Page 33 of A Fate Everlasting

I whirled around, but Dorian was already gone, his silhouette swallowed whole by the darkened corridors. The halls hushed around me, the air thick with the scent of old stone and candle smoke. My eye caught the two words carved into the archway above.Ante Post.My mother was gone. Not just gone, but erased. No heaven, no afterlife, no lingering trace in the fabric of eternity.

Dorian had to be lying. He had to be. I dragged my slate from my pocket, the glow of the screen illuminating shaking hands. I typed furiously, each letter a desperate plea.

Ante Post. Before After.

I pressed a hand to my heart, as if my mother’s memory, her mark on this place might still be here. I had come to Evermore because that’s what she wanted. But it didn’t make any sense. If her face had been scratched out of the portrait, she didn’t belong here either.

My vision swam. I needed answers. I needed to help her if it was even possible. My mother had stood in this very hallway. My mother had been a student at Evermore, and she too had been erased.

I had spent every waking moment at Evermore so far tryingto claw my way out. But standing here now, I felt something dangerous stir. Maybe the way forward wasn’t escape after all, but answers.

Still, I had already chosen. There was no place for regret. If this place had meant something to my mother, she should have left adamn note.

14

Ijolted awake to the shriek of alarms, stained-glass light slicing the room in jagged bands of molten orange. My fingers scrambled for my slate, the sound relentless and shrill, a blade carving through my half-conscious thoughts. There were no buttons, no obvious way to silence it. Just the ceaseless, mechanical wail, pressing hard against my skull.

I let out a scream of frustration and sent it skidding across the floor. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Get up.” Rosaline’s voice was clipped as she tossed my school sweater toward me. The buttons hit my chest with enough force to sting.“Up!”

I rubbed my face, blinking. It was almost seven in the morning. I’d planned to tell Verrine in the head office instead of going to breakfast. There was no time for that now.

“What’s going on?” I asked, but I obliged her as I quickly pulled on my gray pleated skirt and made quick work of the buttons on my shirt.

“There’s been a breach.” Her voice was eerily calm. “Chapel. Thirty seconds. Move.”

“What do you mean a breach?” A tugging sensation pulledat my heart as I lifted my heel and toed into my pumps. My mind started to wake up slowly.

This couldn’t be about the playing cards right? My actions were irreversible, but it was still my choice whether I took the blame or not. I tried to console myself as we walked wordlessly downstairs, milling down the corridors along with the crowds of Upper and Lower Sixth as the alarms climbed to a fever pitch.

The chapel was a mausoleum, cold, airless and thick with the scent of rotting lilies and candle smoke. Vaulted ceilings loomed overhead, vanishing into shadow, but the walls felt like they were closing in. I struggled to breathe as we were herded into rows, separated by our houses.

My heart was in my throat. I hadn’t expected this. The Lower Sixth students were forced to the front, while the Upper Sixth could take the higher, farther back pews concealed from the prying eyes of professors. Verrine’s violet-stained lips twisted as she watched from her podium, deepening the cruel creases carved into her face.

Behind her was a vast construct of glass and metal and something more, something alive. Hourglasses stacked upon hourglasses, spinning, shifting, twisting in midair as though gravity had no dominion over them. Tendrils of molten gold and abyssal black coiled between the chambers, light and dark, honey and shadow, twisting like a heartbeat trapped in glass. It held my gaze captive.

“The Crucible,” someone whispered beside me. Lilibeth sat to my left, her hands pressed together as if in silent prayer. Her uniform was immaculate, her spine a rod of iron. She didn’t turn to me as she spoke. “It’s the thing that tracks our ether score. The judge.”

I blinked, the magic tendrils within the hourglasses rippling, twisting into spirals before shattering apart and reforming again.The judge.

“Isn’t it magical,” Lilibeth murmured. “Every choice you make is measured. Tallied. Balanced. It’s perfect.”

“Whatis balanced? Ether?” My voice came quieter than I meant. She didn’t answer. Instead, Lilibeth bowed her head, hands pressed firmly together.

My slate beeped, something new etching into its surface. It was a scoreboard of every student in the Lower Sixth, clearly only visible in chapel when we were close to the Crucible. My score still read negative seven, but the number was flickering, threatening to drop.

Across the room, a girl let out a squeal of excitement as gold wove through the Crucible. “Lucky for Mirelle Sommers,” Lilibeth said under her breath. “She spent all of yesterday morning helping one of the younger students during sparring, so I guess it’s well-deserved. Sometimes the Crucible rewards you hours later. Sometimes it punishes you the second you slip up. It’s so mercurial I can’t seem to figure it out.”

I glanced down at the scoreboard on my slate. Mirelle Sommers’ score was ticking higher in real time, creeping up toward the thousands. Lilibeth’s score was lower than I’d expected. Ninety-eight. If her father was truly an Archangel, that had to hurt.

Verrine was tapping avidly at her slate, not taking notice, as the students’ chatter died. The Crucible flashed so brightly I raised an elbow to shield my eyes. When it faded, the room looked down at their slates in unison.

Mirelle’s score had dropped nearly a hundred points. Her expression barely had time to register shock before the number sank further. Her score hadplummeted. I turned, searching the room, waiting for someone to react, but no one did. I watched asMirelle’s hands shook violently, her lashes fluttering as if trying to convince herself she’d imagined it. If the Crucible could turn that fast on someone like Mirelle, what chance did I have?

Across the room, Dorian let out a quiet, bitter laugh. His score had advanced against his best efforts, from -403 to -300 flat. Fallscount down, Ascentscount up. So Dorian’s rise toward zero was a setback, as far as I understood. Drinking my blood hadn’t helped him.

Verrine raised her hand, and the chatter ceased. “As you may have noticed, this will not be our usual Wednesday morning service.”

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