Lustful Alchemy

37. SHARP

The students leave the classroom amid laughter and chatter, but I remain seated, my gaze fixed on the desk. The bell signals dinner time, but I'm not hungry. There's a knot in my throat I can't untangle, let alone enough to swallow anything.

The lesson on Amortentia has left me drained, exhausted, as if I've fought an invisible battle.
Which, in a sense, I have.

I bend to gather my notes, the movement pulling painfully at my leg. The cold of these past days has reignited an ache I try to ignore. There's no potion or spell that can truly help, but the real pain, the one that lingers, lies elsewhere.

Jasmine.

The word echoes in my mind, over and over. I can still smell it, faint yet persistent—the scent that hit me when I breathed in that damned potion. A part of me had hoped I was mistaken, that it was just my imagination. But the truth is there, clearer than I care to admit.

A simple potion has reached a place I refuse to go. It forces me to confront what I've tried to deny:
I love Cassandra.

But loving her means questioning everything I am. This new scent... it marks a fracture. It's a clean break from the past I'm not ready to accept, a boundary I'm not prepared to cross. And above all, to give in to this feeling would mean putting Cassandra in danger, making her vulnerable to the world's cruelty and mercilessness. After everything that has happened in my life, I am not willing to live through that kind of trauma a second time.

I head toward the Faculty Tower, one step after another, as if the weight of the world has settled onto my shoulders. I've always hated the arrogance with which certain emotions can overwhelm everything, and the realization of my feelings has come cruel and unrelenting, like a curse with no hope of forgiveness. I understood it too late, and now I can't do anything about it. What angers me most, though, is that this potion, so simple in its complexity, arrived at the truth long before I did.

But what does any of this mean, if Cassandra and I have nothing left to share? If there's no longer space for us?

When I finally reach the door to my quarters, the thought of entering and isolating myself for the rest of the day is the only relief I can cling to. But as soon as I open it, every thought freezes.

Cassandra is there.

Sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, sitting straight as a rod, her face serious, her gaze fixed on me. She looks at me as if she's been waiting for me.

The surprise paralyzes me. I feel my breath catch for a moment, and I try to mask the unease by leaning against the door as I close it.

"Cassandra," I manage to say in the end, my voice steadier than I expected. "What are you doing here?"

"You know, I live here," she replies.

I look at her, surprised by her curt response, which irritates me more than it should. Her eyes, however, betray the seriousness of the occasion, and I realize she's not here to exchange pleasantries.

"Cassandra, I don't have time for—" I begin, but she interrupts me, suddenly rising from the chair.

"No, enough with your excuses, Aesop," she snaps. "We need to talk."

My first instinct is to run. I want to move away, lock myself in my bedroom, seal that door with every spell I know. But I know it wouldn't work: if there's one thing I've learned, it's that Cassandra doesn't give up. Never.

"We have nothing to say to each other," I retort, trying to remain calm.

"Oh, yes, we do," she fires back, her tone sharpening. "Shall we talk about Amortentia, for example?"