The parking lot of Ravenrest Heights Academy gleamed under a brittle morning sun—the kind of light that made edges too sharp, shadows too honest. My glamours were locked so tight it felt like I was wearing someone else’s skin, every seam stitched from strain. My eyes reflected green. My hair was a tamed auburn wave. My ears, human-perfect. My smile, nonexistent.

Every step toward the front gates felt like a betrayal of the night before. The sound of my boots on the concrete landed wrong in my ears—too loud, too even. I tried to match them to my breathing, but my mind snagged on Kess’s laugh instead, bright and jagged. Naomi’s calm steadiness lingered like frost on the inside of my ribs.

But that was another life. One I had to fold up and tuck away behind mascara, eyedrops, and a pressed uniform skirt before I ever came within sight of this place. Ravenrest wasn’t made for people like me. Not really. It just tolerated my presence because my father’s name could bend doors open and keep them from swinging shut again. Mira Quinveil, daughter of Elias. Polished. Smart. Just enough edge to seem interesting but not enough to be dangerous.

I moved through the courtyard with practiced grace, nodding at familiar faces, flashing a smile when expected. Every social interaction was a dance I knew by heart—when to step in, when to step back, when to let someone else lead. I could fake normal like it was an art form, even when my spine itched from the effort.

Something flickered in my peripheral—a blur of movement near the wrought-iron gate. Too small to be a student, too quick to be a bird. By the time I turned my head, the space was empty, just sunlight snared in the bars. My pulse ticked faster anyway. The Small Folk had a way of slipping through the edges of the world, half-there, half-story. And even glamoured, I’d learned to feel it when they watched.

I kept walking. Because here, it was safer to pretend I hadn’t seen anything at all.

I kept walking, keeping my gaze fixed ahead as if the moment at the gate had never happened—like the phantom brush of magic hadn’t skittered up my spine. It was the safest thing to do at Ravenrest: pretend the strange doesn’t exist.

And then I saw her.

Cassie Fairborn leaned against the lockers like she’d been born there, like the hallway itself had been designed to frame her. Her friends flanked her, perfect in their curated disinterest, but they were just background—expensive, whispering, harmless. Cassie didn’t need an entourage to be dangerous. She was the danger.

Her hair was braided into a crown, glossy and precise, like she’d spent hours on it or maybe seconds—it was impossible to tell. Her blazer skirted the edge of the dress code in a way that read as intentional. The expression she wore was already loaded, the kind of look you didn’t survive without taking damage.

Our eyes caught for a fraction too long as I approached my locker. A pause. A smirk.

“Didn’t realize we were going for sweaty exhaustion as a look today,” she said, her voice carrying just far enough for her orbit of admirers to hear.

I didn’t slow down. “Just trying to match your personality. Thought it was on theme.”

The girls beside her let out tiny gasps—little bursts of scandal—one of them even laughing before Cassie’s glance cut her down to silence like a knife through ribbon.

Cassie’s lips curved, not into a smile but into something sharper. “Aw. Witty. You must’ve gotten a full eight hours of beauty brooding.”

“I do my best thinking in the dark.” My locker clicked open with a practiced spin of the dial. “You should try it sometime.”

She moved before the sound even faded—closing the space between us like she owned the air in it. Her presence crawled over my skin, static building in the back of my throat.

“Strange,” she murmured, tilting her head just enough that her perfume—sharp lemon peel wrapped in something expensive and warm—brushed against my senses. “For someone so into the spotlight, you seem awfully desperate to disappear.”

I turned fully toward her, my shoulder grazing the cool metal of the locker door. “Just tired of breathing the same air as people who mistake cruelty for charisma.”

Her smile sharpened, her gaze sweeping the crowd before snapping back to me.

“You know,” she said, voice pitched like idle gossip but cutting clean, “it’s funny how fast Mira makes friends. You all remember Michael Sandalwood, don’t you? Turned me down for homecoming last year—” she tapped a manicured finger against her chin, feigning thought “—no, wait. I turned him down. And the very next week, Mira was glued to his side.”

A ripple ran through the hallway—gasps, stifled laughs, someone whispering oh my gods.

Cassie’s eyes glittered. “Guess we know how she convinced him to keep her company. She’s always been… creative.”

The laughter broke louder this time, jagged and delighted, feeding on the lie.

My stomach lurched. Not because it was true—gods, it wasn’t even close—but because it sounded close enough. Michael had been nothing more than a friend, someone I’d pulled out of Cassie’s crosshairs after she’d finished toying with him. We’d eaten lunch together, studied together, shared jokes about teachers. That was it. Nothing else.

But with Cassie’s smirk hanging in the air, with everyone watching, it didn’t matter. The picture she painted was the one they’d remember.

