Page 59

T he summer heat clung to Evermore like an embrace, thick with the scent of blooming wildflowers and sun-warmed stone. The college grounds were empty, silent in a way they never were during the year.

The students had all gone home. There were no whispered conversations winding through the corridors, no clipped footfalls echoing against the chapel steps, no murmurs of shifting ether in the Crucible’s glass heart. For the first time in what felt like forever, Evermore was still.

I lay stretched across the grass outside Ariel Hall, the fabric of my dress sticking to my skin.

My lips were blushed cherry-red, kissed raw by sharp teeth.

A warm breeze curled through the field, stirring the daisies that had sprouted up between the cracks in the stone pathway, their white petals swaying like tiny crowns in the afternoon sun.

Somewhere in the distance, a mourning dove cooed. Dorian sat beside me, one arm thrown lazily behind his head, his violet eyes tracking the slow crawl of a cloud across the endless blue sky.

It was nice. The kind of moment that felt stolen, fleeting. One that shouldn’t exist after everything that had happened, but somehow did.

“You’re fidgeting,” Dorian muttered, eyes fluttering closed.

I hadn’t realized I was twisting the loose threads of my dress between my fingers, my thoughts tangled in a thousand restless knots. I sighed, rolling onto my side to face him. “It feels like we shouldn’t still be here.”

A smirk curved at the corner of his lips. “We shouldn’t. But where else would we go?”

I huffed, plucking a daisy that stood too tall and tossed it at him. He wrinkled his nose but didn’t pull away, letting the tiny flower fall into his lap. He flicked it toward me.

“What if we ran away?”

“Arabella,” he said, his tone scolding. Then his eyes glinted devilishly. “ Where? ”

I hesitated. Because the truth was, I didn’t know. I just wanted to go somewhere safe, somewhere we could forget about everything. Nothing was holding me back, but I was still bound to Evermore out of obligation.

Once it has its claws in you…

No king waiting in the shadows here, no ceremony pledged to steal my soul. I was safe, as safe as I had ever been at Evermore. But Ruby and my father weren’t.

Dorian sighed, propping himself up on one elbow. “It’s the calm, isn’t it?”

I looked up at him, startled.

“The quiet,” Dorian continued softly. “I hate it too.”

I turned as a shadow fell across us. The warmth of the sun was swallowed by something tall, standing at the edge of the field. Dorian went motionless.

Two figures had appeared on the path leading to Ariel Hall, their silhouettes stark against the hazy glow of the late afternoon sun.

One of them I recognized instantly. The executor.

The man who had first led me through the doors of Evermore, who had placed the contract into my shaking hands, who had incited all of this . He looked different now, though. Paler.

It was the second figure who prickled the skin on my arms. He was dressed impeccably, his long black coat lined with silver embroidery, his waistcoat buttoned high over a crisp white shirt.

A pocket watch gleamed at his hip, the delicate chain glinting in the fractured sunlight.

And when he lifted his chin to finally look at me, his face was familiar.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Davenant.” He took a single step forward, his polished boots pressing into the overgrown grass. He nodded to Dorian. “Mr. Cavendish. I do hope you’ll forgive my lateness.”

Lateness. He spoke like he was expected, like this meeting had been preordained, an inevitability.

Nausea crept up my throat, slow and acidic. The executor said nothing, standing beside him like a ghost, like he was caught between his duty and the dread that covered his face like a mask.

“Archibald Astoria,” He extended a hand.

I forced myself to remain still, even as my breath turned shallow, even as something deep in my ribs screamed to move.

A single ring adorned his left hand, the insignia carved into it so familiar it sent something curling in my chest, something clawing at the edges of my memory.

Had I seen it here, at Evermore? No. I had seen the crest before somewhere, somewhere back home. Before the Rift. Before the cards. Before I had known the truth of it all.

Archibald Astoria tilted his head, watching me study him. “Your mother spoke so highly of you.”

The air left my lungs. I felt Dorian shift closer, but it was as if I had been unmoored, as if my mind had separated from my body and was drifting somewhere else. I was trying to make sense of the shape of the words, the way they fit together in ways they shouldn’t.

“My—” My voice broke. I swallowed hard, forcing steel into my spine. “You knew my mother.”

Astoria’s smile sharpened. “Knew?” He echoed, as if the word was a curiosity. His eyes gleamed. “Why, I still do.”

The executor flinched. Dorian’s hands foolishly searched his pockets, grappling for a weapon he did not have.

Archibald Astoria exhaled through his nose, the kind of sound a man makes when he’s already seen the ending of a story.

His hand dipped into the pocket of his coat.

“Your mother left something for you, you know.” His voice was calm, but I felt the weight beneath it, the slow turning of fate’s wheel.

“I have been waiting a very long time to deliver it.”

My throat tightened. “What?”

He withdrew a single envelope, its edges worn soft with age, the paper yellowed like parchment left too long in the sun. “You’ll need to read it before term begins .” And then, as smooth and damning as the final note in a requiem, Archibald Astoria said, “It concerns your place at Evermore.”