It took far too long for Sage to leave for her morning seminar. While the sun rose lazily over the river, she washed and changed her coat, made porridge for breakfast, packed her bags and remade her unslept bed. But it was all a distraction from the tremors running to the tips of her fingers.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced Sage's chest as she stood behind her bolted door. She had checked twice through an upstairs window to make sure that there was nobody walking along the embankment, yet the thought of leaving the quiet of her home was making her throat clench with an unfounded fear.

Even through the mundane tasks of her morning, Sage's mind hadn't left the letter locked inside her desk. The weight of every word crushed down on her, they rumbled the ceiling and leaked through the floorboards. They were suffocating her every other thought.

Hermes grappled up Sage's bicycle and pressed his head into her palm. He chirped softly, enveloping her fingers under a wing until they stopped trembling.

"Thank you," Sage breathed, stroking a finger down his copper-feathered neck.

He fluttered his good wing, tumbling backwards into the saddle and digging in his talons.

"You can't come to the University with me," Sage said, prising him off. "No pets allowed."

His cogs stopped winding, beak clamping shut as his eyes fixed in place.

Sage smiled. "That's not going to fool anybody."

He whirred back to life with a disgruntled squawk, then flitted onto the clock and hopped five times.

"Yes, I'll be back in time for tea. We can mend your wing before bed."

Hermes bobbed his head, then stared at the door.

Sage groaned, counted to three, and tugged open the door. The mud crackled with frost beneath the bicycle and its wheels skidded slightly as she fastened her satchel and the grimoire, then set off along the embankment.

The chill air helped to clear Sage's head, and as she passed the garden plot, she let the letter drift further from her mind. She watched a squirrel snuffle sleepily into a juniper bush and shooed a fox from a patch of carrots.

The city centre was almost as quiet, as if nobody wanted to step out into the cold before they could properly swaddle themselves in woollen hats and furred gloves. Sage wrapped her coat closer, tucking her fingers into her palms as she peddled beneath the arch to the University.

All around, the grass lay as smooth and silent as it had the night before. There were no tracks in the frost or ringing of bells across the city. It was surreal, like the ritual that Sage had witnessed only hours before had never happened. The Crown Prince had died, and now the city moved on, minds always ticking towards the future and letting the past melt like ice beneath their feet.

Shuddering, Sage cycled unsteady over winter-slick cobblestones towards Newton Courtyard. It was early enough that all of the best bicycle posts would be free, and she could lock hers beneath a convenient gargoyle and protect it from potential snowfall. But she came to a squealing stop behind the Metallurgy Labs.

The librarian stood in the courtyard, leg kicked back against a wall while he buttoned up his Steward coat. Sage watched his agile fingers shift from his collar to his ears, where he began to remove several golden piercings. He left the studs in his eyebrow for last, which Sage thought might be painful, though he didn't even flinch. He simply dropped his piercings into a pocket, then lingered a moment amongst the arches.

He was gazing at the clouds clustered together in the violet sky and smudging out the sun. His dark hair tumbled down his neck, away from the sharp planes of his cheek and jaw. Sage wondered what he saw in the clouds but, when she peeked upwards, he turned from the courtyard into the University.

Sage counted the seconds, then eased her bicycle under an archway. The scent of cloves lingered, astringent in the cold. She wrinkled her nose as she slung her satchel over her shoulder and crammed the grimoire under an elbow. Across the city, the bells began to chime eight o'clock, and Sage startled. She was late for her seminar.

She raced up five flights of spiral staircases, dizzy by the time she reached the door to Professor Jansen's lecture theatre. The eldest Scholars at the University had the privilege of permanent teaching quarters, which for Professor Jansen meant a tower room with long windows looking out at the city on all sides.

As a professor of Alchemical History and Theoretical Concept, he claimed that it was his academic right to have a view of the cityscape where, from his desk, he could trace each step of every past alchemist who had set foot in the city. An amateur cartographer, he had a number of maps pinned above the windows showing the movements of Ashmole, Duvan, and St Germain.

"You're late, Ms Rutherford," Professor Jansen said, weasel eyes swivelling to Sage before she had crept fully into the room.

"Sorry," she murmured.

"History is never late."

Then I arrived right on time, Sage didn't reply.

Her three other classmates were sitting together at the front of the lecture theatre, and she thought she saw Thomas whisper something into Alaina's ear. She giggled, glancing over her shoulder at Sage as she sank alone into a seat two rows back.

From behind swollen clouds, sunlight struggled in through the windows, reflecting off the Students' white coats in a near blinding brightness. Sage had often wondered how many coats they owned to keep theirs so clean. Maybe they bought new ones each term and laughed after lectures at Sage's greying hems and frayed sleeves.

"As I was saying," Professor Jansen droned in his one-tone voice. "The wide influence of John Faustus cannot be understated. From his promotion to Magister Artium in 1487, his work in the Alchemical Arts came together in foundation texts that we rely on this very day. In spite of criticism, he boldly sought to control the natural mechanisms of our world.

"Through his work, he proved that while the pursuit of transmutation is varied, it is not a path that one can follow through base rationalism. Like the Homunculus, his texts resist full formation, as alchemy can never purely depend on the physicality of our world, but also on the spirit that we as Scholars shall release into it. We are all but children of alchemy, straining to grow towards a distant, golden future."

Sage felt her eyelids fluttering, unable to focus on the dusty blackboard or the ancient grimoire. Beyond the window, she could see the gilded spires of the palace, glimmering like needles threaded through the clouds. Her thoughts were carried to the fae bride, to her long silken gloves and the power that gathered beneath them.

"Ms Rutherford, would you provide for us the sentiment behind page twenty-one, paragraph three."

Sage's heart plummeted as her bleary eyes leapt from the palace to her professor to the grimoire. She stared at the page, unable to find where one paragraph separated from the next in the cramped font. She could feel four sets of eyes fixed on her scarlet face, and fumbled under her chair for her satchel. As she drew out her notebook, pencils scattered loudly across the floor and she thought she might sob.

"It refers to Faustus' yearning for that which is greater than earthly meats and wines, Professor," said Lawrence in his smug drawl. Sage watched him kick away a pencil that had rolled under his boot.

"Correct, Mr Abbott. And what does this illustrate about the aspirations of early alchemists?"

Professor Jansen had turned away from Sage like all the others, and she clung to her bench as if she might soon be blown away through the tall windows, clutching at scraps of maps before she hurtled down into the cold city.

A/N Happy Friday! If your holidays have just started, I hope the rest of the month brings only peace and good vibes! Meanwhile, Sage and her studies will be back on Tuesday :)