I STOOD FAR ENOUGH from the gates that the gravel path did not dare remember my footsteps. From that distance, the house looked almost unreal—untouched by the world that existed beyond its invisible walls. The Victorian façade rose like a memory carved into stone: tall windows, narrow towers, ivy threading through brick like veins. And surrounding it all was the bubble.
It shimmered.
Not in the way glass reflects light, but in the way a soap film catches the sun—prismatic and breathing. A translucent dome that wrapped around the academy like cupped hands around a fragile flame. I could see where the outside world ended and where Miss Alice's protection began. The air bent slightly at its edges, colors splitting into faint rainbows whenever the light struck just right.
It was beautiful. It was safe.
Still, I watched.
Billy stood near the side of the house, ginger hair blazing like a small bonfire beneath the morning sun. Each swing of his axe split through the quiet with a satisfying crack. Woodchips scattered around his boots like confetti. He hummed to himself, always finding some tune to fill the spaces between breaths. His shoulders rose and fell, with the rhythm of someone who believed tomorrow would arrive exactly as expected.
I remembered thinking, back then, that Billy chopped wood as if the world had never once betrayed him.
Suzie moved not far from him, pale as moonlight, her albino features glowing softly beneath the sky. She carried a small pail, scattering feed for the pigs that crowded around her ankles with greedy snorts. They adored her. Everything gentle did. She knelt without hesitation, letting one nuzzle her sleeve, her white lashes lowering as she laughed quietly to herself.
There had always been something serene about Suzie—I just couldn't tell what.
Near the veranda, Wallace sat with a book open in his hands. Of course he was reading. He was always reading. His posture was straight despite the relaxed setting, eyes scanning the pages with a hunger reserved for knowledge and nothing else. The world could collapse and Wallace would still finish his chapter before looking up.
I used to tease him for it. He used to pretend not to hear me. But his lips would twitch when he thought no one was looking.
A little farther into the garden, Molly stood in the center of a living constellation. Her woodland friends gathered around her as though she were the axis of some invisible universe—rabbits brushing against her skirt, a deer lowering its head near her shoulder, birds perched along her arms like ornaments. She moved slowly so as not to startle them, her laughter quiet and breathy, the sound of someone who understood softness as a language.
Andreus stood at a distance too, watching. He did not pretend not to. His gaze flickered between Molly and Wallace. Andreus rarely spoke unless necessary, but his silence always carried intention. Even from where I stood, I could see the way his posture shifted slightly whenever someone moved too quickly near them.
On the far side of the lawn, Lennox sat in her wheelchair, angled toward the sun. A book rested on her lap, unopened. She wasn't reading. She was simply… there. Present. Observing the world with a patience I envied and never quite understood. Wind threaded through her hair, lifting it gently, and she closed her eyes for a moment like someone memorizing warmth.
Then—
A sudden burst of smoke.
Eli stumbled backward from a small worktable near the shed, coughing as black ash coated his face. Something metallic clattered to the ground beside him, still hissing faintly. He blinked rapidly, stunned, then let out an exasperated laugh at himself. Another invention gone wrong. He wiped his cheek with the back of his sleeve, only managing to smear the soot further. And somewhere nearby, someone shouted his name in mild concern. Eli waved them off with a grin, as though explosions were simply part of his daily routine.
Above them all, perched on the thick branch of the old oak tree, sat the butler owl. Even in that form, there was something unmistakable in the way Sebastian held himself. His feathers caught the light with an almost ethereal glow, head tilting ever so slightly as he surveyed the grounds below. Guardian of branches and sky. Keeper of silent vantage points. He always preferred the trees.
Near the open windows, the two elderly matrons moved from room to room with practiced efficiency. They spoke softly to each other, their voices blending into the gentle hum of the house. It felt like the building itself breathed easier because they existed within it.
Inside—
I remembered stepping into the library.
Augustus sat in his usual chair, teacup poised between his fingers, posture refined even in solitude. Steam curled lazily upward, fogging the lenses of his glasses for a fleeting second before fading. He did not look surprised to see me. Augustus was never surprised by anything. It was as though he existed slightly ahead of time, already aware of what would unfold.
He gave me a nod. I gave one back. And that was enough.
Outside again, Bryce lay sprawled across the grass beneath the oak tree, one arm tucked behind his head. He stared up through the leaves as though searching for shapes in the sky. Unbothered. The kind of stillness that only comes from believing you have time.
So much time.
