E L L E

I keep my head down all the way back from Alchemy. The corridors blur- stone, torches, faces turning to look. Luke’s footsteps stay close behind me, steady, protective, the way they always are when he thinks I’m breaking.

At the stairwell, the hall forks. His dorm one way, mine the other. He hesitates like he might follow.

“I’m fine,” I blurt, too sharp.

His mouth pulls like he doesn’t believe me, but he nods anyway. “I’ll see you at midday.”

I nod back, eyes on the floor. My throat aches with everything I don’t say.

Inside the girls’ dorm, the noise hits first. Laughter, teacups, the scratch of a gramophone. Normal. Too normal. I push through the common room and it falls quiet, then sharper as it rises again.

“She froze the table.”
“Professor Brielle loved it.”
“She should be in Discipline.”

The words sting even though I expect them. I keep moving, scarf tight.

Anya’s the first to notice me. She’s sprawled across a velvet chair like a cat, two friends perched beside her. Her smile glints, sweet and sharp.

“There she is,” she sings. “Wrenwood! We were just talking about class.” Her gaze dips to my hands. “No frostbite? Good. Luke would be heartbroken if you couldn’t hold his hand anymore.”

Heat rushes to my face. “We’re not..”

“Together?” Her lashes flutter, feigned innocence. “Of course not. He just acts like it.”

Her friends giggle. I fold my arms, hiding the tremor in my hands. “Luke is my friend.”

Anya tilts her head. “Friends don’t look at you like that.”

“Like what?” I hate the way my voice catches.

“Like he’s already decided.” She leans back, smug, savoring it. “And you won’t admit it.”

The girls laugh again, delighted. I push past them, cheeks burning. Every step upstairs feels heavier than my own weight, gossip clinging to me like frost.

My room is at the end of the hallway, where the windows rattle with drafts. I slip inside and shut the door before anyone else can catch me. The silence is a mercy.

I sink onto the bed, twisting the scarf in my lap until the threads bite my fingers. Anya’s voice won’t leave me alone. Luke would be crushed. Friends don’t look at you like that.

She’s wrong. Or maybe she’s not.

The picture comes too easily, Luke leaning over the beaker, steadying it with his bare hand like my safety was worth frostbite. The way he looked at me afterward, low and certain: It’s fine. You’re fine.

My face heats. I press the scarf tighter against my mouth. If I let myself believe the whispers, he’s more than my oldest friend. But if I believe that, then I’ll owe him something I don’t know if I can give.

I close my eyes. Another face rises instead. Gray eyes at the back of the lab, watching. Silent. The air had shifted when he looked at me, like the whole room was holding its breath. He didn’t move, didn’t speak.. just stared. And I felt it, the same pull as in the mist that night.

A shiver runs down my spine. I don’t even know his name. And still, I remember his gaze more sharply than the herb wilting under my hand.

I shove the thought away and stand, restless. My scarf hangs loose around my shoulders as I cross to the mirror bolted above the dresser. It’s spotted, old, harmless. My reflection looks pale, hair mussed, mouth pressed tight.

“See?” I whisper. “Just me.”

The silence doesn’t answer.

I smooth the scarf, try to force my cheeks cool, and drag in a breath. If I can keep walking, if I can keep my mouth shut, maybe the stories will fade.

But Anya’s words scrape like a hook under my skin. Luke acts like it. He’s already decided.

I shut my eyes hard. I don’t want to decide anything.

I open my eyes. The mirror waits. My reflection stares back, stubborn and tired, scarf crooked. Nothing strange. Nothing wrong.

“Fine,” I mutter, turning away.

That’s when the glass fogs.

I freeze. Just a faint bloom at first, like someone breathed against the silver from the other side. My skin prickles. The draft under the door isn’t strong enough for this.

“No,” I whisper.

The fog spreads in a delicate curl, tracing thin lines across the mirror’s face. Frost follows, sketching patterns too fast, too deliberate. Spirals. The same spirals I saw on the table, glowing faintly before melting.

I stumble back until my legs hit the bedframe. My pulse slams against my scarf.

“Stop,” I say, louder this time. My breath ghosts white into the air.

The frost doesn’t stop. It curls tighter, looping over itself, branching into veins like cracks in ice. The spiral widens until it nearly brushes the frame, glinting pale in the weak light.

My throat is too dry to swallow. The room is silent except for the faint hiss of ice etching itself across glass.

“Not real,” I whisper, voice shaking. “It isn’t real.”

But it is. I can feel it in the air, heavy and metallic, like the weight before a storm. The mirror hums faintly, a vibration under my skin.

Footsteps thud past in the hall outside, laughter spilling through the wood, ordinary and cruel in its normalcy. None of them know what’s happening here. None of them hear it.

The spiral brightens, faint but certain, like moonlight caught in frozen veins.

I clutch the bedpost, torn between running and watching. The frost stretches outward, then stills, waiting. Like it’s listening for me.

My reflection is half-buried beneath the spiral, pale face fractured by frost lines. I look like I’m trapped behind the glass.

“Please,” I whisper. I don’t even know what I’m begging for.

The frost shivers once, as if answering. Then it begins to draw again.

The frost sketches faster now, lines crisscrossing until the spiral thickens into something almost solid. The hum in the air sharpens, pressing against my ears.

I can’t move. My hand lifts of its own accord, palm hovering inches from the glass. Cold radiates toward me, aching through my skin.

Then the spiral breaks. New strokes carve across it, letters, jagged and crooked, forming words in a shaky scrawl.

N O T H I M.

My heart stops. The letters gleam white, then deepen, the frost sealing them in place.

I shake my head, voice cracking. “Not who?”

The mirror answers. Frost rushes over the first words, rewriting itself in quick, decisive lines.

T H E O T H E R.

The words burn cold into my chest. My knees nearly buckle. Images flash too fast, Luke’s steady hands, warm and certain. The boy at the back of the lab, storm-gray eyes pinning me still.

The scarf feels too tight, choking. I yank at it, gasping. “What does that mean?” My voice breaks. “What do you want from me?”

No reply. Only silence thick with frost. The words fade, lines dissolving into pale mist until the mirror is bare again. My reflection stares back, wide-eyed and shaking, as if nothing happened.

But the cold remains. My fingertips sting as I clutch the scarf tighter, grounding myself in its scratch against my skin.

The laugh of a girl carries faintly down the corridor outside, bright and careless. A door slams. Life goes on, loud and normal.

But here, in this room, the mirror waits. The frost has gone, but its whisper still curls through me, low and certain.

Not him. The other.