“Anne!” Sanaya knocked on her door and giggled. “Your boyfriend is asking about you downstairs!”

Boyfriend. Her heart fluttered at the reminder but Anne caught herself. Something about the other girl’s teasing tone made her wary. She opened her door and peeked outside.

Sure enough, Sanaya had indulgence smeared all over her lips like an orchard, spots of color hidden behind a veil of browns and greens. The look of a typical opportunistic gossip.

But those weren’t the only colors Anne could see. Shadows hung around the leaves and her hair like a nimbus, different colors hidden within. Those were new.

“Thanks!” she said. “Uh, you mean Sion, right?”

Her eyes went wide and the shadows danced. “You have to ask!?”

Before Anne could decipher the meanings of what she was seeing or say anything, the girl disappeared into her room at the end of the hall, sniggering to herself.

Ugh.

Anne groaned as she put her shoes on. She hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep yesterday. Or rather, today, considering how late they had gotten back. Her … everywhere still ached.

She relished in the feeling of sore muscles, though. She was pushing herself. She’d leveled.

Wait until Sion hears that, she thought, and about Navid, too. Lilac! Maybe something of their friend’s heart hadn’t been devoured by his Shadow after all.

She shuffled down to the entrance with a light spring to her aching steps, but her smile faltered when she found a purple golem waiting for her outside. Not her boyfriend.

The whirlwind of emotions that swirled up inside of her at the sight of Micah dispersed when he turned. Because he was hurt—cuts and scrapes marred one side of his face, and his fingers were wrapped in thick bandages—but also because his colors had changed.

To her, Micah looked like one of the golems of Anevos’ wells. Those were made of dark terracotta with uneven patterns so they could blend into the lichen and water-stained walls of the underground reservoirs.

Specifically, he looked like a kind of golem that had within the walls and pillars, fitting into spaces in the rock like puzzle pieces to ambush unsuspecting climbers. Those golems were often uneven, one half of their bodies rough, the other glazed and sometimes stylized or adorned with tile pieces to mimic their surroundings.

Micah’s left side looked more human than the right. He also had hair and human features, obviously, so the comparison wasn’t perfect. But more than anything, the reason for that was because Micah was purple. From head to toe, even his organs, he was far more purple than anyone she’d ever met. Ryan was drenched in his lies, but Micah was made from them.

Or he had been.

He had gained a wind aspect recently. It looked like a metallic tattoo of alchemical green clouds drawn in stylized lines within his chest. Its colors seemed to shift when he moved, like a potion in a puddle, and the wispy clouds rolled with his breaths, shrinking and expanding. She hadn’t noticed that before.

His hands also looked different. More structured. Maze patterns ran down from his wrist to his fingertips, thin and with a faint brown sheen.

That had happened over summer break and it had been surprising enough, but over the last few days, between when she had seen him at the infirmary and now, his body had also been cracked.

New colors shone through and bled into the purple. His eyes looked a little brighter and he seemed … taller somehow. Older.

He’d never changed much to her eyes, but that was because Anne struggled to reconcile what her truth sight showed her—an unchanging golem—with what her physical eyes could see. Yet, somehow, he had changed. Over the last year and a half, and over the last few days. The cracks made it easier to see. Where had those come from?

She opened her mouth to ask, but he beat her to it. His sunny expression twisted when he saw her open the door and he took a step closer.

“Are you alright?” His voice was full of concern. His bandaged hand twitched as if to reach for her.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Anne realized one of her own bandages was peeking out from under the short sleeve of her shirt where a slung rock had nicked her shoulder. She guessed she must have looked pretty bad, too.

She hesitated, then admitted, “Sort of. I’m exhausted, but I’ll get better. And it was worth it. I leveled!”

Micah’s eyes shot up and his posture relaxed. “Oh. Congratulations! Was it like, a test? Did your parents make you duel Garen or something to prepare you for the new year?”

“No. Although … they would totally do that. Thanks for the warning, I might have to keep that in mind. No, we actually went on a quest for the Climber’s Guild yesterday.”

