Blythe only had two shared classes with Daisy today: PE and Mathematics IV.

  Since they had to put their things away in a locker before PE class, it would be difficult to pass Daisy her copied notes then. After the way Daisy had departed from her yesterday, she had a feeling trying to give it to her in person wouldn’t work.

  Blythe decided to try it anyway.

  The original plan was to leave it outside her dorm room before first period today. It was dismantled by the fact that she’d barely gotten up in time for class, let alone breakfast. She’d been in too deep a slumber for the continuous twittering from her alarm bird to penetrate her consciousness.

  Spending all night copying over her notes in all the core subjects had drained her mental energy.

  The lesson went well despite the weird looks Beatrice shot her. Before it started, Jessica and Sophie questioned her about her supposed cold and questioned her participation in class. Blythe explained to Instructor Grandville that she’d thought she was coming down with a cold, but it turned out to be a light case of sniffles that had cleared up overnight, likely due to the weather.

  There wasn’t a point in pretending to be sick anymore. The bullying scene was over.

  After a series of relay races, Blythe found herself in the locker room with the other girls to wash up before their next class. As those among the non-participants, Jessica and Sophie had already grabbed their bags from their lockers. Daisy wasn’t in the general area—she was probably in the shower.

  Blythe came out of her shower cubicle and saw Daisy about to leave the locker room. About half the students had already left, so it was easy for her to notice.

  She ran up to Daisy, rummaging around in her bag to pull out the notebooks. Her pattering footsteps got Daisy to stop in her tracks.

  At the sight of Daisy blanching, her heart dropped.

  “Um—”

  “Good day, Miss Ridge.” With a bow of her head, Daisy scurried out the door.

  Blinking, Blythe realized she was holding her notebooks up to empty air. Too slow. By the time she’d offered the notebooks, Daisy was gone.

  “Blythe, what is that?” Sophie asked curiously.

  Without her noticing, she and Jessica had sidled up to her side.

  “I made a copy of my notes for Daisy.” Blythe stuffed them back into her bag. “Because hers are ruined from the fountain.”

  “Why would you do that?” An impressed grin swiftly replaced Jessica’s frown. “Oh, I understand. Everyone will see how kind you are for helping her.”

  Sophie scoffed at the closed door. “How ungrateful of her to walk away without accept—”

  “She knows it was me,” Blythe interrupted.

  Blythe strode out of the locker room with the two of them in tow, inundating her with questions.

  “How does she know it was us?”

  “Why make her a copy of your notes if she knows?”

  “She knows because I told her,” she said, her tone impassive. “And she doesn’t know you’re involved—just me.”

  They both looked touched.

  Green light.

  “Are you serious,” she muttered to herself, not in the mood to act like she was fine with them until she had the chance to sit them down for a serious conversation. “That’s not the point.”

  “Thank you for covering for us,” Sophie said, her gaze awestruck.

  “But why did you tell her in the first place?“

  “Because I wanted to apologize. Because, like I told you, I didn’t want to ruin her bag.”

  Bemusement filled Sophie’s voice. “But then why did you suggest the idea in the first place?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you two!” It was getting hard to keep her voice down. “I didn’t!”

  “I’m so sorry, Blythe,” Jessica said, her head turned towards the elegant standing clock in the courtyard. “I don’t want to interrupt, but my next class is Culinary Arts and Professor Cromwell is extremely fastidious about tardiness. Would you mind if we continued this conversation later?”

  Blythe nodded. “There’s no time to talk now. We’ll do it later.”

  They went their separate ways for their respective classes.

  As she stepped into her Economics IV classroom, red light zipped through her vision.

  That was about right.

  In the game, before the start of one of their shared classes, Magnus learned about the fountain harassment incident from Daisy. Her gym bag being used as a makeshift school bag caught his eye, and he asked her about it. Not wanting to stir up trouble without evidence, Daisy told him her bag had met with an accident and was too damp to use. Magnus’ curiosity and subsequent questions successfully dragged the whole story out of her, uncovering the implied sabotage.

  The difference here was that Daisy knew for a fact it was Blythe, when it would’ve been an uncertain doubt in the original story. Of course, she still didn’t have any proof beyond Blythe’s verbal admission in private, so whether she told Magnus it was Blythe or not was up in the air.

  If Magnus hadn’t been putting in so much effort to build a better relationship with her these few days, would the drop in points have been lower?

  This deduction was a whole 50 points more than the previous bullying-induced one.

  If his reaction outside the dining hall that day was any indication, he would be greatly disappointed in her for breaking his trust again.

  Blythe settled down in her seat, scrunching her eyes shut in an attempt to squeeze out the look of devastation in Daisy’s eyes.

  ???

  Her next class was History IV.

  The pit in Blythe’s stomach grew as she neared the door. Her fault or not, she dreaded the thought of being confronted by Magnus while Cole watched.

  She didn’t have a say in how the next fifty minutes would turn out. Unless she wanted to skip class and receive a warning, she had to let the chips fall where they may.

  She opened the door.

  Neither Cole nor Magnus were here yet. Blythe sat at her usual desk and waited.

  Within a minute, Magnus showed up in the doorway.

  He headed straight for Blythe in a large sweeping stride, his eyes trained on her and his face blank. As he stood in front of her desk instead of sitting down next to her, she mentally braced herself for whatever was to come.

  “Good morning, Blythe,” he said in a tone so frosty he might as well have said ‘I despise you for everything that you are.’

