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“ I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” Ruby said when the dorm door clicked shut.

Her arms were still folded, her lips pursed, but the furrow in her brow told me she wanted to talk about it.

“I’m still furious with you, but we need answers.

Something’s up. There’s no way you did this to all of us. ”

I loosed a breath, rubbing my temples. “I know.”

“I’m serious, Arabella. We need answers.

Now.” She crossed the room, her voice urgent.

“It’s clear that something deeper is going on here.

The Crucible is obviously broken, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was being tampered with.

If we can find evidence that this is true, we can present it to the High Council.

Even the Archdaemons can’t fight against proof like that. ”

“How can we possibly prove that the Crucible is broken?”

Ruby began to pace. “We find Verrine’s records. We prove that the dip happened unnaturally and overnight.”

I frowned. “And you expect me to just waltz in and grab them?”

Ruby scoffed. “No. I expect us both to waltz in, find what we need, and get the fuck out before she knows we were even there.”

I stared at her. She was serious. “Ruby, that’s insane.”

“It’s necessary.” She did not blink. “Unless you want to just wait until they drag us to the Rift?”

I clenched my jaw as I reached for my school sweater. I hated that she was right. I hated that we had no other choice. “If we get caught, this was your idea.”

Ruby broke a smile. “Naturally.”

Adrenaline pulsed through my veins as we wove through the darkened corridors, avoiding pools of lantern light spilling from the sconces.

Every flicker of a shadow felt like a watchful eye, and every creak of the floorboards made my breath hitch.

Ruby had sent a quick message to Dorian, who confirmed Verrine was in the astronomy tower for the next hour.

This was reckless. Insane. I should have stayed in the dorms, but I was already slipping through the heavy wooden doors of Verrine’s office behind the Crucible, closing them softly behind me. Inside, moonlight striped the parquet floor and the Crucible machinery thrummed behind the wall.

Ruby didn’t hesitate. She went straight for the desk, rifling through drawers, skimming parchments. I moved toward the bookshelves, scanning for anything out of place. Minutes passed. Too many. Nothing.

I clenched my fists, sweat pooling in my palms. “There’s nothing here,” I whispered, voice quavering. Every second that passed without evidence was a second closer to defeat. What if we were wrong? Worse, what if the slate showed this was my fault?

Ruby paused, her hands faltering. “Maybe we were wrong.”

I turned toward the case, heart sinking. What if the system wasn’t rigged? What if we were just failing? “No,” I said. “We’re onto something. I feel it.” But even as I said it, doubt sunk in my stomach like lead.

Ruby’s head snapped to the desk, to the drawers inside it. “The archives,” she whispered. Her hands moved fast, working at the lock with a pin she pulled from her hair. “Keep watch. I need to focus.”

I nodded, scanning. The room was too clean, like it had been scrubbed of every single one of Verrine’s perfectly kept secrets. My hands grazed the polished wood of Verrine’s desk, drumming away the tension. I held my breath as she clicked the lock.

Ruby moved quickly, prying open a drawer with careful hands, her fingers skimming over a set of tablet-sized slates stacked neatly inside. We’d actually done it.

“Ah ha! This is what we need. Verrine’s administrative access,” she whispered, reaching for a thicker slate at the back. “This slate can access everything. The ether scores for both years, the rankings, the Rift’s experience logs from years prior, students vying for enrolment?—”

I grabbed it before she could finish, but the screen stayed dark. I tapped it. Once. Twice. Nothing. “ Dead? ” I hissed.

“No,” Ruby muttered, snatching another and pressing her palm against the corner sensor. The slate buzzed. “It’s bio-linked. Try the side instead. Quickly.”

I did as she said. The screen flickered to life. Everything inside me stilled. I was in.

I scrolled, blood thumping, not sure what I was looking for. But it became clear almost instantly. The ether log wasn’t just incorrect. It had been edited. The changes were there, written in crisp, glaring text.

LOG ENTRY. OVERRIDE ACTIVE ?VV CAVENDISH? : ALL SCORES CAPPED at ≤ 0

My stomach flipped. She’d even signed her name. This was her doing. Verrine was puppeteering students toward the Rift like a marionette show, pulling each and every string until we danced straight into Elsewhere.

