Jasper spent Thursday morning with Soren in the library workshop.

Harper discovered this over breakfast.

"Again?"

Jasper looked up from his toast. "He asked yesterday."

"You have become unavailable."

Ava turned a page in her book. "That is called having plans."

"Without us."

"Healthy."

Harper stared at Ava for several seconds.

"Fine. What are we doing?"

Ava did not have an answer.

That was how the two of them ended up walking toward the art courtyard with no Jasper, no schedule and no particular reason for going there.

At first they talked about Jasper.

They discussed his latest shield lesson, whether he was still staring at every patch of water as though it might speak, and whether Soren had finally convinced him that old lift mechanisms were interesting.

Ava noticed the problem first.

"We are failing at separate friendship."

Harper laughed. "Is there a rubric?"

"No."

"Then we're fine."

The student craft room had been opened for end-of-year use, with leftover supplies from the Night Market spread across several tables. There was thread, paint, scrap wood, beads, fabric and enough glue to create at least one preventable disaster.

Harper picked up embroidery thread.

"Bracelets."

Ava looked at her. "Can you make one?"

"No."

"Excellent."

A fourth-year showed them a simple knot and wisely moved to another table.

Harper chose pink and dark gold thread. Ava chose green and cream.

Harper's first loop was too large.

Ava's first knot was so tight she could barely move it.

Harper looked at the string. "You even over-control thread."

"You have made something large enough to fit around your ankle."

"Creative."

They started again.

For twenty minutes the most important thing in either girl's world was not losing the end of the thread.

Then Harper asked, without looking up, "Were you actually scared when I fell?"

Ava's fingers stopped.

The question had existed between them for months.

"Yes."

"You didn't look scared."

"I was calculating."

Harper glanced at her. "Same thing?"

"For me, sometimes."

Ava pulled the next knot more gently.

"If I can work out what happened, I don't have to think about everything I don't know yet."

Harper considered this. "That is very you."

"Yes."

"I thought you were just calm."

"I thought you were calm too."

Harper laughed once. "I was absolutely not calm."

"Afterward you kept saying you were fine."

"Because everyone was deciding what my fall meant before I had."

Ava understood that immediately.

Jasper had worried. Ava had measured. Teachers had recorded. Other children had whispered. Somewhere in all of that, Harper had been the one who actually went over the edge.

"I'm sorry," Ava said.

Harper frowned. "For what?"

"I turned it into a pattern very quickly."

"You were trying to work out whether it would happen again."

"That does not make it automatically okay."

Harper thought about it, then nodded. "Fine. Accepted."

A second later she pointed at Ava's wrist.

"Your knot is wrong."

Ava stared.

It was.

Harper's face lit up.

"I have waited my entire life for this."

"Seven years."

"My entire life."

Their bracelets were not good.

Harper's had one loop that sat too loose. Ava's was slightly crooked because she had corrected it so many times that one side had shortened. They wore them anyway.

When they found Jasper at lunch, he noticed immediately.

"Where's mine?"

Harper stared at him. "You abandoned us."

"You said separate friendship was healthy."

Ava narrowed her eyes. "You have been listening to us too much."

Jasper smiled.

Harper eventually made him a yellow bracelet after lunch. It was worse than either of theirs.

He wore it anyway.

Later that afternoon Ava received the result for her coastal-history project.

Sixty-eight percent.

She sat in the library staring at the number as though it had personally insulted her.

Harper dropped into the chair opposite.

"Is sixty-eight bad?"

"For me."

"That isn't what I asked."

Ava pushed the page toward her.

The problem was not the mark. The teacher's comment underneath it was worse.

GOOD RESEARCH. YOU DECIDED WHAT YOUR CONCLUSION WAS TOO EARLY AND THEN CHOSE EVIDENCE THAT FIT IT.

Harper read the comment twice.

"Oh."

"Exactly."

It was the same mistake Ava had spent all year learning not to make. The same mistake Deepwater records warned about. The same mistake she had nearly made with Jasper's connection to the sea.

Ava looked miserable.

Harper tapped the bracelet on Ava's wrist.

"Your knot was wrong too."

Ava glared at her.

"It got better."

"That is an extremely bad comparison."

"I know. I'm practising support."

Despite herself, Ava laughed.

Harper slid the project back across the table.

"Are you going to fix it?"

"The mark is final."

"Not the mark."

Ava looked at the teacher's note again.

"Oh."

She folded the page carefully.

That evening she put the project into the history box.

Harper raised an eyebrow. "You're keeping sixty-eight?"

"I'm keeping the correction."

"Terrifying."

Ava looked down at the green-and-cream bracelet.

"Useful."