THE DISCARDED LUNA‘S REVENGE

Chapter Twelve

LYRA’S POV

The tension didn’t leave the room when Gabriel sat back down, it just changed shape. It curdled into something heavy and sharp that pinned me to my leather chair for the remaining forty minutes of the period.

Every time Mr. Harrison paused to click through his digital slides, I could feel the weight of forty legacy students trying to solve the puzzle of my existence. To them, a scholarship student was supposed to be a background prop, like a quiet, shivering reminder of their own superiority. They weren't supposed to drop things. They weren't supposed to draw their attention and they certainly weren't supposed to have Gabriel Jakes personally return a piece of scuffed plastic to their desks.

From the middle tier, Chloe didn't even bother hiding her stare. She turned halfway around in her seat, her perfectly manicured fingers twisting a strand of golden hair as her eyes bored into the front of my desk, trying to read the brand of my shoes, the texture of my skin, anything that would explain why Gabriel had crossed the floor for me.

I ignored her. I picked up the blue pen, my raw fingers tightening around the barrel until the plastic bit into my skin, and forced myself to take notes on the digital whiteboard. My face remained an absolute mask of midwestern indifference, but beneath the mahogany surface of the desk, my knees were still trembling from the sheer drop in my adrenaline.

He saw it, my mind whispered, the realization sending a cold prickle down my spine. He saw the burn. He smelled the ammonia.

When the final dismissal bell rang, the classroom fell into that same eerie, paralyzed silence. Nobody in the upper tiers moved. The scholarship students sat like stone gargoyles, their bags open but untouched, waiting for the elite to clear the runway.

This time, Gabriel didn't linger. He stood up, hooked his leather folio under his arm, and walked straight out the double doors without looking back once. Benny followed half a step behind him, her short dark hair swinging sharply as she cast one brief, unreadable gray glance up toward my row before the heavy oak doors swung shut.

The moment the legacies vanished into the corridor, the room exploded into a frantic, scrambling rush.

"Hey! Transfer!"

I was already halfway down the tier steps, my backpack zipped tight, when Cadence intercepted me near the doorway. Her face was flushed, her tight ponytail practically vibrating with nervous energy as she blocked my path, her two pale shadows hovering right behind her.

"What did I tell you yesterday?" Cadence hissed, her voice a desperate whisper as other scholarship students pushed past us into the hall. "I told you to change your seat! I told you to keep your head down! What the hell was that?"

"It was a dropped pen, Cadence," I said, my voice candy-sweet and entirely cold as I tried to step around her. "It’s a basic law of physics. Objects roll downhill."

"Not in this room they don't!" the pale boy next to her snapped, his hands gripping his backpack straps like a shield. "Gabriel Jakes doesn't pick up trash for level-fours. He doesn't even look at us. You’re drawing a line straight to the stipend registry, Lyra. If the board thinks we’re getting comfortable, they’ll tighten the compliance metrics for the whole tier."

"Then stay away from me," I murmured, leaning in just enough to make Cadence step back a fraction of an inch. "If I’m that dangerous, don't stand in the middle of the hallway talking to me. Go find your corners."

I didn't wait for her response. I pushed past her shoulder, the stiff wool of our identical blazers rubbing together with a harsh, synthetic scratch, and submerged myself into the absolute sea of the main corridor.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of sensory overload and grueling survival mechanics.

By third period, it was time for Advanced European History. The exhaustion was no longer a dull ache, it was a physical weight pressing down on my skull. Every time the teacher spoke about ancient crests and regional boundaries, my mind kept drifting back to that dark iron fur symbol carved into the cafeteria pillar. It felt like a warning track I couldn't quite decode.

When the lunch bell finally released us at noon, I didn't go to the refectory. I couldn't face the copper pillar, and I certainly couldn't face Julian Vance or another round of threats from the valley kids.

Instead, I took my simple brown bag and walked out toward the southern terrace—a massive, stone-paved balcony that overlooked the entire valley basin. Up here, the wind was clean, carrying the faint, crisp scent of pine from the high mountain woods that bordered the campus perimeter.

I sat on the low stone wall, my legs dangling over the edge, looking down at the massive, sprawling network of the valley flats below. From this height, the tenements looked like tiny gray matchboxes, and the massive rail yards where my father used to manage the logistics lines looked like a tangled web of silver threads. The smoke from the industrial district rose in lazy, black columns, dissolving long before it could touch the clean blue sky of the ridge.

