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Graduation had crept up on Night Raven College the way everything else did: quietly at first, and then all at once.
Faculty members were suddenly everywhere, talking about paperwork and futures in the same breath. Students gathered in clusters, comparing plans with the reckless confidence of people who assumed there would always be an after to talk about.
Ace always figured graduation would feel louder. Bigger. Like a finish line.
Instead, it felt like the campus was holding its breath. He didn’t think much of it though as he leaned against a stone railing near the Heartslabyul courtyard, half-listening as Deuce talked animatedly about potential training programs, when Cater flicked through his phone and whistled.
“Wow,” Cater said. “They’re really trying to poach people early this year.”
“Poach who?” Ace asked, distracted.
Cater turned the screen toward Deuce, already grinning. “Housewarden-types. Top of the class. You know—scary, competent.”
Ace glanced at the screen. He saw the name before he registered what it was attached to.
Riddle Rosehearts.
The rest of the words took a moment to settle. Selective apprenticeship. Post-graduation placement. Joint consideration. He felt it in his teeth. Like biting tinfoil.
Ace straightened,“Wait,” he said. “What?”
Cater blinked. “Huh?”
“What do you mean joint consideration?” Ace asked. He took the phone without thinking, scanning faster this time. There it was, tucked neatly into the paragraph like it hadn’t just knocked the air out of his lungs.
Riddle had been offered the same apprenticeship. The same one Ace had been agonizing over for days.
“Oh,” Cater said, finally catching on. “Yeah. You didn’t know?”
Ace looked up, “No.”
Deuce frowned,“He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” Ace repeated, a little flatter this time.
Cater tilted his head, studying him. “Huh. I figured—”
“Figured what?”
“That you knew,” Cater said lightly. “You two have been basically joined at the hip lately.”
Ace forced himself to laugh, “Yeah. Basically.” He handed the phone back and leaned against the railing again, arms folded, posture casual enough that no one pressed him on it.
It wasn’t a big deal. That was the first thing his brain supplied, automatically, the way it always did when something felt off. Riddle probably hadn’t had time to mention it yet. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to make a big announcement. Riddle wasn’t exactly known for oversharing.
Ace could live with that.
He listened as Cater and Deuce drifted into joking speculation–about dorms, about cities, about how Deuce would never survive living somewhere with real deadlines–and nodded in the right places.
Still, the thought sat there.
Riddle hadn’t said anything.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
That night, Riddle read the email again.
He didn’t need to. He knew it by heart now–the careful wording, the polite enthusiasm, the deadline softened with understanding. We would be pleased to offer you an apprenticeship. We believe you would be a good fit. Please let us know.
Good fit. As though he were a shape meant to go somewhere.
He set his phone down on the desk and straightens a stack of papers that doesn’t need straightening. The room is already orderly. Everything is already where it should be. That, at least, is familiar.
Graduation looms like an ending everyone else seems excited to reach. Riddle has finished things before–handed over responsibilities, finalized transitions, ensured continuity. He knows how to leave a system better than he found it. He knows how to make himself unnecessary.
That’s the part he’s good at.
The offer is generous. He knows that. He also knows someone else will want it more. Someone with ambition that points outward instead of folding in on itself. Someone who wakes up imagining what comes after.
Riddle has tried to picture it. After the dorm. After the title. After the rules that gave his days shape. The image never holds. It dissolves the moment he looks at it too closely, like steam off a teacup.
He thinks of Ace, briefly–loud, careless Ace, who talks about things as if they are already happening. Who assumes people will be there unless told otherwise. Who has not, notably, said anything about this.
Riddle had not mentioned the apprenticeship to him or anyone really. It hadn’t occurred to him that he should. It didn’t feel like news. It didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like another thing that could be decided later, or not at all.
He unlocked his laptop to his inbox open there too. The cursor blinks in the empty reply field.
Patient. Neutral. Waiting.
