EVERMORE ACADEMY

CHAPTER FOUR (Jenny's pov)

I unpacked slowly, mostly because there wasn't much to unpack, and partly because it gave me something to do with my hands while my mind kept turning over everything Instructor Voss had said in the hall.

My side of the room was the last of the three — the bed nearest the window, already made with the kind of precision that suggested the school had done it, not left it to chance. I hung my two spare uniforms in the wardrobe, lined my books along the shelf above the nightstand, and set the black ribbon on top of the stack, where I'd see it first thing in the morning.

The rules had felt strange at first — cord on the left wrist only, doors locking themselves at nine, the warning about the east colonnade — but the more I sat with it, the more I told myself it made sense, in its own way. It was a school of magic. What had I actually expected? Neat rows of desks and ordinary bells? Of course the rules would be a little unusual. I just hadn't had time yet to learn why — only that there was a why, and everyone around me already seemed to know it.

Wren, for her part, treated all of it like weather. She'd changed into pajamas covered in small embroidered moons, brushed her hair out at the little vanity by her bed, and kept up a stream of commentary the whole time — which professors gave the most homework, which stairwell shortcut actually saved time and which one just claimed to, a long and only partially coherent story about a boy who'd once tried to sneak a familiar into the dining hall.

Marlowe didn't come back before lights-out. Her side of the room stayed exactly as it had been — curtain half-drawn, candle unlit, books in their perfect column — and I found myself glancing at her bed more than I meant to.

"Does she always disappear like that?" I asked, when Wren finally paused for breath.

"Pretty much." Wren didn't look up from braiding her hair. "She comes back. She's just quiet. Some people are like that here — you'll meet all kinds once classes really start."

I lay back against my pillow once the lights were low, listening to Wren's voice trail off into something sleepier, and let my mind wander over the two of them. I still didn't know what either of them could actually do — what their powers were, what made a cord settle into gold, or pale, or whatever color mine would eventually become. Wren talked so much about everything except that.

I decided, drowsily, that I'd ask her properly in the morning. Straightforward question, straightforward answer — that seemed like the easiest way to finally understand how any of this worked.

I thought about Marlowe last, the quiet weight of her, how she'd looked at me like she already knew something I didn't. I wouldn't be surprised, I thought, smiling a little to myself in the dark, if she could see the dead. It would explain a lot. The candle. The stillness. The way she talked like she was choosing every word out of a very short, very serious list.

I almost laughed out loud at my own joke, muffling it into the pillow so I wouldn't wake Wren, who had gone quiet at last, her breathing already even and slow.

"Night, Marlowe," Wren mumbled once, out of habit, toward the empty bed. Then, softer, closer: "Goodnight, Jenny."

With the room finally settled into quiet, and a whole list of questions saved up for morning, I let my eyes close, and slept.