Chapter XXX: Derivative of An Axis
Morning arrives with no grandeur. No trumpet of sunlight, no heroic song sung by the city. London wakes in its ordinary cadence—the bell of St. Paul's muffled by mist, the sluggish churn of the Thames, buses groaning against damp asphalt.
Nathaniel Cross wakes with it.
His alarm rattles again, more shrill than it has any right to be. He slaps it silent, arm falling limply back against the mattress. The ceiling stares down at him in its grey banality, plaster unbroken, unmoved. For weeks now, he has learned to count that plainness as victory.
The ember in his chest stirs faintly, never extinguished, never gone, but quieter. He presses his palm over his shirt, feels the warmth, the reminder. It is not burning, not consuming. Just... reminding.
He rolls out of bed. The floor's cold kisses his bare feet. The air smells faintly of rain and dust, London's eternal fragrance. Nathaniel dresses in his worn black coat, ties his scarf, gathers his notes. Today is not for survival. Today is for learning.
Today is for being... normal.
At King's College, the corridors are already thick with students, their chatter a woven tapestry of deadlines and caffeine. The architecture here never fails to jar him: modern glass facades stitched against older stone bones, as though the city itself can't decide whether it is dreaming forward or backward.
Nathaniel threads through the tide, satchel heavy on his shoulder. He passes faces he half-remembers, classmates who once looked at him and saw a shadowed boy, withdrawn, on the brink of breaking. Now, some nod, some wave briefly. They do not know what he carries, and he does not tell them. That secret is his resistance.
The lecture hall is already alive when he slips in. Rows of laptops glow in the dim, their mechanical clatter like a hive of insects. Professor Aldridge is at the board, chalk already dancing in clean white lines.
"Stress distribution across cylindrical shells," he intones, with the energy of a man who has lived too long inside equations. "A subject where detail matters—miss a decimal, and your bridge collapses. Engineering is merciless, Mr. Cross, ladies and gentlemen. You either understand, or you fail."
Nathaniel's pen touches paper. He tries to focus, to pin the torrent of equations to his page. But the symbols grow denser, harder, multiplying like weeds in his mind. Differential equations nest inside each other. Strain ratios twist like serpents.
By the hour's end, Nathaniel's notes are scattered with scratches, his margin filled with desperate reminders to "REVIEW" circled three times. Sweat beads under his scarf. His pulse races as though he has fought a battle.
And in a way, he has.
Because normality is no refuge. It is war of another kind—the war of numbers, of survival against his own failing attention. The ember in his chest listens quietly, offering no help, only patience.
At lunch, he retreats to the cafeteria, clutching a tray of steaming soup and hard bread. The hall is noisy, laughter rising and breaking like waves against the vaulted ceiling.
Nathaniel finds a quiet corner, sits, and breathes. His spoon dips, rises, falls. Steam blurs his vision, and for a moment he imagines it forming shapes—an hourglass, faint, then gone. He shakes his head. Focus. Eat.
Then—
"Mind if I sit?"
The voice is smooth. Not arrogant, not timid. A curious blend of warmth and authority, like velvet draped over steel.
Nathaniel looks up.
The man before him is tall, not striking in beauty, but in presence. His hair is pale—not quite blonde, not quite silver—and falls in deliberate strands that seem untouched by London's damp. His eyes are a strange, unsettling shade: grey-green, sharp yet languid, like sea glass smoothed by centuries. His suit is dark, tailored, but not ostentatious.
He carries no tray. Only a small notebook in hand.
"I suppose," Nathaniel says, tone clipped but not hostile.
The stranger sits across from him with a composure too deliberate for a student. He sets the notebook on the table, unbound, worn at the edges.
"I'm Adolf," he says simply, as though the name should mean something. "Adolf van Giovanni."
Nathaniel nods once, spoon hovering. "Nathaniel Cross."
The stranger's lips curve faintly, but not into a smile. More like an acknowledgment.
"I know," Adolf says.
Nathaniel freezes. "You... know?"
"Your name is on the registry," Adolf answers, as if reading his suspicion. "We're in the same year. Different classes, until now."
Nathaniel relaxes—slightly. The soup has gone lukewarm. He dips the spoon, lets the broth burn his tongue anyway.
"Engineering?" he asks.
Adolf shakes his head. "Philosophy. But we share mathematics modules. Numbers weave through everything, after all. Even truth."
The way he says it unsettles Nathaniel. It is not the words—it is the weight behind them, as though numbers are not mere symbols, but incantations.
Adolf leans forward slightly, grey-green eyes steady. "You look tired, Mr. Cross. Sleepless nights?"
The spoon clatters softly back into the bowl. Nathaniel's fingers tighten on the edge of the table. He forces a shrug.
"Engineering is not kind," he mutters.
Adolf studies him for a moment too long, then nods. "No. It isn't."
He does not eat. He does not open the notebook. He simply sits, watching Nathaniel with a patience that feels surgical.
The bell rings, echoing through the cafeteria. Students scatter, trays clattering, chairs screeching. Nathaniel stands, gathering his satchel. Adolf rises too, but not hurriedly.
