The school day began as any other, yet beneath its familiar routine, something moved in the shadows. Gabriel felt it in the way students whispered softer than usual, as though a hush had settled over them all. And at the center of that stillness sat Gemma, her silence spreading like frost over the room.
Miss Aveline glided into the classroom. Her steps were unhurried, her smile delicate, but her eyes—those pale, searching eyes—never strayed from Gemma.
"Today," she said, chalk whispering across the board, "we will explore words unspoken."
She wrote in looping letters:
Verba Tenebris. Words of Darkness.
A murmur rippled through the students. Aveline turned, her gaze sweeping the room until it landed on Gemma.
"Some truths," she continued softly, "are too heavy for the tongue. They bury themselves in silence… until silence becomes the loudest voice of all."
The lesson meandered through parables and Latin phrases, but everything seemed to circle back to one theme: guilt, confession, silence. She never called on Gemma directly, yet every sentence felt aimed like a blade at her still figure.
Gabriel shifted in his seat, uneasy. Aveline was playing a game, and Gemma—stone-faced, unmoving Gemma—was her chosen board.
---
At lunch, Gabriel caught sight of him again.
The white-haired young man stood just beyond the school gates, leaning against the iron bars as if he had all the time in the world. His eyes followed Gemma with an intensity that made Gabriel's stomach twist. Yet when Aveline stepped into the courtyard, the young man's gaze flicked to her.
Not warmth. Not recognition. Something colder. Watching her as much as Gemma.
And then he was gone, slipping into the crowd before Gabriel could call out.
---
The hours stretched on. Aveline continued her quiet campaign, weaving invisible nets around Gemma with every carefully chosen word. Meanwhile, whispers and slips of paper surfaced in odd corners of the school—cryptic lines in Latin, half-erased before teachers could see. Gabriel found one stuffed between the pages of his own book:
Silentium est clavis.
Silence is the key.
His hands trembled as he folded it away.
---
Mia clung to Gemma more than ever. She said nothing, asked nothing, but her small body shadowed her cousin's every step. When Gemma sat, Mia sat beside her. When Gemma walked, Mia hurried at her side. To others, it looked like childish attachment. To Gabriel, it looked like fear.
As though Mia sensed something tightening around Gemma—something she couldn't stop.
---
That night, the manipulators moved in their separate spaces.
Miss Aveline sat by lamplight, a thin smile curving her lips as she whispered to the empty air.
"She's close," she murmured. "The silence will break soon."
Across town, the white-haired young man sat at a desk, scrawling the same Latin phrase again and again across torn pages. His hand was steady, his eyes empty.
Silentium est clavis.
Silence is the key.
Two watchers. Two manipulators. Two storms circling Gemma, waiting for the moment she would finally shatter.