Heat swelled under my skin, the glamour seizing tighter around me like a steel band. My scalp prickled—red fighting to bleed through the borrowed blonde. I clutched my iced mocha so hard the plastic whined. Sweet coffee misted against the chemical-clean sharpness of her perfume, and my throat locked.

My thumb tapped rapid-fire against the cup lid, stimming too fast to disguise. Words clawed at the back of my throat, denial begging to rip free. But I could feel the flare there—magic sparking hot, threatening to spill fire with every syllable.

She’s lying. Everyone knows she’s lying.

But the hungry stares said otherwise.

Cassie’s lips curved, slow and poisonous, like she could see the exact second my control faltered.

I forced a smile up through my teeth—too bright, too late, but sharp enough to slice. “Careful, Cassie. People might start to think you’re keeping score. Sounds… obsessive.”

A few chuckles stirred, softer this time. The damage was done.

“Miss Quinveil. Miss Fairborn.”

We both turned, mirror-perfect, toward Mr. Halloway. His arms were crossed, his expression worn thin with exasperation.

“If the two of you are finished exchanging poetry,” he said, “you’ll be thrilled to know you’ll be working together on the midterm presentation.”

Cassie made a sound that was half-groan, half-murderous screech. I just blinked.

“Excuse me?” she demanded.

Mr. Halloway handed us each a stapled packet. “You’ve got four weeks. First draft due in two. You can hash out logistics in study hall. I suggest civility.” And then he walked away like he hadn’t just detonated a bomb between us.

I flipped through the pages without absorbing a single word. Her. I was partnered with her. The one person who could splinter my control like old glass.

Cassie let her packet hang limp at her side like it had personally offended her.

“This is a hate crime,” she muttered.

I bit back a laugh and failed. “Look on the bright side,” I said. “You might finally learn something.”

She turned, and for a moment—a heartbeat—there was the faintest flush on her cheeks. “Keep dreaming, Quinveil.”

Then she walked away, her posture so perfect it might’ve been sculpted, daring me to follow. I didn’t. Not yet.

I stood there instead, letting the crowd flow around me, not one of them noticing that I wasn’t breathing right.

Not because of the project.

Not because of the pressure.

Because I didn’t know what had just happened between us.

And that scared me more than any spell ever had.

I didn’t move for a long moment after she left—just stood there in the swell of hallway chatter, trying to force my lungs into something that resembled normal breathing. The packet in my hands felt heavier than it should have, like maybe it had absorbed the weight of the look she’d given me before walking away.

The bell jolted me forward. Feet moving on instinct, I threaded through the crowd toward my next class. I told myself the prickling at the back of my neck was from too many eyes in the hallway, not from the one pair I’d already left behind.

By the time the lunch period bled into study hall, my head was a buzz of mental tabs I couldn’t close—half of them about the project, the rest… not.

The library at Ravenrest Heights smelled like new bindings and old pressure. Everything about it was curated perfection—rows of mahogany shelves in flawless alignment, frosted skylights spilling filtered sunlight in angled stripes across the floor, and the soft susurrus of students whispering just loud enough to be overheard.

Michael Sandalwood slipped in a minute after me—head down, jaw tight. A couple of guys peeled off near the returns desk to slap his shoulder, grinning like they’d won something they hadn’t earned. One of them stage‑whispered, “Legend,” and another made a crude gesture in my peripheral. Two girls by Periodicals cut me side‑eyes like knives; one dragged her friend closer and murmured just loud enough, “Figures.” Michael didn’t look at me. Not once. The tips of his ears were red.

And there, near the back at a long table I’d privately dubbed my own personal circle of hell, sat Cassie Fairborn. Already flipping through our midterm packet like it owed her money.

“Wow,” I said as I slid into the chair across from her, “you beat me here. Did it bruise your ego not being the last to arrive for once?”

Cassie didn’t look up. “Didn’t feel like watching you try to pretend you know how a library works.”

Her tone was smooth, clipped—every word sharpened to a razor edge before she’d let it go. The silver laptop in front of her gleamed under the light, its surface covered in minimalist stickers that probably cost more than my entire bag.

I pulled my notebook out and flipped it open, pretending I hadn’t seriously considered “accidentally” setting it on fire. “So, what’s our thrilling topic?”

Cassie tapped her finger against the header on the page between us. “The Formation of Dominveil’s City‑State Model and Its Impact on Modern Governance.” She paused, like she wanted to watch my soul leave my body. “Try to contain your excitement.”

I slumped dramatically in my seat. “Is spontaneous combustion still on the table?”

“Only if I get to light the match.” The smile she gave me didn’t reach her eyes. A breath later, she added without looking up, airy as idle gossip, “Busy week for you, I hear.” The faint lift at the corner of her mouth said she knew exactly which rumor she was feeding.

Heat pricked under my skin. My thumb started tapping the table’s edge—too quick, too sharp—until I forced it to slow.

