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T he plane slammed into the tarmac, metal screeching as if trying to tear itself apart. A tremor rolled through the cabin, making the overhead bins rattle. Then applause rippled, thin and hollow, as though we had survived something.

My knuckles whitened against the armrest.

Soon, we were back in another car, the city dissolving behind us.

My eyes burned, gritty from a night that hadn’t felt like sleep.

The road narrowed as we wound through the countryside, hedges closing in like grasping hands, skeletal branches scraping against the windows in warning.

I reached for the crumpled newspaper on the seat, its headline cutting through the haze.

The Vanishing Act of Mr. Hugo Fox

The last confirmed sighting of Mr. Fox was Saturday night, slipping into Astoria Manor’s black iron gates. He was seen speaking with an unnamed associate of the Astoria family just hours before he disappeared .

My throat tightened. I’d seen him vanish. I’d felt it. Whatever that thing was, I’d turned it over and over in my mind during the flight. It hadn’t just been shadow. But if the executor had saved me, another cruel twist of fate or luck, what happened to Hugo?

The newspaper blurred. I wanted to ask the executor what happened that night again, but I already knew I’d be hit with the same patronizing denial.

My phone was nearly dead, the screen flickering at 4:44 pm. I hardly took notice of the countryside blurring past. It all looked the same.

I saw the gates first, wrought iron, impossibly tall, and teethed in rusted spikes. The phrase carved into the crest gleamed through the dark shadow of rain. Ante Post. They groaned open like the jaws of something ancient and hungry.

Only the crunch of tires over gravel and the rain clawing across the windows broke the silence.

Evermore Preparatory College loomed from the hilltop, its Gothic silhouette swallowing the sky, half-shrouded in mist. I pressed my fingers to the glass.

For a second, I thought of asking the driver to turn around.

I climbed the steps to the front entrance, wrinkling my nose at the students in unsightly gray uniforms. Uniforms? At a college? I hoped I wouldn’t be expected to wear one. Someone ushered me inside. I rubbed at my eyes, still sore with sleep.

A vibrant floor-to-ceiling fresco hung on the wall in the front office.

Two staircases split from a single landing, the left soared upward in sun-kissed marble, but the right spiralled downward, iron steps sinking into a swirl of ink-black cloud.

Thread-thin lettering ran beneath in archaic script, Postea vel Alibi .

Thunder rumbled low in the distance as I sat across from Godwin Cavendish, the headmistress’s long-suffering husband. From the way he fussed with his collar and offered me a too-cheerful grin, it was obvious his job was pastoral. Evermore’s very own First Lady .

The moment passed in unnatural silence. Then, the doors creaked, and Verrine Cavendish glided inside. Her hair was scraped back into a goosberry-tight high bun, her high-collared dress swallowing her throat. Buttons gleamed, ruffles billowed like a peacock’s plumage, yet she was utterly still.

“Arabella.” Verrine said my name acidulously as she peered down the end of her pointed nose, her thin lips stretched into a tight smile. “It’s about time. We’ve been waiting.”

“My apologies for the confusion,” the executor said, smoothing the front of his waistcoat as though brushing away the tension. “I forwarded the flight details. There were no delays.”

Verrine did not blink. Instead, she moved to the oak desk in the center of the room where a large, weathered book sat open.

The pages sighed as she turned one with surgical precision.

“It’s not that,” she said, voice cool. “Arabella is nineteen. Her arrival at Evermore is a year overdue. Her name appeared in the ledger last fall.”

“I never applied.” I shook my head, words tumbling out in a rush. “I—I’m sorry. There must be some mistake.”

She slammed the ledger shut, smile widening by only a fraction. “Evermore,” she murmured, “doesn’t make mistakes.”

“No matter, the girl is here now,” Godwin chortled. “Uncanny! You’re your mother’s double. You look just like her, except?—”

“My eyes are grey. I’ve heard it before.” I forced a smile, toggling the necklace back and forth. “You knew my mother?”

“Enough, Godwin,” Verrine said sharply. “The girl has only just arrived. We were deeply sorry to hear of your parents’ passing.”

The Cavendishes were strange, stranger than anyone I’d ever met. I’d blamed their odd sense of dress on rural eccentricity, but this was something else entirely.

