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Marchmain Academy, when Lark arrived for her first term, felt like a painted world. Especially in autumn, with the trees all gold and scarlet and the scent of woodsmoke in the air. Her single dormitory room overlooked a wide green space of lawn bordered on one side by a sprawling grove of elms.

Those woods were one of the things Lark missed the most, along with the seashore and, of course, her brothers. She tried to write to them, using stationery bought from the school bookstore with Marchmain Academy and an inked drawing of the school’s main building printed on it.

But though there were many things about the city that she could tell them she loved—her little room with its eggshell-colored walls, walking in the courtyard, the pastries from the café district near the river—there was so much she didn’t love, as well.

Marchmain hosted a week of orientation parties, but Lark, fearing she would be behind the other students who had all come up from the prestigious schools in Gardemuir, spent her time in the library instead.

She passed her days with a pile of books, trying to read as many texts from the first-year syllabus as she could.

Lark was the only student from Verse. The others were from Astera or similar busy southern towns: all sandstone buildings, factory smoke, and wide, paved streets.

Everything felt so different from her classes in the one-room village school.

She sat quietly at her desk, too shy to cut in and add her voice to the group discussions.

The other girls offered their thoughts and ideas so confidently, even when they hadn’t read the assigned text.

Afterward, as the room emptied, she listened to their easy chatter, while drawing curlicues in the margins of her notebook and wishing she was brave enough to join their conversations.

These moments were the worst, because then she would think about Alastair and Camille.

Their trio, and the time after her thirteenth birthday, when she and Alastair became new, tentative friends.

She missed them even more than she missed her brothers.

At least she could send letters to Henry and Oberon.

But Camille’s strict, secluded boarding school in Trieste allowed no mail except from family members.

And Alastair was traveling with his father, visiting so many places that there was no reliable address for Lark to use.

They wouldn’t be able to write to each other until he and Marcus were back in Verse.

The first month of term was celebrated with a special lunch: sandwiches made with strawberry jam, platters of iced cakes, an enormous silver samovar of tea.

Lark stood in the refectory with her tray.

The noise of eager voices and the clink of flatware filled the room, a cacophony of sound.

Her cheeks were hot as she walked around the large dining table, searching for a free place.

She was just about to sit down in an empty chair when the girl beside it laid her hand on the seat with an apologetic smile. “I’m saving it for my friend. Sorry.”

“That’s all right,” Lark murmured. She felt suddenly like everyone in the room was staring at her.

Clutching her tray, she slipped out through the side door into the cloister between the refectory and the white-walled commons building.

The door closed, dampening the noise of voices, and she sat on the edge of a low stone wall with a sigh.

As she ate small bites from her strawberry jam sandwich and sipped at her cup of tea, she took out her notes from that morning’s Art Appreciation class. With a newly sharpened pencil, she diagrammed a golden ratio over a photostat copy of Ottavio Caedmon’s Annabel by the Sea .

Her plate was empty by the time the bell in the clocktower rang, chiming out notes as delicate as the autumn sunlight that glazed the building’s sandstone walls. Lark returned her tray to the refectory and tucked her notes back into her satchel. Then she set out for her next class.

Despite her awkwardness at lunch, excitement hummed in her chest as she made her way to the seminar room. This class was one she had looked forward to ever since she enrolled. Gallery Practical—where students spent an hour in the city gallery, a stately building on the same block as Marchmain.

This was where Caedmon’s mural The Dusk of the Gods was housed. She was going to see it, in person, for the very first time.

As she passed through the ivy-fringed gate of Marchmain’s grounds and out onto the tree-lined sidewalk, it no longer mattered that she was homesick.

That she was awkward and lonely. Soon, she would be standing before Ottavio Caedmon’s most famous work, close enough to see the individual brushstrokes.

She squirmed impatiently in her seat through the beginning seminar, and when the students were dismissed into the main halls of the gallery, she almost ran out of the room.

The wing that housed the mural had been designed by a visiting architect, with a glossy parquet floor and an entire wall of shining glass.

Sunlight filtered in, turning everything liquid and brilliant.

The mural came into sight. Lark faltered to a stop, her mouth falling open in a silent gasp.

The Dusk of the Gods filled an entire wall, floor to ceiling, depicting a scene of all the older gods retreating to the chthonic realm. They slipped through a forest, shifting from forms that were almost human to other, ethereal shapes. It was sprawling and magnificent. Lark could hardly breathe.

She approached the mural with slow, reverent steps, then sank down onto a wooden bench that was positioned before it.

Her notebook was in her lap, her pen clutched tightly in her fingers.

But she made no move to write any notes or sketch any details.

All she could do was sit and stare at the trees, the ocean, the departing gods.

It was so beautiful she wanted to cry.

Footsteps interrupted her reverie. She turned as another student entered the wing, a tall girl Lark recognized from some of her other classes.

She had arched, delicate brows and the elegant bearing of a princess in exile.

Her long ash-brown hair was swept up in a ribboned barrette, and her heeled shoes clicked pleasantly on the floor as she crossed the room.

Lark remembered a teacher calling the girl’s name for attendance. Damson Sinclair. She remembered Damson’s voice, rich as liquor, replying Here .

