---
October's end brought a costume-free harvest festival because Halberd preferred "seasonal community gathering" to anything that might look like joy without a learning objective. Parents volunteered at cider stations. Cole's father appeared in a Halberd crew jacket and shook hands like a candidate. When he saw Imani he smiled with too many teeth.
"So you're the famous mathematician," he said.
Rhea materialized at Imani's shoulder as if summoned by tone. "She's a student," Rhea said pleasantly. "Famous is a newspaper word."
Cole's father chuckled. "Character builders make character. Kids these days—"
"Need accurate equations," Rhea finished, still pleasant. "Enjoy the cider."
They moved away. Cole found them later near the pumpkin display, mortified. "I didn't tell him to say that."
"I know," Imani said. "Parents aren't worksheets. You can't erase them."
Cole kicked a mulch chip. "I'm still coming to office hours sometime. Not because of him. Because the honest problems are actually… fun? Don't tell anyone I said fun."
"Your secret is safe," Imani said, and meant it.
Rohan's parents came through quieter: his mother asked Rhea about the seminar with genuine curiosity; his father asked Imani what book she was reading and nodded seriously when she said logic puzzles. Dignity, Imani thought, sometimes looked like taking a child at her word.
---
In early November, before the marking-period review, Imani stayed home one day with a low fever. Rhea arranged coverage at work with the kind of logistical gymnastics working parents know as unpaid secondary careers. On the couch under a blanket, Imani watched dust float in the afternoon light and thought about Room 214's golden hour. She wondered whether the school missed her. She doubted it. Schools missed averages more than persons.
Rhea brought toast. "You don't have to earn rest by being sick," she said. "But since you are sick, rest."
"I'm scared of the review," Imani admitted. "Anonymous notes. Soft words. The way they say valued and then talk about friction."
"Fear is information," Rhea said. "We'll bring paper. We'll bring Ms. Dane if she can come. We'll bring your log. We will not bring a performance of gratitude for being allowed to exist."
Imani chewed toast. "Do you ever want to leave Halberd? Pull me out?"
Rhea was quiet long enough that the answer became real before it was spoken. "Yes. Sometimes. Then I remember you love the honest hard problems and the library and Ms. Dane and even the oak tree in the courtyard. Leaving would be clean. Staying and insisting is messier. I choose messy with you as long as messy doesn't mean unsafe. If it becomes unsafe, we leave. That's the line. Not pride. Safety."
"How will we know?"
"We'll know," Rhea said. "Because we talk. Because you tell me the hallway versions. Because I believe you."