“Really? That sounds exciting?”

He held the door for her, and Anne realized she still had one foot inside the building. She stepped outside. “Yeah, Lisa and me, and uh— We were supposed to investigate a Kobold Camp.”

“Sounding less exciting.”

“It wasn’t that bad. It was …” she trailed off. What did she even want to call it?

“Exciting, but maybe not fun?”

“Yeah. It was a ‘unique’ experience, let’s say.”

Micah opened his mouth with an excited look in his eyes, and a dozen sparkling questions already lined up, seemed to catch himself, and closed it again.

He leaned his shoulder against the door and smiled at her. “I’d love to hear more about that. Maybe over tea? I know this alchemy shop in Lodern that is run by witches. They have this tea room on the side where you can try out blends before you buy them. Totally safe, of course! They have a license and everything. They sell a lot of do-it-yourself recipes.”

He seemed to realized he was rambling and stopped. “So, uhm, do you want to go— Oh, and they serve pastries!”

“That … sounds lovely,” Anne admitted and hesitated again. Because what was she supposed to say to that? “But … I don’t think it would be a good idea … after what you did?”

His expression fell. He nodded seriously. “Yeah, that was stupid. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have done this from the start.”

Micah looked at her with far more confidence than she had ever known him to have. “Anne, can I take you out on a date?”

Someone squealed above them, followed by a series of hushed whispers. Anne realized they had an audience but she didn’t look away.

She had known Micah had a crush on her from the second time they’d met. Honestly, she had expected him to ask her out at the dance. And she might have said yes, back then, but he just … hadn’t done it. Why now?

Her new Skill, [Shadows of Truth], showed her what was left unsaid or what might have been said instead, the shadows thrown when one statement was chosen over another. It showed her possibilities.

A tiny spark of gold stained his tongue, the eye of the hurricane that was the colored shadows that swirled around his head.

She didn’t have a lot of experience with the Skill, but Anne knew, this was the least likely thing Micah should have done this morning. Yet, he was still doing it. Had something driven him to this?

Worn eyes hung over his confident smile. Whenever he pushed off from the door to stand up straight, he trembled like it was a struggle.

“Did something happen, Micah?”

He blinked but ran a hand through his hair, looking unsurprised that she had seen right through him. “A lot happened. You’ll probably hear about it soon, one way or another. I think … a lot of things are about to change, Anne … two days. We have so little time.”

She frowned. “What will happen in two days?”

“Ah. No, that was— I could explain over some tea and honey waffles?” He said it like it was a joke, but there was still a glimmer of hope in his expression.

Anne normally would have loved that. His confidence and hope. Micah was at his best when he was tackling the world without boundless enthusiasm. But his behavior worried her. For a variety of reasons. Not the least of which was because it pissed her off.

Anne grit her teeth. “Micah. Do you— Why—” She started and stopped, trying to find the words that she wouldn’t regret saying. “You know that I am seeing Sy. Would you really want me to be the type of person who would agree to go on a date with you anyway?”

“I’m hoping that you will say yes,” he said, unrepentant. “What I want is for you to do whatever you want to do.”

He sounded almost angry then. At her. And Anne wasn’t sure he was still talking about wanting to go on a date.

She wasn’t getting into this conversation with him. Not now, not here, not like this. It was pointless. There were no possibilities.

She took a breath and spoke honestly, “I’m sorry, Micah. I care about you a lot—”

He recoiled, taking a step back, and his posture crumpled.

“—but I don’t feel the same way about you.” What she left unsaid was that she didn’t feel the same way about Sion either, but she cared about him too much to break his heart when he’d asked her out. It was the same way she had felt about Micah.

His head fell as he nodded to himself and faced away.

“We can still talk,” Anne told him. “We could get breakfast in the cafeteria instead? If something is wrong—”

Micah shook his head. “Maybe another time. I—” He gazed at the Tower with a faraway look in his dark blue eyes and mumbled, almost to himself, “I have so much work to do.”