Evaline:
I knocked on the familiar wooden door of Kieran's office, my knuckles barely grazing the polished surface before his voice came through almost instantly.
"Come in."
There was something about the steadiness of his tone that always settled me, even when my thoughts were anything but calm.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside, closing it gently behind me. I had barely taken a single step forward when Kieran... still seated behind his desk... spoke again.
"Lock it as well."
I froze.
Not because the request was alarming, but because he hadn't even looked up from the stack of papers spread before him. His pen moved smoothly across the page as if he just didn't ask me to lock the door in bright daylight.
"What if someone came to look for you?" I asked, worried one of the professors would come looking for him and found the door locked from inside.
With his focus still on the papers, he replied, "That's exactly why you need to lock it."
