04/10/2026: The Weight of Other Lives

The campus feels borrowed.

The architecture is right — the Hex Tower doors swing open for them as they always have — but something in the texture of the place is off. The landscaping is bushier, planted in different spots. The Hex Common Room has changed its colors. The furniture sits in roughly the same arrangement as they remember, but it is heavier, darker, the upholstery scratchier under the hand. Several familiar students are draped across chairs and sofas, reading or talking quietly. No one looks up when the Hexmates enter. This is probably for the best.

The bulletin board behind the bookshelves is layered with the usual notices — tutoring services, used textbooks for sale, fast food delivery — and a giant flyer for a band called Hospital, featuring Cadorus Damellawar, and Zander Bowie. Two thirds of SlashN’Burn. And someone called ‘Lius Melentor.’ Quentillius?

“What a stupid name,” Debbie mutters, but whether she means the singer or the band is unclear to her Hexmates.

Quentillius unfolds himself from an armchair and slouches over to the group. This version of him wears a leather jacket and sunglasses, hair long, a soul patch under his lip. It is hard to get used to. He smiles at Debbie in a way that telegraphs bad news from several feet away, and gestures toward an empty pair of chairs near the cafeteria door.

They stand rather than sit. Without preface, Quentillius delivers his message with the particular cruelty of someone who genuinely means well.

“You know, Deb — Debbie — Deb. I’ve been thinking about your offer to join the band on our summer tour. The van — we’ve only just got enough room for the band members, our equipment, our stuff. And really, we are more of a trio. We don’t really need another guitar player. But hey, thanks for the generous offer. Keep practising — you’re getting really pretty good.”

He smiles brightly, punctuates this with a friendly punch on the shoulder, and turns away to pull Aurora into a hug. “Thanks for the suggestion, babe,” he murmurs into her hair.

“How did she take it?” Aurora asks quietly.

“Aw, like a champ. She was great about it. I think she understood.”

Aurora says, low and warm with pity, “It’s so sad that she thought she could join your band.”

“Right?” And he bends to kiss her.

Aurora kisses him back. 

Debbie leaves to go for a walk.

⚔

The campus is papered with advertisements for Hospital. Debbie keeps walking.

A sprightly dwarven professor intercepts her mid-stride — older, cheerful, oblivious to the state of the person he has just stopped. “Debbie, is it?” Debbie nods, with no idea who he is. “Professor Emeritus Bazz Profundo, Prismari College. I’ll be retiring soon, and I’d like my collection of historical stringed instruments to go to someone who will actually play them, rather than warehouse them in the University Archives. Lyres, harps, balalaikas, bouzoukis, mandolins — they must be played to be admired!”

Debbie goes very still, but her heart beats faster. She loses her battle to suppress a grin.

“You live in Quentillius’s Hex Tower, do you not?”

The grin freezes.

“Do you think Mr. Melentor might be interested in my collection?”

“Um,” Debbie manages. “Quentillius has very particular tastes—”.

The professor’s face falls. “A pity. I have nowhere to send my collection.”

“I—”

The professor brightens immediately, cutting her off. “I accept your very generous offer to find my collection a worthy home! Thank you so very much, Ms. Goldstein! So you will ask around for me. My thanks.”

“Tilstine,” Debbie mutters, “Debbie Tilstine.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Extraordinary generosity, Ms. Goldstein! I am most grateful for your work on my behalf!”

⚔

Back at the Hex Tower, Beckaylee emerges from the kitchen in a Kiss the Cook apron, holding a spoon of bolognese sauce out to Reyna with an expression of barely contained anticipation.

“Well? Does it need anything?”

Reyna tastes it. “Salt.”

Beckaylee’s smile does not reach her eyes. “Your tastebuds are off today,” she announces. “Oh — and that position in Witherbloom’s dining hall has been filled.” She pivots on her heel and returns to the kitchen.

Squid tugs Reyna’s sleeve. “I need a snack, please.”

Reyna looks down at the child’s hollow cheeks. “I don’t think I work in this kitchen anymore, Squid. You’ll have to ask Beckaylee.”

Titania takes Squid’s hand and leads them back to ask. They return shortly. Squid is clutching a bar of something deeply unappetizing, with what appears to be grass sticking out of its sides.

“This was all Beckaylee would give me,” Squid reports. “She closed the café. Her husband was expecting her.”

Hester sputters. “Beckaylee’s married? To who?”

Titania flickers — and it is Alister who takes the bar gently from Squid’s hand. “Melwythorne.”

The group needs the several moments it takes to climb to their hex room to process this. Beckaylee lives elsewhere. With her husband. 

So who is now living with them?

The nameplates by their front door reads ‘Diro Brando’ next to their own.

Diro Brando, the stranger their Hex has acquired, is in his bedroom. He is folded into the straight back chair at his desk. Tall and weary, he is dressed in the ruins of what were once fine clothes. Three identical replacement outfits hang neatly on a nearby rack. The desk is buried in open books. Diro looks up when Titania steps forward to offer a healing potion — and shuts every book on the desk before they can lean close enough to see the what Diro is researching. Clearly, it is something he does not intend to discuss.

After a long pause, he thanks them. Awkwardly. And drinks it down. Several of his wounds close, and some of the worst bruises fade.

The uncomfortable moment is broken by a shriek from Hester’s room.

