The morning air in the St. Aurelia dormitories always felt like a held breath. It was thick with the scent of expensive floor wax and the distant, rhythmic sound of the rowing team on the lake. I sat at my small desk, staring at the plain cardboard box that had been left outside my door. There was no return address. There was no courier slip. There was only my name, written in a cramped, elegant script that made the hair on my arms stand up.
I didn't reach for it immediately. My hands hovered over the cardboard, paralyzed by a memory that still made my skin crawl. Only a month ago, Arabella and her circle of "Saints" had left a similar package. I could still smell the copper tang of the decapitated rat they had tucked inside, lying next to a voodoo doll pinned with silver needles and a note with my name written with red ink. To them, I was a pest to be exterminated. To me, every unsolicited gift was a threat.
I reached for the tape, my fingers trembling. Ever since the Chemistry Invitational, the atmosphere in the school had changed. I was no longer just the scholarship rat. I was a variable that the elite couldn't solve.
The cardboard gave way with a sharp tear. Inside, nestled in layers of yellowed tissue paper that smelled of cedar and rot, lay a heavy velvet case. I opened it, and the breath left my lungs in a painful rush.
It was a brooch. A soaring phoenix made of interlocking gold and rubies, with two small emeralds for eyes.
I didn't need a history book to know what it was. This image was burned into my retina, etched into the very fabric of my identity.
Years ago, in the dim light of her office, Sister Marianne had sat me down. She had shown me a tattered, blood-stained silk blanket, the one I had been wrapped in when I was left on the orphanage steps in 2005. Pinning that silk together had been the twin to this very brooch. Sister Marianne had kept the original safe for my "protection," but I had spent thousands of hours obsessively sketching that phoenix in the margins of my notebooks.
It was the "Eternal Flame," a signature piece belonging to the matriarch of the family I wasn't supposed to remember. It was a Valois heirloom.
Finding this was like finding a piece of a ghost. It was proof that someone out there knew exactly who I was.
The door to my room didn't just open; it slammed against the wall with a violence that made the jewelry rattle in its case. I didn't have to look up to know who it was. The air always turned cold and electric when Dmitri Volkov entered a room.
"Do not touch that," he hissed.
He was across the room in three strides. He didn't ask for permission. He grabbed my wrist, his grip hard enough to bruise, pulling my hand away from the box as if the gold were laced with cyanide. His thumb dug into the sensitive bones of my wrist.
"Dmitri, let go," I snapped, trying to jerk away. "You can't just—"
"My security team was instructed to scan everything," he ignored me, his dark eyes fixed on the brooch with a look of pure loathing. "Someone bypassed them. Someone got to my floor."
"My floor," I corrected, trying to twist free. "And it's mine. It belonged to my mother. It's the first real thing I have of hers that isn't a memory."
Dmitri finally looked at me. His expression was a mask of cold, predatory fury, but beneath it, I saw the frustration that the world did not bend to his will. It was a personal insult to him that this had reached me, in the place he'd secured.
"It is a leash, Isabelle. Someone is telling you that they can reach out and touch you whenever they want. They are playing with you."
"Then let them play," I challenged, leaning forward. "I am tired of hiding. I am tired of you deciding what's safe for me."
"You have no concept of what's safe," he snapped, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "The moment you wear that, you paint a target on your back. And on mine. Do you think I've invested this much time, this many resources, just for you to make a sentimental spectacle of yourself?"
The words landed like a slap. Resources. Investment. I was a project. A volatile asset.
His hand moved from my wrist to the back of my neck. It wasn't a caress. It was a claim of containment. He forced me to look up at him, his face inches from mine. I could smell the faint scent of mint and the metallic tang that always seemed to follow him.
"You survived because they thought you were dead," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a dangerous edge. "The moment you put that on, you are signaling to my father and the Schuylers that the job isn't finished. You are inviting them to come back and do it right this time."
"Maybe that's what I want," I threw back at him. "I want them to see me. I want to see the look on their faces when she realizes the girl they tried to erase is standing right in front of them."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Dmitri's eyes searched mine, looking for a weakness he could exploit to make me submit. This was the core of our war. He wanted to keep me in a gilded box where I was safe and silent. I wanted to burn the box down and use the ashes to paint my name across the sky.
"You are a complication that belongs to me," he stated, as if it were a simple fact. "No one gets to interfere. Not Viktor. Not some phantom from your past. I control the narrative here."
