Isadora:
I had missed a whole class, and the weight of it pressed against my shoulders like armor I hadn’t asked for. The hallways of Ashwyck Academy stretched before me as I exited the Royals Lounge, long and shadowed, their stone floors echoing the click of my boots with every step. The air smelled faintly of wet stone and old parchment, a mixture that should have been comforting but felt like a warning instead. Every turn of the corner, every whisper of a door opening, reminded me how utterly… exposed I was.
I needed some semblance of normalcy, some fragment of mundane life in this twisted castle of the damned. The closest thing I could think of was lunch with Loralie. She the lighthouse in this never-ending storm—effervescent, impossibly bright, and just a little too interested in my
