The final hymn faded into a soft, collective exhale, voices dissolving into the wooden rafters as the pastor bowed his head for the closing prayer. Sunlight filtered through the tall stained-glass windows in thin, pale strips, catching on drifting dust and the darker shapes of winter coats bundled tightly around shoulders. Outside, the world had settled under fresh snow, the brightness of it pressing faintly against the colored glass.
Adam bowed his head with everyone else, hands loosely clasped in front of him, the rhythm of the prayer familiar enough that he didn't have to follow every word to stay in step with it.
"Amen," the congregation murmured together.
The room shifted immediately after, wood creaking as people rose, coats rustling, quiet conversations starting up in low, warm tones that filled the space more naturally than the sermon ever did.
Adam stood and stretched, one hand pressing into the small of his back as it cracked cleanly, his shoulders rolling loose as his gaze drifted without intention across the rows ahead of him.
Back row. Black.
His eyes moved past it before his brain caught up.
They slid back.
There was a girl sitting near the aisle, posture straight, hands folded loosely in her lap, snow-white hair spilling over her shoulders in a way that didn't belong anywhere near a church pew and somehow didn't look out of place either. The black dress she wore was simple but sharp, sleeves down to her wrists, the fabric absorbing light instead of reflecting it, a clean silhouette against the muted browns and grays of everyone else's winter layers.
He blinked once.
No way.
By the time he turned properly, people were already stepping into the aisle, bodies filling the space between them as coats were shrugged on and conversations picked up. The back row disappeared behind a moving wall of shoulders and wool and polite smiles.
Adam stepped out into the aisle with the rest of them, moving with the slow current toward the exit, his head turning just enough to try and catch another glimpse through the gaps.
Nothing.
If that was her, she's not staying put.
He let himself get carried a few steps before shifting sideways, easing around a couple arguing quietly about lunch plans, slipping past an older man adjusting his scarf with careful fingers.
By the time he reached the doors, the cold light from outside had already swallowed most of the crowd.
Snow covered the steps and the street beyond in a clean, unbroken layer, the kind that still held its shape underfoot, crisp and bright under a pale sky. Breath fogged in front of people as they spilled out onto the sidewalk, clustering in small groups before breaking off in different directions.
Adam paused just outside, scanning.
White.
Ahead of him, already halfway down the street, a flash of snow-white hair cut through the darker coats moving away from the church, the figure it belonged to walking alone and not slowing down for anyone.
He stepped off the curb and started after her, boots pressing into the fresh snow with soft, controlled crunches.
Okay. So that was real.
She moved fast without looking like she was trying to, a straight line through the drifting crowd, and for a second he thought he might lose her in the turn toward the school path.
"Luna?"
His voice carried just enough.
She stopped.
Not abruptly, not like she'd been caught, but like she'd already known he was there and had been waiting for him to catch up.
She didn't turn.
Adam closed the last few steps, coming up alongside her instead of behind, giving her the space to either acknowledge him or keep pretending he wasn't there.
She looked at him then, eyes steady, expression already set like she'd decided how this was going to go.
"You weren't subtle," she said.
"That's not usually the goal," he replied, a small smile tugging at his mouth. "I didn't know you were a church person."
"I'm not."
"Christian?"
"No." She didn't even hesitate. "God doesn't exist. If you'd lived my life, you'd know that too, and I'm not getting into... All of that."
Adam let that sit exactly where she put it, not reaching for it, not trying to soften it or challenge it.
Clear boundary. Got it.
She shifted her weight slightly, then kept going before he could decide what to say next.
"You go every Sunday," she added, like she was stating something obvious. "Same place, same time, like clockwork. I wanted to see what was so important."
"And?" he asked.
She shrugged, already walking again, forcing him to match her pace if he wanted to keep the conversation.
"Nothing," she said. "Mystery solved. I'm not curious anymore."
Adam fell into step beside her without comment, the two of them moving away from the church and into the quieter stretch of road that led back toward the academy.
Snow crunched underfoot in a steady rhythm, the air sharp enough to sting the inside of his nose on the inhale, though the cold itself barely registered past that.
He glanced sideways at her, then at himself.
"You know," he said, "there's a version of this where one of us is dressed correctly for the weather."
Her eyes flicked down his coat, then back up to his face.
"Yeah," she said. "And it's not you."
He huffed a quiet laugh.
"I'm wearing three layers."
"You're overdressed," she shot back immediately. "You look like you're about to shovel a driveway."
"It's a church," he said. "There are expectations."
"There are expectations," she echoed, flat. "And then there's whatever this is."
