Chapter 7 — What The Dark Did At Night

The storm arrived without warning shortly after midnight.

One moment the cathedral windows reflected quiet snowfall across the mountains. The next, violent wind slammed against the glass hard enough to shake the dormitory walls while black rain swallowed the academy in darkness.

Noctis seemed built for storms like this.

The towers disappeared completely beyond the weather. Hallway candles flickered unevenly beneath sudden pressure changes moving through the cathedral, and somewhere in the distance the bells began ringing low emergency warnings across campus.

Students stopped sleeping after the third bell.

By two in the morning, the dormitory corridors were filled with whispers.

Another disappearance.

Someone from the eastern dormitories.

A second-year girl who never returned after curfew checks.

Evelyn stood near the window of the common room wrapped in an oversized charcoal sweater while rain streaked violently across the glass outside.

The academy grounds beyond had vanished entirely beneath fog and storm shadows.

“They’ll lock the lower halls soon,” Ophelia murmured from one of the couches nearby. “They always do after disappearances.”

Evelyn turned slightly. “Always?”

Ophelia looked up from the book resting open across her knees. “You’ll notice people at Noctis rarely ask direct questions after winter starts.”

The answer settled unpleasantly.

Around them, students spoke quietly in clusters beneath dim chandelier light while professors crossed the corridors outside more frequently than usual.

No one looked surprised enough.

Only tense.

As though disappearances belonged to the architecture here the same way gargoyles and stained glass did.

A sudden crack of thunder rolled across the cathedral.

The lights flickered once.

Then steadied again.

Evelyn glanced instinctively toward the upper balcony overlooking the common hall.

Lucien stood there alone.

Black coat.

Black gloves.

Motionless against the storm-dark windows behind him.

He wasn’t speaking to anyone. Several students passed near the balcony staircase without approaching him, their conversations lowering automatically as they moved through the corridor beneath him.

The distance around Lucien had become familiar to Evelyn now.

Not emptiness exactly.

Containment.

Like everyone in the academy understood instinctively that getting too close to him required consequences they weren’t prepared to survive.

Lucien’s attention drifted briefly downward.

Their eyes met across the common hall.

Something tightened quietly in Evelyn’s chest.

He looked exhausted.

Not the ordinary kind.

There was a faint instability to him tonight she hadn’t seen before, hidden carefully beneath composure but present all the same. His shoulders remained rigid beneath the black fabric of his coat, and even from this distance she noticed the slight tension in his jaw whenever thunder shook the windows.

Then the lights flickered again.

This time the shadows along the balcony wall moved with it.

Not naturally.

Evelyn saw them recoil sharply against the stone behind Lucien before settling again a second later.

No one else appeared to notice.

Lucien did.

His expression hardened immediately.

Without another glance toward the room below, he turned and disappeared into the upper corridor.

Evelyn watched the empty balcony several seconds longer than necessary.

“Okay,” Cassian said quietly beside her, “that expression usually means you’re about to make a terrible decision.”

She looked sideways.

Cassian held two untouched cups of coffee and the exhausted posture of someone who had accepted sleep as a theoretical concept rather than a realistic goal.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Mhm.”

Outside, another wave of rain crashed against the cathedral windows.

Cassian followed her gaze toward the empty upper corridor. “You’ve noticed it too.”

Evelyn hesitated briefly. “Noticed what?”

“The prince getting progressively less stable every time the weather turns biblical.”

His tone stayed light, but concern lingered underneath it carefully enough that she almost missed it.

“You say that like this is normal.”

“At Noctis?” Cassian took a sip of coffee. “Normal stopped existing before orientation.”

The emergency bells rang again somewhere deeper inside the academy.

Students visibly tensed this time.

A professor crossed the common hall quickly afterward and announced that all lower cathedral corridors would remain restricted until morning due to “weather-related structural concerns.”

No one believed that explanation.

Still, nobody argued.

Evelyn waited another twenty minutes before leaving.

The upper corridors near the western tower remained mostly empty now, lit only by scattered wall lamps and occasional candles trembling faintly whenever wind rattled the cathedral windows.

Rain echoed through the stone passageways overhead.

She found Lucien near the astronomy wing.

The door leading onto the exterior observation terrace stood partially open despite the storm, freezing wind moving through the corridor in sharp bursts. Lucien stood near the balcony rail beyond it with both hands braced against black stone while rain soaked slowly through his coat and hair.

He hadn’t noticed her yet.

Or maybe he had and simply didn’t care.

The storm surrounded him violently.

And somehow the shadows around him still looked darker.

Evelyn stepped quietly onto the terrace.

The cold hit immediately.

“You’re going to freeze out here.”

Lucien didn’t turn around.

“For someone who consistently ignores warnings,” he said quietly, “you seem strangely committed to giving them.”

Rain slid down the sharp line of his jaw as he finally looked back toward her.

Up close, the exhaustion beneath his eyes looked worse tonight. Not hidden anymore. Just endured.

The wind shifted hard across the terrace.

Lucien’s right hand tightened visibly against the stone railing.

Then trembled.

Small.

Barely noticeable.

Evelyn noticed anyway.

His expression changed the moment he realized she’d seen it.

Something guarded closed immediately behind his eyes.

He started pulling the glove tighter over his wrist like concealment might undo the movement.

Without thinking, Evelyn crossed the remaining distance between them.

Lucien went still as she stopped beside him beneath the storm.

Rainwater soaked through the sleeves of her sweater almost instantly while wind tangled dark strands of hair across her face.

“You haven’t slept,” she said softly.

The answer arrived after a long pause.

“No.”

Thunder rolled somewhere above the mountains.

The shadows near the terrace wall shifted faintly with the sound.

Evelyn watched his hand tighten again against the railing.

Still trembling.

Not fear.

Strain.

Like he was holding something in place through sheer exhaustion.

Carefully, she reached toward him.

Lucien’s breathing changed almost imperceptibly the moment her fingers closed lightly around his wrist.

The contact startled both of them.

His skin felt cold despite the feverish tension moving beneath it.

For several seconds neither spoke.

Rain moved around them in silver-black sheets while the academy bells echoed faintly through the storm below.

Lucien looked down at her hand resting over his trembling fingers with an expression she couldn’t entirely understand.

Not anger.

Something far more dangerous than that.

The quiet shock of someone unused to gentleness surviving contact.

“You should go back inside,” he said eventually, though his voice had softened enough that the words no longer sounded like dismissal.

Evelyn didn’t let go immediately.

Instead she watched the storm moving across the mountains beyond Noctis while his trembling gradually slowed beneath her hand.

“You know,” she murmured after a moment, “most people would probably find this whole mysterious suffering prince routine more intimidating if you occasionally slept.”

A quiet breath escaped him then.

Almost laughter.

Almost.

The sound disappeared quickly beneath the rain, but she still felt it linger between them afterward.