Page 15 of A Fate Everlasting

A thrill of panic, or something else, skated through me. “You look like you have a few ideas.”

“Oh, I do.” He tilted his head, studying me like he was deciding something. “Many,manyideas.”

“Let’s hear them. Surely ditching detention is a start.” I stood. I wasn’t going to pickle Esmerelda’s root vegetables if she wasn’t watching, that was for sure. I started toward the door.

Dante was in front of me before I could reach it, cutting off my exit. “Ditching detention won’t get you expelled. It will only drop your score. You need to do something worse.”

“Worse?” I blinked up at him. Maybe this was a bad idea. “How much worse?”

“You are either all in,” His voice was velvet-soft. “Or all out. What is it, Arabella?”

“In,” I said quickly, all too quickly. “I think. But I can’t tonight.”I’m afraid. I need to think this through.I couldn’t tell him that. Every primal part of me knew that he was a threat. I felt the darkness in him, the same darkness I’d felt in Astoria Manor. The same darkness I felt within myself, sometimes.

I shoved that thought down.

“No, not tonight.” He shook his head, already stepping back, already turning away. The warmth of his touch lingered. “Too many eyes on you night one. I’ll be in touch, Arabella. Don’t bother unpacking.”

Dante didn’t look back as he walked away, melting into shadow.

6

The night pressed heavy against my skin, thick with the scent of old stone and petrichor. The fog had settled deeper now, curling along the courtyard like restless spirits. The flicker of the gas lamps cast golden orbs through the mist that scarcely lit my path as I walked.

I should have been exhausted. My limbs ached, the night air bit against my skin, but my mind wouldn’t quiet. It replayed the evening in painful fragments, the impossible gleam of Dante’s eyes, the shrill intonation of Verrine’s voice, the ritualistic way the Upper Sixth had moved through the dining hall in feathered costumes.

Nothing about this place made sense. Nothing about my parents sending me here madesense.The guilt writhed in my gut at the thought of escaping, the thought of defying what they wanted for me. But maybe they didn’t know how unhappy this place would make me. Sometimes I felt like they hardly knew me, anyway. I had to do what was right for me.

It wasn’t just the fog and darkness that had my heart in my throat. It was the thought that my parents sending me heremeant anything at all. That I was just… lost somewhere I didn’t belong.

I exhaled, shaking the swirling thoughts away as I crossed the threshold into one of the vast indoor corridors in the main building. The door groaned shut behind me, sealing out the damp chill.

Inside, the air was warm but heavy, thick with the scent of wax, parchment, and ancient books whose pages had been long forgotten. The sconces burned low, their flickering light casting spindly shadows across the arched ceiling.

I tried to move quickly, my bare legs cold in the night air. I wanted nothing more than to slip back into Seraphim Tower quietly and speak to no one as I sunk beneath the sheets. But something caught my eye, a sliver of golden light spilling across the stone. I squinted my eyes to read the plaque on the outside of the door.Prefects Common Room.

Goosebumps prickled up my arms. A low murmur drifted through the opening, voices rising and falling in quiet conversation. I inched closer, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling.

Something inside me, some reckless, aching part of me that had always hated being kept in the dark, kept my feet rooted to the cold floor. There was something wrong with this place, and I needed to figure outwhat.

“Not long until the Dawning Ball,” a girl’s voice rang out, light and teasing. “Our last chance to celebrate together.” She paused. “For most of us.”

Laughter rippled through the room. I didn’t understand the joke. I leaned in, peering through the crack in the door.

The prefects sprawled across the long table, robes undone, wings discarded in careless heaps. White feathers crumpled against the stone, dark fabric pooling like spilled ink. I recognized two of them. Marcus poured a dark liquid, molasses-thick,from a bottle and passed it to Dorian. Their eyes locked, and something unspoken passed between them.

“Ante Post,”Marcus murmured.

Dorian tipped his glass.“Ante Post.”

“You’re not drinking, Rosaline?” Marcus asked casually.Rosaline.That was the name of our other roommate.

“Of course not.” Rosaline spun a gold ring against her knuckle. “Have to keep focused for graduation.” Her laugh was gentle, like she was the only one in on the joke. “Once taken,” she said as she traced the curve of the ring. “Never returned.”

I froze. I’d seen those words etched above the dormitory stairwell. Surely the phrase wasn’t literal.

“Ros, feeling sentimental?” Marcus smirked.

“Hardly.” She held her hand to the candlelight. “I worked too hard to Ascend for it to mean nothing.” She rolled the ring again. “But if I don’t graduate, and this is all for nothing?—”

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