Isadora:
All I wanted was quiet. To be alone.
After everything today—Loralie’s incessant cheer, Professor Malric’s dangerous insinuations, Rhett’s unbearable smoldering heat—I needed silence like a wound needed air. Open. Honest. Raw.
The moon was full, swollen and pale as bone. It followed me as I wandered without direction, letting my boots echo against the worn cobblestones of Ashwyck’s ancient paths. The night was colder here, heavier. Like the campus had taken a breath and hadn’t exhaled.
Past the bell tower with its nearly silent chimes. Past the conservatory where shadows clung to the glass. Past the enchanted hedge maze, whispering secrets only madmen or moths would chase.
I found it.
A graveyard.
Because of course the school for the damned came with its own necropolis.
The
