The library was a place for quiet study, but Greta was not studying. She sat across from Draconia at a small, circular table near the back of the room, her fingers tracing the grain of the wood. A single candle flickered between them, though the afternoon sun was still bright enough to illuminate the dust motes dancing in the air. Draconia watched her, noting the way Greta’s shoulders seemed pulled tight toward her ears. The tension was visible in the way Greta gripped her quill, her knuckles white against the dark wood.
"You look like you are waiting for a blow," Draconia said. She leaned back in her chair, trying to look more composed than she felt. Her muscles still ached from the previous week’s training, and the victory on the pitch felt like a distant, hollow memory.
Greta did not look up immediately. She stared at the parchment in front of her, which was mostly blank. "I am just tired, Draconia. It is not just the term. It is everything."
"Is it the match?" Draconia asked, her voice dropping a fraction. She wondered if Greta had seen the way she looked at Harry in the changing rooms, or if the whispers about the scoreboard had reached the inner circles of their social group.
Greta finally lifted her eyes. They were dark and clouded with a fatigue that had nothing to do with sleep. "The match was a distraction. A loud, bloody distraction. We win a game, and then the world keeps turning, and the news becomes more grim. It is hard to care about a scoreline when the edges of the world are fraying."
"You shouldn't be thinking about the edges," Draconia replied. She wanted to sound certain, to provide the kind of strength she usually used to intimidate opponents on the pitch. "We won. Six to two. That is a definitive thing. That is a fact."
"Facts are fickle," Greta said. She reached out and moved a small pile of books to the side, clearing a space on the table. "My father says that a fact is just a lie that has been proven true for a moment. Everything is changing. The movements in the north, the way the shipments are slowing down. It is all moving too fast."
Draconia felt a sudden, sharp pang of irritation. She wanted to talk about Harry, or the way his hands had felt against her skin, or the way the air felt in the locker room when she had made him go quiet. She wanted to talk about the present, about the heat and the sweat and the tangible reality of their bodies. Greta, however, always seemed to pull the conversation toward the horizon, toward the things that were too big to hold.
"You are being grim," Draconia said, trying to steer the conversation back to something lighter. "Even for you. Is this about the war?"
Greta stiffled a small, bitter laugh. It was a dry sound that did not reach her eyes. "The war is always there, Draconia. It is the background noise of our lives. You can win a trophy, you can score six goals, but the noise never actually stops. It just gets louder in the quiet moments."
"Don't do that," Draconia said, her voice tightening. "Don't make everything a tragedy. We are winning. For now, we are winning."
"Winning is a temporary state," Greta countered. She leaned forward, her gaze intense and unblinking. "You think you are winning because you scored, but the score is just a number on a board. It doesn't protect you. It doesn't change the way the wind is blowing."
"It changes the season," Draconia argued. She felt the urge to stand up and walk away, to find Harry and hide in the warmth of a crowded room. "It changes how people look at us. It makes us relevant."
"It makes us targets," Greta corrected her. She sat back, her posture rigid. "Everything that is bright attracts the dark. You are so busy looking at the score that you aren't looking at the sky."
Draconia frowned, feeling a sense of frustration mount. She was used to being the one who controlled the narrative, the one who set the pace of a game or a conversation. Greta, however, was a master of the slow, heavy truth. She did not use a heavy hand, but she moved with a weight that made Draconia feel strangely light and superficial.
"You always do this," Draconia muttered, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "You take a moment of triumph and turn it into a lecture on mortality. It is exhausting."
"Is it?" Greta asked. Her voice was calm, almost too calm. "Perhaps you are just exhausted by the effort of pretending it matters."
"It does matter," Draconia insisted, her voice rising just enough to draw a glance from a nearby student. She lowered it quickly. "It matters to us. It matters to the team. It matters to me."
Greta watched her for a long moment. She did not offer a smile or a word of comfort. There was no softness in her expression, no attempt to soothe the jagged edges of Draconia's frustration. She simply watched, as if waiting for the storm to pass.
"You think you are talking about us," Greta said, her voice low and steady. "You think this is about the score, or the team, or the way things are happening in the castle. But it isn't."
"Then what is it about?" Draconia asked, feeling a sense of dread settle in her stomach. She wanted to be told that it was just a bad mood, or a difficult term, or a bout of seasonal fatigue. She wanted a reason that had nothing to do with the structural integrity of their world.
Greta leaned in closer, her eyes fixed on Draconia's. She did not reach out to take her hand. She did not offer a reassuring nod. She simply spoke the words that had been circling her mind for weeks, a single, long sentence that felt as heavy as lead.
"The truth is that the world is burning and we are just watching the flames," Greta said.
The silence that followed was not a comfortable one. It was a hollow space where the warmth of the afternoon seemed to vanish. Draconia opened her mouth to argue, to find a retort that would restore the balance, but the words would not come. She realized then that Greta was not talking about the match, or the glory, or even the complicated, pulsing heat of her relationship with Harry.
The words were about the war, not about Harry.