care.

She felt the anxiety settle back into her chest when she approached the door, as if the anticipation of seeing Luka triggered the full weight of responsibility on her.

She wondered, briefly, if there was any chance he might wake up on his own. If Hadley had underestimated the amount of drugs his magic could burn through once it was back to full power. But it would take days to find out, and it was days she didn’t have.

She halted in the doorway, surprised to find that not only was Hadley still there, he seemed to have relocated his office to the hospital room. A wobbly folding table had been placed at the end of the bed and was displaying three neat piles of files, and Hadley sat next to the bed with his laptop. It was a rare display of concern, or maybe guilt, that Luka was unlikely to let him get away with if he made it out of this, but Alice didn’t understand. There was no reason to stay with him since he was being kept in a coma. There was an argument to be made for making sure he didn’t burn through the drugs, but any Agent or Healer could do that.

Did he think it would absolve him?

He looked up from his work when she entered. Alice went straight to Luka’s side, so she wouldn’t have to face Hadley while talking to him. She watched the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed steadily.

"It's not okay," she said, keeping her voice low and neutral, "to put all this on me."

"I know," Hadley said, "but…"

"You said I could have everything I needed."

"Ye—" Hadley paused, sensing the trap. "No."

"I want Luka."

"No," he said again.

"Why not?"

Hadley moved to the other side of the bed, leaning against the windowsill. Alice kept her eyes on Luka. "I need it approved, which isn't going to happen."

"No, you don't."

"What?"

She finally looked up at him. "This was your call. The Council hired him to solve this. They don't care about his safety. You do."

"I…" Hadley faltered. She waited for him to deny it, sure he would. She had watched them circle each other like predators since the moment she met them, pretending they wanted to strike, when what they really wanted was to go back. It was obvious, at least to her, that the betrayal they each felt for each other was rooted in affection. She saw longing in between the lines of their hostility, and she saw it now. Luka was safer when he was unconscious, and it was easier to allow the longing to seep through the cracks.

She still didn’t understand what he thought he would gain from staying here, but maybe it was simple nostalgia. Maybe it was all the care he could afford to show.

It would have been more admirable if he wasn’t the reason Luka was here in the first place.

“You think this is protecting him? It isn’t.”

“Do you really want to expose yourself to the virus because of him?"

He looked so sure that it was a winning argument, but he didn’t get it. Nothing mattered if Luka didn’t solve this. Maybe they had contained the virus, but they couldn’t know that for sure. Not for weeks. Maybe there was a way to cure it if they became desperate enough to try, but too many people were already victims of this.

“Yes,” she said. “Because I trust him, and you should too. You know he won't die until everyone else are safe."

Hadley remained silent, except for a sharp exhale. He looked tired, like it was a bone deep affliction. Like it was becoming a part of him. The deep shadows under his eyes looked like bruises, and it was more than just concern. Luka's presence had been messing with Hadley's sleep since the beginning. Nostalgia couldn’t fix reality; time didn’t always allow wounds to heal, and she didn't think it was the case that was leaving him sleepless.

"Fine," he said at last. "Go get a Healer."