Page 20

I was almost free. The crowd shifted, students peeling off toward the dining hall. If I could just?—

A hand clamped around my wrist. I froze. Dorian. His grip was tight, burning not from heat, but from another feeling, one that made my thoughts blur. He pulled me behind a stone pillar, eyes blazing, his lips set in a firm line. I braced myself as he hissed, “Do you have a death wish?”

His breath ghosted across my cheek, his lip curling just for a heartbeat like he enjoyed being the one to catch me.

“What?” I lifted my chin. He knew. “Are you going to tell on me?”

His expression barely shifted. Then, slowly, he let out a bitter laugh. “You stole my cards, Davenant.”

“They weren’t your cards.” I didn’t flinch. I wanted to, but not because I was afraid, from the way his voice dropped when he said my name. I forced the rhythm of my chest to even, all too aware of his fingers, ice-cold, against my skin. “They were in the Hall of Artifacts.”

“They were as good as mine.” Dorian’s grip tightened, tethering. “And what, Darkblood has them now? Why would you do something like this?”

“I hoped it would get me expelled.” I blinked. “Why do you both care about this deck of cards so much anyway?”

“The Arcana isn’t just a deck of cards. I was trusted to protect them. And if Dante took the deck to Elsewhere…”

He cut himself off, fingers flexing, like he wanted to break something, to break me. Something about this wasn’t just anger.

This was…fear. My skin prickled. “Look, I’m sure Dante will come back. He can’t disappear forever, right? I hear only the dead can enter Elsewhere.”

“You don’t get it.” He wasn’t looking at me anymore. His jaw was tight, his gaze dark and haunted. “The rules don’t apply to Dante, if the rumours about him are true.”

“And for you, clearly. Don’t think your mother would be impressed to hear we played poker with them the other night.”

He gave me a look that could cut the air between us into ribbons. For a fraction of a second, a breath passed between us, almost tender. If he’d leaned in, I might have let him. But then his lip twitched. Quivered. A hesitation, barely there, so quick I nearly missed it.

My necklace went glacial, cold pressing into my skin. Dorian’s hand twitched like he might reach for me again, but he didn’t. Whatever flicker of vulnerability I had seen was gone.

His jaw set, then. “I don’t care how you fix this,” he said, violet eyes pinning me to the spot, stronger than his grip had ever been.

The pointed edges of his incisors gleamed.

I was sure it was just fear that made my knees weak.

“But if you don’t, you’ll pray for the Rift to swallow you whole when I’m finished with you. ”

I sank my teeth into my lower lip, pressing down until I tasted copper. I should have known better. The clock tower chimed distantly, ringing in the witching hour as rain hammered against the open window. I scrolled through my slate again, hoping I had misread it.

Negative fifteen. The number glared back at me, unmoving, unmerciful, worse than a death sentence. As far as I understood, there was no afterlife for the unexceptional.

I didn’t know how long it would be until someone took notice of me, of my lowered score, and wondered what I’d done. Dante knew. He knew how dangerous it was to push my ether lower. He used me anyway. My pulse thundered in my ears.

There were only two ways out of this now.

I could run. Again. But where would I go?

I had no money, plan, or protection. Ruby had explained briefly that Luminari were always easy to find.

That’s how they’d tracked me down in the first place.

Verrine would find me. Or, I could stay and try to fix my score.

If I managed to break two hundred in either direction, I had a good chance of surviving the Rift if I were forced into a graduation.

And I knew there was a chance, however slim, that my mother might be waiting for me in the After despite what Dorian had said.

That was as good a reason as any to try and compete with the other students for a place.

But then I thought of my mother, of her scratched out picture in the frame.

She hadn’t graduated. She’d managed to escape.

Why? What, or who , had she been running from?

Why would she send me here if she had fled?

I pushed away the thought, shoving off the gnawing dread crawling up my spine, and threw my sheets off. I couldn’t sleep.

The shadows were long across the dormitory floor, pooling under my bed. I kept seeing the damned scoreboard flashing in the dark every time I blinked. I pressed my fingers to my temples. My thoughts wouldn’t slow. Every path I saw ended worse than the last. Expulsion, death, the Rift. Damnation.

I needed out. Just a few minutes of air, of distraction, before I lost my grip entirely.

“Ruby,” I whispered into the darkness. “Ruby, wake up.” She groaned, curling deeper under the covers.

