Juno Blaze arrived at Evershade in the middle of a storm.
Not a metaphorical one — a real one. Lightning split the sky. The fifth tower pulsed. The koi pond boiled. Madame Calyx had vanished only weeks before, and the school was still trembling.
She stepped through the gates with no scroll, no sponsor, no memory bleed.
She was admitted anyway.
The Interview
Headmistress Virelle had interviewed her personally.
"You're not stitched," she said.
Juno shrugged. "I'm not broken either."
Virelle narrowed her eyes. "Why do you want to be here?"
Juno smiled. "Because I want to know what you're afraid of."
Virelle didn't respond.
She simply nodded.
The First Year
Juno excelled.
She mastered Emotional Dissection in weeks.
She outdueled Cassian Thorn in the Spiral Track.
She rewrote a Dream Theory thesis in a single night.
But she never bled memory.
She never saw fragments.
She never cracked a mirror.
She was flame in a school of stitched shadows.
The Isolation
Students admired her.
Professors respected her.
But no one understood her.
Nova Quinn whispered, "She's not stitched. She's sealed."
Zephyr Vale watched her like a puzzle.
Lyra kept her distance.
Maris tried to connect — but Juno didn't echo.
She burned.
The Discovery
In her second year, Juno found a sealed door beneath the Noctis Tower.
It opened for her.
Inside was a room of fire — not magical, not metaphorical. Real flame. Controlled. Contained. Waiting.
She stepped inside.
The flame whispered:
> "You are not memory. You are ignition."
The Truth
Juno wasn't stitched because she wasn't meant to remember.
She was meant to burn.
To erase.
To cleanse.
She was the school's failsafe.
The lock.
The match.
The fire that would consume the stitched ones if they ever unraveled too far.
The Book Again
In Lyra's dorm, the book pulsed.
New ink appeared:
> "She is not stitched. She is the blade. If she breaks, the weave burns."
Maris whispered, "She's the school's weapon."
Lyra nodded. "Then we need to make sure she chooses not to be used."