On her bedroom floor lies an enormous dead owl, stiff-legged, on its back. One leg carries a leather message tube embossed with holly leaves and berries. Hester recognizes it, and calls, “I think this might be meant for you, Titania.”

Titania recognizes the seal of the Twilight Court. Oberon. Her abandoned husband.

She opens the tube. She breaks the seal. She reads.

The letter is from Mordecai Wren, Esquire, Solicitor to His Eternal Majesty Oberon, High King of Faerie, Lord of the Twilight Court, Keeper of the Between-Places, Master of the Dreaming Wood, of a firmament established before grandmothers were even thought of.

It is not a request.

Oberon formally initiates proceedings for the Royal Dissolution of their Fey Union, citing: Titania’s persistent cohabitation of their shared body with the entity called Alister, constituting Unsanctioned Intimate Plurality under Section IX of the Accords of Everdusk; abandonment of royal duty without leave, notice, or apparent remorse, for a period exceeding several academic semesters; and conduct unbecoming a Queen of Faerie, the particulars of which the office reserves for the Standing Court hearing.

His Majesty, the letter notes, wishes her well with her studies.

Regarding Squid: Oberon asserts full paternal claim. The child was conceived of Royal blood, is subject to the full inheritance rights and obligations of the Twilight Court, and their continued presence in a mortal school represents an extraordinary waste of their potential. Arrangements have already been made for Squid’s education, housing, and preparation for their eventual role at Court. Everything is in order. Everything has been in order for quite some time. Titania need not have concerned herself.

She has thirty days to respond, through fey-recognized counsel only. Mortal attorneys, academic faculty, and well-meaning friends are not recognized under Twilight Court jurisdiction and will not be accommodated. Failure to respond within the appointed period will be taken as agreement to the terms as stated.

His Majesty bears Titania no ill will. He simply wishes what is his. What has always been his.

Titania reads this. Flame flickers over her form, then she briefly catches fire.

“Please don’t burn down the dorm again,” Reyna mutters.

⚔

Hester’s letters are still on her bed, unnoticed — until they are not.

The first is from Professor Grimfen of Witherbloom’s Thanaturgical Studies department. Thanaturgical is death studies, Hester thinks. Wow. A Withbloom-only class. “I guess I’m in Wintherbloom College now,” thinks Hester to herself.

The letter? Professor Grimfen has been teaching this subject for twenty-three years. He knows the difference between a student who is struggling and a student who has decided not to try. A 47%, a 51%, and zero completed fieldwork hours are not the marks of the former. He also knows what she left in her fieldwork logbook, and he will not describe it here. She has four weeks to make up the work and improve her grades.

It is dated a month ago.

The second letter is from her father, Corvin Slightfeather, dated three weeks ago. This one sits heavier.

H —

Professor Grimfen’s letter arrived this morning. I read it twice.

You know what this program means to the family. You know what it cost to place you at Strixhaven. You have chosen, apparently, to spend your time making pictures.

Your mother guided her first soul at fifteen. In the middle of a thunderstorm, alone on the Umbral Crossing. She did not flinch. She did not stop to make it pretty. She understood what she was and carried through with it her entire life.

She would not recognize what you are doing with what she left you.

I am not coming to Strixhaven. I am trusting you to correct this yourself, because you are her daughter as much as you are mine, and I have to believe that counts for something.

Do not make me come to Strixhaven, Hester.

— C

Hester’s stomach turns over. This is not the father she knows.

And the letter is three weeks old. Whether this timeline’s Hester has done anything about her grades since — and how much time remains before Corvin Slightfeather decides his trust was misplaced — are questions she cannot yet answer.

⚔

In the next room, Diro accepts Squid’s offer of black-market library assistance without hesitation. By way of thanks, he walks straight up the wall, retrieves something from the top of the dresser, crouches there a moment as though this is simply the efficient route, and walks back down.

Squid is delighted.

⚔

Outside, Rampart leads KFC to a slight rise just beyond the Hex Tower. The grass is pressed flat there, worn away — this is not the first time he has brought someone here. Rampart raises his quarterstaff and cries, “Spar!”

“Aha.” KFC draws her greataxe. She comprehends what Rampart is asking of her.

They settle their reunion the only sensible way: battered, bloodied, grinning, quarterstaff against greataxe, Rampart’s first strike landing fast and hard, KFC’s answering blow dropping him cleanly before they call it even. He accepts a hand up from the chicken barbarian.

“You’re the thing that keeps me sharp, KFC.” Rampart shakes her hand and tosses her a leather purse with something squirming within.

It is full of crickets. KFC puts her beak in immediately.

⚔

The Biblioplex librarian is younger than they expect, with magnificent purple cat’s-eye glasses and incredible shoes. He will not allow entry to the restricted section without a pass. Squid stands beside Diro and has Alister — in cricket form — riding on their shoulder. He steps behind Diro becomes invisible.

Silently, Squid climbs onto a nearby table and, with great efficiency, snowplows everything off the top of it.

While the librarian moves to investigate, Squid hops down to open the restricted section door, pulling Diro through by the sleeve. They ease it shut behind them.

The tally, then:

Titania has thirty days to respond to the Twilight Court. Hester has an unknown number of days before her father runs out of patience. Debbie has been turned down by the band and handed an errand she never agreed to. Reyna appears to be unemployed, and Beckaylee — married, in this timeline, to someone she couldn’t stand in their own — is furious with her for reasons that probably have nothing to do with salt.

Some timelines are heavier than others.