She launched into a breakdown of the outline like she was applying for a diplomatic post—assigning sections, dictating citation formats, even suggesting fonts. She barely took a breath.

“We’ll need historical precedent, contemporary case studies, annotated citations for each data point…” she said, clicking through slides she’d already started building.

I blinked. “You’ve done half the project already.”

“I don’t trust other people to get it right.”

“You mean you don’t trust me to get it right.”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Wow. Your trust issues are showing. Might want to glamor those down.”

Cassie’s laptop snapped shut—not hard, but with enough force to make the guy at the next table flinch. From the stacks to our left, someone snickered, “Sandalwood,” like it was a punchline. My jaw locked.

“Just let me handle the slides,” she said flatly. “I don’t need this turning into one of your emotional flame‑outs.”

My hands curled under the table, fingertips pressing crescents into my palms. The glamour cinched, hot and tight along my ribs; I tasted copper. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, voice sweet as poisoned honey, “were you under the impression I needed your permission to have a brain?”

She tilted her head slightly, lips parting like she was about to deliver something lethal—

—and froze.

We both reached for the outline at the same time.

Our fingers brushed.

It wasn’t anything. Not really. Just skin on skin. But the jolt that went through me was sharp enough to catch my breath. The citrus‑ice of her perfume pressed closer, scraping along the inside of my throat. My knee bounced once under the table before I stapled it still.

Cassie pulled her hand back as though I’d shocked her. I stayed frozen, heat and static pooling between us.

“Try not to breathe on me,” she said finally.

I let the silence stretch half a second too long. “Careful,” I murmured. “You might start to enjoy it.”

Her cheeks darkened—not a blush, not quite. Just something unguarded flashing before she locked it down again.

She rose abruptly, tucking her laptop under her arm and clutching the outline. “We’ll work on the presentation order later. I’ll email you the schedule.”

As she turned, Michael passed behind her with two guys in tow. One of them lifted a palm for another congratulatory slap; Michael missed it on purpose and kept walking, eyes glued to the carpet. A girl by the printer looked me up and down and whispered, “No standards,” like she wanted me to hear. The glamour tightened another notch; a strand of red tried to push through the tamed auburn, and I smoothed it flat with a casual touch.

I watched Cassie leave, her back straight and deliberate, every step measured.

There were a thousand things I could’ve said. I said none of them.

Instead, I leaned back in the creaky chair, staring at the space where our hands had touched, the phantom static still alive on my skin.

Cassie Fairborn was many things—cold, cruel, exhausting.

But boring?

Never.

The moment clung to me like smoke—thin, bitter, impossible to pin down. I tried to focus on the outline she’d left behind, but the words blurred, static creeping into the corners of my mind. The exact angle of her flinch kept replaying in my head, over and over, until the bell split the air and broke whatever spell was left.

I gathered my things, keeping my gaze down as I headed toward my last class of the day.

The last bell felt more like a sentence than a reprieve. I could have gone home, drowned myself in music loud enough to scrape the inside of my skull clean, but instead I found myself trailing toward the library again.

We were expected to spend after-school hours finalizing our midterm topic proposal. Of course.

Cassie was already there when I walked in, as if she’d been waiting—not for me, but for the excuse to point out I was late. Her notebook was open, her legs crossed with surgical precision, lip gloss a perfect match to the lining of her blazer. Untouched. Unshaken.

“You’re late,” she said without looking up.

“Thanks for noticing.” I let my bag drop onto the chair across from her with a thud, a little harder than necessary.

We worked in brittle silence.

Five minutes. Ten. Her pen scratched across the page, marking the project outline like it had committed a personal crime. I stared at a paragraph on pre-founding tribal alliances until the words bled into static. My brain wasn’t in the room — it was cataloguing the scent of her perfume, counting the uneven ticks of the wall clock, tracing the faint groove in the tabletop beneath my fingers.

She didn’t look up when she spoke again.

“If you’re going to just sit there, can you at least stop breathing like you’re angry at the air?”

I didn’t look up either. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I needed your permission to exhale.”

Cassie set her pen down, fingers lacing together like she was about to deliver a eulogy.

“Look, I don’t care what weird post-goth spiral you’re in today. Just let me handle the slides. I don’t need this turning into one of your emotional flame-outs—you know, the kind where you burn everything around you just to make sure people remember you were there.”

The words hit like a fist, knuckles straight to bone.

I went still. Perfectly still.

For a second, I didn’t even breathe. My gaze snagged on the empty space just beyond her shoulder, unfocused, like if I stared hard enough, I could unhook myself from the moment.

Cassie blinked, waiting for the inevitable retort.

I gave her none.

My hands trembled—barely, but enough. Enough for that too-familiar knot of panic to start winding its way up my spine.

