The note sat on my pillow like it had been breathing there all day.
> He isn't the only liar.
No name. No handwriting I recognized. Just the sting of it.
I read it twice. Three times. Turned it over. Nothing.
But I knew who it was about.
And I knew who had left it.
Not the golden boy.
Not Petra.
Not the Order.
Him.
---
I found him in the old music room.
He was alone, bowing a cello without sound, dragging the horsehair slow across the strings. His fingers moved like someone trying to remember what silence felt like.
When he saw me, he didn't flinch. He just finished the phrase, set the bow down, and waited.
"I know it was you," I said.
He looked up. "What gave me away?"
"You're the only one who tells the truth by lying first."
---
He didn't smile.
He looked tired.
Not from lack of sleep, but like holding something in had started to leak.
He stood and walked past me to the far window. The fog outside made the glass glow white.
"I thought you deserved the choice," he said.
"Choice?"
"To believe him. Or me. Or no one."
---
I didn't speak.
Not yet.
Because suddenly, I didn't know what I wanted to ask.
About the note?
About the coin?
About the sketch of me he left, standing in the observatory, not seeing the fire?
No.
I wanted to ask about her.
So I did.
---
"Who was Anastasia Vale to you?"
The question made him flinch.
He pressed a palm to the windowsill.
Slowly.
Like something had just tightened in his chest.
"She was the first person I ever loved."
"And the first person the Order erased?"
He nodded once.
"No body. No goodbye. Just silence. They called it a 'reassignment.' I called it murder in velvet."
---
I crossed the room. Quiet steps. My breath shallow.
When I stopped behind him, he still didn't look at me.
"She was marked by both of you?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Like me."
"No," he said. "Not like you. You still have time."
---
I wanted to be angry.
I wanted to shove him, curse him, ask him why he cared now when he'd been silent for weeks.
But instead…
I reached for his hand.
And he let me.
---
The artist's fingers were cold. Callused. A little ink-stained.
He didn't hold mine back at first — just let it happen.
Then he turned around.
Very slowly.
And for the first time, I saw something in his face that made my heart drop.
Terror.
Not of me.
Not of the Order.
Of feeling something again.
---
"I should've left this school three years ago," he said. "But I couldn't. Because she might've come back. And now—now you're here, and I can't…"
He broke off.
Then stepped forward and kissed my hand.
Just once.
Not passionate.
Not possessive.
But desperate.
---
I said nothing.
I didn't have to.
Because whatever he was breaking open wasn't for me to fix.
It was for me to know.
And knowing it hurt more than I expected.
---
We didn't kiss.
But the space between us got full enough to hum.
And when I left the music room, I didn't feel betrayed.
I felt tethered.
To two truths.
To two boys.
To a choice I didn't understand yet.
---
That night, I dreamed of a stairwell with no end.
And someone at the bottom calling my name.
---
The next day was velvet-wrapped chaos.
There was a ceremony. Mandatory. Headmistress Alvara stood at the front of the Great Hall, draped in navy and black, flanked by six Order initiates.
Each held a candle.
Each looked terrified.
Even Petra.
---
"The Hall of Names has been opened," the headmistress said. "And three new names have been selected for the Rite of Endurance."
Murmurs.
Eyes darting.
Then the names.
Not mine.
Not the artist.
Not the heir.
But Petra's was first.
She looked straight at me as her name was called.
Her face unreadable.
But I saw it — in her eyes — that flicker of regret.
Or warning.
---
After the hall emptied, I followed her.
Cornered her near the second-floor stairwell, where shadows fell fast.
"What's going on?"
Petra didn't pretend to play dumb.
"They're preparing for the final ring."
"The what?"
"It's the third phase of initiation. Past the Mirror, past the Endurance. You're being watched."
"I know."
"No," she said quietly. "You don't. Because the girl who tried to survive it last time… didn't."
My breath caught.
"Anastasia?"
Petra's eyes darkened.
"I don't think she died. I think she became something the Order didn't want remembered."
---
She slipped something into my pocket.
A matchbook.
Old, weathered. With a word scrawled on the inside:
> "Remember me."
Not in Petra's handwriting.
But in a looped, elegant script.
Like someone who wrote poetry in the margins of her notebooks.
I would've sworn it said "Anastasia Vale."
---
That night, I found the golden boy waiting in the observatory.
No words.
Just stars.
Just his coat draped over a chair.
Just his coin spinning on the railing like it had never stopped.
I didn't ask how he knew I'd come.
I just walked to the edge beside him and looked up.
"The stars feel wrong tonight," I said.
"They always do before they move."
He paused.
"Do you hate me now?"
"No," I said. "But I don't trust you either."
His voice cracked then. Just a little.
"I told myself kissing you once would be enough."
I looked at him.
"And?"
He looked back.
And for once — no warning. No caution.
Just the truth.
"It wasn't even close."
---
When he kissed me this time, it was different.
No thunder. No garden. No escape plan.
Just hands in my hair.
Lips soft with guilt.
Breath caught between want and fear.
---
I kissed him like I knew I shouldn't.
Like I knew it would cost me something.
And when we pulled apart, he whispered the one thing that made the walls shiver.
> "If they make me choose between you and my name... I'll choose you."
---
But neither of us heard the whisper from the vents above.
The one that said, "She must not be allowed to remember."