Page 38 of A Fate Everlasting

“The thing is—” Dorian’s eyes glinted. He leaned in, lowering his voice to a murmur. “There is no time. Now get to bed, both of you, before you dig yourselves a deeper hole.”

I clenched my fists, glaring at him as I stood. Ruby still nervously worked her lip, slate pinging as she watched her own score drop. I said I’d fix it, and I’d meant it. But as we turned down the dark corridor, our footsteps echoing like a countdown, I couldn’t see any way this ended—except in death.

17

Drowning people don’t pray for miracles; they claw for survival. And in that moment, I was clawing with every bit of strength I had left. I glanced at my slate. -17. Still. Even after the extra help in Alchemy this morning, staying behind to clean the classroom. Nausea climbed up my throat, the room too hot.

The moment my next lesson began, I threw myself into every task wholeheartedly. Godwin assigned an essay on divine intervention, and I was already writing before he finished speaking, ink spilling across the page in frantic strokes.

The lecture shifted to the Fallen Angels. I spoke before anyone else could, the answers jumping out eagerly. When Lilibeth reached for a textbook, I passed it to her with a smile stretched so wide my cheeks ached, my teeth clenched so tightly I could feel the strain in my jaw.

My hands shook against the parchment. My pulse sounded in my ribs, erratic, a caged thing trying to escape. The grip on my pen was so tight it left ghostly crescents pressed into my fingertips. Ruby glanced at me from her seat several desks away. She’d been keeping her distance.

Ihadto be good. Ihadto be better. Ihadto make sure my score was high enough that Verrine wouldn’t notice it had dropped. But high-scorers weren’t good. I’d discovered from watching sparring the other day. They just knew how to forge obedience into the shape of virtue.

I glanced at my slate.

-18

The number sat there, mercilessly unmoving. It wasn’t dropping much further, but it wasn’t rising either. Panic coiled around my throat, squeezing. Why was it still not moving? Across the aisle, Hugo’s gaze caught mine. He smiled warmly, relaxing back into his chair like all of this was easy.

Ruby’s lip twitched downward. For whatever reason, she’d made it clear she wasn’t a fan of Hugo. She didn’t understand.

Across the aisle, Lilibeth’s slate dinged. It ticked up two points. She’d just corrected Hugo, who incorrectly guessed the method of undoing a binding spell. “It requires reciprocal blood,” she was saying, droning on. “Very advanced.”

There were no rules to the scoring system, none that I could decode sensibly. Good acts didn’t guarantee a rise. Sometimes the system watched, unmoved. Sometimes it seemed to score students in anticipation. It felt like the entire system was rigged. I was one drop away from breaking into the chapel and smashing the damned Crucible to pieces.

Dorian hadn’t turned me in yet, but not out of mercy. I saw the way his jaw ticked when he looked at me, like he wanted to. Like it would be a relief to let me take the fall. But he couldn’t, not when he was so close to graduation. Not when Verrine might turn on him too. If I survived this, it would be byhisgrace, and he’d make sure I never forgot it.

“Miss Davenant.” Godwin’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Are you listening? We’re discussing the Great War between the After and Elsewhere. How many years ago did it take place?”

“Um,” I was on the wrong page. I leafed through the textbook, squinting at Dorian’s to find the number. “A thousand?”

“History might be boring, but it has a habit of repeating itself if you don’t pay attention,” Godwin warned. “Seven hundred years ago. The After and Elsewhere were once unified, one Afterworld ruled by the Twin Thrones. They were balanced, but balance rarely survives ambition. The rulers destroyed themselves,” he said, gaze distant. “And their courts crumbled to ash. Now, the High Councils rule in their place. Made up ofhowmany Archangels and Archdaemons? Anyone?”

I didn’t listen for the answer and barely registered the rest of the lesson. I just kept staring at my slate, willing that damned number to change.Move. Move. Move.It didn’t. Then, just as the weight of failure threatened to crush me, a note slid onto my desk.

Lunch? You look like you need an escape.

I turned around. Hugo’s blue eyes glimmered with something just shy of mischief. He had a knack for showing up exactly when I needed him and this time, he didn’t know how badly I did.

The rain began to spatter from the sky as I sat on the stone steps outside Ariel Hall, the massive white-stone building with towering pillars that housed the arts classrooms. We’d taken a break for lunch, late. My stomach rumbled, the least of my worries. It was foolish to try and distract myself with Hugo but being in his orbit felt like one of the few precious moments I could breathe.

My eyes caught on a shiny, bright poster board advertising the Dawning Ball. It was coming up in a few days, but I really didn’t feel like celebrating.

Had my mother sat on these same worn steps, her thoughts tangled with the same longing? Had she watched the same bleak, endless sky dreaming of escape? Had she counted all the ways she might disappear, too?

I inhaled, shoulders aching from where I had kept them hunched for hours, tension coiled so tightly in my neck it felt carved from stone. I had been sosurethat today would make a difference. That throwing myself into good deeds, into virtue, would shift the tide.

And yet, the number refused to rise. I tried to breathe, but it caught halfway. This wasn’t working. And I was running out of time.My fingers tightened around the slate, the edges biting into my palm. I hated the thought that took shape next, hated the cold, inevitable weight of it.

Maybe Dorian was right. Maybe the only way to survive this was not to earn my place in the After, but claim my place in Elsewhere. I pushed the thought from my mind, disgusted. I would rather die fighting than spend an eternity like him, an eternity Fallen. That left one option. Getting the cards back.Dying.

A horribleclicksliced through the air. My head snapped up. A group of Lower Sixth girls hovered near the archway, giggling as they held up their slates, the gentle glow of ether-lightcatching on their screens. The things had cameras? Just what this school needed, more evidence of its complete and utter madness.

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