I nudged her. “Ruby.”

“What, Arabella?” she mumbled, barely lifting her head. Everything inside me felt off. I couldn’t sleep. Not when my entire existence was dangling by a thread.

“Can we go get a hot chocolate from the dining hall?”

“I’m sleeping.” She groaned, burrowing further into the pillow.

“Please.” The word barely made it past my lips. I never begged. But tonight, the walls were closing in, and if I didn’t get out of this room, I might shatter.

Ruby paused, really looking at me for the first time. I must’ve looked awful, all pale and shaking like I’d just woken from a nightmare. Her mouth opened slightly, as if to ask something, but she shut it again.

“Fine,” she muttered, swinging her legs off the bed. “But if we get caught, it’s on you.”

Within minutes, we were in the dining hall, sneaking past the dim lanterns with illicit hot chocolates in our hands. I stared into mine, watching the steam curl upward. Ruby leafed through a discarded copy of The Heavenly Oracle , its pages slightly worn as though it had been passed around.

Archangels Still Missing — Seven days without divine contact. Please report any sightings or information to the Ministry of …

The ink had begun to smudge. I looked away, heart skipping. There were more important things to focus on. Before I could stop myself, I blurted, “My score is in the negatives.”

Ruby snorted. “Yeah, right.” I didn’t smile. Her expression shifted immediately.

The words were heavy between us. I couldn’t take them back, and part of me didn’t want to. I was tired of carrying this alone, of pretending everything was fine when this was all cracking beneath me.

“It is,” I whispered. “Minus fifteen.” For a long time, she just stared at me. Then she pushed the hot chocolate away as if being near me was enough to taint her ether.

“It was like seventy yesterday, wasn’t it?” She frowned, stirring her drink. “What, you’re trying to get marked as a Daemon? That’s not a good plan.”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.” My voice cracked. Ruby didn’t answer right away. “I messed up.”

“How?” She blinked, once. Then again, shifting back like she could physically put distance between herself and whatever I was about to say. “The incident with Dorian couldn’t have drained you that much.”

The incident. I shuddered. I hadn’t stopped thinking about the look on his face when he pulled back, teeth stained with blood.

That flicker of something. My body still remembered the press of his hand at my throat, the way his teeth sank into my neck.

I shook my head to clear away the memory.

There were more important things to focus on, now.

“It was me,” I confessed, my eyes trained on my mug. I watched the white film dissipate, the bubbles bursting. “The cards. I took them.”

For a second, there was only silence. A dead, suffocating silence. Ruby’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. Then, “You’re joking. ”

I shook my head. Her entire body went rigid, a slow horror bleeding into her features. “The Arcana? Are you…Are you clinically insane?”

“I didn’t know what it was,” I rushed, words tangling in my desperation. “Dante said it was just a deck of playing cards.”

“ Saints .” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “You! You—” Her voice cut off, uneven, like she couldn’t even say it out loud. “That’s one of the Vestiges, one of the most sacred artifacts Evermore owns.”

“Really?” I snapped. “We were playing with them Sunday night like they were nothing. Dorian had them.”

She ignored me, pushing back from the table so fast the bench scraped loudly against the floor. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I’m sorry,” I uttered uselessly.

“Does Dorian know?” she demanded, voice rising. The breath punched out of me. My throat locked up. Ruby shook her head. “He does, doesn’t he? That’s why he was so furious earlier. That’s why your ether is dropping like a dead weight.”

I swallowed thickly. Ruby stared at me like she was seeing a ghost. Then, lowly, “Oh, we are so, so screwed. This is beyond help. Reversing this ether damage is the only thing you can do.” She shrugged, then lowered her voice.

“Even being around you is a risk to my score now, Arabella. Your negativity might rub off on me.”

“That’s a myth, surely.”

Ruby didn’t speak. She just stared at me like she was seeing something that hadn’t been there before. I looked down at my hands, trembling faintly around the chipped mug.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I felt useless, stupid, for placing my trust in the hands of someone like Dante. Ruby had warned me. We sat in silence, steam curling up between us. Evermore would never have let me go so easily. Overhead, the lights flickered.

Then, the double doors crashed open, the sound like a gunshot in the silent hall. My stomach dropped. Dorian strode in, rain clinging to his white shirt, his jaw locked tight. His attention seared through me, eyes storm-dark and burning. My problems were about to get a lot worse.