She gestured vaguely at him, then at herself, like the contrast spoke for itself.
Adam let his gaze flick over her again, taking it in more deliberately this time.
Black dress. No coat. No gloves. No visible attempt to pretend the weather existed.
"You're not even pretending," he said.
"I don't need to."
"Neither do I."
"Then why are you?"
He tilted his head slightly, considering her.
"Because I like not being the center of attention in a room full of people who know me," he said. "Showing up in a t-shirt in November would complicate that."
She made a small, dismissive sound in the back of her throat, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes that acknowledged the logic before she pushed past it.
"Sounds exhausting," she said. "All that… blending in."
"It's not that hard," he replied.
"It is if you're bad at it."
He smiled a little wider at that, glancing ahead as the path narrowed, snow thinning where people had already walked through it earlier that morning.
"Fair," he said. "You're not exactly built for subtle."
"Good," she said. "Subtle's boring."
They walked in silence for a few steps, the kind that didn't feel empty so much as unclaimed, both of them letting it sit without rushing to fill it.
Adam's eyes drifted back to her hair, catching the way the light hit it, the white almost too clean against the gray sky.
"You know," he said, "not everybody in Moonstone has that particular calling card."
She looked at him sideways, a fraction slower this time.
"What, the hair?" she said.
"Yeah."
"Congratulations," she replied. "You've noticed a basic physical trait."
"I'm saying it makes you easy to spot," he said, still amused. "Especially in a crowd."
For a second, the edge in her expression eased, not quite softening but losing its bite, like she'd almost let the comment land without turning it into something sharper.
"Yeah," she said, quieter. "I've noticed."
The moment slipped as quickly as it came, her gaze shifting forward again, shoulders settling back into that same guarded alignment.
Adam let it go, filing it away without poking at it.
That was new.
They turned onto the final stretch toward the school, the building rising in the distance through the thin veil of falling snow that had started up again, lighter now, more of a drift than a storm.
Adam shoved his hands into his coat pockets, breath steady, the conversation settling into something easier than it had any right to be.
"You know," he said after a beat, "people probably noticed you back there."
"I don't care," she said immediately.
"I figured," he replied. "I'm just saying."
"You're always just saying," she muttered.
He ignored that, glancing at her again.
"It's not just the hair," he added. "The resemblance is pretty hard to miss."
She didn't react right away.
So he kept going.
"Your mom's not exactly forgettable," he said lightly. "Once people have seen her, it kind of sticks, and you—"
The shift was instant.
There was no gradual tightening, no slow build of tension.
One second she was walking beside him, the next she stopped.
"What did you just say?"
Her voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Adam blinked, the words catching up to him a half-second too late.
Oh.
"I just meant—"
She stepped in before he could finish.
Her fist drove into his side, just under his ribs, the force of it clean and direct, all of her weight behind it in a way that wasn't playful and wasn't restrained.
It knocked the air out of him in a sharp, involuntary rush, his body folding slightly around the impact before he could stop it.
Pain flared, bright and immediate, radiating outward in a tight band that made his breath hitch.
"Don't...," she said, her voice flat again, final in a way that shut the door on the conversation completely. "...Do that."
She didn't wait for a response.
She turned and kept walking, pace unchanged, like the moment had already been filed away and closed.
"Don't follow me," she added over her shoulder, not looking back.
Adam stayed where he was for a second, one hand pressing lightly against his side as he forced his lungs to cooperate again.
Okay. Yeah. Good work genius.
He let out a slow breath, the edge of a laugh catching in it despite the lingering ache.
I walked into that one.
He straightened, watching her figure get smaller against the white of the path, the black of her dress cutting a clean line through the snow, the white of her hair impossible to lose track of even as the distance grew.
The spot where she'd hit him throbbed in a steady pulse, not debilitating but definitely not something he could pretend hadn't happened.
Not a soft spot. A landmine.
He rolled his shoulders once, testing the movement, then let his hand drop back into his pocket.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, uninvited and entirely unbothered by the fact that he'd just been punched.
Worth it?
He considered that for exactly half a second.
Yeah. Probably.
He shifted his weight, boots pressing back into the snow as he started walking again, slower this time, giving her the space she'd demanded without feeling any real urgency to close it.
The cold air filled his lungs cleanly on the next breath, the quiet of the snowy morning settling back around him like nothing had happened.
It hadn't.
Not really.
But something had shifted anyway, small and definite, like a piece sliding into place without announcing itself.
Adam exhaled, the ghost of that smile still there as he followed the path back toward the school, a little sore, a little amused, and entirely aware that he had, in fact, deserved that one.