Thirtyx vaguely registered Benn moving around in the morning, but he had no desire to rise himself. Perhaps he hadn't truly slept well in weeks. Perhaps, despite the locked door, he'd always worried someone would make their way in without Benn there to defend him.

So he drifted in and out of consciousness, relishing in the sense of normalcy brought on by the shuffling and puttering of his roommate. Gratitude overwhelmed him. Benn didn't have to room with him. Like his sister, he didn't have to room with anyone. The prince had a private room for nearly three years, but after Thirtyx found it nearly impossible to keep a roommate—parents went so far as to unenroll their children rather than let them room with a Verith—Benn took it upon himself to solve the problem.

The gesture made Thirtyx sick with guilt back then, when he’d grown to genuinely care about Benn and Rhea but still thought he’d have to betray them. He tried several times to make Benn take his own room back. So did the professors. When they wrote to Grimmary to have him talk some sense into his son, there were rumors that the king would have to come to Wydewood to sort everything out. If he did, would the Veriths call upon Thirtyx to complete his mission?

Fortunately, Grimmary gave Benn his blessing without making a transcontinental trek, and Thirtyx’s relief showed him just how little he wanted to do the Veriths’ bidding. Benn hadn’t so much as suggested moving out in the seven years since, a kindness Thirtyx didn’t think he could ever repay.

"Hey, Thirtyx?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you sleeping in, or do you want to come with me to breakfast?"

Thirtyx rolled over to stare blearily at his friend. "Breakfast. Definitely breakfast. Yesterday was tasty, but I'm still starving."

Benn seemed to be unpacking the trunk he hadn't gotten around to last night—last night when they discussed the forbidden secrets of glimmering, otherworldly magic. Thirtyx pushed himself into a sitting position and peered at the clock before fixing Benn with an incredulous look. "It's not even sixth bar! How long have you been up?"

"Second bar." Benn scratched nervously at the back of his neck. "I have to carve out time in my mornings now for..." he glanced at the door, the soundproofing spell on which had faded hours ago. "Let's say... sparkly meditation."

Thirtyx nodded his understanding, but not without acknowledging the warring sensations of admiration, pity, and guilt. Becoming proficient in normal magic—Lam magic—required years of dedicated meditation to acclimate the body. How were his friends managing the same for Pfah magic in such a short time frame?

Thirtyx clearly wasn't as good at hiding his miasma of emotions as he thought, because Benn promptly closed his trunk and settled onto it to address Thirtyx at eye level. "Hey, nothing's changed, okay? I'm still me. Rhea is still Rhea. Well... I think she is, at least. I felt her meditating with me this morning, which was a wild shock."

Thirtyx cracked a smile and threw the covers off his legs. "She must really like that sparkly stuff if she was up at dawn."

"That, or she expected Grimm to check up on us." He shrugged a shoulder. "Which, I mean, he did, so..."

Thirtyx paused in the process of drawing clean underclothes from his dresser. The statement implied that Grimmary had either managed to project his consciousness into their very dorm room or tap into his kids' minds from halfway across the planet, both of which made Thirtyx's stomach turn. Could someone with that much power potentially know what Thirtyx had once been instructed to do?

Would his friends gain the same power someday?

He shook his head to clear it. As his own act of meditation, he pulled on his school uniform methodically, with careful attention to the motions of his muscles and the feel of the fabric against his skin. Perhaps the golden magic would take some getting used to, but Benn was right. It didn't change who his friends were. Or who Thirtyx was.