I kept smiling until the corner turned and the noise of the plaza dulled behind the wall.

  Alessa’s breathy laugh and Brin’s heavy footfalls carried on for a few steps before they noticed the change. The moment my expression slipped, they went quiet, the way lesser birds do when something larger shifts above them.

  “Let’s go,” I said, lightly, as though nothing at all had happened.

  We moved into a side corridor where the marble ran cooler and the wall runes dimmed to a steady, unobtrusive pulse. Students passed in loose streams—nobles with crests stitched like trophies, scholarship strivers keeping close to the walls with their eyes lowered. I arranged my mouth into the polite curve I had practiced in mirrors since I was nine.

  Ellara Arcanus.

  The name tried to draw a flinch from me. I refused it.

  It wasn’t that she was clever. She wasn’t. She blushed when called on and scribbled notes like the world might end if the ink smudged. She wasn’t strong either. I had proven that in the washroom with two slaps and a shove that rattled the sinks.

  I had proven it before as well. In the gym. On the grounds. In hallways and corners where attention always seemed to wander elsewhere.

  And yet people liked her.

  Teachers softened when she stumbled. Boys looked twice. Girls forgave her for existing.

  It had started years ago, back in middle school. A note passed across a desk. Cheap paper, careless handwriting. I had been certain it was meant for me.

  It wasn’t.

  I think you’re beautiful.

  Ellara had gone red to the ears. The boy had smiled as though he meant it, and I learned something that day. Liking does not follow rules. It does not care about last names, perfect uniforms, or how many hours you stand straight-backed at a piano recital. It does not reward effort.

  It simply happens.

  To her.

  So I made rules of my own. Rules I could control. If the world insisted on giving Ellara what she had not earned, I would take something back. A misplaced notebook. A rumor timed just right. A crowd forming where it shouldn’t. A hand where it would sting and leave a mark difficult to hide.

  Balance.

  Except today, the scales had shifted beneath my feet.

  I let Alessa’s giggle fill the space where my own laughter should have been and allowed Brin’s broad shoulders to clear a knot of first-years gawking at a crystal globe full of swimming fish. I nodded to older girls who bowed to my crest and passed a junior asking about a luncheon schedule without breaking stride.

  Nobility was performance, and I performed it well.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  My thoughts refused to settle.

  The transfer.

  By morning he had been a rumor. By lunch, he was already three stories told five different ways. Halden had forced him to drop a glamour. He had laughed. He had bowed. He had said nothing at all.

  None of that mattered.

  What mattered was what I saw.

  He stood beside Ellara as though he belonged there, calm and immovable. The girls whispered that he was handsome, but that was the wrong word. Handsome was safe, like a painting on a wall. He was something else—solid, unyielding, without the seams or edges that invited mockery.

  When his gaze met mine, it felt like stepping forward and finding no stair beneath my foot.

  There was no smile, no gesture. His eyes narrowed just slightly, as though he were measuring whether I mattered at all.

  Then the air changed.

  Heavier is the closest word, though it isn’t quite right. It pressed inward, asked a question my lungs could not answer. Around us, students shifted without understanding why. Conversations faltered. Bracelets were adjusted as though wrists had suddenly grown too tight.

  No glyph flared. No professor appeared.

  Still, everyone felt it.

  I felt it most of all.

  His eyes—violet in the recordings already circulating through the school, stormglass they were calling them—shifted. I would swear it before the Principal, before the Regent himself. They deepened and flashed red, violent and wrong, before vanishing again like a blade slipped back into a sleeve.

  I was afraid.

  More than when I fell from the practice wall and broke my wrist. More than when my carriage skidded on wet stone. My throat closed, and my legs carried me away because they refused any other choice.

  “Leira?” Alessa asked at last, noticing the set of my jaw. “Do you want—should we—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, smoothly enough that it almost felt true.

  We reached a landing where flat light spilled across the tiles. Seniors hurled fire at an Arcanum shield for sport, laughing when it cracked and groaning when it held. One of them noticed me, pretended not to, then nudged his friend anyway.

  I slid my gaze past them and fixed it on the next corridor. If I turned left, past the mosaics of the Founders, I could reach the senior courtyard by the longer path. Fewer eyes that way.

  “Go ahead,” I told Alessa and Brin, making a small gesture that could have meant powder or a note or nothing at all. They did not question it. They never did.

  They peeled off, Alessa already whispering to Brin because silence was something she could never quite manage.

  The corridor thinned, and the tightness in my ribs eased slightly. At the mosaic, I stopped, pretending to admire the figure of a woman carved with sword and book and a gaze that promised little patience for fools.

  What I did instead was breathe.

  I replayed the moment, because that is what you do with fear when you intend to master it. His posture. The angle of his head. The hush that fell without sound. And Ellara—stupid, lucky Ellara—moving closer to him without any of the simpering I would have expected, as though standing near him were the most natural thing in the world.

  Heat crept up beneath my collar. I smoothed my jacket where it didn’t need smoothing and thought of my brother.

  Lucien Veylan enjoyed breaking difficult things. It pleased him the way new shoes pleased other girls. He cleaned up messes with his hands, his grin, and the weight of the family crest on his chest.

  Teachers indulged him because he was talented. Younger students followed him because he was loud. Older ones tolerated him because refusing him took more effort than compliance.

  He laughed at me when I wasn’t around, but when I was serious, he listened.

  I turned away from the mosaic and found the rhythm of my steps again. I did not hurry. Hurrying was for people who could not make time wait.

  A window reflected me as I passed—pale face, perfect hair, flawless collar, posture precise. For a heartbeat, I hated the girl staring back for needing anyone at all. Then I fixed my expression and stepped into the light.

  Ellara would not look at me differently next time. She never learned.

  But I would carry that moment with me—the weight of the air, the silence, the brief, terrible flash of red—as a reminder.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Not yet.

  Lucien would be in the senior courtyard. I would tell him what I had seen, and he would handle it.

  By the time the bell rang, balance would be restored.

  If not, something louder than a slap would be required.

  My smile fit my face again by the time I reached the sound of older students laughing.