Riddle considers typing something. A question, perhaps. A request for more time. An acceptance he doesn’t feel. A refusal that would at least close the loop.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he closes the lid. The room settles around him, unchanged. No alarms. No consequences. No one knocking at the door to ask anything.
That, too, makes sense. Riddle exhales slowly and sets his phone face down, as though that might keep the moment contained.
If it mattered, someone would have mentioned it.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
The next day, Ace found Riddle in the library. Of course he did. Riddle sat at one of the long tables near the back, posture perfect, attention fixed on a stack of documents that looked suspiciously like transition plans. Even now, a month before graduation, he was already organizing his absence.
Ace paused at the end of the aisle, watching him for a second longer than necessary.
Riddle looked… fine. Calm. Focused. There was a faint line between his brows, but that was nothing new. If anything, he seemed more relaxed lately. Less brittle. The harsh tyrant edges sanded down into something steadier.
Ace had liked watching that change happen. Had been stupidly proud of it, even. “Hey,” Ace said, finally.
Riddle glanced up. “Ace? Is something the matter?”
“No,” Ace said quickly. “Just- just checking in.”
Riddle nodded once and gestured to the chair across from him, “If you require assistance with your graduation forms, I can review them.”
Ace snorted. “Wow, how sweet.”
Riddle huffed, the barest flicker of amusement crossing his face. It didn’t quite reach his eyes, but Ace had stopped expecting that. Some things took time.
They fell into easy conversation after that, about logistics, about the dorm, about how many students were suddenly pretending not to panic. Riddle listened attentively, offered practical advice, corrected Ace exactly once. At no point did he mention the apprenticeship.
Ace waited, but Riddle didn’t bring it up.
Ace told himself it was because Riddle didn’t like talking about himself. There would be time later. This wasn’t the place. This wasn’t urgent.
Eventually, Ace stood to leave.
“Oh!” Riddle added, as if remembering something. “I’ve scheduled a meeting with the dorm leaders to finalize post-graduation responsibilities. You’re welcome to attend if you’d like.”
Ace blinked. “Post-graduation responsibilities?”
“Yes,” Riddle said calmly. “Ensuring a smooth transition is essential.”
“Right,” Ace said. “Of course.” He smiled, waved, and left. The library doors closed softly behind him.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
It wasn’t until much later, when the sun had dipped low and the campus lights flickered on, that the unease finally sharpened into something he could name.
Ace lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying the conversation with an attention he hadn’t given it at the time.
Riddle hadn’t lied. He had simply… never answered a question no one had asked. Ace rolled onto his side, staring at the wall.
It was possible, likely, even, that Riddle had assumed Ace already knew. News traveled fast around campus. People talked. Maybe Riddle had figured it would get back to him eventually.
That thought helped. A little.
Still.
Ace exhaled slowly.
Tomorrow, he decided. He’d bring it up tomorrow.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
Tomorrow came and went in the way inconvenient things always did, in the blink of an eye.
Ace saw Riddle three times and didn’t say it once.
The first time was breakfast, where Riddle sat with his tea like he’d been placed there deliberately. He looked up when Ace approached, nodded in that precise way of his, and asked if Ace had reviewed the list of graduating students attending the final dorm leader meeting.
Ace said yes. He didn’t mention the offer.
The second time was in the hallway outside Alchemy, where Riddle’s hands were full of folders and he still somehow walked like nothing could touch him. Ace opened his mouth—Hey, about that apprenticeship—and then Deuce barrelled up between them mid-sentence, talking about something loud and stupid and urgent.
Riddle stopped to listen. Responded. Moved on.
Ace watched him go.
The third time was late afternoon, when Ace finally spotted him alone near the courtyard and felt his chest do that annoying thing where it tried to convince him that this is it, this is your chance, don’t be a coward.
Riddle was looking at the rose hedges like they were a math problem.
Ace walked up beside him. “Hey,” Ace said, like he hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours rehearsing it in his head.
Riddle turned. “Ace.”
Ace shoved his hands into his pockets. The words hovered at the back of his throat, sharp and metallic so he didn’t say them. Instead, he said, “You’re really going all out with the whole transition thing, huh? You’re graduating, not dying.”
