Page 23

T he wet cobblestone shimmered in the lambent light, the atmosphere still as death. We had been gone since late lunch. Though it was only early evening, the campus lay cloaked in a near-total darkness, as if the sun had never truly risen here.

I checked my slate. I missed my first official sparring session, but my score wasn’t bleeding any more than earlier.

Mist curled low over the path, thick as smoke, swallowing the black stone cloister.

I walked alone, my heels clicking against the wet pavement.

My fingers brushed the chain at my throat.

My necklace had gone ice cold, nearly burning against my throat.

I froze, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge, like something had noticed me. I squinted.

A figure stood near Seraphim Tower, just beyond the steps. A girl who looked no older than twelve. She was barely visible through the mist, the edges of her dark collegiate blurred by the fog. Evermore was a college. It didn’t have students that young.

The girl tilted her head, playfully. “You’re not supposed to have that.” She giggled, her voice pitching an octave as she began to sing. “ Up, up, never high. Down, down, never low. Nowhere left for her to go! ”

Her voice wasn’t loud, but it cut straight through me as I edged toward the staircase. “What? Who? Who are you?”

“A necklace like that isn’t allowed here,” the girl intoned, her lips twisting into a wide smile. “It’s a Lumen.”

The air grew colder. There was a flicker of movement, a shadow barely there, the soft rustle of fabric, the glint of pale, vacant eyes. Then she was close, and her fingers twitched toward the pendant.

I jerked backward. “What’s a Lumen?”

“The necklace, silly.” The young girl drifted closer, the smile stretching too wide across her face.

I felt the Thread tingling against my skull.

I didn’t need a warning, this time. I stumbled back, tripping up the steps of Seraphim Tower.

The torchlight guttered out completely. The girl’s eyes, so gray and bottomless, locked onto mine as I clambered, my palms raw against the stone.

She continued, her voice lilting. “She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to Fall. She was never meant to be at all.”

I struggled to my feet, racing up the steps, my heartbeat jagged. The warm glow of the common room was just ahead. When I reached it, I turned back.

The girl was gone. I pressed my hand over the pendant, my heart still sprinting.

The common room flickered back to life, but I couldn’t shake her voice.

I stood there, unmoving, like if I stayed still long enough, this all might explain itself.

It didn’t. Eventually, I climbed the stairs on aching legs, the chant still looping in my head, as if the Thread itself had changed its song.

I kept hearing her voice. “She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to Fall. She was never meant to be at all.”

I knew what she was talking about. The Fall, the moment in the Rift where you choose to Ascend or Descend. But that last line…

Only with the door locked behind me and the world sealed out, did I let myself relax. The words stayed with me, curling in my skull and sinking into my bones.

She was never meant to Ascend. She was never meant to fall. She was never meant to be…at all.

I tore my uniform off and shoved my slate against the mattress, watching the numbers blink back at me in mockery.

-21

Still there. Still unexceptional. Still a death sentence.

No amount of philanthropy, no act of goodness, no perfectly constructed day of charm and romance had been enough.

I had tried. I had appealed to every higher power I knew of, even the saints everyone kept talking about here.

I’d given the Crucible a chance to save me, and it had denied me.

I sank onto the bed, pressing my palms to my forehead.

It was hopeless, and I knew now that I no longer had a choice.

If I stayed here, I would die anyway. Verrine would drag me to the chapel and conduct a graduation.

I’d have to face the Rift, whatever that truly meant.

All I understood was that it would likely kill me.

Maybe that would be alright. Maybe there would be peace in the finality of it. But what if my mother was somehow in the After? She attended Evermore. I had no way of knowing if she participated in the Rift, not yet, but there it was.

The first glimmer of hope I had seen since I arrived at Evermore. Dorian, of all people, was right. There was only one way to fix this. I had to get my score up before Verrine put the pieces together.

I was ready to die.

I needed to move. I shoved off the bed, crossed the dorm in three steps, and grabbed the edge of the wooden desk just to feel something solid.

That’s when I noticed it. Rosaline’s side of the room was untouched.

Her blankets were folded in perfect, crisp lines like the bed hadn’t been slept in. “Where’s Rosaline?”

Ruby looked up from her bed, already dressed down for the night, fingers idly combing through her curls. She blinked, like I had said something strange. “Hm?”

