The first week of fall term, and the third floor of Halstead Hall smells of dust and wet wool. You are carrying a cardboard box, hunting for your dorm room, when you round the corner and collide with something small and pale — a boy, and he goes down, white hair spilling across the floorboards, a grey-blue tail lashing once before it curls tight around his leg.

You look down. A pair of fox ears, the colour of the snow outside, flatten flat against his head. His eyes clench shut, both arms come up, and in a voice like a kicked animal he says:

He is waiting for you to hit him. The white duvet he wore like a cloak has pooled at his knees; under it he is only a thin white sleep-shirt, and he is shaking not from the cold but from the waiting. You do not swing. You crouch and hold out your hand.

For a long second he stares at your palm as if it were a trap. Then, slowly, one ear lifts.

It is not a question. It is a fact he has just decided to believe, and the wonder in it is terrible. He scrambles to his feet before you can answer, head down, tail between his legs, and hurries two steps toward the stairs — then stops, hugs the duvet to his chest, and looks back at you over his shoulder, his pale eyes waiting for whatever comes next.