She sighed, softer this time. “Are you seriously mad?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

Because somewhere, in the background of my mind, the air had gone stone-cold.

I was ten again.

It had happened at the banquet. The music had been too loud, the room too warm, and I’d been forced to sit perfectly still for hours while courtiers smiled like glass. Then one of them — a man with breath that stank of old wine — had leaned too close, called me “Seara’s little half-blood spark.”

The heat rose before I could stop it. One pulse of anger, and the plate in front of me cracked clean down the center, steam curling from the split.

The entire hall had gone silent. My mother’s eyes had been the coldest thing in the room.

Later, she’d led me to the meditation chamber herself. No guards, no words at first — just the click of the lock behind me.

“Control, Mira,” she’d said. “Without it, you’re just a hazard waiting to be cleaned up.”

The stone floor was colder than the air, biting into my legs through my tights. I sat cross-legged, arms wrapped around my knees, counting my breaths because I didn’t know what else to hold onto. The only light came from a single enchanted candle high in the wall. It didn’t flicker. Flicker wasn’t allowed. Neither was I.

I tried not to cry. But hours passed, and the cold crept up my spine like ice with teeth. When the first tear fell, I hated myself for it.

That’s when they came.

Small shapes slipped under the door — no taller than my hand, glowing faintly gold, with wings that whispered against the stone. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. One settled on my knee. Another tugged a corner of my skirt as if to distract me from the tears. A third set down the tiniest flower I had ever seen, no bigger than a pinhead, in my palm.

I didn’t know why they’d come. I didn’t know who they were. But I knew they hated the cold almost as much as I did.

They stayed until the sound of boots echoed in the hall outside. Then, as if by unspoken rule, they scattered — vanishing through the gap under the door.

The guards entered moments later. My mother’s voice followed.

“Have you learned?” she asked.

I lied and said yes.

I never told anyone about the Small Folk. Or that for the rest of that night, the cold didn’t bite quite as hard.

I blinked hard, dragging myself back into the present.

The library smelled like printer ink and overripe bananas, the air heavy with the static hush of a room that wanted you silent. A high window rattled faintly with wind. Cassie was still staring at me like she was waiting for me to crack apart and prove her right.

I didn’t.

I stood slowly, every movement deliberate, gathering my things with hands that were steady only because I forced them to be.

“Mira—” she started, but I was already walking.

Out the door. Down the hallway.

This time I didn’t wait to fall apart. I just walked until I couldn’t hear the echo of my own heartbeat in my ears, until the edges of the world stopped vibrating like I’d swallowed lightning.

Because if I stopped moving, I might’ve remembered too clearly how that cold felt.

And I wasn’t ready for that. Not today.

I didn’t go far.

Just circled the building once, letting the wind bite at my cheeks and scrape the edges off everything I couldn’t name.

By the time I slipped back inside, the halls were nearly empty—just the hum of old fluorescent lights and the far-off click of someone locking a supply closet.

And her.

Cassie.

Leaning against the lockers like she’d been carved there, arms folded, eyes down. The kind of stillness that wasn’t indifference at all, but a battle to hold something in.

I didn’t speak.

I walked to my locker, turned the dial, pretended I couldn’t feel her watching me.

She broke the silence first. “So, what’s the plan for our project?”

Flat. Low. Controlled.

“You storm off every time someone tells the truth,” she added, “or just when I say it?”

I turned my head just enough to catch her in my peripheral. “Oh, I didn’t realize being a bitch counted as honesty now.”

She didn’t smirk. Didn’t throw anything back. She just… stilled.

A beat.

Then: “My brother’s in the hospital.”

It landed like a pin dropped in an empty cathedral—small sound, huge echo.

I blinked.

She didn’t look at me.

“Again,” she added, voice tight in a way that didn’t fit her. “So forgive me if I’m not feeling generous this week.”

And there it was. The weakness. The opening.

I could’ve gutted her right there. Everyone knew Elliot was sickly. Everyone whispered about it. One sentence from me—one cruel little twist—and I could’ve shredded the armor she lived in.

I tasted the words. They came sharp and easy, right to the edge of my tongue.

But I didn’t use them.

Not pity. Never pity.

Choice. Mercy. The kind of strength she wouldn’t expect from me.

“Then maybe,” I said carefully, “aim your knives somewhere else.”

Her head snapped the slightest fraction, like she’d expected claws and gotten a hand instead.

That hit. Not the way my words usually did—not the sparring she could brush off—but in a place she clearly didn’t want touched.

Her jaw shifted, like she was chewing back something she wouldn’t say.

Then she turned and walked away, heels clicking sharp and fast down the hall.

This time, I was the one left standing still.

I let my forehead rest against the cool metal of my locker. Not hard. Just enough to feel it.

I didn’t know what the hell just happened.

But it was the first time I’d seen her bleed.