Page 36

THIRTY-FIVE

FREYA

I sat down under the ash tree, staring at my hands. The small box of pills resting in them. My eyes traced the scars along my skin, and silent tears slipped down my cheeks.

I didn’t want to lose the one thing that had given me so much to live for.

Was this why my mom stayed with Dad? Taking all of his beatings because, somehow, he made her feel like she was more than she was? I had promised myself I’d never be like her, that I’d rather be alone than with a man who raised a hand to me. But Lucius wasn’t that kind of man.

He can’t be, right?

Had Dad been different before, nice to Mom? Or had he always been the kind of man who found power in hurting women?

I hadn’t seen him since I was eight, and I didn’t miss him. But I hated that I had no father. Maybe that’s why I never accepted Dean, no matter how hard he tried. Mom always had a habit of choosing the wrong men, but Dean wasn’t like them. And yet, I had treated him like he was.

Ava and Blue walked toward me from their houses. Before they could get too close, I tucked the box with pills into my blazer pocket and pulled down my sleeves, hiding the scars.

“Hey, you okay?” Ava asked, settling beside me.

“Yeah.” I wiped my tears quickly. “Did you talk to Stella? Is she waiting?”

“She is,” Ava said as she stood up. “She’s in her room now.”

Blue didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, her eyes lingering. Then, as I got up, she slipped her arm under mine and rested her head against my shoulder. Like she knew.

Walking to the House of Corvu s felt like stepping into Adeline’s memories. I saw her in the places she had stood, the spots where she had laughed with friends, where she had read alone. The places where she had smiled, where she had looked lost in her thoughts. It felt like I was walking the path she was meant to take, following in the steps she never got to.

As we approached Stella’s room, Blue suddenly froze. Her body stiffened, her breath hitching as she looked at us both.

“This was her bedroom,” she whispered, stopping in place. “I—I can’t go in there.” She crouched down, her breathing turning fast and uneven.

I stepped closer, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Do you need a minute?”

“More like a year,” she exhaled, forcing herself to stand. Her hands trembled at her sides. “I didn’t know Stella was in Adeline’s room.”

The air shifted, turning cold, and a sharp gust of wind swept past us, and suddenly, our breaths were visible in the air. I turned to Ava, she felt it, too. Her fingers curled around the doorknob, but before she could turn it, the door creaked open on its own.

“Stella?” Ava called out, stepping inside.

The room was a single dorm overlooking the Blackburn Woods. A bed was pushed against the left wall, and next to it, a bathroom door stood slightly ajar. As we moved deeper inside, water spilled out from the bathroom, pooling onto the floor.

A tightness gripped my chest. Dread twisted in my stomach as my thoughts raced toward the worst possible outcome. Before I could move, Ava rushed ahead, disappearing into the bathroom.

A paper boat floated in the overflowing bathtub.

Ava shut off the water and scooped the boat into her hands. Unfolding it, she read the message aloud, her voice breaking:

At the bottom, a tic-tac-toe grid is marked with A and O.

“No,” she gasped, the paper slipping from her fingers. “They fucking took her.”

Panic hit her all at once. She spun in circles, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her back hit the wall, and she slid down, her knees folding up as she shook her head over and over.

“She can’t be gone,” she whispered. “She can’t.”

I rushed to her side, gripping her hands. “We have to tell someone. We have to find her.”

She didn’t hear me. My voice didn’t reach her at all. Tears ran down her face, her body frozen in place. I shook her gently, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t move.

I understood that feeling when someone is just gone , and you don’t know if they’ll ever come back. And worse, when the fear takes over when you’re terrified, they never will. It consumes you, swallows you whole, and suddenly, you aren’t the same person anymore.

Blue stepped inside, her hands shaking. And here she had lost someone. She walked over to the sink, holding onto its edges as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. Her reflection stared back at her, eyes wide, chest rising and falling unevenly.

She was so close that her breath fogged the mirror.

Slowly, words began to appear in the mist.

I stood up, watching as Blue leaned in closer to the mirror. She exhaled against the mirror, and as the fog spread, letters and numbers slowly showed.

“NN104594.”

Beneath it, a star and an X.

I read it aloud. Blue turned to me, frowning. “That doesn’t make sense. What is it?”

Ava, still lost, pushed herself up from the floor. Her voice broke as he spoke. “Coordinates.”

She wiped her tears from her face and stepped closer. “Is there anything else?”

“Just the X and the star,” Blue muttered, staring at the mirror.

Ava’s breath hitched. “She buried something there. And I know exactly where this is.”

Without another word, she bent down, grabbed the folded paper Stella had left behind, and straightened her spine. Then she walked out, moving faster.

“Ava—“ I called after her, stepping forward. “We have to tell someone.”

“Who?” she snapped, turning around. “This academy is so fucking corrupt, I wouldn’t even be surprised if A and O were professors.”

