The car groaned up the winding road, headlights slicing through mist. Cassadian Morvent sat pressed against the window, forehead resting on cold glass, his fingers drumming a frantic rhythm against his knee. The rhythm wasn't his own; it belonged to the noise in his skull, the overlapping voices that never left him.
Pathetic. Prove yourself. They'll see you for what you are. Not a Morvent. Not enough. Build. Create. Destroy. Renew.
He pressed his palm to his temple, muttering under his breath until the volume dimmed to a tolerable hum. The driver flinched once, glanced into the rearview mirror, then looked quickly away. Cassadian didn't blame him.
He'd stopped expecting people to understand.
The gates loomed ahead. Iron, carved into curling shapes like frozen serpents. They swung open with a low groan, as though the school itself hesitated before letting him in.
Beyond them rose Nevermore Academy. The spires cut into the darkening sky like knives. Windows flickered with faint light, more watchful than welcoming. Rain slicked the stone until the whole place gleamed like a mausoleum.
Cassadian's chest tightened.
Nevermore. The last place willing to take him.
He told himself that hes fine. That maybe, here, things would change.
But his family's voices rose up, louder than the storm.
``The Morvents are savants, Cassadian. Masters of their minds. No eccentrics. No madmen.Control yourself, or do not come home at all.``
He could still see his father's expression as he said it: a mix of disdain and disappointment, as though Cassadian were a cracked instrument that should have played symphonies. His mother's words were worse, delivered with clinical precision:
``Genius without discipline is waste. We will not accept waste in this family. Either get it under control or you can start looking for a new family.``
They hadn't sent him to Nevermore for his wellbeing. They had sent him to be fixed. Forged into something worthy of the Morvent name.
Cassadian adjusted his tinted glasses, the kind that turned everything into sepia shadows. They weren't for the sun. They were for survival. Eye contact was a floodgate. Look too long, and he drowned in other people's thoughts, their obsessions, their cruelties. The glasses dulled it to a quite humming. It was bearable.
The car slowed to a stop in the courtyard.
Students dotted the stone paths, rows of blue uniforms. Laughter carried across the rain, brittle and sharp. They turned to watch as he stepped out of the car, their whispers rushing toward him before mouths even moved.
That's him. The Morvent boy. The prodigy?No, the lunatic.Hes dangerous. Stay clear. Why does he wear those glasses? Is he Hiding something? I heard he poked someones eye out in his old school!
Cassadian tugged his beanie lower. His jaw tightened. Always the same chorus.
But this time, he pushed back, silently. Not here. Not again. This time, it will be different.
Principal Weems descended the steps with elegance sharpened to a blade. Tall, statuesque, her smile looked hardly real.
"Cassadian Morvent. Welcome to Nevermore."
He didn't answer. Her words weren't meant for him. They were for the audience of students watching. Look how gracious I am, welcoming the cursed boy.
She turned, telling him to follow. She lead the way, her steps echoing against the marble as they entered the grand hall. The air smelled faintly of wood and damp stone. Chandeliers dripped light like candlewax across the walls.
Weems's heels clicked too loudly. Cassadian counted each strike: one, two, three— until the rhythm broke, snagging against his nerves. His fingers twitched. He needed paper. He needed to draw.
"We offer our students the chance to thrive here," Weems said, her tone warm but rehearsed. "You'll find Nevermore is a community where your… abilities can be honed in a supportive environment."
Cassadian's lips twitched faintly. Supportive. He heard her thought beneath the word as clearly as if she'd spoken it: Keep him controlled. Keep the students safe and ofcourse my reputation.
"Privacy," Weems added, stopping before a door at the far end of a quiet corridor. She handed him a key. "I trust you'll keep your… episodes under control."
Her smile didn't falter. But her eyes said Or else.
Cassadian took the key. His hand shook, but not from fear. From the effort of keeping the noise inside.
The door shut behind him with a heavy thud.
For a long moment, Cassadian stood frozen in the threshold, listening to the silence. No footsteps. No whispers he could pin to actual mouths. Just the faint hum of electricity in the walls and the rasp of his own breathing.
The room was bare in a way that unsettled him. A single bed, white sheets too tight. A desk that looked made but unused, its drawers yawning empty. The wardrobe smelled faintly of oak, though no clothes hung inside yet. The whole space felt like it was waiting — like an empty stage before the performance, or a coffin before the body.
Too clean. Too expectant.
Cassadian let his bag drop with a thump. He tore off his beanie and shoved his hair back, his hands shaking harder than he wanted to admit. The tinted glasses pressed heavy against his face, lenses smeared with dust. He thought about taking them off, just for a second of unfiltered sight, but the risk coiled tight in his chest. No. Too dangerous.
He sat on the edge of the bed. It was stiff, the kind of mattress that promised more discipline than comfort. His fingers twitched against the coverlet until the noise in his skull began to climb again.
Worthless. Broken. Control yourself.Draw. Build. Fix. Prove it. Finish it.
He yanked open his bag and pulled out his journal. The leather cover was cracked, its edges fraying from years of use. Inside, the pages were swollen with graphite and ink, dense with lines that sprawled like veins across paper. Machines with wings like birds. Machines with jaws like wolves. Faces he didn't know, but that stared back at him from the paper as if waiting to be named.
He turned to a blank sheet. His hand began to move before he decided what to draw. The sound of the pencil was a frantic whisper, scratching faster and faster until the silence itself seemed to break under it.
The page filled with shapes: spirals, sharp angles, a lattice of interlocking gears. Something that looked almost like an engine, almost like a clock, almost like a cage. None of it made sense. All of it felt inevitable.
When he finally stopped, his breath was ragged. His wrist ached. He blinked at what he'd drawn, trying to place it, trying to understand.
He couldn't remember starting it. He didn't know what it was for.
The voices surged in the vacuum of his confusion.
Build it.Finish it.This is what makes you worthy.Make them proud.
Cassadian pressed his palms hard against his ears, his glasses biting into his skin. "Shut up," he whispered. His voice cracked. "Shut up, shut up, shut up."
But the voices only laughed, a chorus of soundless jeers pressing against the inside of his skull.
He curled forward, journal still open in his lap, his chest heaving. For a few seconds he considered tearing the page out, ripping it into pieces until the lines were meaningless. But his hand wouldn't move.
He couldn't destroy it.
Because part of him — the part that still clung to hope, fragile as a moth's wing — wanted it to mean something. Wanted Nevermore to be the place where these drawings weren't just madness, but proof of what he could become.
Maybe here, he told himself. His breath was shallow, but the thought was steady. Maybe here, things will be different.
He let the words repeat until they drowned out the noise.
Maybe here, he could find a way to control the wisphers.