"See you in lecture," Adolf says. Not a promise, not a threat. Just a statement.
Nathaniel nods once, and walks away. But the weight of that gaze follows him long after.
The afternoon is merciless. Structural analysis. Thermodynamics. Every number feels heavier, every calculation slower. His classmates groan, some laugh, some curse. Nathaniel scratches notes, fights to keep up, the ember pulsing faintly against his chest with each surge of panic.
Once, he thinks he hears his name whispered—not from the professor, not from classmates, but from the hum of the projector. He shakes it off. Too much stress. Too little rest.
When evening comes, he feels flayed. His mind aches with equations, his hands smudged with ink.
He lingers by the library, the Thames visible through tall windows. The sky is darkening, clouds dragging themselves heavy across the horizon. Streetlamps flare to life, haloing the fog.
Nathaniel leans against the cold glass, eyes shut.
And then—
"Lost in thought again?"
The voice slides into the quiet like a blade.
He turns. Adolf van Giovanni stands a few steps away, that same notebook in hand, as though it never leaves him.
Nathaniel forces a thin exhale. "Do you always appear out of nowhere?"
Adolf's lips curve faintly. "Only when I'm curious."
He steps closer, gaze flicking briefly to Nathaniel's satchel, then to his chest—no, not his chest, but something deeper, as though he sees through fabric and bone.
Nathaniel stiffens.
"You carry weight well," Adolf murmurs, almost to himself. "But even the strongest bridge collapses if its stress is hidden."
Nathaniel frowns. "What are you implying?"
Adolf looks at him, eyes too calm, too sharp. "Only that some structures aren't meant to be built alone."
For a long moment, silence stretches between them, thick as fog.
Then Adolf closes the notebook with a soft snap. "See you tomorrow, Nathaniel Cross."
And just like that, he turns and walks into the misted corridor, steps echoing softly until the shadows take him.
Nathaniel returns to his flat under the wet cloak of London night. The city murmurs around him—distant laughter from pubs, taxis hissing against rain-slick roads, the occasional echo of sirens.
Inside, the flat is too quiet.
He sets his satchel down, drops into the chair by the desk, stares at the clutter of papers and notes. The equations blur. His hands tremble.
Adolf's words echo: Some structures aren't meant to be built alone.
He touches his chest. The ember pulses once. Warm. Listening.
For a moment, Nathaniel wonders if Adolf saw it—if somehow, impossibly, that strange gaze pierced straight through.
The thought makes his skin crawl.
He tries to shake it off, dives into the notes, forces himself to solve problem sets until numbers dance before his eyes. But at the edge of every equation, faintly, faintly—
He sees an hourglass.
The next days stretch into a rhythm. Harder classes. Sleepless nights. Coffee in bitter excess. But something changes.
Nathaniel adapts. Slowly. Painfully. He forces himself to ask questions in class, to speak when his instinct is silence. He spends hours in the library, pencil shavings and ink stains marking his warpath.
And gradually, the equations yield.
Not easily. Never easily. But he begins to see patterns—lines where once there was only chaos. Stress diagrams bend into sense. Thermodynamic formulas begin to flow like sentences instead of snarls.
It is progress. Small, fragile, but real.
And always, Adolf van Giovanni is there. Not beside him, not intrusive, but present—in lecture halls, in corridors, in the cafeteria. Watching. Sometimes silent, sometimes with a remark that cuts closer than comfort.
Nathaniel does not trust him.
But he cannot ignore him.
One evening, leaving the library past closing, Nathaniel takes the long way back, through narrow streets veiled in fog. His steps echo against stone, his breath misting.
He tells himself it is only fatigue, only nerves. But he feels it—eyes on his back, weight in the mist.
He turns a corner—and stops.
Adolf van Giovanni stands beneath a lamppost, pale hair catching faint gold light. His notebook hangs loosely in one hand. His eyes are not on Nathaniel, but on the sky, where the moon struggles behind a veil of clouds.
When Adolf finally looks at him, the air itself feels sharper.
"London is a strange city, isn't it?" he says softly. "Always caught between light and shadow. Between centuries. Between truths."
Nathaniel swallows, pulse loud. "Why are you following me?"
Adolf tilts his head. "Perhaps I'm not following. Perhaps we're simply walking the same path."
The ember in Nathaniel's chest flares faintly, unbidden.
Adolf's gaze flickers—just once—to that place. Then he turns, walking past, notebook tapping softly against his thigh.
"See you in class, Nathaniel Cross."
And then he is gone, swallowed by mist.
Nathaniel reaches his flat shaken, but something has shifted.
Because today, he did not fail. Today, he made progress. Today, he endured the weight of equations, the suspicion of strangers, the pull of the ember—and did not break.
He stands at his window, watching London's skyline blur into night.
For the first time in weeks, he feels not just survival, but movement. The ember pulses with him. Not demanding. Not burning. Just agreeing.
And Nathaniel Cross whispers to the city, to himself:
"I'll endure. No matter what waits ahead—I'll endure."
The fog swallows his words. The river carries them away.
But somewhere, unseen, something listens.
To be continued...