Three weeks at Westbridge Academy can feel like an eternity, especially when the static of a fallen empire still crackles through the hallways.
By mid-May, the gothic stone arches were choked with blooming wisteria, its heavy violet petals falling over the flagstones like quiet confetti. The campus had settled into a strange, fractured routine. Vicente Tavares was out on substantial bail, bunkered in his Manhattan penthouse with a legal team attempting to contain the fallout from the Municipal Fraud Division, but his shadow on Westbridge was gone. The board had scrubbed his name from the newly erected science annex, replacing it with a sterile bronze plaque dedicated to "Academic Excellence."
The snide comments in the cafeteria didn't stop overnight, but they shifted in tone. The rich ki
