E L L E

The echo of my name still vibrates through the glass when the light breaks.

I don’t remember falling. One second I’m braced against him—Ashriel, though I still don’t know why that name clings to my heart like it belongs there, and the next, the library is a fractured scream. Cold presses up through my palms. My knees sting. My scarf is tangled, half-frozen to my neck. Frost laces the shattered floor around us, glittering like snowflakes made of teeth.

And everyone is running.

Chairs crash. Pages scatter. Students scream as they shove past me, clawing for the exits. Some leap over tables. Others don’t look back at all. I hear Juniper cry out. Rowan shouted someone’s name. Footsteps thud, slip, vanish.

A mirror falls beside me and splinters like ice.

I don’t move.

My body won’t listen. I know I should be crawling, scrambling, screaming, but I’m still staring at the space where the creature stood. The not-human thing with my mother’s voice and my stolen reflection. It’s gone, or maybe just hidden. Maybe it never left.

My breath comes in short, glass-cut gasps. I try to rise, but the frost curls up my fingers like it wants to keep me down.

“Elle!”

A voice cuts through the chaos. Ashriel.

And I snap back into my body like a whipcrack.

He’s there in an instant, dropping to his knees beside me, eyes sweeping the room like he’s ready to fight again. His hand grazes mine, firm and grounding.

“I’ve got you,” he says, quiet but certain.

Something inside me breaks a little more at how steady he sounds, like nothing just happened. Like I didn’t almost lose myself in that glass.

I grip his arm without meaning to. It’s instinct. My fingers close around his sleeve like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.

He doesn’t flinch.

His eyes stay locked on the far end of the library, on the curling mist where the Shade vanished. For a heartbeat, the room holds its breath.

Then a yell breaks it.

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Luke.

I twist toward the sound just as he barrels through the chaos. His uniform jacket is half-unbuttoned, one sleeve torn, his training blade gripped white-knuckle in one hand. He looks like he’s ready to fight an army.

“Luke—!” My voice catches.

He doesn’t stop.

The air splits with a screech. Frost streaks across the floor, coiling like vines toward the shelves. The Shade is still here. Formless but not gone. Its shadow ripples across the far mirrors, flickering between shapes. I see my face again. Ashriel’s. Then Luke’s.

Luke doesn’t hesitate. He lunges at the mist, swinging.

The blade slices air.

“Stupid,” Ashriel mutters under his breath, rising halfway. But he doesn’t let go of me.

“Don’t,” I whisper. “He’s just trying to protect me.”

Ashriel’s jaw tightens. His arm is still around my shoulders, shielding. But he doesn’t interfere. Doesn’t stop Luke.

And I hate that part of me notices. The part that wonders what it means, that Ashriel trusts me enough not to run. That he trusts Luke enough to try.

But the Shade doesn’t play fair.

It solidifies in the mirror behind Luke, just enough for a hand to lash out.

“LUKE!” I scream.

He turns too late.

Ashriel’s grip on me tightens, but still, he doesn’t move.

Not yet.

Luke pivots just in time to duck the Shade’s strike. Barely.

The creature’s hand, long, splintered, gleaming like shattered ice skims past his shoulder, raking deep into the wall instead. Stone cracks. Dust rains down. Luke stumbles, but doesn’t fall.

His eyes widened, breath coming hard.

It’s the first time he’s seen it up close.

Ashriel still hasn’t drawn his blade.

He’s waiting. Watching.

“Why aren’t you helping him?” I snap, even though I’m still pressed against his side, still shaking. My fingers are digging into his arm. I can’t let go.

“He’s not the one it wants,” Ashriel says calmly. “You are.”

The words land like a slap.

I look at the Shade, and it’s looking at me. Always me. Its face keeps shifting, my mother, then mine, then something blank and wrong. Every mirror along the wall flickers in sync. I see myself in each one, a dozen versions of me frozen in fear.

It’s hunting for the right reflection.

Ashriel moves.

In a single blur of motion, he rises and thrusts his hand toward the nearest mirror. Frost spirals outward like veins, glass cracking in a perfect ring. The Shade shudders. Its body fragments again, the face peeling open into light and mist.

It shrieks, that awful echoing sound like metal being torn apart.

Luke takes the opening. He lunges with a snarl and drives his training blade through the fog. It doesn’t hit anything real, but the movement buys Ashriel time.

He throws a sigil, etched on something dark and sharp, and it lands in the heart of the mist.

The Rift flares.

The Shade explodes into frost smoke.

It doesn’t die. Not really. I can feel it slipping back through the cracks, retreating into the mirrors.

But it’s gone..for now.

The air collapses with it. Every sound drops out at once.

Silence.

A single page flutters to the floor.

I realize I’m still holding onto Ashriel. My hand is white-knuckled around his coat.

He looks down at me, expression unreadable. Then he steps away.

“Elle.”
Luke’s voice breaks through the hush, low and frayed.

I turn toward him slowly. He stands with his chest heaving, the training blade hanging limp at his side. His face is pale, lips parted like he’s still catching his breath but it’s not the fight he’s breathless from.

It’s me.

His eyes flick past me to where Ashriel stands, expression calm, body coiled with magic he never fully unleashed. The frost still hasn’t melted from the ground where he stood. His blade is gone, but its absence feels louder than steel.

“Are you okay?” Luke asks again.

“I think so,” I whisper.

But he hears the tremble. His gaze softens for a second, like he wants to close the space between us. He doesn’t.

Ashriel says nothing. Just steps back into the shadows like he always does, watching.

Luke’s jaw flexes. I know that look. It’s the one he wears before he punches someone for saying too much about me in the dining hall. The one he wore the day my parents died and he didn’t know where to put his grief.

“You let him touch you,” he says, voice tight.

I flinch. “He pulled me out of the way. That’s all.”

“Is it?” Luke’s eyes burn now. “Because I saw your face. When he grabbed you.”

I open my mouth to argue, to deny, but nothing comes out.

Because he’s right. I didn’t look afraid. I looked like I knew him.

Like part of me trusted him more than I trust anyone else.

Luke steps forward, frost crunching under his boots. “I’ve been by your side since we were kids, Elle. I’ve held you when you cried. I’ve brought you cocoa, snuck you out when the whispers got too loud. I’d fight anything for you. I just did.”

“I know,” I whisper. “Luke—”

“Then tell me,” he says, voice shaking now. “Tell me you don’t feel anything for him.”

The silence that follows is louder than the fight.

Ashriel doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. But he doesn’t leave either.

I look at Luke, at the boy who’s always tried to protect me. The one who’s safe. Real. Who knows how I take my tea and how I like to be held when the world’s too loud.

And I look at the shadow beside the frost, Ashriel, the one I barely understand, but who always seems to appear when I need him most.

My heart stutters between them.

“I…” The word cracks.

Luke waits.

Ashriel watches.

I want to lie. I want to say it doesn’t mean anything. That I don’t feel the pull in my chest when Ashriel is near. That I don’t wake up with his name curled in my throat.

But my silence says too much.

Luke’s face folds. He nods once, sharp, like a blade sliding home, then turns and walks away.

I don’t stop him.

Ashriel doesn’t follow.

And the frost lingers.