Her body’s moving before she can think. 

“Prin- shesh?!” 

Aster’s clamped her hands onto his face, his cheeks squished between her palms. “Either I’m dreaming,” she mutters to herself with an experimental press. “Or ghosts are a lot warmer than I thought they’d be.”

“You callinf me a ghossh, prinshesh? Donf go killinh me off sho eashily!”

“Well you might as well have been dead; I haven’t seen you in a year!” Aster administers a vengeful squish to his face. “What are you doing here, Damien?”

“Vishitinh you?” Even at Aster’s mercy and hanging upside down, he still manages to look disdainful. “Duh.”

“You know what I-“ A chill brushes over her bare arms, the sleeves of her nightgown pooled at her elbows. It’s enough to remind her that they’re still on her balcony, in plain sight of anyone who could possibly be passing by. Hastily, she releases Damien’s cheeks to reach for his shirt, hands closing around his collar to yank him abruptly into her room. 

By the time she’s closed the doors, Damien’s feet are back on the ground, expression mildly bemused. “Eager, are we?” He mutters as he fixes his clothes.

“You.” Aster points an accusatory finger at him. “How did you get in?”

“Get in what?”

“The palace!”

Damien shrugs, nonchalant. “I have my ways.”

“Damien Nox.”

He grins at her slyly, circling around her to collapse onto her study chair. “Would you believe me if I told you that I work for the royal palace now?” 

Aster frowns. “You? As if-“

She pauses, the thought hitting her like an epiphany. “No,” she says incredulously, because only so many miracles can occur in a single night. “No way.”

“Oh, yes way,” Damien counters, like he can read her mind. His face is insufferably smug. 

“You?” She can’t keep the disbelief out of her voice. “You’re the royal mage’s apprentice?”

Damien claps. “Correct! Someone get this girl a cookie!”

A million thoughts are racing through Aster’s head. She manages to settle on one. 

“How did that even happen?” 

Damien doesn’t bother to answer immediately. Instead, he beckons for her to come closer. 

Aster quirks an unamused eyebrow at him. But still she obliges, perching herself on the edge of her desk so she can face him. 

“Well then,” Damien begins once she’s settled. “Where should I start?” 

Easy.

“Where did you go after leaving the estate?” She asks.

It’s only for a second, but Aster catches it anyway: the way his easygoing smile falters, flickering into something more desolate.

He shrugs. “Nowhere, really,” he says, expression smoothing out into his default lazy grin. “After your old man kicked me out, I fell back on my old habits. You know, wandering around the woods, only dropping in on a town or village if I ran out of food. I didn’t have a destination, really, much less a clue about where I was most of the time. I just… kept walking.”

The crackling of her fireplace reaches into the study, snapping away at the silence. Damien’s face is untouched by its glow, features just barely limned by the light that peeks past his silhouette. 

“Then one day,” he continues. “While I was in some village to pick up supplies, I noticed a commotion in front of one of the buildings. You should’ve seen the line streaming out the door, it’s like the whole village was clamouring to see what was going on inside; people were literally pressing themselves against the windows, just so they could get a glimpse. Honestly, the whole thing felt a little bizarre, so I was itching to get my stuff and hightail it out of there. But just as I was passing by the building, I found myself freezing. It was faint, but I could sense it- traces of magic.” 

Aster finds herself leaning in, completely hooked.

“So now, I had to see what’s going on,” Damien continues wryly. “But there’s no way I was getting through that insane crowd. Not the normal way, at least."

“Ooh,” Aster cuts in. “Let me guess, you turned into… a lizard?”

“Oh, that could’ve worked too actually. But no, I opted for a spider at that time.”

“Really? I’m surprised you didn’t get trampled on.”

“This is me we’re talking about,” Damien scoffs, as Aster rolls her eyes. “It's going to take more than a measly crowd of people to do me in. But anyway, after I made my way past the crowd, I managed to trace the source of the magic to the person at the very front of the room. It was a guy, who seemed to be in the middle of some kind of presentation, so I crawled my way up the table he was standing behind to get a better look. Just as I'm about to get a glimpse of his face- BAM!"