I turned to face her fully. “I haven’t seen her all day. Have you?”

She tilted her head, considering. “Probably in prep with the other Ascended Upper Sixth.”

The words landed wrong. I frowned. “Prep?”

“The Upper Sixth who are Ascended do extra training before graduation,” she said, like this was obvious, like it was something everyone knew.

“Extra training?”

“Yeah. They’re probably all hands on deck right now,” she added, flipping to her side. “I heard in the paper they’re preparing groups to go after the Archangels.”

“What do you mean?”

Ruby yawned, like it wasn’t worth getting worked up about.

“They’re still missing, and it’s not good.

The two High Councils mediate to rule the Afterlives, made up of the Archangels, and the Archdaemons.

Without the Archangels, decisions become…

skewed .” She rolled onto her stomach. “If Rosaline’s gone a lot, it’s probably part of that.

They’re trying everything to locate them. ”

A chill ran over my arms. I’d heard the Archangels mentioned in passing, and still assumed them to be religious figures, like the saints. But people, students, were sent to find them?

“Do they go missing a lot?” I asked.

“Don’t think so.” Ruby shrugged, looking down at her slate again. “But they’re probably just deep in some kind of investigation. I wouldn’t worry. The Archs are all-powerful beings. Nothing bad could actually happen to them.”

I let the thought slip away. There were bigger problems at hand. My mind was already turning ahead, whirring like the gears of a clock wound too tight. I stared at the slate, the unmoving number. No rescue was coming, no miracle.

“We have to go.” My voice was thin, hoarse. “Dorian and I.”

Ruby looked up, blinking. “What?”

“I’m done trying to raise my score. It’s useless. We have to get the Arcana Deck back.” The words left my lips before I could second-guess them, before doubt could set its claws into my chest. “It’s the only way.”

Saying it aloud gave me purpose. I didn’t know if it was bravery or madness, but it was something to hold on to.

It was the first bit of control over my life I’d felt since the accident.

This was the first time I’d chosen to fight back.

And I was going to fight for my freedom with every last breath I had.

Because if all of this is what Evermore defined as exceptional, I had never been more glad to be profoundly average.

She exhaled slowly, setting her slate aside. The dim light caught the dark sheen of her curls as she tilted her head, studying me. “You’re serious. You’re going to listen to Dorian?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Outside, the wind howled, pressing against the old stained-glass windows. They shuddered, casting restless shadows across the walls. The academy was watching .

Then, Ruby’s lips curled. “Only the dead can enter the afterlives, remember. You’ll die. Literally die.”

“I’ll die if I don’t.”

A long pause. Then, finally she sighed. “This is reckless.”

“I have to go tonight,” I insisted. I’ve wasted too much time already. I’m sure Verrine is starting to connect the dots.”

Ruby leaned back on her elbows, exhaling. “And how do you know Dante still has the cards?”

“I don’t,” I admitted. “But if he does, and if he used them to get into Elsewhere, then there’s a way to get them back.” I hesitated. “And a way to fix this.”

Ruby tapped her fingers against her knee. “You’re willing to bet everything on this?” I thought of the numbers flashing on my slate.

-18

A true death sentence in all but name. I thought of the Rift yawning open like a waiting grave, and of Verrine. Then of my mother’s name, erased from every archive, erased from this world, as though she had never existed at all.

“Yes.”

Something flickered behind Ruby’s eyes, uncertain, but she only nodded, her expression smoothing into something careful.

“Okay,” she murmured. “Good luck.”

An hour later, I had agreed to meet Dorian.

I’d packed hardly anything into the small backpack I got for my birthday last year, just some fresh t-shirts, underwear, my slate, water bottle, and Advil.

Would I even need water when I was dead?

Would I need painkillers? I decided to throw on my gray school jumper. The skirt wouldn’t keep me warm.

I made my way along the cloister to the clock tower.

I climbed the steps silently, and I was abruptly reminded of the ridiculous hazing I had experienced that first night.

I scowled, a burning hatred for Dorian growing in my chest. I didn’t even hear the second set of footsteps above until he spoke.

“This is a mistake, Dorian.” Hugo’s voice broke through the roar of the wind. “I won’t just look after the body. I am coming with you.”