We meet again

**The Unquiet Canvas**

Morning arrived wrapped in a mist so thick it seemed to swallow the academy whole. The towers of Lady Blackwell’s loomed like

sentinels in the haze, their sharp edges blurred, their grandeur muted.

Lydia moved through the marble corridors with measured steps, her pulse a quiet, insistent rhythm

beneath her skin—steady, but carrying the weight of something unspoken.

She had not slept. The memory of Callum’s cold dismissal in the art studio had clung to her through the night, twisting through her thoughts like smoke. And now, by some cruel twist of fate, she was bound to him for the term’s most important project. She had hoped for anonymity—a partner who would let her dissolve into the background, unnoticed.

Instead, she had been handed Callum D’Aramitz, a name that carried the weight of centuries.

Old money. Old blood. His family’s legacy was etched into the very bones of the school,

whispered about in hushed reverence. He was not just respected; he was mythologized. The way the other students spoke of him was laced with something between awe and

fear—as if he were not quite human, but something carved from marble and ice.

And she, Lydia Fairchild, had dared to speak back to him.

The art studio was quiet when she entered, the scent of turpentine and linseed oil thick in the air. The morning light filtered weakly through the tall windows, casting long,

slanting shadows across the wooden floors.

He was already there.

Callum stood before an easel, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a paintbrush held between his fingers like a weapon. He did not turn when she entered, but the tension in his shoulders—taut, deliberate—told her he had been waiting.

Lydia exhaled slowly and crossed the room, her footsteps unnaturally loud in the silence.

"Good morning," she said, her voice flat, the words hanging in the air like fog.

He glanced at her, his expression unreadable. "Miss Fairchild," he replied, cool and precise, as if her name were a fact he had memorized but did not care to dwell on.

Lydia set her sketchbook down with deliberate calm. She would endure this. She would paint, she would present, and then she would be free of him.

They worked in silence. The only sounds were the scratch of brushes against canvas, the

occasional drip of paint into a jar. The air

between them was thick with something

unspoken—not quite hostility, but a wary, watchful tension, like two predators circling the same territory.

And then, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, Cassidy appeared.

"Lydia!" Her voice was bright, effortless,

cutting through the quiet like a bell. She stepped into the studio, her golden braid swinging over one shoulder, a bundle of

pencils clutched in her hand. "I brought those extra pencils I promised you!"

Lydia felt warmth flood her chest. Cassidy had a way of arriving exactly when she was

needed, as if she could sense the shift in the air

before it happened.

"Thank you," Lydia said, taking the pencils with a small, grateful smile.

Cassidy turned to Callum, her head tilting in playful scrutiny. "And have you two managed to speak yet?"

"We have," Callum said without looking up from his canvas.

Cassidy raised an eyebrow. "Properly?"

Lydia bit the inside of her cheek.

"If by 'properly' you mean in complete silence and with the warmth of a winter storm, then yes. Very properly."

For the briefest moment, something flickered in Callum’s eyes—amusement, perhaps, or

surprise—but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by his usual mask of

indifference.

Cassidy sighed dramatically, flopping onto a nearby stool. "Gods, you two are exhausting.

I should have known pairing you would result in nothing but tension and thinly veiled insults."

Lydia blinked. "You paired us?"

Cassidy shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "Well, the list needed a few adjustments. And you two were perfect—both sharp, both stubborn, both in desperate need of a challenge."

Callum shot her a look. "You meddle too much."

"And you brood too much," Cassidy shot back, crossing her arms. "Honestly, I just wanted

Lydia to feel welcome. And maybe, for once, you could do something useful instead of walking around like you personally own the sky."

Lydia laughed under her breath—and then, to her surprise, so did Callum. His laughter was barely more than a quiet exhale, but it was there, a crack in the ice.

Cassidy beamed as if she had just

orchestrated a truce between warring nations.

"I'll leave you two to it, then," she said,

hopping off the stool. "Try not to murder each other."

And with that, she was gone, leaving behind a silence that was somehow different—lighter, charged with something new.

Lydia felt Callum’s gaze on her, sharp and

assessing, as if he were seeing her for the first time.

"You called me arrogant," he said suddenly, his brush pausing mid-stroke.

Lydia didn’t look up. "I did."

He hummed, considering. "Was I?"

She tilted her head. "Are you asking because you care... or because you want me to take it back?"

The question hung between them, heavy and deliberate. The air in the studio seemed to still, as if the world itself were holding its breath.

"Neither," he said at last. "Just curious how I came across."

Lydia looked at him then—really looked. He was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair, like a painting come to life. His features were sharp, aristocratic, his jawline a clean,

unforgiving line. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, dark and unreadable. But there was something else there, too—something guarded, something wounded.

"You came across like someone who has never been told no," she said softly. "And someone who doesn’t expect to be challenged."

Callum’s mouth curved, just slightly—not quite a smile, but something close. "And you? What do you expect?"

Lydia shrugged. "Nothing. Which is exactly why I don’t owe you anything—not flattery, not silence, not even niceness."

The silence that followed was different this time. It was not cold. It was alive, humming with something unspoken, something

dangerous.

Lydia turned back to the canvas. The painting was taking shape now—a reinterpretation of an old myth, a girl standing at the edge of a burning forest, her hair wild in the wind, her eyes fierce with defiance.

And then, with a twist of unease, Lydia

realized something.

The girl looked like her.

And the shadowed figure watching her from the trees—

Looked too much like him.

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