The rain didn't stop. By the fourth day the sky was a bruised slate, clouds sagging with endless water than they could hold. The academy loomed under it, its walls darkened and shining with the downpour."
Sera trudged across the courtyard with her collar pulled tight against her throat. She had not slept more than a handful of hours. The whispers from the mirror gnawed at her dreams, and when she closed her eyes, she felt the cold grip of that hollow reflection dragging her down.
Everywhere she went, she carried the echo: Find us. Free us.
Her hand still bore the faint burn from touching the locked gate in the library. She had wrapped it in a strip of cloth, but beneath the bandage the skin felt alive, pulsing with something that wasn't entirely hers.
Elara noticed at breakfast. "What happened to your hand?"
Sera shrugged, stabbing at the gray porridge with her spoon. "Burned it on a candle."
Elara frowned. "You don't lie very well."
"Good thing I'm not trying."
Elara didn't push. But she watched her closely, eyes thoughtful, as if trying to fit Sera into a puzzle no one else could see.
Classes passed in a haze. Sera wrote nothing, barely listening as instructors droned on about discipline, duty, sacrifice. The words slid off her like water. Her mind was fixed on the whispers, the mark, the lock that had nearly yielded under her touch.
By afternoon, she was restless, pacing the narrow corridor outside Dusk Wing's classrooms. Students moved around her in pairs and groups, laughter sharp as broken glass. They glanced at her but quickly looked away.
The new girl. The cursed one.
Let them whisper, they always did.
She found Rowan leaning against the banister of the main staircase, flipping a coin between his fingers. He looked up as she approached, smirking at her .
"Ah, the girl who can't keep her nose out of forbidden places. How's the hand?"
Sera stiffened. "What do you mean?"
Rowan tilted his head. "Word travels fast. Burn, cut, curse whatever it was, people are saying you touched something you shouldn't have."
"Maybe people should mind their own business."
"Maybe you should make it less interesting." He flipped the coin high, caught it easily. "But then again, that's not really your style, is it?"
Sera glared. "What do you know about the locked section of the library?"
Rowan's grin faded slightly. He pocketed the coin, straightening. "Enough to tell you to leave it alone." "Not good enough."
His gaze sharpened. For a moment, the playful mask dropped, and she saw the edge beneath it. A boy who had been cut by this academy and learned to bleed without showing it.
"You don't understand," he said quietly. "Some doors here stay locked for a reason."
"Then tell me the reason."
He shook his head. "You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me."
But Rowan only smirked again, the wall snapping back into place. "Another time, maybe. If you live that long."
He walked off before she could stop him.
Sera's fists clenched at her sides. She hated riddles. She hated being kept in the dark. But more than anything, she hated the truth gnawing at her: "Rowan's warning wasn't meant to be cruel." He was afraid. And that meant there was something worth finding.
That evening, Elara caught her standing before the cracked mirror again.
"You stare at that thing too much," Elara said, setting her books down. "If you're not careful, it'll start staring back."
Sera's throat tightened. It already does.
But aloud she muttered, "Can't sleep anyway."
Elara studied her, then said softly, "Do you feel it too?"
Sera froze. "Feel what?"
"The… presence. The way the walls breathe, the way the shadows move when you're not looking." Elara's voice was barely a whisper. "The academy isn't just a building. It's… hungry."
Sera's stomach dropped. "How long have you known?"
"Since the first week. I thought I was losing my mind, until I realized I wasn't the only one. Some of us feel it more than others."
Sera's pulse quickened. "And what happens to those people?"
Elara hesitated. "They disappear."
The silence between them was heavy, broken only by the rain against the glass.
Finally, Elara stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"Listen, Sera. If something's marked you, you have to fight it. Don't let it take hold. Promise me."
Sera wanted to laugh, wanted to say she was already fighting. But the bandage on her hand burned as if mocking her.
Instead, she whispered, "I'll try."
That night, the whispers grew louder.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, every nerve raw. The cracked mirror across the room pulsed faintly in the candlelight, as though the shadows within it were breathing.
Her eyelids grew heavy. She drifted in and out of sleep, and then she was standing in the library again, before the iron gate.
The lock glowed faintly red, the crest's thorns writhing like living things.
Sera lifted her hand. The bandage was gone. The mark on her palm shone with a dark light, veins spidering out like roots.
When she touched the lock, it melted away.
The gate swung open, and beyond it yawned a corridor of endless mirrors.
Each one reflected not her, but others—faces pale and hollow, mouths moving silently. Students. Children. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trapped in glass.
Their whispers filled the air. Find us. Free us.
Sera staggered back, her chest tight. She wanted to run, to wake, but the mirrors pulled at her like gravity.
One face pressed close against the glass, eyes wide with terror. A girl in a Blackthorn uniform, hair matted with blood.
Sera recognized her. She had seen her portrait in the main hall, among the academy's "honored dead."
The girl's lips moved, and this time the words were clear.
You're next.
The glass shattered. Shards rained down, slicing her skin, her blood spilling across the floor—
She woke with a scream, bolting upright.
Elara jerked awake too, eyes wide. "Sera? What…."
But Sera could not speak. She clutched her hand, staring at the bandage. Blood had seeped through, fresh and real.
The mark pulsed beneath it, alive.
She was not imagining it anymore.
Blackthorn had claimed her.