  “Good morning,” she replied, waiting for the inevitable confrontation.

  Was he going to do it in this classroom? Granted, there wasn’t really anyone looking their way because they were all busy chatting with their own friends or reading their textbook, but still.

  Whatever. She was tired of everything.

  “Is that all you have to say to me?”

  Did he want her to confess her sins along with a morning greeting in front of an audience? She thought he valued his image.

  “I’m sorry? I apologize?”

  His expression darkened. Dragging a nearby chair to her desk, he sat down close enough to speak quietly without drawing attention. “So you do feel you’ve done something you need to apologize for?”

  The classroom door opened again.

  “Good morning!” Cole approached them, chipper as anything.

  His smile faltered the instant Magnus turned to face him.

  “Cole,” Magnus said in a clipped tone. “Give us some space. I need to speak with Blythe in private for a moment.”

  Taken aback, Cole retreated with a single murmured ‘alright’ and sat a few desks away.

  Magnus returned his focus to Blythe’s face. “What happened to becoming a better person? Or regretting your past actions and resolving not to do them again? Were they all lies? A way to pacify me while you continued on as you pleased?”

  He appeared perfectly calm on the surface, which made the subsequent fall in favorability jarring.

  She wanted to say she could explain. Knowing that her explanation likely wouldn’t satisfy him—it certainly hadn’t satisfied Jessica or Sophie—kept her from saying it. There were also too many ears in the classroom to risk it.

  “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I know you’re disappointed.”

  “So why did you do it? Did you think it was acceptable because there were no eyewitnesses?”

  She considered his question under the burning intensity of his gaze. His facial features were completely smoothed out of all emotion.

  If she said no, he’d think she was lying again.

  Before Blythe could answer, Professor Nelson swept into the classroom and called for order.

  “We’re having lunch together,” Magnus said, turning his chair around and pushing himself closer to his desk.

  She had a hard time concentrating in class enough to take notes.

  The moment the lesson ended, Magnus was standing beside her desk. She hadn’t even finished putting her things away yet. As she stuffed her last notebook into her bag, Cole popped up next to Magnus.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Blythe and I will be having lunch by ourselves today. We won’t be joining you at the table.”

  Blythe suppressed a sigh, getting to her feet and pushing her chair in. Her muscles still strained under the demand of that action, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

  It was time to face the music.

  Cole left, but not without giving them both curious looks. Magnus let Blythe send out a message so that Jessica and Sophie wouldn’t come looking for her.

  After getting takeout, Magnus led her to one of the three gazebos behind the classroom block. In the hectic rush that was her new life, Blythe had forgotten about those. There were a few scenes with different love interests in a school gazebo. She wasn’t in the mood to reminisce about them now, however.

  They sat at the big wooden table to unpack their takeout.

  Blythe stared down at her grilled meat skewers. She didn’t feel like eating.

  “Why did you pretend you wanted to change?” Magnus asked, leaving his own food untouched too. “I really believed you. I wanted to believe you.”

  Now that they were alone, he no longer hid his frown behind a neutral expression.

  She drew in a deep breath, the clean air from the surrounding trees and greenery doing nothing for her mood. “It was my true intention. It is still what I want. I can explain, but I don’t know if you’ll believe me.”

  His striking blue eyes probed into hers. “I’m listening.”

  Blythe tried, to the best of her ability, describing her plight in a succinct manner. As her explanation went on, the furrow between his eyebrows deepened until she could poke a fingernail in it.

  When she was done, she picked up a beef skewer and yanked a chunk off the stick with her teeth. On a normal day, it would’ve delighted her tastebuds. She chewed listlessly and swallowed.

  “You’re telling me,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning downwards, “that there are occasions when you’re not in control of your own body and that, despite your efforts, you physically could not stop yourself from harassing Miss Willoughby or putting her bag in the fountain. And so far, you’ve only lost control of your body when it comes to her. Is that correct?”

  For a second, she considered telling him they were in a game and that these were all in-game scenarios. The icy hostility in his voice told her he wasn’t going to believe her. He might even try to get her committed. Did they have mental hospitals here?

  She nodded, putting the empty skewer back into the box.

  As expected, she lost favorability points for that.

  No surprise there. He probably thought she was weaselling out of accountability.

  Whatever.

  “How very convenient. It only happens for Miss Willoughby and nobody else. Are you telling me that your behavior towards her in the past three years has also been because of that?”

  “Nope.” Blythe started on her second skewer. “It’s a recent thing.”

  She shouldn’t have bothered explaining all that to him. What a waste of time. Of course he didn’t believe her. If she were in his shoes, she wasn’t sure she’d believe herself. It really was all too convenient.

  His eyes narrowed. “Is this a joke to you?”

  “Nope.”

  She forced herself to swallow after chewing each bite thoroughly. Considering her long-term goal of improving her strength, the refuelling was necessary.

  Blythe couldn’t blame him for being mad. After all, she’d basically promised to be nicer to Daisy and then reneged on that in just a few days. From his perspective, she’d given him false hope. He’d been making an honest effort to get closer to her too.

  She would feel bad for him, but she couldn’t right now. She’d cried out all her emotions yesterday—there was nothing left but vague dread in her tank.

  Magnus ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

  “Feigning innocence around others can only work for so long. People will notice, and this behavior is very revealing of your character. Do you ever consider how your actions might reflect on me as your fiancé?”

  Without blinking, she said, “Then should we break off our engagement?”