Chapter 39: THE INVITATION

Georgia

Darcy asked me to the gala before Puck could work up the nerve, and I said yes out of spite I didn’t fully understand.

It happens fast, catching me off guard in the middle of an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. Darcy finds me outside the library, confident and deliberate as always, the late afternoon light catching the gold in his hair in a way that seems almost staged, like even the sun wants to cooperate with whatever effortless charm he’s radiating. Instead of easing into conversation the way he usually does, some comment about my reading list, some small observation meant to draw out a laugh, he gets straight to it.

"Go to the gala with me," he suggests, his tone casual but his eyes locked on mine with unmistakable intent.

I hesitate, my fingers tightening around the strap of my bag, my pulse ticking up. "The winter gala?" I ask, my voice caught somewhere between surprise and suspicion.

"Unless there’s another gala I don’t know about," he replies, teasing but warm, one eyebrow lifted. He watches me with that same attentive interest he’s leveled at me since the day he transferred in. There’s something steady about him, something that makes it easy to forget, at least for a moment, all the strangeness simmering beneath the surface of this place. "I figured I’d ask before someone else did," he adds, wry and knowing.

I think, immediately, unwillingly, of Puck. Of the storm walk, the almost touch in the library, the way he’s pulled back and pushed forward in equal, confusing measure since I got here, never quite committing to anything, never quite explaining himself either. I think of the quad, his face closing like a door the second he saw me laughing with Darcy. I think of the cold, clipped distance that followed, days of him barely speaking to me, refusing to give me a single real answer about any of it. The memory sits heavy in my chest, a bruise I keep pressing without meaning to.

*Fine*, I think. *If he won’t say anything, I don’t owe him anything either.*

"Sure," I say, quick and a little too bright. "Yeah. Let’s go together."

Darcy’s smile widens, satisfied in a way that should probably register as more calculated than it does in the moment. A flicker of something crosses behind his eyes, triumph maybe, or simple relief, gone before I can name it. "Good. I’ll pick a good tie," he says, playful, already turning to go.

He walks off, pleased with himself, and I stand there already half regretting it. I know exactly why I said yes. Some petty, wounded part of me wanted Puck to feel what I’ve been feeling every time he’s shut me out without explanation. It’s not about Darcy. It’s about proving I’m not going to sit around waiting for Puck to decide whether he can bring himself to be honest with me. But underneath that, quieter, harder to admit, is something else: Darcy is easy in a way nothing here has been since I arrived. He doesn’t flinch or vanish or lock his face shut. Being near him doesn’t feel like standing too close to a live wire. I’m drawn to that ease, whatever else is also true. The thought doesn’t comfort me the way I hoped it would.

The news travels faster than I expect. By the time I make it to my next class, less than an hour later, eyes flick toward me differently, sharper now, more curious, whispered conversations stopping abruptly when I get close enough to notice.

I feel it before I see him, that same low heat beneath my ribs I’ve felt every time Puck’s nearby, an awareness that lives somewhere beneath my skin now, impossible to ignore. When I do spot him across the hallway, my stomach drops, a sick, plummeting sensation that has nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with dread.

His expression is unreadable, carefully blank in a way that somehow reads louder than any obvious anger would. It’s the blankness that frightens me more than fury ever could, the sense that he’s locking something down, sealing it away before it can escape. He doesn’t approach. He doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me for one long, unbearable second before turning and walking the other direction, his shoulders rigid, his pace controlled in that same deliberate way I remember from the quad weeks ago, like every step costs him something.

The hallway around him seems to actually cool, some subtle shift in the air that has everything to do with whatever’s happening beneath the surface of him. A few students near him go quiet mid-conversation, glancing his way with quick, wary looks before finding somewhere else to be, drifting off with the kind of casual urgency that tries very hard not to look like fear. I don’t understand it, not really, but I feel it anyway, that same strange, collective awareness moving through the crowd that I noticed that very first day in the dining hall, like the whole building is holding its breath around him.

I spend the rest of the day distracted, replaying the moment over and over, second-guessing the impulsive yes I gave Darcy, wondering if I’ve made things worse instead of better. My professors’ voices blur into background noise; my notes come out half-formed, sentences trailing off where my attention does. By the time evening comes, I’m no closer to feeling settled about any of it, the unease sitting in my stomach like a stone I can’t quite dislodge.

He finds me that night.

I’m walking back from the library, the campus quiet and dim around me, the cold air biting at my cheeks, when Puck appears from the shadows near the dorm entrance, waiting, his expression still carefully controlled but something raw and barely contained simmering just beneath the surface of it, visible now in the tightness around his eyes, the tension in his jaw.

"You’re going with him," he states, flat and low, the words landing like a verdict rather than a question.

"Why does it matter to you?" I snap, sharp and unfiltered, the frustration of the last several days finally boiling over, all the confusing distance, the cold hallway, the unexplained warnings and half answers I’ve collected since I got here spilling out at once.

He opens his mouth. For half a second, I think he’s actually going to say something real, something that might finally explain any of this, something that might make sense of the storm and the burns and the way the whole world seems to bend around him. Then he closes it again, jaw tight, something breaking behind his eyes that looks worse, somehow, than anger or jealousy or anything else I might have expected, something closer to grief.

*Say it*, I think, willing him silently. *Just say one true thing.*

He doesn’t answer. He just stands there, silence stretching between us like a held breath, and the look on his face is worse than any answer could have been.