Kai:
Midday at Ashwyck is always dim, even with the sun overhead. The windows in Isadora’s scriptorium turn every beam of light into grey-green daggers; dust moves through them like pale ghosts. I’m the only one here. Everyone else is in class, doing the usual dance of power and posture.
I should be in class too.
But I’m not.
My eyes burn from sleeplessness. The book under my hands blurs for a second before coming back into focus. I can smell her still — Isadora’s perfume, faint but clinging to the shelves from how often she lingers here. When she’s not in her bed or haunting the shadow cloaked academy halls, she’s here, in the maze of parchment and ink, reading like she’s trying to swallow the world whole.
My hands curl tighter on the book. The truth presses against my teeth, but I