"It’s quite a view, isn't it?"

I choked on my bite of apple, my shoulders snapping tight as I turned my head.

Asher Williams was standing five feet away, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his uniform trousers. He wasn't wearing his blazer either, his white shirt was immaculate, the collar unbuttoned by a single, casual notch. He had that same easy, effortless confidence that all the legacy boys carried, but his amber eyes didn't have the cruel, lazy mockery of Julian’s. They were just quiet. Observing.

"I didn't think scholarship students were allowed on the southern terrace," I said, setting the apple down on my brown paper bag, my voice locking into its defensive perimeter line.

"The terrace belongs to the school, Lyra," Asher said, walking closer until he was leaning against the stone wall a few feet from me. He looked down at the valley, his profile sharp against the sunlight. "The rules about who sits where... those aren't in the student handbook. Those are just things people invent because they're afraid of the dark."

"Your friends seem to enjoy inventing them," I countered.

Asher let out a short, quiet laugh—a sound that carried no real humor. "Julian is an i***t. He thinks power is something you use to crush bugs. He doesn't understand that if you press too hard, the bug eventually learns how to bite back."

He turned his head, his eyes dropping to my wrist. I had pulled the sleeve of my oversized blazer down to hide the chemical burn from Mitch’s diner soap, but Asher didn't look at the cloth. He looked at the way my fingers were gripping the edge of the stone wall—white-knuckled, tense, ready to spring.

"You're running yourself ragged," Asher murmured, his voice dropping into a lower, warmer register that felt dangerously close to sympathy. "I saw you in Harrison’s room today. You looked like you hadn't slept since Friday. And that mark on your arm... that’s an industrial cleaner burn, isn't it? My family runs the regional supply chains down in the docks. I know what that stuff smells like."

A cold, heavy panic thudded in my chest. Another one. First it was Gabriel, now Asher. The ridge wasn't just exclusive, it was a magnifying glass. Every single weakness I carried was being broadcasted to the very people I was trying to stay hidden from.

"I have a lot of preparatory work to catch up on," I said, my voice hardening as I stood up, grabbing my brown paper bag. "The Chicago curriculum was different. If you'll excuse me, Mr. Williams, the bell is about to…"

"I'm not trying to trap you, Lyra," Asher interrupted, his voice remaining perfectly calm, perfectly steady as he held up a hand. "I’m offering you a buffer."

I stopped, my boots pausing on the stone tile. "A buffer?"

"Julian is already talking about you," Asher said, his eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, serious intensity. "He didn't like the way you looked at Gabriel yesterday, and he definitely didn't like the way you spoke to him in the refectory. He thinks you're a glitch in the system. If you keep sitting in that center tier alone, operating on two hours of sleep, he’s going to make it his personal mission to break your registry profile."

He stepped closer, his shadow falling over my canvas bag. "There's an empty table near the eastern windows in the library during fifth period. My family funds that wing. Julian won't go near it, and the administration doesn't run compliance checks there. If you need a place to study... a place where nobody is going to watch you breathe... you can use it."

I stared at him, my mind spinning through the metrics. It was a classic ridge play or at least, it felt like one. My father had warned me about the charity of the wealthy. When a conglomerate man offers you a free hand, Lyra, look at what his other hand is holding behind his back.

"Why do you care?" I asked, my voice flat, refusing to soften. "I’m a level-four transfer. My father shovels coal in the low docks. Why does the Williams heir care if Julian Vance breaks my profile?"

Asher looked at me for a long, silent moment, the wind from the woods rustling his dark hair. A strange, fleeting expression passed through his amber eyes—something that looked almost like frustration, or a hidden weight he wasn't allowed to talk about.

"Because I like people who don't bow," he said softly.

He turned back to the stone wall, looking down at the black smoke of the valley flats as the warning bell for fourth period finally echoed through the loudspeakers above us. "Think about it, Lyra. The library wing is quiet. And you're going to need all the quiet you can get before the trimester metrics are locked."

I didn't answer. I turned and walked toward the double doors of the south wing, my heart hammering against my ribs. The pressure was mounting from every side. The low-class students wanted me invisible, Julian wanted me broken, and Asher Williams was offering me a sanctuary that felt exactly like a gilded cage.

And down in the front row, Gabriel Jakes was still watching.