“Holy shit,” I breathed with the realization, mind reeling. “The override launched the same night I stole the cards. This was orchestrated. All of this was orchestrated.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge.

“Does that mean Dante is working with Verrine?” Ruby asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I chewed my lip as I scrolled through the slate.

The logs ran deep, every fluctuation, every shift in score, every rise and fall that students believed were dictated by their choices.

All of it was all logged, all marked with the same authorization less than a week ago.

Everyone was given a different baseline, but no one was allowed to raise their scores above zero.

“I don’t get it. Verrine was protecting the cards, wasn’t she? Why would she let Dante take them?”

“ Evermore was protecting the cards,” Ruby said darkly.

My grip tightened on the slate, knuckles white as a sick wave of fury crashed through me.

That’s why Verrine wasn’t mad when we returned from Elsewhere.

She didn’t care that Dante had them. I was a pawn.

Verrine hadn’t just let the system break, she was breaking it.

“This is proof. Evermore isn’t a real competition this year. It’s rigged. This is our way out. If we can present this to the council, surely ?—”

“Wait,” Ruby breathed. “Arabella, look.” She turned her slate toward me, the glow casting eerie shadows across her face. A name was listed.

Rosaline Carrington: Ascended. The word gleamed in gold, flickering, but the score beside it didn’t make sense.

-1 5

I paused as the word Ascended continued to flicker, until the letters rolled one by one into another word. Fallen.

That wasn’t possible . It wasn’t possible .

I stared at the slate, my stomach twisting into knots.

Rosaline had already Ascended. She had already been marked.

Her fate should have been sealed, her path chosen.

I stared at the word like it might flicker back to normal, but it stayed, burned into the screen like a scar.

“How, how could her score have done this?” I swallowed against the nausea rising in my throat. “She’ll Fall at graduation if this isn’t fixed, right?”

Beside me, Ruby’s fingers trembled around the slate.

She shook her head, her voice barely above a whisper.

“No. She couldn’t.” The words rang hollow, only saying them aloud to reassure herself.

“It’s against Evermore’s policy. The code of conduct says you can change stratums, shift between Fate, Nephilim, Angel or Daemon.

But you can’t Fall or Ascend once you’ve been marked.

” Her breath hitched. “They said it isn’t possible once your path is decided. ”

Thread stirred in the back of my mind, purring. “ Those who rise can always Fall. ”

I turned to Ruby, my voice coming quiet, uneven. “The rules might say that. But Fallen Angels exist, don’t they? Maybe Evermore’s rules aren’t as rigid as we thought.”

Ruby flinched. “You say that like it’s something so easy, like damning yourself is easy.

” She blinked back tears. “An Angel can only fall if they do something horrific. Something against our nature, against the balance of light and dark. You don’t just Fall.

You tear your soul apart. Light can’t reach where you go.

You become… hollow. Like a star snuffed out, you just become th e dark in-between. ”

“Or the darkness that always was.” I winced, my necklace singing against the hollow of my throat.

“What?” Ruby frowned.

“Nothing,” I shook my head, unsure what I even meant by that. “Rosaline was one of Evermore’s highest scorers, and still Verrine made her Fall. None of us are safe.”

“Exactly,” Ruby nodded.

If this was all true, everything I believed about my place here was a lie. Was this what my mother had been running from? Had she been afraid that something would make her Fall if she stayed? We both jumped as a ping resounded from the slate.

This is a reminder to all students that the Dawning Ball will be held in the Astralis Ballroom at 7 p.m. tomorrow evening.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a voice said.

My entire body locked up. We whirled, heart catching in my throat. Ruby’s grip tightened on the slate, too afraid to move.

A pipe ember glowed in the doorway, and Godwin Cavendish exhaled a curl of smoke. “I need a word, Miss Davenant.”

For a long, awful second, it was silent. Then, Ruby squared her shoulders. “Are we in trouble?”

Godwin passed a look between us and the slate still in Ruby’s hand. It was clear that his disgust wasn’t at us, but at Verrine, when at last he said, “Oh, we all are.”