Chapter 15: Favors

A week before the exam, the academy ran a supervised prep visit to the Spirit Forest treeline. It was first-years, instructors, and a roped-off strip of the shallows. The official purpose was familiarization, but mine was matchmaking.

Here was the play, straight from page four of my notes on Odette’s lecture: spirits bond to the clearest intent in range, and the chart only decides who’s standing where.

So, I was gonna rig the intent and the proximity both.

I’d get Perrin and Lily prepping together now, a whole week early, so that by exam day his big golden head was full of protect Lily, and standing next to her felt natural.

And the material was there. Lily had barely spoken to me in three days. Technically, Operation: Personal Space was over, but I could use this anyway.

[This is perfect,] I tried to convince myself, watching her walk ahead of me toward the treeline, alone. [She’s hurt, she’s lonely, and here comes a big warm knight to make everything better. She complains to him about her terrible fox roommate, he listens, their eyes meet, and they’re making out against a tree by Thursday. It’s the grief-to-romance pipeline. I’ve written it eleven times. I know what I’m doing.]

Sure, things felt... sour, but the world needed this to happen. So I was gonna make it happen.

I found Perrin near the equipment tables, casually holding a supply crate that didn’t need holding.

"Sir Perrin! Just the man I was looking for."

"The fox girl." He set the crate down and smiled at me. "Kohaku, right? What can I do for you?"

"Funny you ask. You know Lily Everdawn? My roommate?" I pointed her out. "You two should prep together today. And I’m not just saying that. She’s sweet, she’s strong, she cooks like a dream. Honestly? Best girl I’ve ever met, and I’ve met me."

Perrin’s smile kept widening as I talked. Clearly, my sales pitch was working.

"Say no more." He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I understand completely."

[... Eh?]

"You do?"

"Word travels." He picked the crate back up. "Can’t say I’m surprised it reached your side of the dorms too. Don’t worry." And then he winked at me. "I won’t forget who set this up."

He strode off toward Lily.

I stood there, replaying the wink.

[What the hell is he talking about?]

He was already introducing himself to Lily, chin at a forty-five degree angle.

[You know what? Fine. He’s trying to get the girl, she’s not leaving immediately. The ship is sailing!]

---

I was still keeping track of them later.

They gathered kindling and tested a field tent. Perrin demonstrated a knife trick, dropped the knife, and played it off as a lesson in what not to do. Lily laughed politely. It was going well.

And then things truly kicked off.

The first big positive sign came when Lily thanked him for carrying her pack.

"Don’t mention it," Perrin said, loudly, to the group at large. "Though I suppose that’s twice now I’ve saved you some trouble today, eh? First the tent stakes, now this."

The second came an hour later, when he refilled her waterskin without being asked.

"There you go. That’s, what, three favors before sundown? You’ll have to make it up to me sometime."

Lily smiled and thanked him, both times.

I stood twenty feet away with my tail perfectly still.

[... Not gonna lie, his personality is a tad different from what I wrote. I’d always meant for him to be "the safe option, the sweet childhood friend knight." But, somehow, this version of the guy was actively keeping track of every positive deed, like carrying Lily’s pack was taxing or something.]

My eyelid twitched.

[But it’s one week. One near-death experience. She bonds with her spirit, he gets his hero moment, the plot beat locks in, and afterward Lily can ghost him for all I care.]

I told myself that four times and got the belief rate up to about sixty percent.

Something then happened near the end of the visit.

The instructors gathered everyone at the shallows’ edge to coax a low spirit into view. Sabine crumbled dried herbs over a flat stone and stepped back.

A spirit came out of the ferns. It was a glowing weasel of some sort. It flowed over the stone, nosed the offering, and drifted along the front row of students. Even I leaned in.

[Credit where due, teenage me. Ten out of ten spirit design. That thing could totally be someone’s mascot.]

It drifted down the row toward Lily. Maybe eight feet from her, it recoiled, snapped backward, and froze, staring at the sweetest girl on the continent.

One of the junior instructors said quietly:

"I’ve never seen one flinch."

Lily had gone white, and I watched her figure it out: it was scared of her.

Personal space could go to hell. I stepped over and took her hand.

"Hey. Breathe. It’s a wild animal made of lamp oil, it’s scared of its own-"

The spirit moved.

The instant my fingers closed around Lily’s, the creature swung around and pointed itself at me. It took one flowing step toward me.

[What? No no no, buddy, wrong girl, the main character is this one, I’m just holding her han-]

In the corner of my vision, my Status flickered into being.

AFFINITY: 0 → [LOCKED]

---

The visit wrapped at sundown with the instructors still buzzing and Lily quiet.

And the spirit followed me.

The whole walk back, it flowed along at ankle height beside me. Nobody else reacted; students walked right through its path. As far as I could tell, I was the only one who could see it.

[Go home,] I thought at it, glancing sideways. [I’m an extra. Go bother the protagonist.]

It looked up at me and wove between my ankles.

---

{Marisol}

Thirty feet back, at the treeline, I used the last bit of daylight to write.

Prep visit observations. Subject spent the afternoon marketing the Everdawn girl to Alderltoft (confirms brokerage theory, see folder V).

Subject then held Everdawn’s hand in front of forty witnesses (maintaining asset loyalty?).

Also: subject repeatedly glances at empty air beside her own feet. Has done so eleven times since the shallows. Mouth moved twice. Talks to nothing.

I underlined the last line and sat with my pen hovering.

Signal to accomplice?

I didn’t even see an accomplice. Gods, she’s good.