E L L E

I keep my head down the whole walk back from Alchemy. The halls blur together, stone walls, torchlight, faces turning to stare. Luke’s footsteps stay right behind me, steady and close, the way they always are when he thinks I’m about to fall apart. At the stairwell, the hallway splits, his dorm one way, mine the other. He pauses like he’s thinking about following.

“I’m fine,” I say too quickly, too sharp. His mouth tightens, like he doesn’t buy it, but he nods. “I’ll meet you at midday.” I nod without looking up. My throat burns with everything I can’t bring myself to tell him.

Inside the girls’ dorm, the noise hits immediately. Laughter, teacups clinking, a gramophone humming. Normal sounds, almost painfully normal. I step into the common room, and the noise dips, then rises again, sharper this time, aimed at me.

“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 and 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 but I push past them, cheeks burning. Every step upstairs feels heavier than my own weight with gossip clinging to me like frost.

My room sits at the end of the hall, where the windows rattle with every draft. I slip inside and shut the door fast, before anyone can try to stop me. The quiet feels like a blessing. I drop onto the bed, twisting my scarf in my hands until the threads dig into my skin. Anya’s words keep circling in my head. Luke would be crushed. Friends don’t look at you like that. She’s wrong, or maybe she isn’t.

The image hits too easily, Luke leaning over the beaker, grabbing it with his bare hand like frostbite meant nothing if it meant protecting me. And the way he looked at me afterward, steady and sure: It’s fine. You’re fine.

Heat creeps up my face and I press the scarf to my mouth. If I let myself believe the whispers, he’s more than just my oldest friend,  but believing that means I owe him something I’m not sure I’m capable of giving.

I shut my eyes. Another face rises instead, storm-gray eyes at the back of the lab, watching in total silence. The air had changed when he looked at me, like the whole room froze. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, he just watched. And I felt it, the same pull as the night in the mist.

A shiver rolls through me and I don’t even know his name. And still, I remember his stare more clearly than the herb crumbling under my fingers. I scrub the thought away and stand, restless. My scarf slips around my shoulders as I cross to the mirror above the dresser. It’s old, spotted and harmless. My reflection is pale, hair messy, mouth drawn tight.

“See?” I whisper. “Just me.” Silence echoes back. I straighten the scarf, try to cool the heat in my cheeks, and breathe deep. If I can just keep walking, if I can keep quiet, maybe all the rumors will die down, but Anya’s voice digs in like a hook and Luke acts like it. He’s already decided. I squeeze my eyes shut beacause I don’t want to decide anything.

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

“Fine,” I mutter, turning away and that’s when the glass fogs and 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 with 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 and 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 and 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 because 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 to 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 spreads faster now, lines crossing over each other until the spiral thickens into something almost solid. The hum in the air sharpens, buzzing against my ears. I can’t move, my hand rises on its own, hovering inches from the mirror. Cold radiates out, sinking into my skin until it aches, then the spiral fractures. New lines cut through it, crooked strokes forming shaky letters.

N O T H I M. My breath stops and the words glow white, then deepen as the frost locks them into place. I shake my head, voice thin and cracking. “Not who?” The mirror shifts again. Frost sweeps over the letters, reshaping itself in quick, sure movements.

T H E O T H E R.

The words hit me like ice to the chest. My knees wobble, images flash —Luke’s warm hands steadying the beaker, sure and familiar and behind that, storm-gray eyes watching me from the shadows, unblinking.

The scarf tightens around my throat, I tug at it, gasping. “What does that mean?” My voice breaks. “What do you want from me?”

Nothing answers, just silence, heavy and cold. The frost melts away, fading to mist until the mirror looks normal again. My reflection stares back, wide-eyed and trembling, as if nothing happened at all, but the chill lingers. My fingertips burn as I fist the scarf, clinging to its roughness just to feel grounded.

Far down the hallway, a girl laughs, bright and carefree. A door slams, and the world keeps going, ordinary and loud. But in this room, the mirror feels alive, the frost may be gone, but its message coils inside me, steady and certain.

NOT HIM, THE OTHER