Blue looked at me, then at Ava, carefully approaching her. “Stella kept everything on her laptop. Maybe—“

“No,” Ava cut her off. “Stella was smart. She wouldn’t keep what she found there. She wanted it safe. And if they took her before she could put the pieces together…” Her throat tightened. “That means she finally figured out who did it.”

Blue exhaled sharply, raising her hands in surrender. “Okay. Let’s dig up whatever she buried.”

I turned back to the mirror, staring at the message Stella left behind. Then, with my sleeve, I wiped it away.

“Just in case.”

Before I could step out, Blue’s phone rang. She lifted it to her ear.

“Hey.” A short pause. Then, “Tonight? Okay. Bye.”

She lowered the phone and turned to us. “It was Cassius. He wants to see us all at Luna’s office tonight.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Of course, that bitch wants to see us.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Whoa. Did something happen?”

I sighed, rubbing my face with my hand. “She told me to leave Lucius.” Then I moved closer to Ava, who was still struggling to hold on and rested my head on her shoulder. “But Stella is what’s important now. We have to find her.”

Blue threw her hands up in surrender again, before following us out of the room.

Rain poured over Blackthorn, soaking the earth as we traded books and classrooms for a graveyard and a shovel. Following the coordinates Stella left us, Ava and I made our way through the small clearing behind Blackburn Woods, near the Lochen Lake trails.

A forgotten graveyard with five crosses stood in the overgrown grass, but only one was shaped like an X, the wood crooked where the cross had fallen.

Blue stayed in Blackthorn, searching our dormitory for any messages that might hint where Stella was taken. Meanwhile, Ava and I took off our jackets, left only in shirts and skirts, and began digging. The damp earth stuck to our hands and knees as we shoveled, breathing hard in the cold night air.

“Bitch, dig deeper,” Ava snapped, her face streaked with dirt.

“I’m trying,” I gritted out, shoving the shovel down harder.

Thud.

Metal struck something solid.

Ava froze. “What if it’s a body?” she whispered, her British accent making it sound even more ominous.

I swallowed hard. Please don’t let it be Stella. I didn’t know if I could handle that. Instead of answering, I silenced her with a sharp “Shh.”

My fingers tightened around the wooden handle as I poked at whatever was buried. I slowly brushed away the loose dirt until a rusted metal box surfaced.

Thank God. Just a box.

Ava yelped and scrambled back as a worm wriggled free from the soil. “Bitch, open it. I can’t.”

Suppressing a sigh, I knelt, my fingers trembling over the latch. I tried not to think about what I might find inside. With a deep breath, I unfastened it and lifted the lid.

Inside was a voice recorder and a stack of yellowed papers.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I hesitated, then picked up the recorder. My hands shook as I pressed play.

Static crackled. Then, a fragile voice spoke out.

“This is… uhmm… this is Adeline Ravenshaw… and I am afraid.”

A sharp intake of breath. A muffled sob.

“Someone has been following me. For days now…”

Another pause. Then, barely audible, “Someone’s been leaving me notes. Notes only I would understand. It’s like they know what’s in my head, and I am afraid.”

A shaky sigh.

“I am afraid for my sister. For Jack.” Her voice cracked. “They know about Jack.”

A sudden crash of a glass shattering was in the background, and a chair scraped against the floor.

Adeline gasped. Then, after a beat of silence, she said, “You fucking scared me, Hector. What are you doing here?”

Ava and I locked eyes, hands trembling over the letters between our fingers.

Out of nowhere, we could hear cracks of branches and slow footsteps.

Getting close. Too close.

“Hide, quickly,” Ava hissed, yanking me back.

I hurried to gather the letters and the recorder, crumpling them in my grip as we crouched behind a weathered stone angel. His wings are spread wide, and a star is engraved at the base. And at the edge of the cemetery, a woman in a red coat appeared.

She moved eerily slowly, her dark hair falling beneath her hood. She was wearing jeans and a white top, but what caught my eye was what she was carrying in her right hand. An axe.

Dragging it along the gravel path, she looked around, scanning the tombstones.

Then she stopped.

Tilting her head.

Listening.

When we shifted, barely a twitch, she giggled with a sharp, high-pitched sound that sent a chill down my spine.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The hood hid her face, but she was getting closer. So much closer.

Ava and I exchanged a single look before we decided our only option was to run, and we did, as fast as we could.

The woman shrieked with laughter. “Run, run, run! This bitch will have fun!”

She ran after us.

The axe scraped the ground as she chased us, her voice almost too high, like it wasn’t real. She was disguising her voice.

The ringing in my ears had become deafening. My legs were on fire as we made our way through the forest, and the branches were whipping my skin.

Behind me, Ava was sobbing, furiously wiping her tears as she ran.

And I, I was terrified.

We were so close to finding the truth.

And whoever this was, whoever they were, they were always one step ahead.