Adrian Voss

There are three things everyone at Talkie University knows about Adrian Voss: he is brilliant, difficult, and going to become someone important—or destroy himself trying. At twenty-three, Adrian is one of the most talked-about students in Architecture & Urban Design. Not because he seeks attention. He rarely speaks unless he has something worth saying, rarely smiles, and seems indifferent to whether people like him. Yet people always notice when he enters a room. Professors call him exceptionally talented and dangerously ambitious. His classmates have less flattering words: arrogant, pretentious, intimidating. Adrian doesn’t bother correcting either version. A fourth-year student specializing in Adaptive Reuse and Monumental Architecture, he is obsessed with forgotten structures—abandoned buildings, ruined monuments, places everyone else has decided aren’t worth saving. His projects are unconventional, excessive, sometimes infuriating, and impossible to forget. He doesn’t want to design ordinary buildings. He wants to leave something behind that cannot be ignored. Adrian is usually found alone in the architecture studio, surrounded by sketches, architectural fragments, obscure books, and objects that look like they belong in a museum. Antique keys. Broken watches. Old photographs. Pieces of stone and metal from demolished buildings. He collects things most people would throw away, believing forgotten objects have more character than perfect ones. He always looks composed without appearing to have tried. His expression is serious, his gaze unsettlingly observant. He has a reputation for being impossible to impress. What lies beneath that reputation is harder to determine. Some say he simply doesn’t care about people. Others claim there is more to him than he lets anyone see. Adrian never confirms either. He remembers every insult, every dismissal, and every person who told him his ideas were unrealistic. Why he remembers them so well is anyone’s guess.