E L L E
I don’t pull away from the locker.
The pull just loosens, little by little, until my fingers stop reaching and my knees remember how to lock.
Luke doesn’t give me time to think about it. He catches my suitcase in one hand, my elbow in the other, and steers me down the corridor before I can look back.
“Food first,” he says, low and steady. “Then sleep. You’ll feel less like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I try to laugh, but my throat is too tight. The skin of my hand still tingles where the cold almost touched me.
The hum under my ribs hasn’t gone. Walking away from the east wing feels wrong, like I’ve left something unfinished behind me.
Or something behind me hasn’t finished with me.
By the time Luke pushes open the heavy oak doors to the dining hall, my pulse is still running too fast.
The room is huge. Vaulted ceiling. Iron chandeliers casting pale light over long black tables crowded with students, trays, and lifted voices.
It feels alive. Like it notices me the second I step inside.
Conversation dips in uneven waves. Forks pause halfway to mouths. Heads turn one after another until the whole hall seems to tilt in my direction.
“There she is.”
“Wrenwood.”
“That’s the girl from the locker.”
The wool of my scarf scratches against my throat like static. I tighten my grip and keep walking, but the whispers spread faster now, sharper, fueled by the story already racing ahead of me.
“I heard it slammed by itself.”
“No one even touched it.”
“My roommate said the whole row shook.”
Luke guides me to the far end of one table, shoulders squared like he can block all of it by standing a little closer.
I sit with my back too straight and my hands clenched in my lap. He drops onto the bench beside me, close enough that our sleeves brush.
That only makes people stare harder.
Maribel Crane leans forward from three seats away, blonde hair glossy under the lights, smile thin as a blade.
“Careful,” she says sweetly, loud enough for half the hall to hear. “She might hex your cocoa if you look at her wrong.”
A few people laugh. Then more join in.
“She hexed the locker shut.”
“Maybe that’s why they let her in. Entertainment.”
“Heard frost formed on the handle.”
“Don’t sit too close unless you want to lose a finger.”
The mockery rolls outward in one ugly wave, each line meaner than the last.
This is about today. About me. About whatever happened back there.
My scarf itches worse. Heat climbs my neck, but under it, cold slips lower, threading through my chest. The same hum from the hallway. The same sick little pull.
Luke glances at me once, takes in too much with that one look, then leans closer.
“She’s just jealous,” he murmurs, like he’s letting me in on a secret, “because her hair doesn’t have as much personality as yours.”
The laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Small. Stupid. Real.
My hand flies to my mouth, horrified, but Luke grins like he’s been aiming for exactly that.
“There you are,” he says softly.
Warmth flickers through me. Brief, fragile, but enough to let me breathe.
A server passes. Luke grabs two bowls of soup and slides one in front of me.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
I look down at the soup anyway, steam curling against my face. Around us, the noise starts to shift away from me, not because they’ve lost interest, but because gossip burns fast.
It finds a spark, flares bright, then waits for the next thing to feed on.
For a few seconds, I focus on little things. The smell of bread. The scrape of benches on stone. The weight of my scarf around my shoulders.
Normal things.
Luke bumps his shoulder lightly against mine.
“Remember when you fell asleep on your math book and woke up with numbers stamped into your cheek?”
I glance at him. He smiles into his soup.
“You walked around half the day looking like algebra had claimed you.”
A small smile pulls at my mouth before I can stop it.
“You promised never to tell anyone that.”
“I promised no such thing.”
“You’re awful.”
“And yet,” he says, lifting a brow, “still your favorite.”
The knot in my chest loosens just enough to hurt. Luke has always done this.
Found the crack in the panic and pried it open until air could get in. Back home. At Nan’s kitchen table. Outside graveyards. In every moment when I’ve looked too close to falling apart.
I hold onto that memory for one breath. One last warm, stupid, normal thing.
Then the heavy oak doors at the far end of the hall creak open.
The sound should disappear under hundreds of voices. It doesn’t.
It cuts through the room cleanly. The chatter stumbles. Forks pause again. For one second, the whole room holds its breath.
A shiver walks down my spine. The hum under my skin stirs at once.
At first, all I catch is height and dark fabric and the strange way the air seems to shift around him. Then he steps fully into view.
He looks about my age. Maybe nineteen. Dark hair falling over his forehead. Storm-gray eyes. No smile. No hesitation.
“Who is that?” someone whispers.
“New student?”
“He doesn’t look familiar.”
No one answers.
He doesn’t go to the food or pause in the doorway like every other first-day student.
He just walks forward, quiet and controlled, until even the whispers around him lower. Even Maribel goes still.
My gaze catches on him and won’t let go. He crosses the room, chooses the darkest corner like it was waiting for him, and sits.
Then he lifts his head. And looks straight at me.
My spoon slips from my fingers and clatters against the bowl. Too loud. Too sharp. His stare doesn’t move.
It pins me where I sit, cold and exact. The scarf at my throat prickles. Cold slips over my skin. I can’t look away.
“Elle?” Luke shifts beside me.
I hear the tension in his voice, but it sounds far away.
The boy doesn’t look at anyone else.
Not Luke. Not Maribel. Not the students whispering about him now.
Just me.
I drag my eyes down to the soup and force air into my lungs. Steam curls up, blurring my vision for a second.
Get a grip. He’s a boy. A student. A stranger.
But the lie breaks apart as soon as it forms. Nothing about him feels ordinary.
“Elle.” Luke’s hand brushes my sleeve.
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
Luke stills beside me. I know that stillness. He’s looking at the boy now. Measuring.
The hum in my chest deepens. Cold aches down my arms.
I look up again. He hasn’t moved.
Storm-gray eyes locked on mine, patient and unblinking, like he knew I would look back.
The air above my soup chills.
A thin bloom of fog spreads over the surface.
And I forget how to breathe.