Grace led Bell to a small, quiet courtyard that was behind the arts building. It was empty at this time except for a few benches, a few students who were painting or sketching, and a windchime that someone had hung on a tree branch the previous year.
"This should be private enough," Grace uttered.
The windchime jingled lazily, creating this serene melody as the two of them took a seat at a table.
"So," Bell asked, glancing around, "what's this about?"
Turning to him, she squared her shoulders as if she was about to challenge him to a duel. "It's about Maya."
Bell blinked. Her name hadn't been on his bingo card for today. It was one of the last answers he expected to be given. "What about her?"
"You tell me," Grace said as she crossed her arms.
Bell sped through his mental files as fast as he could, searching for whatever crime he'd unknowingly committed — but came up empty.
"Geniunely. What about her?" he asked.
Trying to dig through his memories, he recalled that Grace and Maya knew each other before the novel began, but their relationship had been vague in the narrative. Just one sentence, one implication, and nothing more.
Letting out a sharp breath through her nose, Grace was half-frustrated, the other half was nerves, "I know you're involved."
"Involved in what?"
"In ruining things between us," she answered.
A beat passed.
Bell stared at her. He didn't know that they were close enough for there to be something "between" the two of them. Were they—
Grace stared back, determined not to lose this silent staring war that she started.
"What are you referring to?" Bell asked finally. He needed clarification. "What did I ruin?"
"My rivalry with her," Grace said, as if it were obvious.
Another beat.
Oh, that's what she was talking about. He had misunderstood.
Slowly lowering himself deeper into his chair, he was more relaxed now that he knew this was nothing more than the tantrum of a schoolgirl. He explained to her, "Grace, I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't even know the two of you knew each other like that, let alone being rivals."
"Of course, you'll deny it," Grace snapped, rolling her eyes. She got up and paced in front of him. "I don't know what you did, but ever since she's been coming to school with you, she's been acting different."
'Is she… jealous?' Bell pondered.
"You've been inserting yourself between the two of us on purpose. Getting closer to her, interfering with our rivalry," Coming to a stop, she gestured sharply and said, "She wasn't like this before you arrived."
"Like what?"
"Distracted! Sloppy! Lack of effort and care in our spars. She doesn't even bother to ask for a rematch whenever I beat her now. It's like she no longer cares about getting stronger. That's not the Maya I know. That's not my Maya."
'Your Maya.'
Bell wanted to ask her if this was more than a rivalry. Were they dating? She sounded like a jealous girlfriend.
Grace's cheeks were puffing slightly, and after a slight hesitation, she said, "She's no longer treating our rivalry with the respect that it deserves."
Tilting his head, Bell said, "So, to sum it up, you're accusing me of ruining your rivalry with Maya."
"Duh. Of course, that's what I'm saying."
"Have you considered for a moment that maybe, just maybe, she never saw it as a rivalry in the first place?" he asked.
Grace's eyes turned dark. "What are you trying to say?"
"Are you sure that it's not just one-sided? You know that not everyone has the same priorities? What if she's thinking about other things and she's just unable to put in the same effort into the spars as she once was able to?"
He had a clue about what she could've possibly been busy with.
Grace's expression soured instantly, as if Bell had insulted her entire lineage. A slight overreaction, to say the least.
"One-sided?" she echoed. "Are you implying that I'm the only one who cared?"
"I'm implying," Bell said calmly, "that maybe Maya didn't place your rivalry on the same pedestal you did."
He wasn't trying to insult her or her feelings; he was just speaking his honest mind.
Grace clenched her jaw, "You don't know her like I do."
"Clearly," he responded earnestly, but in his mind, it was filled with sarcasm. He knew her more than Grace could possibly know. The same applies to Grace. He knew her, too. He knew her very, very well.
"And you don't know how hard she fought," Grace continued, voice rising. "Do you know how many times she challenged me to a rematch because she refused to accept defeat? Do you know how many hours she would stay after school to spar with me? How many times she—"
She cut herself off before she said too much.
Bell slightly raised a brow and asked, "How many times she what?"
Grace's eyes darted away as she responded, "…Nothing."
Bell leaned forward as if he were teaching a child. "Grace, you're acting like the world is ending because Maya isn't obsessed with beating you during sparring, a spar that doesn't even matter because I doubt either of you is truly trying to hurt the other person."
She didn't tell him the last part, but he inferred it because if they were truly trying to harm each other, then Grace wouldn't have been speaking about it so fondly.
"It does matter!" Grace snapped. "It matters to both of us! Well, it did matter to both of us before you came into the picture."
"Before I came into the picture," Bell repeated, voice flat. "Wow. It truly must have been a legendary rivalry for the ages if all it takes is me to ruin it."
Grace glared daggers at him. "You're missing the point."