Mamori's laughter rang out next.
Alive.
She crouched near the steps, coaxing a small black cat into chasing a ribbon she dragged across the ground. Ophelia pounced with dramatic enthusiasm, tail flicking, green eyes sharp with playful intent. Mamori clapped softly every time the cat succeeded, her joy so genuine it felt contagious even from a distance.
Primrose stood not far from them.
But she wasn't with them.
She lingered near the edge of the garden, half-shadowed by the house itself. Arms folded loosely. Expression distant. Watching without participating. Even then, there had always been a space around Primrose—an invisible boundary no one crossed unless invited.
I used to think it was simply who she was.
Reserved. Thoughtful. A little detached. I did not understand yet how loneliness can exist even in the presence of love.
And then there was Miss Alice, who stood near the center of it all, hands clasped gently before her, black dress swaying faintly with the breeze. Her smile was soft as she watched the orphans scatter across the grounds like living starlight.
She had built this place from ruin and willpower.
A sanctuary.
A promise.
A fragile, stubborn hope.
I watched them all.
Every movement. Every sound. Every small, ordinary miracle unfolding within the safety of that shimmering dome. The academy functioned like a living organism—each person a vital part, each breath contributing to a rhythm that felt eternal.
For a moment, I allowed myself to believe it was.
But then—
The edges of my vision began to blur.
At first, I thought it was my eyes watering from the wind. I blinked once. Twice. Thrice. The shimmer of the protective bubble distorted slightly, colors bleeding into one another. Billy's swinging axe left faint afterimages in the air. Suzie's pale figure flickered like a reflection on disturbed water.
No.
Not my eyes.
The world before me softened as though smeared across glass. Details unraveled at their seams. Molly's woodland creatures dissolved into indistinct shapes. Wallace's book became nothing more than a dark rectangle. Even the towering Victorian structure itself seemed to waver.
I stepped forward instinctively, but gravel did not crunch beneath my feet.
Sound thinned. Color drained. Light stretched into something pale and distant. What remained of the academy hovered before me like a painting left too long in the sun—vanishing.
An afterimage. A year ago.
My chest tightened as understanding settled in like cold rain.
This wasn't happening. It had already happened. It had already ended.
I watched as the last clear fragments of that day struggled to hold their shape. Bryce beneath the oak tree. Mamori laughing beside Ophelia. Miss Alice smiling at the life she had gathered under her care.
All of it slipping. All of it unreachable. There is a particular kind of cruelty in memory—the way it allows you to stand at the edge of what once was without ever letting you step inside again. I could see them. Almost hear them. Almost feel the warmth of that protected world brushing against my skin. But almost is another word for never.
The shimmering dome flickered once more, then dulled. Figures blurred into silhouettes. Silhouettes into light. Light into nothing. And I stood there, alone with the ghost of a home that had burned itself into ash.
We burned it before they could claim it. That was the final mercy we could offer ourselves.
Flames swallowed the academy the way grief swallows memory. That was a year ago. Curtains ignited like paper offerings. The grand staircase groaned beneath the weight of heat. Portraits curled and blackened. I stood outside with smoke clawing at my lungs, watching a home turn into a pyre.
Primrose did not cry. And Bryce. But the rest did.
Prim stood straight as the fire reflected in her eyes, hands trembling only once before stilling at her sides. Around us, the others gathered with their faces streaked with ash, expressions hollow with exhaustion and loss. No one spoke. There are moments when language becomes unnecessary, when silence carries everything words cannot.
A year after Mamori died.
A year after everything blurred into something shapeless and unrecognizable.
Time did not move forward after that night. It fractured. It dissolved. It became a series of breaths we forced ourselves to take because stopping meant surrender.
"Noelle."
The sound of my name pulled me back.
Not from the flames, but from the present.
I blinked and found myself standing in the small kitchen of the cabin, afternoon light slipping through the single window above the counter. The scent of rosemary and garlic filled the air, so different from the bitter smoke that once clung to the academy. Miss Alice stood near the wooden table, sleeves rolled delicately to her elbows as she prepared the chicken. Her black dress had long since been replaced by simpler fabrics—linen and cotton in muted tones. Some things, I realized, could not be burned away.
"Could you pass me the thyme, dear?" she asked gently, not looking up from her work.
"Oh—yes. Sorry." I reached for the small bundle of herbs resting near the cutting board and handed it to her. "I was… somewhere else."
"I gathered as much," she replied with a faint smile.