The selfishness of it was breathtaking. This wasn't just about my survival; it was about his dominion. My tragedy was a subplot in his story.
"You are a fool," he said, his voice dropping to a low, guttural growl. "You think this is about pride. This is about blood. My father does not leave loose ends. If I have to lock you in this room myself to keep you from walking into their trap, I will do it."
"You wouldn't dare," I whispered.
"Try me," he countered. "Step foot outside this room wearing that brooch, and I will have you removed from this school before the sun sets. I will take you somewhere where no one can find you. Not even Julien."
The mention of Julien was a low blow. It was a reminder that Dmitri viewed my life as a game of territory. To him, I wasn't a person with a destiny; I was a prize that had to be guarded.
"You don't own me, Dmitri," I said, my voice trembling with a mix of anger and something darker, something that felt like a terrifying attraction to his intensity. "You are not my protector. You are just another person trying to take away my name."
"I own your safety," he countered. "Which means I own your choices."
Dmitri's grip tightened on the back of my neck for a second before he abruptly let go. He stood up, smoothing the front of his expensive blazer as if the argument hadn't just shredded the air between us.
"I am the only reason you are still breathing," he said, his voice returning to that chilling, clinical calm. "The package has been confiscated. I'll have my team trace the origin."
"You can't take it!" I stood up, reaching for the velvet case, but he was faster. He snatched the box off the desk and tucked it into his pocket.
"I can," he said, walking toward the door. "And I will. You want freedom, Isabelle? Freedom is a luxury for the living. As long as you are under my watch, you will stay alive. Even if you hate me for it."
"I hate you for it."
A flicker of something crossed his face,not hurt, but annoyance, as if my hatred was just another rebellious variable he'd have to factor into his calculations. "Hate is preferable to dead. And much simpler to manage. Stay in your room today. I'll have meals sent up."
He didn't wait for my response. He walked out, the heavy oak door closing with a soft, definitive click. He hadn't slammed it. He was too in control for that. He'd simply removed the stimulus and expected the organism to comply.
I sank back into my chair, my heart hammering against my ribs. My room felt smaller now. The scent of cedar and rot lingered in the air, a reminder of the gift that had been stolen twice. The phantom ache in my wrist was a testament to his control. The empty space on the desk, a testament to his theft. He saw my history, my proof of identity, as a mere tactical risk. An obstacle to his plan.
I looked at my reflection in the window. I looked like a Valois. I had the eyes, the chin, the stubborn set of the shoulders.
But as I watched Dmitri's dark figure cross the courtyard below, flanked by two security guards, I realized the truth.
The war for my identity wasn't just being fought against the people who burned my house down. It was being fought against the boy who wanted to own the ruins.
I stood up and walked to the mirror, touching the jagged scar on my palm.
Dmitri thought he had taken my weapon when he took that brooch. He was wrong. He had only given me a reason to fight harder.
I didn't need a gold phoenix to remind me who I was. I was the fire that survived. And if Dmitri Volkov thought he could be my jailer, he was about to learn that you can't cage a flame without getting burned.
I opened my laptop and began to type. If the shadows wanted to play, I would give them a show. I would find out who sent that package, and I would do it without the Demon Prince's permission.
The "Rat" of St. Aurelia was done hiding. It was time for the Sovereign to start her reign, even if she had to crawl through the dirt to reach the throne.
Outside, the bells of the chapel began to ring, signaling the start of the first period. I grabbed my bag and headed not for the safety of my room, but for the crowded hallway.
My wrist still ached where Dmitri had grabbed me, a phantom pressure that reminded me of his obsession.
It wasn't love. It was a haunting. And as I stepped into the crowded hallway, I knew that the "Poisoned Gift" was only the beginning. The real poison was the way my heart beat faster every time he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth destroying.
I moved through the sea of blue blazers and silk ties, a ghost in the machine. Let him see me. Let him try to command a river of whispers. Let him learn that the most dangerous poison wasn't in the gift,it was in the gilded assumption of ownership.
By the time I reached the library, my plan was already forming. Dmitri could have the brooch. He could have the security teams. But he didn't have my mind. And in the world of the elite, information was the only currency that mattered.
I would find the person who sent that phoenix. And when I did, I would make sure they knew that the last Valois didn't just remember the past. She was coming to collect the interest on everything they owed her.