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“ I caution you to act appropriately.” Verrine’s nails drummed Godwin’s desk, eyes thinned to slits. Only a week ago, they taught us that Ascension was a gift. That the afterlives were in perfect balance, and our destinies guided by fate.

Now, the grainy photos bleeding across the stone walls told a different story. I stared at the metropolis carved from darkness, the bone towers, a sky the color of old blood. I remembered walking those streets, hope still clinging me. At the bottom of every image, bold golden letters gleamed:

Evermore is a choice. Choose power. Choose glory. Choose the Fall.

Ruby stiffened beside me, fingers curling white-knuckled around her slate. “What is this crap?” she hissed, barely restraining her fury. “Everything is on lockdown. I can’t even write to my parents.”

“She can’t get away with this,” I muttered, something curling in my stomach. “There has to be some law. ”

“There is,” Ruby cut in, her grip on the slate tightening until her fingers trembled. “But clearly the only ones who would enforce it are the Archangels.” She turned to me then, eyes swollen like she’d been crying just before class. “And they are currently missing, remember?”

The Thread curled against my neck lightly. “ Who says that’s not a lie, too?”

“ You’re one to talk about lies,” I thought back.

“Try the Fool Card if you don’t believe me. It talks.”

I scowled, trying my best to mentally block Dante from my mind as I clicked open my slate. Everything he said was a waste of time, a distraction.

“Saints,” Ruby said in a terse whisper, mid-conversation with Lilibeth and Marcus as she leaned over her desk. “It doesn’t work. Not for any of us.”

She was still concerned about our lack of contact with home. I had managed, before. After all, my message had delivered to Dante, wherever he was. I held my breath as I typed another message to him, desperate fingers moving before my brain could catch up.

The message rebounded instantly. I tried again, again, again. Each failure was a fresh knife in my ribs. Verrine had severed every tie to the outside world, except there was one she couldn’t cut. The Thread.

A loud crack split the air, followed by the sound of shattering glass. My head snapped toward the back of the room. Ruby stood. Her slate lay at her feet, shattered into glinting shards of glass. Her shoulders heaved, hands clenched into fists so tight I thought she might draw blood.

“No,” she whispered, voice raw, splintering in the heavy silence. “ No. No more of this.”

Verrine tilted her head, her movements serpentine. “Sit down, Miss Kingsley.”

“I need to speak to my parents,” Ruby said, voice rising, cracking. “I won’t let you herd us into damnation like lambs to the slaughter!”

A hush fell over the room. A book slammed shut. I stared at her with unblinking eyes, willing her to sit down. This wasn’t like her. She was going to get herself hurt. Killed.

Ruby’s voice rang out, clearer. “You were supposed to protect us.” Her words sparked more sounds of protest, and several chairs scraped back. “Surely you see that none of this is fair! Why are we earning points if the system glitches, nosediving us at random?”

“Yeah!” Marcus shouted, and a few others echoed him.

Students surged to their feet, slates smashing against the ground as they turned to leave the classroom.

They felt they were already damned, that nothing mattered anymore.

The calculation on Verrine’s face told me otherwise. This could get a lot worse.

“Don’t,” I hissed. “ Please, Ruby. ”

Marcus kicked the projector on the way to the door, and it sputtered. The image of Elsewhere distorted, stretching and twisting into something that flipped my stomach.

A few students remained behind, waiting for something. Maybe it was permission, or maybe they wanted this, maybe they wanted Elsewhere.

Verrine’s smile widened. “How predictable.” She flicked her wrist. Guards stormed in from the corridor, clad in blackened armor as they blocked the flow of students.

One grabbed a girl from behind, dragging her backward as she screamed.

“Sit down, the rest of you! The Crucible is already shifting, and anyone who resists will face detention.”

I raced toward the door, toward Ruby. It was too late, she was already writhing against their grasp, out of reach.

Verrine’s voice hummed with amusement. “Thank you for making yourself our example, Miss Kingsley. The rest of you,” she barked. “ Sit down.”

I tried to move, but my feet felt nailed to the floor. Ruby looked at me, pleading. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked terrified. With a slam of the heavy wooden door, she was gone, and the remaining students sat gingerly. A sick, twisting feeling coiled in my ribs.

No . No, I wasn’t going to let this happen, I had a bad feeling. Ruby was going to disappear, just like Rosaline.

“Tell us.” I kept my voice measured. “Why is Rosaline Carrington currently missing? Has she already graduated? Because the records say she’s Fallen. She was marked as Ascended in Lower Sixth. How can that happen?”

Silence deafened the room.

“Take a seat, Miss Davenant,” was all Verrine said. Something broiled in my chest at her dismissiveness.

I pressed on. “Headmistress, please. Can you tell me why Rosaline’s score is below zero, when someone marked for Ascension is supposed to be protected from dipping below the level of an Angel after they have been marked, as stated in Evermore’s code of conduct?”

“It’s known that an Angel can always Fall,” Verrine said coolly.

The murmurs circling the room turned to outright whispers.

I saw Verrine’s expression shift, only for a fraction of a second.

It was enough. “You suddenly care about the code of conduct now, Miss Davenant? Sit down. Miss Carrington had behavioural issues that resulted in her expulsion. The rest of the Ascended are in training, with Professor Cavendish.” That wasn’t true.

“You can’t do this.” The words came before I could stop them.