Riddle blinked, “I beg your pardon?”
Ace laughed. “Nothing. Just… it’s a little intense.”
Riddle’s expression softened in that small, careful way it sometimes did lately. Like he was trying. Like he was practicing something.“It would be irresponsible not to,” he said. “Heartslabyul’s stability depends on preparation.”
Ace wanted to ask, Does it? Does anything depend on you after you leave? But Ace has always been a coward so instead, he nods, because nodding was always safer than baring his heart.
“Yeah,” he says, “Sure.”
They stood there for a moment longer than they needed to. The roses rustled in the breeze. Somewhere in the dorm, someone was laughing too loudly. Ace stared at Riddle’s profile and tried not to think about how easy it would be to ruin this, how effortless it was for him to ruin things when he wasn’t even trying.
Riddle glanced at him again. “Was there something you needed?”
Ace’s mouth went dry. He could have done it then. He could’ve asked about it. The offer. The joint consideration. Why didn’t you tell me?
But there was something terrifying about the way Riddle asked—genuinely open, genuinely willing. Like he had no idea he was holding a knife by the blade.
Ace looked away first,“No,” he said, too quickly. “Just checking in.”
Riddle nodded like that made sense, and Ace left before he could embarrass himself any further.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
Cater found him later near the Mirror Chamber, sprawled halfway over a bench like a tragic painting. “Oooh,” Cater sang, dragging the word out, “Someone looks like he lost a duel.”
Ace didn’t bother sitting up. “I’m just resting.”
“You’re brooding.”
“I’m resting aggressively.”
Cater laughed and dropped beside him anyway, shoulder bumping his. “Wow, you should put that on a T-shirt.”
Ace huffed despite himself.
“Oh!” Cater said suddenly. “By the way—congrats on that apprenticeship thing.”
Ace stiffened just a little. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, I assume congrats. That’s the reaction, right?”
Ace shrugged, aiming for casualness. “I guess.”
“Riddle still didn’t mention it?” Cater tilted his head.
Ace shook his head, “No.”
“Huh,” Cater shrugged too, already moving on, “Guess he’s in his mysterious era.”
Ace snorted. “When isn’t he?”
“Point taken,” Cater grinned.
He flicked his phone off and leaned back on his hands. “Still wild, though. You guys ending up in the same place after NRC.”
Ace glanced sideways, “If that even happens.”
Cater waved a hand, “Details.”
Then, like it was an afterthought, “Though, wow. If you both go, you might have to… live in the same place. Share a kitchen. Share a bathroom. Share a—” he made a face. “—space with your horrible goblin habits.”
Ace scoffed. “Excuse you?”
Cater made a sound that was basically an accusation.
“Okay, fine,” Ace snapped, then immediately regretted the sharpness. He exhaled, “I’m not…”
“I’m just saying,” Cater said lightly, not letting him finish “You’d last, like, a week before Riddle labeled your stuff.”
Ace laughed. “He already does that.”
“Exactly.”
Cater added, absentmindedly, stretching as he stood, “Maybe he’s just preemptively saving himself from the mental image of your socks on the floor. Anyway. You’ll figure it out.”
He stood. “Don’t brood too hard, yeah?”
Ace nodded. “Yeah.”
Cater wandered off, humming to himself.
Ace stayed where he was.
The bench was warm beneath him, the stone pressing solid and real against his palms. He stared at nothing in particular, letting the moment stretch longer than it needed to.
It was stupid. Cater had been joking.
But still—
Sure, Riddle had loosened up. Sure, he’d changed. He laughed sometimes now, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He let things slide that he wouldn’t have before. He let Ace slide, most days.
That didn’t mean anything had shifted where it mattered.
Ace looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers like he could shake the thought loose.
For Riddle, living with him would be a lot. Being around him all the time would probably be worse. If Riddle didn’t want to live with him, then the thought of Riddle wanting him—
He stopped himself there.