“I trust it is time to hand her over,” Godwin said, rosy-cheeked. He smiled apologetically at me. “Silly of me. Not that you’re something to be handled but?—”

The executor nodded, offering a firm handshake to him and Verrine. “Take care, Arabella,” he said to me. But as he turned, I caught something I hadn’t noticed before. It was faint, a tattooed mark below his left ear in the shape of a crescent moon.

I would not last here until graduation. My inheritance was as good as gone.

“I trust you know enough about us from the file we sent over, so I will skip the pleasantries. Evermore is no ordinary preparatory college. We host only the most gifted and talented. Students typically enter at eighteen for two years for Sixth Form, divided into Lower and Upper Sixth. Our students fight to be here, to participate in….” She paused, catching herself.

“You’ll have some catching up to do, judging by the marks on your previous record.

” The weathered corners of her mouth twitched with displeasure.

“That’s fine,” I shrugged. “I didn’t plan on attending a traditional university, anyway.”

“No?”

“I got into LADA to study acting,” I replied, maybe too confidently. “Are there any classes I could add to my schedule, so I can reapply? I couldn’t find anything about it in the pamphlet.”

“Drama?” Verrine huffed. “That isn’t really our focus. Evermore is a preparatory college, designed to give you unrivaled access to the finest institutions in the world. If you survive. ”

I forced a laugh. So she did make jokes, though her sarcasm was the driest I’d ever heard. “What, like private equity funds? Magic circle law firms? The UN?” I pressed. She gave me a look that was equal parts bemused and scandalized.

I’d heard of those feeder colleges on the East Coast, the ones that funneled alumni into hedge funds or the Foreign Office.

Maybe Evermore was England’s answer to that.

But my mother always hated those nepotistic practices.

She’d backed my dream of acting. It was something imperfect, something real. This… this didn’t make any sense.

“I suppose, if you wish.” Verrine’s tone was flat, like she doubted my odds. Evermore seemed like the kind of place where you sold your soul for a glowing résumé. “Keep your mind open, Arabella. Evermore is connected to places you may never have dreamed of. Come, let me show you to the houses.”

“Like what, though?” I asked, but Verrine didn’t answer, already starting toward the door. I saw it then, when she turned. The same strange, moon-shaped tattoo behind her ear. The same tattoo the executor wore. An odd coincidence, surely.

We crossed a deserted courtyard, bordered by crumbling turrets.

Evermore was an estate set against a wan, lifeless sky.

Surprisingly, beautiful flowers in shades of white, rose, and blue bloomed, winding up against the gothic, white stone turrets.

A clock tower loomed behind them in the distance, the hands unmoving.

But I already missed the gentle heat of home, the sun on my face, the saturated colors I’d left behind.

I shivered against the cold, my choice of jacket apparently inappropriate for spring in the British countryside. Fog rested at our feet in thick gray clouds as I paced behind Verrine. Headmistress Cavendish .

She had a tight and rigid walk, the sort of walk that proclaimed proudly that she had never been relaxed in her entire life. Verrine explained that the students were all in the chapel, as it was Sunday, and they would soon finish. The sound of choral singing was distant and eerie.

A board loomed over in the hallway, its gold-etched names glittering in the dim light. Some were crossed out, others were simply gone, hollow spaces where letters had been scraped away. I slowed. A group of students lingered near it, their gazes flicking anxiously between the placements.

“Did you see Lilibeth’s score?” one whispered. “She’s not going to make it. Her father will be furious.”

“Shh, Rosaline. She still has time. The Rift isn’t until…” another started.

“Not enough time,” the first girl hissed.

Their conversation cut off as they noticed me staring. They turned their backs and dropped their voices. I turned my head back to the board, my pulse a dull, insistent tapping at my throat. A name near the bottom flickered. It hadn’t been there before.

My name.

“We have a few rules,” Verrine said, her voice clipped as her heels tapped across the stone. “First: no fraternizing socially with the year above, the Upper Sixth.”

No socializing with the year above? I kept my face blank. I didn’t dare to ask why such a ridiculous rule existed. There were already too many things I didn’t understand

“You’ll attend classes with the Upper Sixth, of course, but keep your distance,” Verrine continued.

“Second: the Hall of Artifacts on the third floor is off-limits. It is locked, and it will remain that way. Finally, nothing that happens at this college is to be shared beyond its gates. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” I said, the word catching in my throat. No. I started to ask another question, about a million of them prodding into my mind. She didn’t acknowledge it, only quickening her pace.