Isadora:
The storm had been building all day.
I felt it in my bones long before the first thunderhead crawled across the sky, thick and bruised with darkness. It pressed against the Academy like a beast prowling at the gates, every gust of wind rattling the ancient windows, every drop of rain whispering across the slate roof like fingertips. The air inside the halls was heavy, metallic, as if the stones themselves remembered blood.
By nightfall, the storm was no longer outside—it was inside me.
My veins hummed with electricity. Shadows clung tighter than usual, curling around my ankles when I walked the corridors, licking up the walls as though eager to escape. Every flicker of candlelight bent strangely in my direction, flames bending low like courtiers before a queen they hadn’t yet