Her voice never accused. Never pried. Miss Alice had learned, perhaps before any of us.
The cabin creaked the way old memories do—impossible to ignore if you listened long enough. It wasn't much to look at. Just a modest structure pieced together from second-hand bricks and salvaged wood, each one taken from the ruins of Therslomau. Still, every wall felt secure. Every corner held something we carried out of the ruins, bits and pieces of a place that doesn't exist anymore but somehow still lingers here with us.
We built this home ourselves. After the academy fell, after the smoke cleared and the others scattered into separate paths, the three of us remained. Miss Alice, Primrose, and I. There was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else that would not eventually be found. So we returned to Therslomau. Or what was left of it. The ruins of the academy stood like a skeleton picked clean by flame. Blackened stone. Collapsed beams. Windows reduced to jagged, empty frames. Walking through it felt like trespassing inside a memory that had already begun to fade.
We salvaged what we could.
Bricks that had not cracked under heat. Wooden planks that still held strength. Nails bent but usable. We carried them piece by piece to a clearing far from the ruins, far from the roads, far from anything that might lead our enemies back to us.
Sebastian helped. He arrived at dawn one morning, wings slicing through pale light before he landed softly at the edge of the clearing. For a moment he remained in owl form, observing us with those knowing, unblinking eyes. Then feathers folded inward, reshaping into limbs and bone until he stood before us again—quiet, composed, familiar.
"You should not be doing this alone," he said simply.
And so he stayed.
For weeks, Sebastian worked beside us without complaint. He lifted beams Miss Alice could not carry. He secured foundations. At night, he perched atop the half-built structure in owl form, keeping watch while we slept beneath open sky. We did not speak much about the others. About Billy and Wallace and Molly. About where they went or whether they were safe.
When the cabin was finally complete, Sebastian stood at the doorway.
"You will be hidden here," he said. "For a time."
"For a time," Miss Alice echoed softly.
"Thank you, Sebastian."
"Always my pleasure, Miss Alice."
He inclined his head once. Then he shifted, feathers replacing flesh, wings unfurling with a whisper that stirred the air. Without another word, Sebastian took flight and disappeared beyond the trees, returning to whatever forest still welcomed him.
The gifted beings parted ways after the defeat of Apollo. Scattered like sparks carried by wind. And we remained.
"Careful, Noelle," Miss Alice said gently, bringing me back again. "You're drifting."
"Sorry," I murmured, adjusting the tray as she placed the seasoned chicken atop it.
"It's okay, Noelle."
I turned slightly, leaning against the counter as she moved toward the small oven we'd assembled from iron. That was when my gaze wandered past the kitchen doorway and into the living area beyond.
Primrose stood there with a broom in hand. She swept slowly, methodically, as though each motion required such effort. Strands of her brown hair fell across her face, half-shadowing eyes that rarely lifted from the floor. Beside her, Ophelia trotted with her black fur gleaming as she brushed against Primrose's ankles and purred.
Primrose did not smile. She paused occasionally to let Ophelia weave between her feet, then resumed sweeping without comment. There was something mechanical about the way she moved—not lifeless, but distant. Present only in body.
I watched her longer than I meant to. Primrose had suffered more than most people our age should ever have to endure. Before the academy. Before us. She had watched her adoptive father die in Perthlochry—seen the life leave him with no power to stop it. Miss Alice found her not long after, broken, and brought her to Therslomau. To what became her second home.
And then we lost that too. She lost it too.
The men in black came like a storm, led by Apollo and his cruelty. They did not hesitate. They did not negotiate. They saw us not as children, not as people, but as assets to be seized and controlled. And in the chaos of that night, Mamori—
Mamori, Primrose's one and only childhood best friend. The one person who understood her before any of us ever could. The one constant thread woven through her early stage of her life.
Since then, something inside Primrose had retreated to a place even my abilities could not reach. As someone who could sense emotions—feel them like currents beneath the surface of the world—I was accustomed to understanding what others carried inside. Joy, fear, anger, sadness, longing. They all had textures. Temperatures. Distinct shapes. Colors. Things I could perceive. But Primrose, she felt like standing before a locked door with no handle.
There were traces, yes. Flickers of sorrow. Echoes of exhaustion. But they overlapped and tangled so densely that I could not separate one from another. Trauma had layered itself within her until even I, with all my sensitivity, could not decipher where one wound ended and another began.
It frightened me. Because if I could not feel her, I could not help her.