Cater’s voice echoed back in his head, not even unkind. Not even serious. Just… there. Maybe he just assumed you already knew.
Ace swallowed, “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”
It sounded reasonable.
The hurt had already set in by then, quiet and spreading, because Ace hadn’t known—and Riddle hadn’t thought to tell him.
That was the part he couldn’t get around.
Cater had asked if he wanted to go and Ace had answered like it was obvious. Like there was no question. He hadn’t said the other part. The part that mattered.
That he didn’t want the apprenticeship on its own.
He wanted it with Riddle there.
He wanted it because of Riddle.
And realizing that felt embarrassing in a way that made his chest ache. He’d built a whole future out of an assumption Riddle hadn’t even known he was making.
Ace leaned back against the bench and laughed under his breath, sharp and humorless.
God. He really was stupid.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
That night, Ace opened the apprenticeship email and read it again. He stared at the “Reply” button like it might explain itself.
He could accept it. He could take it. He could leave NRC and go do something impressive and adult and real but his eyes kept snagging on the words he’d barely processed the first time.
Joint consideration.
He imagined showing up and finding Riddle there, already settled, already perfect, already regretting Ace’s presence in his space. He imagined Riddle’s polite smile. The way his laughter didn’t reach his eyes. The way he would say, kindly, that they could be cordial.
Ace’s stomach twisted.
He closed the email.
He didn’t reply.
Not yet.
He told himself it was because he needed to think. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to make the wrong decision. He told himself a lot of things. What he didn’t tell himself (what he didn’t let himself say out loud) was that he’d been thinking about confessing before—before all of this.
Not dramatically. Not with flowers or fireworks. Just… at some point. After graduation. When things were calmer. When it wouldn’t mess anything up.
But now he realized how stupid that had been. Because what was the point of confessing to someone who couldn’t even bring himself to mention something like this?
Ace lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling until it blurred.
If he wanted me there, he would have said so.
And Ace hated himself a little, for how much relief he found in deciding that was true.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
It was for the best. That was the lie Ace told himself as he stopped reaching.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even noticeable at first. He still showed up to meetings, still answered messages, still laughed when Cater made jokes that weren’t funny and let Deuce drag him into conversations he half-listened to. He just… controlled himself more.
He didn’t sit beside Riddle anymore, choosing a chair a little farther down the table instead. He didn’t linger after conversations, didn’t stretch moments out the way he used to, didn’t hover like he was waiting for permission to stay.
When Riddle spoke, Ace listened.
When Riddle asked something, Ace answered.
When Riddle didn’t—Ace didn’t fill the silence.
It felt like the right thing to do.
Like giving Riddle space.
Like not imposing.
Like accepting—gracefully—that maybe Ace had read too much into things that were never meant to be anything more.
It felt mature.
Which was probably why it hurt. And why it was so hard.
Of course Riddle noticed. Eventually.
At first, he assumed Ace was just busy. Graduation pulled everyone in different directions; people were distracted, preoccupied, already halfway gone. It was natural. Ace still smiled at him, still greeted him the same way, still met his eyes when they spoke.
So Riddle told himself nothing had changed.
Except—
Ace no longer interrupted him. No longer corrected him with that infuriatingly casual confidence. No longer leaned in close to mutter commentary under his breath during meetings, no longer stayed behind once business concluded, pretending he had nowhere better to be.
Ace left when things were done.
Efficient. Polite. Appropriate.
Riddle approved of it.
At least, he thought he did.
The first time Riddle registered the absence fully was during a committee meeting. Ace sat across the table from him, posture relaxed, expression attentive. When Riddle finished outlining the plan, Ace nodded once and said, “Sounds solid,” without adding anything else.
No teasing. No sarcasm.
The meeting adjourned. Ace stood, waved vaguely to the group, and left.
Riddle watched the door close behind him. Something in his chest tightened—just briefly, just enough to be inconvenient.
He dismissed it.
The second time was worse.
