Evelyn was standing outside the applied theory classroom when Ash came out from his lecture.

He saw her face, and his jaw tightened, his right arm gripping his pants. She didn’t look like she was there to speak with the professor after class.

"I’ve been informed you re-entered the restorative facility last night," she said. "With Phoebe and Vivian."

Ash took a deep breath, waiting for the rest of it.

She raised a gloved hand. "Bureaucratic violations are not something I concern myself with so long as the purpose of the facility was used correctly."

Ash let go of his held breath.

"I have somewhere to be this evening," Evelyn said. "Come with me." 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Evelyn didn’t wait for Ash to respond. She turned and walked. He stood outside the classroom for a moment. He wanted to know the condition, the leverage point, the shape of what she was going to ask for. No words had followed it. She was already at the end of the corridor.

He followed.

Outside the building he was able to ask the question on his mind.

"So you want to...?"

"To go somewhere this evening." She adjusted the coat draped over her arm. "The other thing I mentioned and this aren’t connected, before you ask."

"I just wanted to make—"

Evelyn was already gone before he could form a second question.

The two reconvened later that evening just outside the academy checkpoint. Andy wasn’t there; it was a different guard stationed that day.

Evelyn came from the girl dormitories. She had changed out of the academy uniform. A black ribbed turtleneck, perfectly tailored to her frame; high-waisted black trousers with a slight flare at the ankle; and the heavy wool blend hugging her hips precisely where it was tailored to cut. Her black stiletto ankle boots struck the pavement with a sharp, rhythmic click. She carried a deep black overcoat draped over one forearm, the silk lining briefly catching the afternoon light. A small gold hoop rested at her ear, and a delicate gold chain sat at her collarbone, catching the warmth of her skin just above the turtleneck’s edge.

Her hair had been arranged differently than the academy version, the same silver, the same precision, but with a different intention behind it.

"Why me?" Ash said.

Evelyn looked at the checkpoint ahead. "You’re the most consistently unpredictable variable in my vicinity."

The two approached.

"Good evening, Evelyn," the person stationed in the monitoring booth answered.

"Jean, Ash and I will be leaving the academy for approximately one hour. If you would produce the forms for us."

"Right," Jean answered, giving each of them a form to fill out.

It asked for the essentials. Who the person leaving is, what their reason for leaving the academy is, how long they will be away, and where they will be going.

Evelyn took possession of both, filled them out, and returned them to Jean.

"Hmm..." Jean said, letting out a loud hum. "The Null rank with you is only designated—"

Evelyn glared at him.

"Oh. Looks like I was reading a different file. The two of you are cleared to leave," Jean said. The gate in front of them opened.

Evelyn was already stepping off the curb at an intersection without checking the signal. The traffic had already cleared for the direction she was walking. "I wanted to see what you do in a different environment," she finally said.

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the accurate one."

"Those aren’t the same."

She glanced at him. "No," she said. "They’re not." She didn’t elaborate further.

She navigated the city’s hidden veins, a sprawling geography the academy’s rigid architecture couldn’t contain. She took a parallel street without appearing to consider it, cutting through a block that opened into a quieter avenue. She walked toward a gallery side entrance that had no queue when the main entrance around the corner had three people waiting to enter.

"You know this entrance?"

"It’s only closed on Tuesdays," she said. "I know the building."

"For how long?"

She pushed the door open. "Long enough to know it’s better on weekdays."

Inside of the gallery, cool air and quiet floors greeted Ash. The light was soft and deliberate. Evelyn moved through the first room without stopping, and Ash followed.

"You’ve already taken the perimeter."

"I have?"

"Since we came in." She moved to the next doorway. "You put your back near the wall and face out. You’ve been doing it since we entered."

"Is this a bad thing?"

"Not necessarily. Most people take the center of a room and work their way outward," she said. "You take the edge and watch inward." She looked at a large canvas briefly and continued walking. "I noticed it the first time you walked into a room I was already in."

"When was that?" Ash said.

"The corridor outside the theory seminar. You came in three minutes before it started and found the seat closest to the back wall." She turned into the third room. "I was already there."

He hadn’t known she was already there.

The third room was smaller, its low ceilings trapping the cool air. A single north-facing window threw a slanted block of late-afternoon sunlight across the hardwood floor, leaving the walls steeped in a soft, gray dimness. Dust motes drifted lazily through the beam.

Evelyn stopped in front of a canvas on the east wall, modest in size, blues and grays, the horizon sitting in the lower third and most of the space given to the sky. Ash looked at it and then looked at her.

Her face went quiet. Not the composure she ran at the academy, not managed stillness, but the profound, unguarded quiet of a girl returning to a familiar canvas. He was only three feet away from her, but she hadn’t made an attempt to get any further or closer. Just close enough that he could smell her icy perfume.

The soft light from the north window traced the delicate gold chain resting against her collarbone and the gentle rise and fall of the ribbed turtleneck. A few strands of silver hair had slipped free from her low arrangement, brushing against the side of her neck as she was encapsulated by the canvas.

After a while of the two looking at the same painting, Ash spoke. "You look different here."

Evelyn stayed looking at the painting. Then she turned and walked to the next room.

He followed.

"I’ve been trying to understand what you are since the courtyard," Evelyn responded, looking at the works on the next wall, moving along them at a measured pace. "I thought coming somewhere else would help me."

She stopped in front of a charcoal figure study. It was small and unassuming. Only a standing figure with most of the detail in the hands.

"It hasn’t," she added.

Ash stood beside her. "I’m not trying to make it easier or harder."

Evelyn’s eyes moved slightly toward him without her head moving. She looked at the charcoal study, while saying nothing.

She moved to the next piece. He walked beside her.

"That’s not reassuring," she said after a moment.

"I know."

"You said it anyway."

"It’s accurate."

She looked at him with an expression that sat somewhere between recognition and a decision not yet made. Then she looked back at the wall.

They went through the last three rooms. She stopped twice more. Ash stopped once, in front of a photograph near the back. It was of a street scene, a woman facing away from the camera, the buildings behind her blurred. He stood in front of it for a moment without saying anything.

Evelyn stood beside him and looked at it.

"That’s the third-floor window of the building behind her," she said, pointing to a lit window in the blur. "The gallery used it as a studio space before the renovation. The photographer worked there for a year before they moved out."

He looked at the window. She had information about a photograph in a room she’d apparently been visiting for years.

"You asked about the painting in the other room," she said. "I assumed you’d want to know."

"I didn’t ask."

"You hadn’t moved in some time."

They stood in the last gallery space near the exit with the other visitors gone. The proximity between them was closer than any of their academy corridors had been. Neither had adjusted for it. Evelyn’s held-door Shade was present and open and passive, just existing at full weight without the continuous managed suppression.

The hunger stayed quiet.

Then the air changed.

Ash felt it before Evelyn moved. His Shade-sense picking up a pressure differential coming from outside the building.

Evelyn went still beside him.

A pre-emerging Gate with no primary warning. Through the gallery’s quiet front windows, the afternoon light suddenly fractured. The street outside warped, the edges of the brick buildings vibrating like a mirage over hot asphalt. The ambient sound of traffic flatlined, sucked into the mounting, nauseating vacuum of the Gate.