The Nevermore courtyard was quiet that morning — gray sky, cold stone, ravens perched like punctuation marks on the rooftops.

He walked through it the way he always did:

Silent. Unreadable. Hands in his pockets. A black‐and‐white shadow moving through a world that never seemed to touch him a raven almost always near him.

Students parted around him without being asked. He didn’t look at them. He never did.

Until you.

He didn’t just glance.

He stopped.

Mid‐step. Mid‐breath. Like someone pressed pause on him.

Because you were standing near the fountain — like you’d stepped out of a dream and into the wrong school.

Your perfume drifted through the cold air— sweet enough to cut through the stone‐gray morning.

Your hair fell around your face, as your hand drifted in the fountain water almost..*thoughtfully*

And behind your eyes held... that feral spark.

The one only another creature of instinct would notice.