The morning carried an unease no one could name. A fog pressed low over the schoolyard, wrapping the walls in a silence that felt too deliberate. Students whispered about Zoë's absence, about the notes, about the strange substitute teacher whose pale eyes seemed to strip them bare.
But the school wasn't watching them today. It was watching its doors.
At home, Gabriel had noticed the white-haired young man again—never too close, never too far. Always on the other side of the street, always with that faint smile that said he knew things Gabriel didn't. A black feather had been left on their doorstep, pressed into the wood as though it had grown there overnight. Gabriel pocketed it, unsure if it was a warning or a promise.
By midday, the true disturbance arrived. A car—foreign, sleek, polished like glass—pulled into the school's front lot. Out stepped a man whose presence alone demanded attention. Taller than most, handsome enough to silence the teachers lingering at the window, his sharp suit seemed almost wrong against the gray sky. His hair was dark, his eyes even darker, carrying the kind of gaze that could make someone forget their own name.
He did not look at the classrooms. He walked straight to Principals office.
The air in Principal Morgan's office was heavy with unease,
George stood near the window, hands tucked in his coat pockets, his shadow stretched long against the floor. His gaze sharpened when Miss Aveline entered, heels clicking like daggers against marble. She stopped just a few steps away, lips curving into that faint, poisonous smile she always wore when she thought herself untouchable.
"Still haunting this place, George?" Aveline's voice was silk edged with venom. "I thought even you would've learned when to let go."
His jaw flexed. "Funny. I thought the school would've learned not to hire vipers to teach children."
Before her smirk could deepen, the office door opened again. A stranger stepped inside. Tall, striking, with hair as dark as ink and eyes too sharp to belong to anyone ordinary. He was foreign—his accent gave it away when he spoke.
"I'm here for Gemma," he said simply, his tone carrying the weight of someone used to being obeyed.
The name cracked the air like a whip.
Aveline's expression flickered—annoyance, curiosity, hunger. "Gemma is… complicated. Not exactly someone you can request as though she were an item on a shelf."
The foreigner turned, his eyes lingering on her as if measuring her worth. "Still guarding broken things, Aveline? How tiresome."
Aveline stepped between him and the desk, her pale fingers curling against the wood. "She is not for you. Not yet. If you so much as breathe near her, you'll find the cost heavier than you remember."
The visitor's smile was slight but cutting. "Complications don't concern me. I came a long way. I intend to see her."
George shifted, his gaze landing on the stranger with ice-cold precision. "You don't intend anything here. Not with her."
For a heartbeat, all three stood caught in a silent war, words coiling in the air like snakes.
The visitor tilted his head, amused. "Protective, aren't we? You all guard her as though she were some priceless relic."
George's lips curved into a grim half-smile. "Relic? No. She's my princess. And it seems the whole damned world is hooked on her."
The words landed like a strike, final and sharp. George turned his back on both of them, leaving the office thick with hostility—Aveline seething, the visitor smiling like a man who had just seen a game worth playing.