Ace skipped their usual breakfast overlap entirely. When Riddle asked Deuce about it later, Deuce shrugged and said something about Ace sleeping in.
“He’s been doing that lately,” Deuce added. “Guess he’s tired.”
Riddle nodded. That made sense. People grew tired near endings.
By the third time, the pattern had settled enough that it could no longer be ignored.
Ace didn’t say “we” anymore. Didn’t joke about what they’d do after graduation, didn’t speculate, didn’t plan out loud. When Cater brought up future housing options during lunch one afternoon, Ace laughed and said, “I’ll figure it out,” and changed the subject.
Riddle listened. Said nothing.
It would have been inappropriate to ask.
Of course, Ace noticed Riddle noticing.
That was the worst part.
There was a carefulness to Riddle now, a restraint that mirrored Ace’s own. Conversations felt more formal. Pauses stretched a little longer. Riddle seemed to wait—for what, Ace wasn’t sure—and then proceed without him.
It felt like standing on opposite sides of a door, both of them waiting for the other to knock.
Ace didn’t.
Because knocking meant wanting something. And wanting something had already proven foolish.
One evening, as Ace passed through the corridor outside Heartslabyul’s common room, he heard Riddle’s voice inside—calm, measured, giving instructions to someone about post-graduation inventories.
Ace slowed, then stopped.
He could go in. He could interrupt, make a joke, ask something stupid just to break the careful distance they’d built.
Instead, he kept walking.
He told himself it was polite. He told himself it was what Riddle wanted. That it was the only way he could be what Riddle wanted.
He told himself it was better.
It didn’t stop it from hurting.
Riddle finished the conversation inside and turned, half-expecting—
No one.
The room felt larger than it had a moment ago. He frowned faintly, then shook his head. It was fine. Ace was clearly busy, clearly adjusting, clearly doing what people did when they were ready to move on.
It made sense.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
That night, Ace drafted three versions of a message to Riddle and deleted all of them. Meanwhile, Riddle reread the apprenticeship email and didn’t reply.
The silence between them thickened—not with hostility, but with courtesy. With the shared, unspoken belief that saying nothing was kinder than saying the wrong thing.
And because neither of them broke it, the silence began to feel intentional.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
The confirmation deadline crept up slowly. Notices appeared on corkboards, in newsletters and emails. Faculty mentioned due dates for forms in passing, conversations shifted, names solidifying into plans, and hypotheticals smoothing into certainty.
Ace listened and said nothing.
He told himself he was fine. He told himself that wanting something didn’t obligate him to chase it. He told himself that there were worse things than walking away intact. Every morning, he woke with the same dull ache and the same quiet resolve, and that was enough. It had to be.
Then a professor stopped him in the hall, “Trappola” the professor said. “Congratulations. I hear through the grapevine that you and Rosehearts were under consideration for the Artemis apprenticeship. Very prestigious. I’m sure you’ll do great things.”
Ace slowed half a step, then nodded back, “Thanks.”
The professor moved on, already absorbed in another thought, another student. Ace stood there for a second longer, the words settling.
Under consideration.
Prestigious.
You and Rosehearts.
It wasn’t news. Not really. It was confirmation of what Ace had already assumed, what everyone assumed. Riddle didn’t hesitate when responsibility called. He stepped forward. He always had.
Ace imagined it—it would be years, not months. Shared instruction. Shared expectations. A shared master who would look at them both and see potential, see promise, see something that needed shaping. He imagined mornings he wasn’t allowed to want. Evenings he would pretend were ordinary. A life close enough to touch and never, ever claim.
He kept walking.
That night, the reminder email arrived.
Polite. Courteous. Patient.
Ace opened it, read it, closed it. He didn’t draft a response this time. He didn’t need to. The decision had already been made, even if no one else knew it yet. He lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling until the light blurred and the ache dulled into something manageable.
Across campus, Riddle sat at his desk with the same email open. He had reread it so many times that the words no longer felt like language. Just shapes. Just implication. Years. Continuation. A future that demanded sincerity.