"Dinner will be ready soon," Miss Alice called gently toward the living room.
Primrose nodded once without looking up. "Okay."
Her voice was quiet. Even. Carefully neutral.
Ophelia meowed in response, tail flicking as though trying to fill the silence Primrose left behind. The cat circled her once more before settling near the hearth, curling into a small dark shape of warmth. I remained by the counter, watching.
Aloof—that was the word that came to mind most often when I thought of Primrose now. Not cold. Not unkind. Simply… removed. As though part of her existed somewhere far beyond the cabin walls, wandering through memories she could not escape.
We all lost something when the academy burned. But Primrose lost everything twice. Thrice, actually. She even lost Bryce. And no matter how closely I listened, no matter how carefully I reached out with the quiet empathy that defined my abilities, I could never fully grasp the shape of her grief.
***
Later that night, we moved through our routines almost wordlessly. Miss Alice washed the last of the dishes, humming something low and old beneath her breath. Primrose checked the locks on the doors and windows, more out of habit than fear, though I suspected the two had long since blurred together. Ophelia followed her from room to room like a small black shadow, tail held high as if she alone guarded the perimeter.
"Goodnight, dears," Miss Alice said at last, drying her hands on a cloth and offering us both a warm, tired smile.
"Goodnight," I replied softly.
Primrose gave a small nod. "Goodnight."
We retreated to our separate rooms.
The cabin settled around us. My bedroom was small—just a narrow bed, a small table, and a single window that looked out into the dark tangle of trees. Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains in pale ribbons, striping the floor in silver.
I lay down, closed my eyes. Opened them again. Sleep would not come. I turned onto my side, then my back, then my side again. The pillow felt too warm. The blankets too heavy. My mind refused to quiet, thoughts circling like restless birds with nowhere to land. It had been happening more often lately. The nights stretched longer. The silence grew louder. And somewhere within that silence, something unsettled stirred just beyond understanding.
I sat up with a quiet sigh and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cool beneath my feet. For a moment, I simply sat there, elbows resting on my knees, staring at nothing.
You're safe here, I told myself. We're hidden. The words felt rehearsed. Hollow. Eventually, exhaustion did what comfort could not. I lay back down, pulling the thin blanket over myself, and let my eyes close once more.
This time, sleep found me.
But it did not bring rest.
When I did open my eyes again, I realized I stood before the academy. Whole. Untouched. Towering. The Victorian façade rose against a sky too still to be real, its windows gleaming with an eerie, frozen light. Ivy crawled along its walls exactly as I remembered, curling around stone and glass. The front gates stood open. No smoke. No ash. No ruin. Just familiarity.
For a moment, relief surged so sharply through me it almost hurt. Then I realized—
There was no sound.
No laughter drifting from the gardens. No footsteps in the halls. No distant hum of life filling the space between walls. The air hung heavy and unmoving, like a painting rather than a place.
'This must've been a dream,' I said inside my mind. Of course it was a dream. What else could it be?
My feet began to move anyway.
Gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I approached the front of the academy. The towering doors stood slightly ajar, but I didn't enter because when I stepped on it, I noticed someone was already there on the porch. A figure stood near the top of the steps, half-shrouded in shadow despite the pale, directionless light that filled the grounds. Indistinct. I could not make out a face, only the outline of a man where a person should have been. But his hair was past his shoulders, and he seems to be wearing a black blazer.
Something inside me tightened. Who is that?
I tried to stop walking. I couldn't. My feet carried me forward without permission, as though guided by a force outside my control. A thin thread of unease coiled through my chest.
The closer I moved, the more the air seemed to thicken, pressing gently against my skin. The figure did not shift. Did not greet me. Simply waited. When I reached the bottom of the steps, my body halted on its own.
Silence stretched. Then the man spoke.
"Jimenez."
His voice was low, layered—like several tones spoken at once, slightly out of sync. It did not echo. It settled directly into the space around me.
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
No answer.
Instead, he tilted his head slightly, as though studying me.
"The veil thins, Noelle," he said. "And still you do not see."
A faint chill crawled along my arms. "See what?"
"The fracture."
The word lingered in the air like smoke.
I swallowed, forcing steadiness into my voice. "If you know something, just say it. Don't speak in riddles."
A pause.
Then—
"Hope," he murmured, almost thoughtfully. "Such a fragile thing. You carry what remains of it, and yet you walk blindly toward its extinction."
