Library return carts appeared in the halls before summer.

Students had to return ordinary term loans even if they planned to borrow books again for the holidays.

Ava returned everything on the first day.

Jasper found one overdue book beneath the history box.

Harper had five.

"How?"

"Books accumulate."

"They have dates."

"Dates accumulate."

They carried Harper's stack to the library.

Imani Grey scanned each volume.

"Two days late. Three on time."

Harper looked at Ava. "Better than expected."

"The expectation was floor-level."

One book had a bent cover.

Harper admitted she had used it beneath a wobbling chair leg.

Grey closed her eyes.

"Books are not furniture repair."

"It worked."

"You owe the repair desk fifteen minutes."

Harper accepted the sentence.

Jasper helped because Harper and adhesive film were a dangerous combination.

Under supervision, they repaired the cover until the book looked almost new.

Harper ran one finger over it.

"I fixed consequences."

Grey said, "You participated in repair after causing damage."

"Same."

"Not exactly."

By the time they left the library, Jasper had begun noticing how much of the final week involved giving things back.

Books.

Room keys.

Borrowed sports equipment.

Practice materials.

Spaces that had felt like theirs because they used them every day.

Back in West Residence, transport staff had begun moving trunks into the corridor.

Jasper found one with his room number and started wheeling it toward the lift.

Ava stopped him.

"That is not yours."

He looked at the label.

JASPER HOLLAND.

Jasper stared.

Harper laughed so hard she had to sit down.

"Close."

"There is another Jasper?"

"Apparently."

They found Jasper Holloway's trunk two doors farther along.

The mistake became funnier because the wrong Jasper turned out to be a Year Three student from East Residence who was equally confused to find Jasper's smaller trunk waiting for him.

Staff corrected the tags.

Nothing magical had caused the problem.

Nobody blamed folded space.

Two people had similar names.

That felt almost refreshing.

That evening Jasper checked his own trunk twice.

Ava checked it once.

Harper said, "You have both become me."

"No," Ava replied.

Jasper closed the lid.

Most things were packed.

The history box was not.

That would stay out until the end.