"Am I?" Bell asked. "Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like Maya changed, and you're… panicking because you feel like you're losing a friend to someone else. The relationship you thought you had wasn't as tight as you imagined it. Perhaps that's because to you, she's not just your rival but your only true friend."
The last sentence was a fact he knew from the novel.
Grace flinched. Barely, but Bell caught it.
"You don't know me," she said quickly — too quickly. "I have friends. I have many friends. And no, I'm not panicking. I am simply concerned that something happened to my precious rival. And since all this started around the time she began interacting with you…" she jabbed a finger at him, "you're the most suspicious variable."
"Well, you claim that I don't know you, but did you forget? The same applies to you. You don't know me either, and here you are, talking about me like I'm a walking hazard sign."
"You are," she said. "Maya was never like this. She took our duels seriously. She fought with all her might. She worked harder than anyone else. That's how she's able to come in first all the time. Now, she's a shell of her former self."
"And you think I'm the reason."
She wasn't exactly wrong, but not for the reason that Grace believed. She was making it out like Bell had ruined her when in reality, it was the furthest thing from the truth.
Her real purpose in life wasn't to entertain a rivalry between her and a noble.
It was to help out the children under her wing, as well as other children in the same shoes as them.
Now, with the help of Bell and the resources he was pouring into her, she was able to do more than she could've ever done before.
"You must be." Grace paced again, fingers fidgeting with her sleeves. "She doesn't feel like the Maya I knew before."
"Maybe she's dealing with something personal."
"Then she should tell me."
"Why?" Bell asked bluntly.
"Because I'm—" Grace bit her lip, cutting herself off again. "…Because I'm her rival. I'm supposed to understand her better than anyone."
"That's not how rivalry works," Bell said. "That's how relationships work."
Grace's face turned into a tomato so fast it was almost impressive. "Not that kind of relationship!"
"Didn't say it was. I was referring to a friendship," Bell said.
"No. No no. Don't twist it," she hissed. "I just… I can't be friends with a commoner. What we have is a dynamic that goes beyond our status. We are birds of the same feather. She is my equal, and I am hers. She pushes me to be greater, and I do the same for her."
She paused for a moment.
"It was balanced." She looked truly distressed now. A vast difference compared to the composed elegance that she exuded. "Or at least, it was."
Studying the girl in front of him for a moment, Bell asked, "Grace, why are you so afraid of letting her change?"
She stiffened.
"I'm not afraid."
"You clearly are."
"I'm not," she stated firmly, though her shaking fingers betrayed her.
"You know, Grace, people aren't static. Not even the ones we get used to. People change. People grow. Or sometimes, they get worse. Nobody remains the same forever."
"No," Grace shook her head, refusing to accept it.
Bell understood everything now. Why Grace was panicking, why she looked distraught, and why she was blaming him.
She was terrified of losing the one connection she actually cherished. Her only friend. And she hid these fears under pride and competitive rhetoric because admitting the truth meant acknowledging vulnerability she didn't know how to handle. To her, friendship is foreign and scary. It was easier to just keep it as a rivalry, a rivalry she didn't want to end.
"Grace, if your whole bond depends on Maya staying exactly the same, is it really a bond worth having?"
Her eyes flickered with conflict.
"If neither of you is allowed to grow and change to keep that status quo, what's the point? Growing and learning are what make us human."
Lost in his words for a moment, she was about to respond when a student from a far bench dropped their paintbrush, and the sharp clatter jolted her.
Blinking, she regained her composure and glared at Bell. She stated, "Don't try to lecture me as if you're my parent."
Bell didn't react to her jab. He simply watched her, noting how her glare trembled just slightly at the edges, like she was still recovering from the slip in her composure.
"I'm not lecturing you," he said calmly. "I'm just pointing out what you're refusing to look at."
"I'm not refusing to look at anything," Grace snapped. "I'm not a coward. As I said before, you don't know me. I face anything head-on. I'm here, aren't I? Look, I'm confronting you, am I not?"
"Confronting the wrong person," Bell murmured.
'The person you need to confront is yourself.'
Although he didn't say the second half out loud, she could tell what it was, reading it in his eyes, and that made her bristle. "There you go again, acting like you know everything."
"I know enough."
Exhaling sharply, Grace sat down, crossing her arms tightly. Her leg bounced under the table, barely visible but noticeable enough to someone as observant as Bell.
"You keep acting like Maya's change has nothing to do with you. But she's been around you constantly. You go to school together. You get out of the same car. You walk side by side. People see it. She's never walked next to anyone like that before."
Not even her.
"I just wanted to tell you to stay away from her. Don't say that I didn't warn you," Grace got up and left before he could respond.
He watched her back get smaller and thought to himself, 'The novel never mentioned that she was insecure about her connections with others. Well, I guess that's what you can expect from a poorly written novel.'