The classroom fell silent. A few students turned toward me, their eyes wide, unblinking. Some looked at me in amusement, others in shock, others in the thinly veiled interest of those who enjoyed watching someone else take the fall.

“I didn’t do this.” Verrine barely tilted her head, her gloved fingers resting lightly on the desk. “You did, Arabella.”

Every head in the room snapped toward me.

My heartbeat sounded in my ears. Think, Arabella.

Think . I knew the rules of this world, even if I was still learning how to play the game.

If the Crucible dictated our scores, every choice mattered.

If I could get the others to wake up and realize that I wasn’t the enemy, that I wanted them to survive this too, maybe that would trigger something in the Crucible’s algorithm.

At the very least, it would get us on the same page.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” I spat at Verrine. “Godwin taught us in history that our scores are individual. My actions don’t have influence over the entire Lower Sixth class.”

“Yes they do.” Verrine spoke in absolutes, her word was law.

I could see that many of them hadn’t questioned it, hadn’t questioned who was behind their dropping scores.

“The object stolen was a Vestige . There is a natural ripple effect when something so powerful is taken. For every rule, there is an exception.” Murmurs sounded.

“Are you sure?” Lilibeth piped up, running a hand down the length of her braid. “Arabella isn’t speaking about rules. The fourth law of ether is absolute. It says that we are individually protected. Ether cannot be gifted, pushed, or taken away from an individual.”

We were right. The rules weren’t broken, and definitely not by me. They were rewritten, mid-competition, by someone powerful enough to get away with it.

“Is that true, Headmistress?” I met Verrine’s gaze, and for the first time, something flickered behind her eyes. “The laws of this world cannot be broken?”

“It’s nuanced,” she said simply. “You are all too young to understand how intricately the balance of light and dark works. Now sit down , Miss Davenant, before I deduct a further fifty points.” She wore a mask of calm, but I saw the subtle twitch in her brow. She was losing control.

I sat, but the students weren’t whispering anymore, they were listening. Verrine knew it.

The rain struck the arched window in relentless sheets. Every drop echoed inside me, hollow. I shoved the window open, gasping. I needed something to claw me back into my body, something real, solid , cold enough to cut through the suffocating spiral I was drowning in.

Ruby was gone. Hugo was dead. And the Rift was fast approaching.

The mirror caught my eye. I barely recognized the girl staring back. She was pale, exhausted, a ghost in her own skin. I looked like a corpse that hadn’t yet realized it was supposed to stop breathing. My fingers traced over my collarbone, the spot my necklace was supposed to rest.

Ruby wanted nothing more than to become an Angel. Hugo had wanted the same. I didn’t know what I wanted, and yet I was the one still here. The grief of it all lodged deep in my ribs. But the guilt swallowed it whole, coiling tight like a viper around my throat.

The Thread slithered through the darkness. “Arabella.”

My focus snagged in the mirror just at the foot of my bed. I shook my head, letting soft curls tumble in front of my face. I was seeing things. No, I wasn’t. Hugo.

He was there, standing at the foot of my bed like I had willed him into existence. He was perfect, untouched, as if death had never emptied his veins, had never left his body broken and breathless on the sparring ring floor.

His lips curved at the corners, that familiar smirk. But his eyes—his eyes were different.

“I knew you’d find me,” he murmured, words threaded with softness.

A tremor ripped through me. My fingers curled into my palms. Speaking to a ghost felt like madness, but so did this entire place.

“I’m so sorry,” I rasped, the words tasting like iron. “For what happened to you.” It felt wrong to want comfort from someone who no longer existed, but I wanted it anyway.

Hugo smiled, the cold biting as he drew closer. His thumb skimmed my cheek, the barest whisper of a touch. His tone softened. “No, I’m sorry, Arabella.” His hands tightened. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“It was my fault.” I sobbed. The tears pressed against my eyes, aching. I knew he wasn’t real, that none of this had been real, but I so desperately wanted comfort. So desperately wanted to be held. “All my fault. I wish I could make it up to you.”

“Oh, but you can, darling.” Darling? The air in the room dropped a few degrees, and suddenly, my skin felt very bare. “Just Fall, Arabella. Fall , and we can be together again. As we should be.”

My blood ran cold as his grip tightened. The mirror behind shattered, and darkness rushed in.

Fall, and we can be together again.

I gasped, thrashing, but Hugo’s hands, too strong for a ghost, pulled me under. The room plunged into nothingness, the Thread turned into a roar.

I awoke in tangled sheets, damp with sweat.

For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d woken up at all.

The darkness still throbbed at the corners of my vision.

The sheets felt like grasping hands. The stained-glass window had been cracked open, a cool night breeze filtering through.

My damned back wouldn’t stop aching, and the wounds were so tender I felt feverish.

I shifted onto my side, kicking one leg out of the duvet.

The nightmare clung to me like cold, damp hands. They had been worse the past few days. Without my mother’s necklace it felt like sleep was a trap, a door left wide open to the dark. Or maybe it was the fever that was setting in. My wounds still hadn’t healed.

Dorian said the Lumen would keep me safe. Dorian. The thought of him made my stomach twist. I had no way of knowing if what he said was true, but it felt true. I needed to get the necklace back. I needed the cards .

I fired off a quick message to Dante, asking to meet. I expected my slate to buzz again, letting me know it had rebounded, but in my mind, the reply from the Thread was instant.

Soon.