Chapter 36: He Who Dares Wins

Grey sat to Richard's left. Today's lunch was a roasted chicken leg with a side salad.

She hadn't joined the conversation at all, opting to quietly eat her food.

She had seen what happened during P.E., too. In fact, pretty much everyone over on the girls' side of the field had seen it.

From her angle, she had an even clearer view of those few steps Richard took when he cut out of his position.

Clean and efficient. No hesitation. His timing had been so perfect it looked as if he had calculated it in advance.

A month ago, no one even noticed Richard Williams.

She had been the first. It started that afternoon with the Spirit Board, when Richard had explained the science behind it to them.

This feeling of fixating on someone was hard to describe.

Calling it a crush would be an exaggeration; they had barely spoken a few words to each other in total.

It was more like... sifting through a pile of dull gray pebbles and turning over one with a completely different color.

Holding it up to the light, something faintly gleamed inside.

In that moment, it belonged solely to you, because no one else had discovered it yet.

Then, slowly, more and more people started noticing the pebble's glow.

Mr. Hutton praised him in class. Mr. Holland recommended him for the Cicero Cup. Warren started actively trying to win him over.

With every new person who noticed him, that possessive feeling of 'I saw him first' diluted just a little bit more.

Grey knew the feeling was a bit petty.

He didn't belong to her anyway. What difference did it make who discovered him first?

But logic was one thing, and emotions were another. Feelings rarely listened to reason.

What happened in P.E. today pushed those feelings another step further.

The entire cafeteria was buzzing about it. Everyone was discussing Richard, and even the underclassman girls were asking around to find out 'which Williams' he was.

Her personal little gemstone had been dragged entirely into the broad daylight, and now everyone could see him shine.

Grey popped the last piece of chicken into her mouth and patted the corners of her lips with a napkin.

She stood and carried her tray toward the return station.

As she walked behind Richard, she asked, her tone seemingly casual, "Williams, do you still want more of those scones?

I can bake a few extra this time so you can take them home to share with your family."

Richard looked into the girl's blue eyes and decided to accept the kind gesture. "Sure... thanks, Grey."

"Mhm."

She walked away.

Warren watched Grey's back disappear around the return window, then turned back and pointed his fork at Richard.

"If I hadn't kicked that ball off target, you never would've had the chance to play the hero."

"Was it playing the hero?" Mason considered the thought seriously. "More accurately, Richard was wiping your ass. You almost got that girl hurt."

"My foot slipped!"

"Right, right. Your foot slipped. Slipped and still kicked it that far—you're better than Stanfield."

Warren glared at him, and Mason shrank back.

Hugh dragged a chair over from the next table. He still walked with a slight limp, his left knee wrapped in a bandage.

He set his tray on the corner of the table and grabbed a piece of bread from his plate.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Richard's stunt with the ball."

"Oh, that." Hugh took a bite of his bread, chewed a couple of times, and swallowed. "I saw the whole thing from the sidelines. To be honest... it looked pretty damn cool."

He turned to Richard, his expression a mix of awe and bitterness.

"When exactly did you turn into this? Weren't we the guys who just hid in the corner together?"

"Actually, the way you rubbed your knee looked pretty cool, too," Richard offered in consolation.

"Thanks. I don't feel comforted at all."

Over in the corner of the cafeteria, by the window.

Lillian had already finished her lunch. She held a notebook down with her left hand while her right hand scribbled something with a pencil.

The pencil tip moved slowly across the page, pausing occasionally before resuming.

After she jotted down a few lines, the pencil lifted from the paper.

She lightly tapped her lower lip with the end of the pencil. Her gaze lingered on a specific spot on the page, as though she were scrutinizing the words she had just written.

A few seconds later, she reached out and tore the page from the notebook.

She folded the paper in half, then in half again, clutching the small square tightly in her fingertips.

She tucked the folded paper into the right pocket of her school uniform.

Lillian closed her notebook and picked up her teacup to take a sip.

When she set the cup back down, faint ripples still trembled on the surface of the tea.

Her gaze drifted across half the cafeteria, slipping through the gaps between the students' heads.

She merely cast a single glance at a certain someone before withdrawing her eyes and lowering her head to continue sipping her tea.

...

Ever since then, Lillian Hayward had been showing up on the second floor of the library much more frequently.

Before, she had only ever gone to the third floor.

She had spent who knew how many afternoons crouched in front of those special bookshelves, likely flipping through more pages of text than she had ever spoken words to her classmates.

The second floor was an entirely different world.

The lighting was bright, the desks and chairs were neatly arranged, and students always flocked there during lunch breaks and after school.

Lillian rarely used to linger there. She found it too noisy.

But lately, she had started sitting by the window in the second-floor study area for a while.

Her usual spot was positioned diagonally across from the stairs. Whenever she looked up, she had a perfect view of anyone coming up or going down.

Richard occasionally did his homework on the second floor, too.

The copy of From Sanctuary to Pulpit he was reading was too thick to lug back and forth comfortably. He simply locked it in one of the library's storage cubbies and dropped by to read a few pages whenever he had a spare moment.

The two of them never really shared any meaningful conversations.

Whenever they bumped into each other, they would merely exchange a glance and a polite nod.

Richard would go back to flipping through his book, and Lillian would go back to writing her notes.

Occasionally, their gazes would land on each other at the exact same second. The moment their eyes met, they would instantly look away, much like strangers accidentally making eye contact on a tram.

On Thursday afternoon, only five or six people remained in the second-floor study area.

Richard sat at the second desk by the window, flipping through the reference book while noting down etymologies in his notebook with his right hand.

After writing for about twenty minutes, his hand started to cramp. He set his pen down to stretch his fingers.

When he looked up, he noticed that Lillian was already gone from her spot diagonally across from him.

Her chair was pushed in, and the tabletop was completely clear.

But sitting on the top-left corner of his own desk was a small note, folded twice over. He had no idea when it had been placed there.

It was just a piece of ordinary notebook paper, its torn edge perfectly straight.

There was only a single line of Latin written on it. The handwriting was tiny and dense, with every letter meticulously confined to its proper place:

"Qui audet adipiscitur. (He who dares, wins.)"

It was a famous proverb, one that sounded like a simple word of encouragement for his upcoming competition. But as Richard pinched the note between his fingers, his mind turned to something else.

That specific row of bookshelves on the library's third floor—both he and Lillian borrowed their books from there.

Neither of them had ever exchanged a single word about it.

But that encounter on the stairs, the heavily worn old book she had been clutching, Mr. Hutton's refusal to reveal any information about her...

Stringing all those clues together gave "Qui audet adipiscitur" an entirely different layer of meaning.

Only those who dared to step onto the edge of the veil could obtain what lay behind it.

Was she actually talking about the competition, or something else entirely?

Richard tucked the note into his notebook and went back to his homework.

Some signals were enough just to receive. Replying to them would only be superfluous.