Damson reached into her leather satchel and took out a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. She put them on, then came to stand beside the bench where Lark was sitting. With her arms folded, she examined the mural. Her mouth, painted in berry-red lip stain, curved up into a slow, appreciative smile.

After a long moment, she seated herself smoothly on the opposite end of the bench. Her ribboned ponytail draped silkily over her shoulder as she turned to Lark. “You’re from Verse, aren’t you? We’re in the same dorm; I read your introduction on the little sheet they passed around.”

Lark thought of the introduction sheet, which had lain forgotten on her desk as she spent her days in the library. Shyly, she nodded. “Yes, I’m from Verse.”

Damson looked at her for a moment, examining Lark in the same manner as she had the mural. Then she tipped her chin toward the line of painted gods. “Which one is yours?”

Lark shifted uncertainly on the bench. Most people from Gardemuir followed the Canticle. In lessons, when the other students discussed Caedmon’s paintings of the older gods, they had spoken of them like a provincial folktale. Something to be appreciated in a gallery but not worshipped.

And now, with this elegant, alluring girl beside her, Lark was afraid that Damson would think her foolish, so obviously out of her depth in this sophisticated place. But Damson only smiled encouragingly as she waited for Lark’s answer.

Finally, emboldened, Lark pointed out a figure near the end of the procession. “That one is ours. Therion.”

In the mural, Therion was painted in his transition from man to swan.

Outlined against the juniper-dark trees, his profile was as regal as a carved statue, with an aquiline nose and a proud jaw.

He gazed ahead with eyes as bright as amber, his outstretched arm transforming into a broad, pale-feathered wing.

Damson leaned back on her elbows, eyes keen behind her glasses. Her smile widened into an earnest grin. “Therion,” she repeated.

Lark bit her lip. It made her feel heated and shivery all at once to hear Damson speak the name of the god her family honored in such a wistful, dreamy tone.

Quietly, she said, “I’ve always liked the way Caedmon paints him best.”

“Oh, I agree,” Damson laughed. “He’s very handsome. This decides it; Ottavio Caedmon is my favorite painter.”

“Mine, too,” Lark said, and she couldn’t help but laugh as well.

As they walked together to their next class, Damson looped her arm through Lark’s elbow.

Side by side, they took the longer way back to Marchmain, following a cobblestone avenue that led past the river.

The water was the color of strong tea and the sound of it lapping against the sides of the canal always stirred a pang of homesickness in Lark’s chest.

The sleek, calm river was nothing like the wild ocean, but it reminded her of the way the tide would sometimes rise against the breakwater behind her house, pooling in the arbor beneath the wisteria.

She found herself thinking of Alastair, because that was where they had last spoken.

The ache of how much she missed him rose up suddenly, like she had pressed down on a bruise.

When they had met in the arbor that night, it had felt like it would be an eternity until they were together again.

Lark’s suitcase was already packed for the next morning’s train to Astera; Alastair was leaving the following night with his father to sail across the North Sea.

Before they parted, Lark had thrown her arms around him in an impulsive hug.

She felt Alastair’s cheek against hers, the stutter of his breath, the warmth of his skin through his linen shirt.

His hands briefly caught hold of her waist, a hesitant touch.

But then he winced, as though her closeness had hurt him.

They stumbled apart. She looked at him, concerned, but could see nothing amiss.

“I have to go,” he said, and his cheeks were flushed. “But I’ll write to you when Father and I are home again.”

Lark could still remember the press of Alastair’s hand against her side, the heat of his palm through the fabric of her blouse.

It made her feel fragile and solemn, and she knew if she lingered too much on this memory, she would start to cry.

With effort, she drew herself back to the present.

She was here now, at Marchmain, with Damson beside her and the autumn sunlight dappling their shoulders.

As they walked, Lark began to catalog all the similarities between them both.

Their shared love for Caedmon, the length of their hair, how they wore the same style of woolen skirts.

They were only the broadest strokes of likeness, but it stirred a slow, pleased warmth in Lark’s chest. For the first time since she arrived at the academy, she didn’t feel so alone.

Damson shook back her ponytail. In the sunlight, her ashen hair gleamed like polished silver. Smiling, she cast Lark a guarded look from beneath her lashes. “You know, I was born in Verse.”

Lark gazed at her, startled by this new fact. “Really? Which part?”

Damson was so self-assured, and she seemed so at home in the city. Perhaps that was part of her magic, an ability to exist without the awkward solitude that had dogged Lark’s first weeks at school.

“Near Clovendoe. But my parents moved to the city when I was born. They both died when I was very young; I grew up with my grandmother.”

Clovendoe was a settlement to the south, close to the border of Gardemuir.

It was far away from Lark’s peninsula, and she had never been there.

But in this moment, it felt as though she and Damson were practically neighbors.

“I’m sorry for your loss. My parents died when I was younger, too. I live with my older brothers.”

Damson squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry for your loss, too. Two Verse orphan girls—we’ll have to stick together.”

Lark stared down at the path, at her leather lace-up shoes beside Damson’s polished loafers.

She thought of painting her own lips with berry stain; she liked Damson so much that she almost wanted to be her.

It was as though she had looked into an enchanted tide pool and the shimmering reflection had become another girl who was made especially to be her friend.

Emboldened, she laid her hand over Damson’s and offered her a tentative smile. “Yes, we will. I promise.”