Nevan didn’t stop walking until the gates of Blackwood College were behind him.

Only then did his breath stutter, shallow and uneven, like his lungs were finally remembering how to work. His fingers curled into the straps of his bag, knuckles pale, the fabric creaking softly under his grip. He kept his head down as students passed him—voices blurring together, laughter distant, unreal.

Nervous, he thought distantly, as if naming the feeling would contain it.

It didn’t.

Airn’s voice still echoed in his head.
Alastor’s eyes.
Theo’s name, spoken so gently it had felt like a blade.

Nevan turned down the familiar path toward his apartment, steps measured, calm by habit if not by truth. A black cat perched on a fence post watched him pass. Normally, he would have stopped. Normally, he would have smiled.

Today, he didn’t.

His heart thudded too loud, each beat a reminder that something had shifted. Not broken—shifted. He had endured worse. He knew that. He had trained himself for endurance, built walls so thick that most people never even saw them.

But the twins hadn’t pushed the walls.
They’d stepped around them.

Theo’s face flashed through his mind—messy hair falling into kind brown eyes, the awkward grin he wore when he talked too fast, the way he pretended not to notice when people stared. Theo, who had shared his lunch without making it a favor. Theo, who had laughed at Nevan’s quiet jokes like they mattered.

Nevan has a soft spot for his friends.

The words echoed, cruel in their accuracy.

His steps slowed.

“No,” Nevan murmured under his breath, the word barely audible. Saying it helped, just a little. He straightened his posture, lifting his chin, forcing his breathing into something steady again.

He wouldn’t panic. Panic made mistakes.

At home, the apartment was quiet, blessedly so. Nevan locked the door behind him and leaned his forehead against it for a brief second longer than necessary. The silence pressed in around him, familiar and heavy.

He slid down until he was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to his chest.

It’s fine, he told himself. You’re fine.

He had begged.

The realization settled slowly, sinking into his chest with an ache that wasn’t quite shame—closer to relief mixed with fear. He hadn’t begged for himself. That mattered. It always had.

But the twins knew now.

That night, Nevan barely slept. When he closed his eyes, he saw hazel eyes watching him—not angry, not even cruel, just interested. Interested in the way people were when they were cornered.

Morning came too quickly.

At school, Nevan stayed close to Theo. Not obvious. Just… closer. He listened more than he spoke, nodded at the right times, smiled when expected. Theo noticed anyway, because Theo noticed things.

“You okay?” Theo asked as they sat in class, whispering over an open notebook. “You seem… tense.”

Nevan hesitated. His mouth opened, then closed again. The truth hovered on his tongue, sharp and dangerous.

“I’m just tired,” he said instead, soft and convincing.

Theo frowned but didn’t push. “We can study together later. Might help.”

Nevan nodded, grateful enough that his chest hurt. “I’d like that.”

Across the room, Nevan felt it before he saw it—the weight of being watched. His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly.

Airn lounged in his seat near the back, one arm draped over the chair beside him, eyes lazy and sharp all at once. Alastor sat straighter, fingers steepled, gaze unreadable. When Nevan looked up, Alastor smiled.

Just a little.

Nevan looked away first.

His pulse quickened, but his face stayed calm. That, at least, he still controlled. He wrote notes carefully, pen steady, pretending the air hadn’t grown heavier.

Don’t react, he told himself. That’s what they want.

But reacting wasn’t always loud. Sometimes it was the way your attention sharpened, the way you memorized exits without meaning to, the way you counted the steps between you and someone else.

Between him and Theo.

As the bell rang, Nevan packed up quickly.

“Bathroom,” he murmured to Theo, standing. It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

In the mirror, his reflection stared back at him—green eyes too bright, skin a shade paler than usual. He touched the sink, grounding himself in the cool porcelain.

“They won’t touch him,” Nevan whispered, the words meant as a promise. “I won’t let them.”

He didn’t know how yet.

But he would endure.
He always did.

And somewhere deep inside, beneath calm and quiet and patience, something coiled tight—not breaking, not yet—but ready.

The songbird was nervous.

And the cage was closing.

Nevan ran a hand through his hair, the strands falling over his eyes as he stared at his reflection a moment longer. He hated the trembling in his chest, hated that the image of Theo—so small, so unassuming—was enough to make him falter. He had endured bullies before, threats before, even fear before. But this… this was different.

It wasn’t just force or pain. It was observation, calculation. They knew him. They had seen through the calm surface he had built with so much care. And now… they had found the cracks.

A tap at the door pulled him from his thoughts. Theo. Always quietly persistent. Nevan forced himself to straighten, voice calm. “Hey,” he said, smiling lightly, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Theo stepped inside, notebook in hand. “You didn’t answer me earlier… Are you okay?” His brown eyes were filled with that easy concern Nevan both treasured and feared. “You seem… nervous.”

