Chapter 536. A Cat-Shaped Loaf and a Rooftop Full of Secrets

Chapter 536: 536. A Cat-Shaped Loaf and a Rooftop Full of Secrets

William sat frozen for a moment, one hand still tangled in his hair as he picked out stubborn flecks of dried flour. He stopped mid-motion, his gaze fixed on the two women across the table.

The kitchen was silent again, but it was a different kind of silence than before; it wasn’t the brittle, fragile quiet of a held breath, but something deeper, like the settling of earth after a storm.

It occurred to him then, with the clarity of a blade strike, that this was Catherine’s true mastery. She didn’t conquer; she invited.

She opened doors, and she created spaces where the truth could breathe, but she never once pushed anyone through them.

She understood something that William had spent two lifetimes failing to learn: you cannot force a soul to heal any more than you can force a flower to bloom by pulling at its petals.

’I was always the hammer,’ William thought bitterly, his fingers brushing against the rough fabric of his apron. ’I believed that if I pushed hard enough, if I wielded enough will, I could forge better people.’

’I thought strength was something you carved out of others through pressure and pain.’

He thought of his first life, the endless campaigns, the students he had dragged across finish lines by sheer force of command, and the discipline that had broken as many minds as it had built.

And where had that led? To blood-soaked fields and a legacy of ghosts.

He watched Catherine’s gentle hands around her cup and wondered if he would ever possess that kind of power the power to be gentle without it feeling like a weakness.

The comforting aroma of baking bread finally announced itself as the oven door creaked open. Catherine retrieved the loaf with a triumphant hum, but as she set it on the wooden board, William couldn’t help but wince.

The bread was an abomination. It was lopsided, suspiciously dense, and rock hard on one end.

Its shape was vaguely reminiscent of a cat that had been tragically run over by a merchant’s cart. It was less a food item and more a geological specimen.

At that exact moment, a heavy, rhythmic thud echoed from the back door. Grock appeared in the doorway, his massive frame nearly filling the entrance as he came to return a borrowed whetstone.

He froze mid-step, his scarred face twisting into a look of profound confusion as his eyes landed on the offending loaf.

Grock stepped forward, reached out with one enormous, calloused hand, and lifted the bread. He held it aloft like a trophy, weighing it with a deep, considering frown that made his thick eyebrows knit together.

"Well now," Grock rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "That’s something."

"It’s... artisanal," William offered weakly.

Grock turned the loaf over in his grip, testing its structural integrity.

"Good for throwing at monsters," he grunted approvingly. "Might even crack a skull if you get a good swing."

"I’d keep it near the door for emergencies."

Catherine erupted into laughter, a genuine, belly-deep sound that forced her to clutch the table for support. Even Ellie offered a watery smile.

William took the loaf back from Grock with as much dignity as a man with flour embedded in his eyebrows could possibly muster.

As he retreated to the table, he made a silent vow to himself: he would eat the entire thing. He would suffer the dental damage alone rather than let anyone else witness his failure.

The night air was crisp and sharp as William climbed through the maintenance hatch, emerging onto the roof of the dormitory.

The roof was not technically open to students, a rule William had known was meaningless from the moment he had arrived, and he valued the sanctity of such unspoken permissions.

He sat on the edge of the stone parapet, his legs dangling over the dark abyss of the courtyard below. The half eaten loaf sat beside him, a grim companion in the moonlight.

The stars above were cold and distant, indifferent to the machinations of men and monsters alike.

He leaned back against the warm stone, the taste of burnt crust still lingering on his tongue, and looked up at the vast, uncaring sky. He didn’t have answers.

He only had questions about Ellie, about the strange gold light, about the tightening thread of conspiracy he felt around his throat. But for now, in the solitude of the heights, he simply allowed himself to think.

William climbed higher, his boots finding familiar purchase on the ancient stonework until he reached the wide expanse of the dormitory roof. He expected solitude, but the silver moonlight revealed another silhouette already claiming the darkness.

Clara was there. She was curled into herself, knees pulled tight against her chest, her back pressed against the rough stone of a chimney stack.

A crinkling paper bag sat beside her like a small, lonely island. Above them, the sky was unnervingly clear so vast and translucent that the stars seemed to be leaning over the precipice of the world, threatening to spill their ancient light into the abyss below.

She didn’t flinch when the maintenance hatch creaked open behind him. She didn’t even turn her head.

Instead, her pale fingers moved with mechanical precision, reaching into the bag and arranging her meager supplies on a flat stretch of roof tiles as if she were conducting a ritual.

"Walnut biscuits. Candied ginger. Dried beef strips," she recited, her voice flat, devoid of its usual analytical sharpness. "I’m splitting the biscuits and the beef with you, but the ginger is mine."

"Don’t touch the ginger."

William hesitated, then moved forward. "I didn’t ask for any."

"That’s not a reason to refuse an offer," she countered immediately, though there was no heat in it.

Just a quiet, stubborn insistence on protocol.

William sat down beside her, the cold stone seeping through his clothes. He accepted a biscuit; it was hard enough to threaten his molars, and then, with a grunt of resigned defeat, he dropped his lopsided, cat-shaped loaf of bread onto the tiles between them.

Clara’s eyes drifted to the monstrosity. She stared at it for a long, suspended moment.

Her pupils dilated slightly in the moonlight, examining the cratered surface of the failed bread as if it were a specimen of unknown origin.

Then, with deliberate restraint, she said nothing. She didn’t make a joke; she didn’t offer a critique.

That was how William knew she was in a bad way. Clara was a creature of observation; if she chose to ignore the obvious, it meant her own internal world was too loud to permit any further analysis.

For a long while, they ate in a silence broken only by the occasional crunch of biscuit and the distant, lonely howl of the wind.

\ The breeze picked up, tugging insistently at the edges of the paper bag, making it skitter across the tiles. Somewhere far below, the muffled sound of a window sliding shut echoed through the courtyard.

Clara picked up a piece of candied ginger, turning it over and over between her thumb and forefinger, studying its translucent surface without ever actually eating it. Her movements were repetitive, almost hypnotic, a physical manifestation of a mind trapped in a loop.

William watched her profile. The moonlight carved sharp, hollow shadows beneath her cheekbones.

He couldn’t let the silence become a tomb.

"You know something about Ellie," he said at last.

He kept his voice low and measured, deliberately avoiding the tone of an interrogator. He wanted to sound like a man simply stating a fact.

Clara didn’t respond immediately. The silence stretched, growing heavier, more dangerous, until William genuinely wondered if she had simply decided to leave him there with his burnt bread and his suspicions.

"I know she’s my friend," she said finally.

Her voice was quiet, almost fragile, as if speaking too loudly might shatter whatever composure she had left. "That’s the part I’m sure about... That’s the only part that’s solid."

William leaned forward slightly, his shadow stretching across the tiles toward her. "That isn’t an answer, Clara."

"You’re a researcher... You deal in certainties and evidence."

"’Friendship’ is a feeling, not a diagnosis."

Clara finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were dark, reflecting nothing but the emptiness above.

"Because I don’t have an answer that I can say properly yet." Her voice grew smaller with every syllable, cracking at the edges like old parchment. "If I try to articulate it now, half of what comes out will be wrong and misinterpreted, twisted by my own fear, and the other half will make everything worse..."

"It will set off a chain reaction I can’t stop."

A shudder ran through her, visible even in the dim light. "I need time, Instructor Wade..."

"Please." She looked back at the stars, her fingers tightening around the piece of ginger until it threatened to break. "I’m not asking for much."

"I’m not asking for answers or solutions... I’m just asking for a little."