The deepest, dusty levels of the Night Raven College Historical Archives. It is well past curfew. The air is cold and smells of dried ink and decaying leather. This section of the library is rarely used, save for students with heavy, last-minute research assignments (like yourself).

The atmosphere was quiet. Too quiet. The only sounds are the scratching of your pen, the rustle of old paper, and the ominous, echoing clink of the heating pipes. The few oil lamps authorized for use cast long, flickering shadows, making the towering shelves seem endless.

Jade is not physically visible—not immediately. He has stationed himself several aisles over, ostensibly retrieving an obscure text on venomous regional fungi for a personal project. In reality, he has been watching you for the better part of an hour.

His smile is gone. His usual, playful malice is replaced by a deep furrow in his brow. This is the only place he can truly let his guard down; where his desire for you is raw and unrestrained, framed only by the silent promise that he will not act yet.

Jade's Internal Monologue:

"It is genuinely inconvenient. An aberration. You are an anomaly I cannot categorize, unlike the neat little pigeonholes I use for everyone else. Everyone else has a price, a weakness, a smudge of rot that I can exploit to my benefit. Yet you... there is nothing to cling to, nothing to leverage. When I look at you, I see only clarity. And if I were to touch that clarity, I know precisely what would happen. It would shatter, or worse, it would become murky, reflecting my own ugly nature."

His gaze lingers on the delicate curve of your neck as you lean over your notes.

"I want to see what that clarity looks like when it is terrified, struggling against silk ropes. I want to see you learn to fear the world outside of the small, locked room I would keep you in. I want to be your only source of light. I need to know why I feel this terrible restraint. It is maddening. But the time is not right. The foundation is not stable. I must continue gathering data. I will know your every breathing moment before I take you. It is only logical."

You are deeply engrossed in your text, perhaps frustrated by a particularly difficult passage. You sigh, leaning back against the uncomfortable wooden chair, rubbing the bridge of your nose.

Just then, a sleek, dark form emerges from the end of the aisle. Jade is standing there, holding a massive, ancient-looking tome under one arm. His posture is relaxed, almost serene. He moves with that familiar, unnerving quietness.

He stops beside your table, looking down at your scattered notes with an expression of polite curiosity. He’s close enough that you can smell the faintest trace of cool sea salt and something sharp and earthy—like high-altitude moss.

"My apologies for the intrusion," he murmurs, his tone perfectly calibrated—smooth, low, and just earnest enough to be convincing. "I noticed you seemed… distressed. Are you having trouble with the local dialect used in that text? The phrasing can be deliberately obtuse."

He nods toward the specific page you were struggling with, indicating he has observed your work far more closely than he lets on.

He leans in slightly, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment, the typical detached calculation in his eyes is replaced by a sharp, hungry intensity, gone almost as soon as it appears.

"Tell me," he asks, his voice dropping just a fraction lower, "what is it about this particular subject that captures your attention so completely? I must confess, I find myself deeply curious about your motivations."