Nevan swallowed, the word lodged somewhere between his throat and his chest. “I… I’m fine,” he said softly. Too soft. “Just… tired.”

Theo frowned, unconvinced, but he didn’t push. “Okay… well, I thought we could study together? It might help, you know… take your mind off things.”

Nevan nodded, grateful, but a small pit formed in his stomach. The twins had already begun their game. They didn’t need to touch him to affect him; their presence alone had shifted everything.

He could feel it—their gaze, sharp and deliberate, burning through the classroom. Airn’s hazel eyes, lazy but sharp, and Alastor’s calculated stare, calm and knowing. Each glance felt like a knife tracing the edge of his patience, testing boundaries he had never wanted to acknowledge.

Nevan focused on Theo’s notes, forcing attention where it was safe, grounding himself in the mundane, in the tasks he could control. But the knots in his stomach tightened with each passing second. He knew they were watching, and the thought of Theo—of his safety, of his peace—made the pressure nearly unbearable.

And then, in a quiet moment, when the classroom buzzed around them but Nevan felt only the twin shadows, his thoughts slipped.

Please…

It wasn’t aloud, not yet. But the word trembled in his mind, unbidden, a crack in the calm façade he had worn so carefully.

Nevan’s fingers curled tighter around his pen, hands pale. He could feel Theo’s warmth beside him, steady and grounding, but it also made him more vulnerable. The twin’s presence wasn’t physical yet; it didn’t need to be. Their control had already started, subtle and precise, reaching into the part of him he couldn’t guard without losing sight of Theo.

He drew in a shaky breath and forced himself to smile, quietly, convincingly. “Let’s… start,” he murmured, leaning over the notebook. He tried to focus on equations, on words, on anything that wouldn’t make him think about the hazard looming just outside the safe bubble Theo provided.

But the thought remained, stubborn and insistent: the twins had found the lever that could make him bend, and one day soon, they would push it.

Nevan’s calm was cracking.

And though he wouldn’t allow himself to admit it, part of him wondered if he was ready for the cage to close.

Nevan had barely set his bag down in the library when he noticed it—a folded piece of paper, tucked between two textbooks on Theo’s table.

Curiosity pulled at him, but his chest tightened immediately. That handwriting… familiar, deliberate, cruel.

He picked it up, fingers trembling slightly. The note read:

“You should keep a closer eye on the ones you care about. Some accidents are… preventable.”

No signature. Just empty, calculated menace.

Nevan’s heart stuttered, and his calm green eyes flickered toward Theo. Theo’s head was buried in a textbook, oblivious, humming softly to himself. Relief mingled with panic. They’d touched him. Indirectly, but enough.

Airn and Alastor weren’t in the library. They didn’t need to be. They had only to know that Nevan would see it. That they had reached him through Theo.

Nevan’s hands clenched around the paper, the edges crumpling slightly. His chest heaved—not with fear, exactly, but with that tight coil of desperate, protective urgency.

He wanted to throw it away. Burn it. Forget it. But that would mean ignoring it. Ignoring it meant… Theo.

And he couldn’t.

He set the note down carefully, eyes darting around. No one else seemed to notice, and yet… he knew they were watching, waiting for the moment he would falter.

His mind raced. What do I do? How do I stop them?

Theo looked up, brown eyes curious. “Everything okay?”

Nevan’s mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head lightly, forcing a soft smile. “Yeah… yeah, just… focused.”

Theo nodded, returning to his notes, humming under his breath again. Innocent, kind, unaware of the danger hovering just out of sight.

Nevan’s breath hitched. He wasn’t used to feeling this powerless. Not like this. He had endured bullies before, had survived threats, shoves, whispers in the dark. But this—this was different.

This wasn’t just physical intimidation. It was precision, observation, subtle manipulation. They were using his heart against him.

And suddenly, the calm patience he had always relied on felt like it was fracturing.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to lean over Theo’s notebook, forcing his focus onto math problems and dates and dry words. He tried to convince himself he wasn’t panicking. Tried to convince himself he was fine.

But the tiny tremor in his hands betrayed him. The way his chest tightened betrayed him. And when he thought of the note, of Theo—his soft voice, his warm smile—he felt something else for the first time: the urge to beg.

Not for himself. Not aloud. But a quiet, desperate please, lodged deep inside his chest, whispered to the universe: Please… let him be safe.

And that whisper, hidden, trembling, real, was exactly what the twins had wanted him to feel.

Nevan closed his eyes for a heartbeat, swallowing hard. He couldn’t falter here. He couldn’t allow them to see him break—not yet.

But the cage was tightening.