He thought of Ace—bright, restless, already leaning toward whatever came next. Ace would thrive. Riddle knew that with the same certainty he knew he could not promise the same of himself.
To accept would be to bind Ace to someone who might falter. To someone who could not honestly say where he would be in five years, let alone ten. Riddle had spent his life performing certainty. He would not counterfeit it now.
He closed the email.
The deadline passed quietly.
˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖
Ace found out accidentally through Deuce, of all people, blurting it out between bites of lunch. “Hey, did you hear? They offered that apprenticeship to someone else. Guess Housewarden had other plans.”
Ace’s fork paused halfway to his mouth. “He never… confirmed?” he said, carefully.
“Yeah,” Deuce said, shrugging. “Professor Crewel said they never got his reply. Weird, right?”
Weird. Ace nodded. “Yeah. Weird.”
He finished his lunch without tasting it.
Later that night, Ace sat with the information—Riddle never confirmed—and waited for something sharp to happen. Panic, maybe. Regret. The instinct to get up and do something, anything, to reclaim ground he hadn’t realized he’d lost.
None of it came.
Instead, there was a hollow click, like something aligning too late.
Riddle hadn’t said yes.
Ace had been so sure he would.
That certainty unraveled slowly, thread by thread, until Ace could see it for what it had been all along. Not knowledge. Just projection. He had filled in the blank spaces with the version of Riddle that made sense to him—the responsible one, the inevitable one, the boy who always ran face-first into duty because that was the only way Ace knew how to understand him.
But Riddle hadn’t told him about the offer. Hadn’t told him anything.
And Ace felt something cold and steady take shape in his chest as he finally let himself acknowledge what that meant.
Ace had assumed intimacy where there had only ever been proximity.
The laughter that didn’t reach Riddle’s eyes.
The moments Ace stretched and Riddle allowed.
The space Ace filled until he stopped.
It had never mattered.
Ace had pulled away so carefully, had measured every step, every silence, every restraint—and Riddle hadn’t chased him. Hadn’t questioned it. Hadn’t noticed in a way that demanded response.
Because why would he?
Ace swallowed and leaned back in his bed, staring at the ceiling like it might offer clarity.
He thought about going to Riddle but what would going to Riddle even do?
He could confess. That was always the shape of it in Ace’s head, wasn’t it? Confession as absolution. Confession as proof that something real had existed, even if it ended badly.
But confessing would mean giving Riddle something he hadn’t asked for.
It would mean placing a feeling at his feet and expecting him to carry it—expecting him to respond, to account for it, to decide something about it. Another responsibility. Another obligation born not from Riddle’s wants, but from Ace’s stupid imagination.
Ace let out a breath that shook despite himself.
Who was he to do that?
Riddle hadn’t invited him in. Hadn’t opened a door. Ace had simply wandered close enough to mistake warmth for welcome. And now, standing on the other side of that realization, the idea of knocking felt almost obscene.
There was no point in confessing to someone when you were already certain of the answer.
And Ace was certain.
Not because Riddle was cruel. Not because he would reject him outright. But because the version of closeness Ace had built this on had never actually existed. Confessing wouldn’t create it. It would only force Riddle to address something that had never mattered to him in the first place.
Ace pressed his palms against his eyes and laughed once, quietly.
God. He had been so foolish.
He’d spent weeks telling himself he was being mature, that he was stepping back out of respect, out of care. But underneath it all was the simpler, uglier truth: he’d been too much, and he’d finally noticed.
Maybe Riddle hadn’t pulled away because anything ended.
Maybe the chapter had just… closed.
Ace stayed where he was.
Across campus, Riddle finished filing the last of his paperwork and sat very still at his desk. He told himself, with the same calm certainty he’d been practicing for weeks, that Ace would be fine. That Ace would go on to something brighter, something unencumbered. That this—this quiet absence—was proof that he’d done the right thing by stepping aside.
Neither of them reached out to the other.
Not because they couldn’t.
But because, in their own way, both of them were convinced they had never been asked to.