My pulse quickened. "What are you talking about?"
The shadow shifted—not forward, not backward, but deeper somehow, as though darkness itself folded around him.
"An upcoming threat," he said quietly. "Closer than you believe. Older than your grief. Patient."
My hands clenched at my sides. "Tell me what it is."
No answer.
"Please," I insisted, frustration sharpening my voice. "If something is coming, we need to know."
The air grew heavier.
"Darkness," he said at last. "It gathers where light has already been wounded. It follows the fractures left behind. And when it arrives… it will not simply destroy."
He paused.
"It will consume the last sliver of hope you have left."
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
"What does that mean?" I demanded. "Who is it? Apollo? The men in black? Are they coming back?"
Silence.
The figure remained still, as though my questions were leaves falling into a void.
"Answer me!" I shouted.
For the first time, he moved.
Just a step.
Not closer—but downward, as if sinking slightly into the porch beneath him. The shadows around his form thickened, swallowing the faint light that outlined his shape.
"When the darkness comes," he said softly, "you will know."
"That's not enough," I said, my voice cracking. "We need to prepare. We need—"
His head tilted again.
And then he stopped speaking.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was full.
Dense. Suffocating. Pressing inward from all sides until the air itself felt too heavy to breathe. My chest tightened as something shifted at the edges of the dream—something vast and formless.
"What's happening?" I whispered.
The ground beneath my feet trembled.
At first, I thought it was distant thunder. Then the sky itself began to darken, not gradually but all at once—as if a curtain of ink had been dropped over the world. The academy's towering silhouette flickered, its edges dissolving into shadow.
"No," I breathed.
The darkness moved like a living thing.
It poured across the sky. Crawled along the ground. Rose in towering waves that swallowed the gardens, the gates, the very air between breaths. It did not rush. It advanced with slow, inevitable certainty.
Toward me.
I tried to step back.
My feet wouldn't move.
The first tendrils reached my ankles—cold, heavy, suffocating. They climbed upward like thick smoke made solid, wrapping around my legs, my waist, my chest.
"I can't—" My voice faltered as the darkness pressed against my throat. "I can't breathe—"
The shadowed man did not help.
He only watched.
"Remember," he said quietly.
Then the darkness surged.
It swallowed me whole.
—
I woke with a gasp.
Air tore into my lungs as though I'd been underwater for too long. My body jolted upright, hands clutching at the sheets, heart pounding so violently it felt like it might split my ribs apart.
It was dark. My room. The cabin.
I dragged in another breath, then another, trying to steady the frantic rhythm of my pulse. Sweat clung to my skin, cooling too quickly in the night air.
Just a dream.
Just a dream.
A soft knock sounded at my door.
"Noelle?"
Primrose.
Before I could answer, the door opened slightly and she stepped inside, moonlight outlining her dark silhouette. Her brows were drawn together in quiet concern.
"Are you okay?" she asked softly.
I forced a breath and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sounded like you couldn't breathe."
"I had a nightmare," I said, managing a small, reassuring smile.
She studied me for a moment, as though trying to decide whether to believe that. Ophelia slipped into the room beside her, tail flicking gently as the cat padded toward my bed and hopped up without invitation.
"I didn't mean to wake you," I added.
"You didn't," Primrose said. "I was already awake."
Of course she was. She rarely slept through the night anymore.
"I'm okay," I repeated, softer this time. "Really."
After a brief pause, she nodded. "Alright. If you need anything…"
"I'll let you know."
She turned to leave.
And that was when my eyes landed on her neck.
Bare.
The familiar glint of silver that used to rest there—the necklace she never removed—was gone. For a split second, confusion flickered through me.
I remembered that necklace. The way, a year ago, it pulsed—not once—with a surge of power so intense I felt it from across the area. We never fully understood it.
I opened my mouth to ask. Then closed it.
Maybe… it's nothing.
"Goodnight, Noelle," she said quietly.
"Goodnight."
She left, closing the door behind her with gentle care. Ophelia lingered only a moment longer before hopping down and padding after her, leaving me alone again with the fading echoes of the dream.
I lay back slowly, staring at the ceiling.
The shadowed man's voice lingered in my mind.
The darkness.
The warning. An upcoming threat. The last sliver of hope. My chest tightened. Who was he? What did he mean? And why did it feel less like a dream… and more like a memory waiting to happen?
Questions gathered in my mind like storm clouds, heavy and unresolved.
Sleep did not return.