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That night, Lark found Damson and Jeune in the gardens, sitting outside the greenhouse with a bottle of wine they had inveigled one of the older city boys to buy them. Lark felt something bitter curdle in the pit of her stomach when she remembered the time it had beenherand Damson with the stolen wine, sitting together beside the river on a spread-out blanket.

Moonlight dragged her shadow across the ground as she approached them. She had tried to explain herself to the headmistress, tried to argue. But no matter what she said, it only seemed to make things worse. There had been multiple, collaborating reports that Lark had plagiarized her application.

And as soon as Damson looked at her, Larkknew.

Lark went cold. Perspiration beaded over her cheeks in an icy sheen, tracked down her spine. All her carefully rehearsed words fell away, and all she could say was “Why?”

“Why are you accusing me?” Damson took a sip from the wine, swallowing delicately before she blotted her mouth on her wrist. “Headmistress Blanche already knew everything about what you had done before she even called me to her office. All I did was tell her the truth when she asked.”

“It isn’t the truth, though! You stole my work, then said I took it from you!”

“I didn’tstealanything, Lacrimosa.” Damson folded her arms. She sighed, as though Lark’s very presence made her weary. “You’re not the only one allowed to write about bonfires and altars, praying to Therion. The whole of Verse honors him. He isn’t your personal god.”

Lark started to cry, hating herself, hating that she couldn’t stop. Jeune got to her feet and moved toward Lark, her mouth twisted in disgust. Her eyes were narrowed, all accusation. “You should be ashamed of yourself, acting this way. How can you be so cruel, when Damson worked so hard all this time with none of the supportyouhad?”

Damson nodded in agreement. She was like a sheathed blade that had just been drawn. “I never wanted to say anything before, because we were friends. But it wasn’t right, the way you used being an orphan to get sympathy from everyone. Especially when some of us are truly alone, without brothers who are devoted to giving us whatever we want.”

“That isn’t true!” Lark stumbled back, hurt, her chest aching as though Damson had struck her. “Henry and Oberon, they never—”

Jeune made a face at the sound of her brothers’ names. Lark was sobbing, her face slicked with tears, her breath so ragged she could hardly speak. In a fractured whisper, she said to Damson, “I gave them up for you.”

“I never asked you to give them up.”

“Please,” Lark gasped, reaching toward Damson, her hand outstretched. “You have to go back and tell Headmistress Blanche the truth about me.”

Jeune watched their exchange with a bored expression, holding the wine bottle loosely in her hand. She muttered something inaudible, her mouth twisted into a scathing smile, but Lark ignored her. She could only look at Damson.

With her ribbon-tied hair and the dark stain of wine across her mouth, Damson was as beautiful, as unreachable, as a distant star. Larkhad loved her more than anyone; she had trusted her,belongedto her. And this was where she had ended up: lying on her back like a frightened dog, her belly soft, her throat bared.

“Damson,please.”

Damson fixed Lark with a pitying look, as though their whole friendship had been little more than an embarrassing mistake. She got to her feet, brushing the creases from her skirt as she stood. “I’ve already told Headmistress Blanche the truth. That you’re spoiled and insecure. That you assumed growing up in Verse meant you wouldn’t have to do anyproperresearch. That you were counting on my notes to finish your application.”

Lark put her hand against her mouth. She felt as though she had fallen from a great height and had all her breath knocked out of her lungs in a single gasp. Trembling, desperate, her whole body burned hot as a fever. Around her, everything began to blur. Her heart pounded, her stomach was a knot, a swallowed stone.

Like the rise of a sudden wave, fury swept over her, inescapable. She was caught up and pulled forward, her rage as unstoppable as a riptide. Damson turned away, about to leave, but Lark couldn’t let her go. This couldn’t be the end of everything—the past years, the future they’d dreamed of, that they were going to share.

She grabbed for Damson’s sleeve. The other girl sidestepped, pushing aside Lark’s hand, but they were tangled together. Lark tripped, and she was falling backward, Damson beside her. She struck the side of the glasshouse, hitting a fragile panel in the ornate frame that was already cracked. Her arm was against it, then through it, the glass shattering like a fallen star.

Damson scrambled away from her. There was a shallow cut on Damson’s wrist, another on her cheek, where she had been nicked by the glass. Lark cradled her arm to her chest. She felt the hot spreading thickness of blood as it seeped through her shirt, but she was so numb that it didn’t hurt—nothing hurt.

She and Damson looked at one another. Their chests were heaving; they were frozen in time. Poised like duelists in the final moment before the draw. Then, with her eyes still pinned to Lark, Damson dropped to one knee and caught up a shard of glass. She dragged it across her forearm.

Distantly, Lark heard the sound of footsteps. Jeune, near the commons building, calling out to where the faculty staff were still in their rooms. The beam of a flashlight cast over them as a crowd of teachers approached. Jeune, breathless, fell to her knees at Damson’s side. “It was Lacrimosa,” she said. “Lacrimosa was the one who hurt her.”

Two days later, as Lark, with her stitched-up arm and her packed suitcase, hurried out of Marchmain toward the evening train, she passed the noticeboard. Pinned at the center was an official announcement, typed on thick, cream-colored paper, stamped with the Marchmain Academy seal.

Congratulations to the successful applicants of the Astera Gallery Curation Program.

Beneath were two names, written side by side. Damson Sinclair and Jeune Holloway.

CHAPTER TWELVENow

We’re chased back to Saltswan by the rising storm, the sky leaden with clouds, a swift wind sweeping in from the sea. As we hurry toward the house, the petrichor-scented air is heavy as a veil. It begins to rain the moment we step inside. Enormous drops pelt against the windows, filling the entrance hall with a rapid-fire staccato sound that covers all else.

Alastair takes off his coat, hangs it back on the hook beside the door. His wet hair is plastered against his face, sleek as silk. He pushes it out of his eyes with his wrist, then notices his shirt is still undone. He starts to re-button it, but his fingers are numbed from the cold, clumsy against the sodden fabric.

Laughing, I move forward. “Here, let me help you.”