EVERMORE ACADEMY

CHAPTER FIVE ( Jenny's pov)

I woke to sunlight already cutting across the room and the strange, disorienting realization that Marlowe was fully dressed, cord tied neatly at her wrist, bag slung over one shoulder, clearly about to leave.

"You're already up?" I said, voice still thick with sleep.

She didn't answer right away — just glanced at me, the way she seemed to glance at everything, like she was reading a sentence she'd already finished somewhere else. "Some of us don't need reminding twice," she said, and was out the door before I could think of anything to say back.

Wren, by contrast, was still half-asleep herself, sitting up with her hair a wild tangle, blinking at me like she was surprised the day had started without her permission.

"She does that every morning," Wren mumbled, nodding vaguely at the space where Marlowe had been. "Up and gone before either of us even open our eyes. Honestly, I don't know how she stands it. Imagine rooming with someone that quiet for a whole year before I got here." She flopped back dramatically against her pillow. "I'd have died of boredom. Actual, literal boredom."

I laughed, picturing it — Wren, who filled every silence within seconds of it starting, stuck for a year with someone who apparently rationed her words like they cost something.

We got dressed and made our way down together, cords tied properly at our left wrists, and I felt a small, private relief when I realized Wren was in my first class too.

She talked the entire walk down, asking about my parents, our house, whether I had siblings, what my mother had said when I got my acceptance letter. I answered as best I could, and somewhere in the middle of it she asked the question I'd been waiting for a chance to ask her back.

"So how'd you know you had magic? Like, the actual moment."

I told her about the glass — standing in the kitchen three weeks ago, reaching up for it on the top shelf, and watching it tip itself toward my hand before my fingers had even touched it. I still hadn't told my parents. I still wasn't sure, telling it out loud, whether I'd imagined the whole thing.

Wren grinned wide, delighted. "Oh, that's a good one. Classic Undetermined moment."

It was only then that I realized I still didn't know hers.

"Wait," I said, as we got close to the classroom door, "what are your powers, anyway? Please don't tell me it's talking."

Wren burst out laughing. "I know I talk a lot, okay, you don't have to put it to my face like that."

"I'm serious! I still don't actually know."

"Gosh," she said, still grinning, "you really haven't figured it out? I thought it was pretty clear yesterday."

"How was it clear? You just kind of — showed up."

"Exactly." She looked far too pleased with herself. "Invisibility."

And then it hit me, the way things sometimes do a beat too late — she really hadn't walked up to me in the courtyard yesterday. She'd just been there, suddenly, right at my shoulder, like she'd arrived without the part where she crossed the space between us.

"Wait," I said slowly, "yesterday, you didn't—"

"Nope." She was clearly enjoying this. "Wasn't gonna say anything, wanted to see how long it'd take you to notice."

"Wren! Your powers are so cool, oh my gosh."

"I know, right?" She grinned, pulling open the classroom door. "Come on, let's get in before Halloway starts glaring at latecomers. I'll tell you how I first found out — it's a great story. Genuinely humiliating. You're going to love it."