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Eret keeps their head down, stays alive and in Tampa’s good graces, until graduation. The world bears out the cynical predictions they had made freshman year: Wilbur and Niki both died, and everyone else who stuck with the study group looked likely to follow them. Eret makes it out alive. They tell themselves they made the right choice. It’s cold comfort.
They try to meet new people, but it's—hard. They don’t know, don’t share the context of the past four years, and it’s just… different, than inside. Not bad, just... Different. They start volunteering at a museum off and on, and that’s nice. It’s easier. Less personal. They give presentations for the kids, teaching history, and it’s silly but it helps, it feels like they’re doing something.
They grow their hair out. They hadn’t been able to do that, inside. They grow their hair out and buy long skirts that drag along the floor and high heels that make stompy-clicky noises when they walk, the sorts of beautiful-impractical clothes that had been impossible inside, too dangerous to wear even if they had existed rather than four-year-old patch jobs. It feels like it shouldn't be allowed, even enclavers didn't get to have this and Eret's not an enclaver, and it's—fine. It doesn't kill them. There are still mals sometimes, but—smaller, easier to handle. Not going to kill them, not even going to come close. It’s hard to get used to. They can do these things and live. They look in the mirror and the person who looks out is not the same person who went into the scholomance four years ago and it's different but it's a good different.
They don't want to be that person anymore.
They don’t google Wilbur Soot. They do google Alex Maldonado (no recent results) and Tina Kim (too many results to sort through, including a famous comedian) and Baethan Grady (no recent results) and Hannah Rosenberg (a few months after her graduation date, an instagram pops up with her face) and, after a year, Toby Underwood and Tommy Ingram.
A month after graduation, there’s a new result for Tommy Ingram. A posting from some kid, asking does anyone know where Tom is, when he left he said he’d contact me in July 2024 and it’s August now.
Tommy’s death settles in Eret’s stomach like a rock. They send the kid—Eryn—a message, and before they know it, they’re on a train to Nottingham.
