E L L E
Professor Maelor’s words follow me all the way to the girls’ dorm.
“Some say the Guardian protects the Seal. Others say he destroys her.”
The line loops in my head as I climb the creaking stairs.
Warm light spills from the common room, catching on ribbons, hairbrushes, half-unpacked trunks. Girls laugh too loudly. Someone is humming. It should feel ordinary.
It doesn’t. The noise thins the second I pass.
“That’s her scarf,” someone says.
“Her mother wore it the night she died.”
My fingers close around the wool and drag it higher. Another girl laughs softly.
“Maybe that’s why she never takes it off. Maybe it’s cursed too.”
I don’t look at them. My room is at the end of the hall, under the drafty window that rattles whenever the wind hits the stone.
I slip inside and shut the door hard enough to cut off the laughter.
Not the voices. They still seep faintly through the wood.
I drop my bag by the bed and sit down too quickly. The room is narrow and cold, with cracked plaster, a thin mattress, and one small lamp on the desk beside the mirror.
The mirror is old, bolted crookedly to the wall, its silver backing dark at the corners. There’s a faint line near the bottom edge of the glass, like a hairline crack I don’t remember seeing before.
I finally loosen my scarf. For a second, I just hold it there and breathe.
The room is quiet.
At Ravenshade, quiet never feels empty.
It feels like listening.
The knock comes after lights-out. Three soft taps.
“It’s me,” Luke whispers.
Relief hits so fast it makes my eyes sting.
I cross the room and open the door a crack. Luke stands there with his hood up, damp from the mist, one hand shoved in his pocket.
“Luke,” I whisper. “Are you trying to get caught?”
“Cassian apparently set his homework on fire, so the prefects are distracted.” He gives me a quick grin.
A weak laugh catches in my throat. I step aside, and he slips in. The room feels smaller with him in it. Warmer too.
“You should be asleep,” I murmured.
“So should you.”
His eyes drop to the scarf in my hands. The grin fades.
“They were bad tonight?”
“I’ve heard worse.” I shrug.
“That doesn’t mean you should.”
The words come out flat and controlled, which is always how Luke sounds when he’s angry for me. Like he’s biting down on it.
“It’s fine.” I look away.
“It’s not.”
Silence. Then his voice softens.
“I just hate that they get to do that and act like it’s normal.”
Something in my chest gives a little.
Because that’s Luke. He can’t make the hurt disappear. He just refuses to pretend it isn’t there.
“You risked detention to tell me that?” I try to smile.
“I risked detention because you looked like you were about to lock yourself in here and never come out.” His mouth lifts at one corner.
“That’s dramatic.”
“You know me.”
A tiny laugh slips out. Real enough to hurt.
For one second, it feels like Nan’s kitchen after midnight. Warm mugs. Stolen cocoa.
Luke grinning at me across the table while I tried not to laugh too loudly.
His face softens when he hears the laugh.
“Try to sleep, Elle,” he says.
“I’ll try.”
“And if anyone says anything tomorrow—”
“No.”
His brows lift.
“No fighting people before breakfast,” I say. That earns the faintest huff of laughter.
“Fine,” he says. “After breakfast.”
I shake my head, smiling despite myself. Then his expression changes.
He glances toward the mirror and looks back at me too fast.
“You should lock the door tonight,” he says.
“Why?” The smile slips from my face.
“I don’t know. Just do it.” He shrugs, but it feels wrong. Forced.
The room seems colder all at once.
I nod. Luke lingers for half a second like he wants to say more, then just says,
“Goodnight.”
He slips back into the hall. I lock the door after him.
After Luke leaves, the quiet feels different.
I switch off the lamp and lie down. Moonlight presses through the cracked window in thin silver bars.
Across from the bed, the mirror catches what little light there is and holds it badly. The glass looks dim, blurred at the edges. Wrong somehow.
I tell myself not to stare at it. The cold comes fast.
Not the draft from the window. Sharper than that. Sudden. Like something has opened.
I push myself up on my elbows. The center of the mirror clouds.
Just a little at first. A pale bloom of fog. Then wider.
“Elowen.”
Every muscle in my body locks. That voice. Soft. Familiar. Impossible.
“No,” I whisper.
My own voice sounds thin. Too small for the room.
“Elowen…”
I sit up so fast the blanket tangles around my legs.
“You’re not real.”
The fog thickens. Frost begins to creep over the glass in fine white lines, delicate as veins, curling outward into spirals.
I know that pattern. I saw it in class. I felt it burn under my hand.
Lavender hits me so hard it almost makes me dizzy. Her hands. Her voice. The scarf around my neck. The last night. Her pretending not to be afraid so I wouldn’t be.
“My sweet girl.”
A sob catches in my throat.
“Stop.” I shake my head hard. The frost spreads farther. A low hum starts in the glass.
So faint I almost think I imagined it—until I feel the vibration under my palm where my hand grips the bedpost.
“You can’t hide.” Everything in me screams to run.
Instead, I stand there shaking, staring at the mirror, because some ruined part of me still wants one more word in her voice. Even fake. Even wrong.
Then the whisper begins to fade.
I sit back down because my knees won’t hold me.
After a long moment, I make myself look. Only my reflection stares back.
Pale face. Dark hair. Scarf slipping off one shoulder. Relief hits so hard it leaves me weak.
I drag both hands over my face.
“Get a grip,” I whisper into my palms.
When I lower them, my reflection hasn’t moved.
I freeze. I blink once. Then again.
I shift backward on the bed.
The girl in the mirror stays exactly where she is.
Back straight. Hands folded in her lap. Scarf wrapped neatly at her throat.
Watching me.
A sick, freezing drop opens in my stomach.
“No,” I whisper.
My fingers fumble for the scarf, for the bedpost, for anything solid.
The girl in the mirror does not move.
She just watches. Calm.
Patient. Waiting.
The lamp beside my bed flickers. Once.
Twice. I whip my head toward it.
The bulb glows a sick, weak orange, then dims. Frost whitens across the inside of the glass in thin branching lines, spreading where no frost should be.
A sharp crack splits the room.
The bulb bursts. Darkness slams into everything.
I can’t see the mirror anymore.
I can’t see my hands.
I can only hear my own breathing, too fast, too loud— and feel her eyes on me from the glass.