I didn't go straight back to my dorm.
I walked. No direction, no reason. Just wandered through Ravencroft's stone veins like a girl trying to forget she was made of blood and questions.
I didn't touch the coin in my coat pocket.
But I felt its weight.
Like it was listening.
---
The hallways were nearly empty.
Candles flickered low. The old portraits on the walls watched with quiet disapproval, their oil-painted eyes too knowing. Ravencroft had a way of holding its breath when you weren't supposed to be somewhere. Like it wanted to know what you'd do with the silence.
I passed a stairwell and froze.
There was music.
Soft. Faint. A piano — somewhere nearby, but distorted by distance. Off-key and aching.
No one was supposed to be in the recital rooms this late.
No one but faculty.
But I followed it anyway.
---
The door to the music wing was half-open.
The hallway inside was dim, lit only by the moon through the stained glass. Shadows clung to the corners like secrets. I moved slowly, letting the music guide me.
It wasn't perfect playing. It was… searching.
Every wrong note sounded like a memory trying to find its way back.
And then I saw him.
Not seated at the piano.
Standing by the window.
Watching me through the glass.
Unmoving. Silent.
His face was unreadable. One hand resting on the windowsill, the other tucked in his pocket like always. He didn't blink. He didn't wave. He just watched.
I stopped. The music stopped too.
Not because he'd seen me—
Because he wasn't playing.
The realization hit like cold water.
Someone else was in the room.
Someone behind the curtain.
And I wasn't supposed to be here.
---
I turned and walked away. Fast.
Didn't run. But almost.
I didn't look back to see if he followed.
Because somehow, I knew—
He already knew where I was going.
---
Back in my room, the air was too still.
Petra wasn't there. Her side of the room was tidy, untouched, her lamp still warm. I sat on the edge of my bed, hands in my lap, staring at the velvet curtains across the window.
And then I saw it.
The mirror.
Fogged from the inside.
Like breath had pressed against it.
I stood. Crossed the room slowly.
There were letters drawn in the condensation.
> Where did you go?
My heart stalled.
I wiped the words away—quickly, as if that made them less real. But even as I did, something fell from the corner of the mirror.
A note.
Folded. No seal. No handwriting I recognized.
I opened it with shaking fingers.
> Some walls whisper. Others wait. But the ones you should fear… are the ones that remember.
You're not invisible anymore.
That was all.
No signature.
Just weight.
---
I didn't sleep.
I lay under the covers, eyes open, listening to the rain return. Each gust of wind felt like a knock. Each creak in the floor like a footstep. Ravencroft had changed. Or maybe I had. Either way, nothing felt quiet anymore.
And somewhere deep in the night, I thought I heard something.
Not a voice. Not a footstep.
Breathing.
From behind the wall.
---
The next morning, everything was normal again.
Breakfast. Chatter. Books passed down the rows in class. Petra laughing at something in Literature. Roswen boys trading jokes like currency. As if the night before hadn't happened.
As if the mirror was just a trick of sleep.
As if no one had seen me standing in the bell tower with him.
Except someone had.
---
He approached me after History.
Not in the open. Not with his entourage.
In the alcove by the west stairwell. Just long enough for a glance. A murmur.
"Walk with me."
I followed.
We didn't speak until we were beneath the cloisters, where no one could hear us.
"You left the tower too fast," he said.
"I didn't know how long I was allowed to stay."
"You're not allowed anything here."
I looked up at him. He was back in his perfect uniform, perfect posture. But something behind his eyes looked… fractured.
"Someone left a message in my mirror," I said.
His jaw tensed. "What did it say?"
"That I'm not invisible anymore."
He said nothing.
"Did you tell someone I was in the tower?"
"No."
Then, softer: "But someone saw us."
---
He paced slowly now, his shoes clicking softly on the stone. We were between columns, shadows slanting across his face.
"The Order watches everything," he said. "Not just meetings. People. Relationships. Motives."
"Then why bring me into it at all?"
He stopped. Turned.
"Because I don't want to play anymore."
I blinked. "What?"
"I'm tired of being what they want. What my family wants. What I'm supposed to be." His voice dropped. "And maybe that's selfish. But when I saw you—"
He didn't finish.
The silence said enough.
---
A gust of wind passed between us.
"You don't know me," I whispered.
"I'm trying to."
"And if they find out?"
His gaze darkened. "They already know."
---
I walked away first this time.
Not because I wanted to.
But because if I didn't, I wouldn't have.
---
That evening, I found the greenhouse locked.
A note pinned to the door with a thorn:
> Don't trust the ones who watch in silence.
And beneath it, in smaller writing:
> Even shadows can lie.
I didn't go back inside.
But I looked up.
Toward the west dorm tower.
A light was on.
One window.
And I felt it again.
That someone — or something — wasn't just watching.
It was remembering.