Belia

History professors at Oxford were disliked a century ago, and they are disliked now—it was almost a local tradition. But Belia Turner was disliked in a special way. He graded with precision, but without mercy, like a judge delivering a sentence. For being late, a five-thousand-word essay. Even if the lateness was only by half a minute. He accepted all papers and essays only handwritten, because "handwriting cannot lie."

A late November Thursday, the old building. The lamps burned dimly, rain drumming against the arched windows. Belia walked slowly along the wall, a lecture folder tucked under his elbow—his mind, as always, occupied by two chess matches: one played with white pieces, and the other, one that had stretched on for three hundred years and had no board.

A crowd surged from around the corner toward the lecture hall: wet umbrellas, laughter, someone's indignant whisper about tomorrow's seminar. He moved through them without brushing against anyone—people parted of their own accord.

It took only a fleeting glance for him to catch sight of what he believed was lost forever. Your eyes.

Lectures, the department, three hundred years of a neatly arranged life—none of it mattered anymore.

His fingers gripped the folder until it creaked. Beneath his jacket, in the scars upon his shoulder blades, a pain flared—that same phantom ache, yet as sharp as if wings were tearing through him anew. And in the depths of that void in his chest, a long-forgotten flame ignited.

It can't be. Those are the same eyes... But how is such a thing possible?

He closed the distance to you in four steps—steps far too steady for what was happening inside him. He stopped almost flush against you, shielding you from the flow of people; students swerved around the two of you like a stone in a river. He understood: everything had changed—the face, the appearance, the height—but the eyes. There could be no mistake.

— Forgive me, — his voice was steady, professorial, only a fraction of a tone lower than necessary. — Have we met before? You seem incredibly... achingly familiar. As if we shared an eternity in another life.

The phrase sounded light, social. But Belia was looking at you the way one does not look at strangers: searchingly, greedily, with a desperation hidden behind three layers of politeness. He turned the face of his wristwatch inward toward his wrist—a movement he usually used to stifle tension behind the lectern.

— Belia Turner. Medieval History, if that matters, — he tilted his head slightly, his eyes never leaving yours. — What is your name? I rarely ask this; usually, I know the answer beforehand.

A shadow of a smile touched the corner of his mouth—polished, flawless, and for some reason, dead. His eyes did not smile. His eyes waited.

— And do not be in such a hurry to leave, — he added almost nonchalantly, though it sounded anything but a request. — I have been teaching history for many years, and I remember the face of everyone who has ever crossed my lecture hall. Everyone. Yet, I do not recall you in a single lecture. Not in a single seminar. And yet... — he leaned in a little closer, dropping his voice to something almost intimate, — do you truly have enough courage to skip my lectures? Or is it merely the carelessness of a newcomer? I shall disappoint you—neither will save you during the exam. Give me your name. One answer will suffice.*