The morning light filtered through the diamond-paned windows of their Gothic dorm room, casting geometric shadows across the hardwood floor and striping Silver's narrow bed in pale gold. She sat up slowly, her reconstructed knee protesting the night's stillness with the kind of stiffness that reminded her daily of everything that had changed. Across the room, Americus was already in full preparation mode, humming what sounded like a Broadway show tune while she layered bangles onto her wrists with the precision of someone suiting up for battle.
"Registration day!" Americus declared, spinning toward Silver with enough enthusiasm to power the entire residential college. "The great Sorting Hat ceremony of college destiny. Today we discover whether Yale thinks we're worthy of the classes we actually want or if we'll be stuck in 'Intro to Plants That Won't Kill You' at eight AM."
Silver pulled her oversized Yale hoodie over her head, the fabric soft from multiple washings and large enough to hide the outline of her knee brace. "Feels more like organized chaos and standing in line for hours."
"That's the spirit," Americus laughed, apparently immune to Silver's morning cynicism. "Embrace the bureaucratic nightmare. Make it your friend."
Riley appeared in their doorway right on schedule, looking like she'd actually gotten eight hours of sleep and managed to brush her hair, which Silver was beginning to suspect might be a supernatural ability. She carried a large coffee cup that smelled like salvation and had the kind of calm, collected energy that automatically made everyone around her feel slightly more grounded.
"Ready for the academic hunger games?" Riley asked, taking a sip of what Silver assumed was her second cup of the morning.
Together, they joined the stream of students flowing across Old Campus toward the administrative building that housed registration. The Gothic towers around them seemed to watch the proceedings with ancient amusement, as if they'd witnessed generations of freshmen navigate this same ritual of confusion and hope.
The registration building buzzed with controlled chaos that reminded Silver uncomfortably of competition warm-up areas—the same mixture of excitement, anxiety, and barely contained panic. Long tables stretched across the main hall, each marked with handwritten signs that ranged from perfectly legible to what might have been ancient hieroglyphics. Upperclassmen stationed behind the tables shouted instructions over the din while clipboards clattered and printers churned out schedules with mechanical persistence.
Silver instinctively hung back near the stone walls, letting the crowd flow around her while she observed. She'd learned over the years that sometimes the best strategy was to watch first, then act. Yale was supposedly full of prodigies and overachievers—surely a former figure skater with a reconstructed knee would blend into the background, just another girl in a hoodie trying to figure out her academic future.
Americus had already disappeared into the theater studies line, her voice carrying over the noise as she charmed the student worker manning that particular table. Riley drifted toward the English literature section with the kind of quiet purpose that suggested she'd done her research and knew exactly which courses she needed. Silver finally forced herself to move toward the cluster of tables she'd identified on her campus map, navigating around groups of students comparing schedule printouts and debating professor ratings.
That was when she saw them.
Two girls cutting through the crowd with the kind of effortless confidence that came from years of commanding attention. Their designer jeans fit perfectly, their hair caught the overhead lighting like something from a shampoo commercial, and their laughter had that particular quality that made other students turn to look. Silver's stomach dropped before her brain fully processed why.
Bianca and Bella Mitchelle.
Of all the universities in all the world, they had to end up at hers.
Silver knew them from junior competitions, from training camps, from the pages of skating magazines that had once featured all three of them as "America's Next Generation." The Mitchelle twins had been her biggest rivals in the junior ranks—technically excellent, media-savvy, and absolutely ruthless when it came to psychological warfare disguised as friendly conversation.
They hadn't spotted her yet, too busy scanning the room with the assessing gaze of predators evaluating territory. But Silver knew it was only a matter of time. She ducked her head lower, pulling her hood forward and trying to make herself as unremarkable as possible.
The line shifted, bringing the twins closer to where Silver stood frozen near the sociology table. Bella's gaze swept the crowd with practiced efficiency, the kind of systematic observation that had once helped her identify competitors' weaknesses from across a practice rink. Her eyes landed on Silver's knee brace, visible despite her attempts to hide it, and her perfectly glossed lips curved in an expression that wasn't quite a smile.
Bianca followed her sister's gaze, her own face cycling through recognition, surprise, and something that looked almost like satisfaction. When her expression settled, it was into the kind of polite mask Silver remembered all too well—friendly on the surface, with razors hidden underneath.
They didn't say her name. They didn't need to. The shared glance, the raised eyebrows, the tiny synchronized smirk said everything. Look what the ice dragged in.
Heat rushed up Silver's neck, spreading across her cheeks in a way that made her grateful for the hoodie's shadows. She adjusted her backpack strap with hands that wanted to shake and tugged the hood further forward, wishing she could disappear into the Gothic stonework around them.
"Silver! There you are!" Americus materialized at her elbow like a glittery guardian angel, waving a course catalog with obvious excitement. "They've got Introduction to Costume Design! Can you imagine the sequin possibilities? The artistic expression through strategic bedazzlement?"
Silver tried to respond but found her voice had temporarily abandoned her. Her attention remained fixed on the Mitchelle twins, who had moved closer while pretending to study their own registration materials.
Bianca tilted her head with the kind of calculated curiosity that had once preceded her most devastating competition mind games. She took a deliberate step closer, close enough that Silver could smell her expensive perfume over the general chaos of registration day.
"Excuse me," Bianca said, her voice pitched just loud enough to carry to the students around them. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
Silver's breath caught in her throat. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to disappear back into the crowd before this encounter could develop into the full-scale humiliation she knew was coming. Instead, she forced her expression into something flat and unremarkable, the same neutral mask she'd perfected during media interviews when reporters asked questions she didn't want to answer.
But inside, her heart pounded with the terrible familiarity of recognition. Of course they knew each other. The question was whether Bianca was genuinely uncertain or whether this was the opening move in a game Silver was no longer equipped to play.