Hearing Sylvie's name, the hand Caleb had raised in blind anger immediately froze in mid-air.
Knowing she had hit his weak spot, Nova grabbed Alaric's arm. “Come on, let's find somewhere else to study.”
This time, Caleb didn't try to stop them. Seeing that he had finally walked away, Nova found an empty table and sat down.
What awful luck. Just completely awful.
“I'm going back to work.”
Alaric's tone was flat. For some reason, Nova sensed that he was upset.
Then again, anyone would be in a terrible mood after being publicly called a bastard.
Nova leaned in and said, “Caleb was just talking garbage. His heart is toxic, so don't take his words to heart.”
“I'm used to it.”
Alaric didn't seem to care about the insult at all.
“You're a Student Librarian?”
“Yeah.”
“How come you never mentioned it before?”
“You didn't ask.”
“...Oh.”
As Alaric went back to shelving books, Nova trailed behind him and asked, “Your grades are so good, you should have been in the A-Track Class. Why did you get into a fight back then?”
“I forgot.”
Alaric clearly didn't want to talk about it.
Nova gave a dry little laugh, just trying to keep the air between them from getting too stiff.
“...Fine.”
Hearing his agreement, Nova's face lit up with joy. “It's a deal!”
With a genius like Alaric helping her, she was guaranteed to ace the finals.
Just as she was about to head back to bury herself in her studies, Alaric suddenly broke into a violent fit of coughing. Nova looked up and noticed he looked terrible. The forceful coughing had flushed his face and neck completely red.
“Alaric?”
Confused, Nova reached out to check his forehead, but he reflexively swatted her hand away. “I'm fine!”
She froze. Just then, another Student Librarian came jogging over, looking frantic. “Alaric! I told you to stay put while I got your medicine. Why are you running around?”
“Medicine? What's wrong with Alaric?”
“What do you think? He has a fever.” The boy grew increasingly angry as he spoke. “Caleb's mom is seriously vicious. So what if Alaric came home a few hours late these past few days? She locked him out of the house all night! Getting frozen out multiple nights in a row, it's a miracle he's only got a fever!”

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