L U K E

I don’t remember leaving the library.

One minute I’m staring at Elle, waiting for her to say something, anything that’ll make this whole thing make sense. And the next, I’m outside, fists clenched, breath fogging the air like smoke.

She didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

Because she feels it. The same thing I do, even if we don’t name it. That pull toward him. That cold stillness in the air when he shows up. Like something bigger is watching. Waiting.

The halls are half-empty. Classes canceled, they said. Some students claimed they saw frost on the bookshelves. Others are saying it was just a prank. Stress. Light tricks. Most didn’t see it move.

But I did.

I saw its eyes. I saw how it reached for her.

And still… She looked at him like she wasn’t afraid.

The bell rings too early, too loud. It echoes down the stone corridors, jarring me back to the present. Students drift past in tight clusters, talking too fast, like they’re trying to forget what they felt in the library.

But none of them felt what I did.

I head to the dining hall, trying to breathe past the knot in my chest. I don’t know what I’ll say to her.

Only that I need her to sit beside me.

It takes me exactly three minutes and forty seconds to regret walking away.

But I don’t turn back.

I can still feel her silence in my chest like a sliver of frost. The way she looked at him and not afraid, but like she knew him. Like he belonged to her.

My hands won’t stop shaking.

The dining hall smells like burnt toast and damp stone. Trays clatter. Forks scrape. Everyone pretends they didn’t hear the shouts echo through the walls. That nothing wrong happened last night.

They didn’t see what I saw.

Most of them just saw frost. Smoke. Maybe a cracked mirror.

But I saw it move. I saw the shadows bend wrong. I saw her face.

I saw how close she stood to him.

I shove my tray aside. I haven’t eaten a thing. Just stared at the steam curling from my cocoa, hoping she’ll walk in like none of this ever happened.

When she finally does, the room shifts.

Elle steps through the doors, scarf high on her neck, hair damp, shoulders hunched like she’s bracing for impact. And like vultures scenting blood, the whispers begin.

“Wrenwood.”

“Library freak.”

“She was right there when it happened.”

I stand up before I can stop myself. “Elle!”

She startles, eyes locking onto mine.

Relief flickers across her face. Just for a second. It’s enough.

She walks faster. Head down. Ignoring the stares.

I make space for her at the bench, shoulder to shoulder. I sit close. Closer than I need to. Like I can shield her from the stares just by existing.

She sits, too quiet, hands clenched in her lap. Her scarf is still damp. Her fingers are pink with cold.

I slid my cocoa toward her without a word.

She wraps her hands around it like she needs to feel something warm.

I want to say it’s okay. That I get it. That I’m not mad, even though I probably should be.

But I don’t lie. Not to her.

“Are you okay?” I ask, low.

She nods too quickly. “Just tired.”

Before I can say more, a sharp breath cuts through the noise.

Two tables down, Tobias Kade wobbles in his seat.

His eyes roll back, and then, he drops.

Tobias hits the table with a dull thud.

For a second, no one moves. Just frozen forks, half-open mouths, the scrape of a chair as someone starts to stand, and stops.

His fingers dangle off the bench.

Then the frost starts to spread.

Thin and pale, like breath on glass, curling out from beneath his palm. Spirals. Tight and perfect. The same kind I saw in the library. The same kind I saw on Elle’s scarf.

Gasps ripple across the hall. A girl at the nearest table shrieks. Another pulls her chair back so fast it topples.

Elle moves before I do.

She stands, cocoa forgotten, and crosses the gap like the ground might fall out if she waits too long.

Her hands hover above Tobias’s arm. Not touching. Just shaking there in the air.

And the frost, pauses.

It doesn’t melt. It just stops spreading.

My stomach turns. A few students around us draw back.

“She’s doing something,” someone whispers.

“She stopped it. Did you see?”

“She didn’t stop. She brought it.”

And then—

“She’s cursed!”

Maribel’s voice slices through the fear like a blade. She’s already on her feet, eyes gleaming, finger pointed right at Elle.

“She touched him, and it stopped! Are you all blind? It started when she walked in! Just like in the library. Just like.. like every time.”

Gasps. Murmurs. Half the hall turns to look. A few students edge farther from the frost on the table.

“She was there yesterday. She’s always there,” Maribel hisses. “Maybe it’s not a coincidence. Maybe she’s the reason it keeps happening.”

Elle doesn’t say anything.

She just stands there, scarf slipping loose, hands trembling over Tobias’s arm. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out.

My body moves before I think.

I rise from the bench, step between them, between Maribel and Elle and square my shoulders to the rest of the hall.

“Back off,” I say.

It’s not loud. But it’s enough.

Maribel flinches, just slightly. “Still playing the hero, Luke? You think protecting her makes it better? Makes it safer?”

I don’t answer.

Because I don’t know if it does.

A few more students draw back. No one sits near the frost now. They’re all staring. Whispering.

Maribel’s voice turns smug. “Maybe we should ask why nothing ever touches you.”

Her words hit harder than I expected.

Because I’ve wondered.

Why does the frost never reach my table? Why can I hold Elle’s hand and feel her shaking, but not the cold that follows her.

I don’t know the answer.

The silence that follows is worse than the shouting. It stretches long, tight as a held breath.

And then.. 

Something changes.

The frost on the floor begins to shimmer. Not melt but shift. Like it’s being drawn toward something.

Spirals unwind. Stretch. Curl toward the center of the hall.

A sound rises up from the frost. Thin. Too soft to be human. Too cold to be wind.

“Elowen.”

My heart stops. Elle stiffens behind me. Candles gutter. The chandelier sways on its chain. The voice comes again, curling through stone like smoke.

“Elowen.”

Everyone hears it. And no one knows what to do.

The frost hums with it now. The spirals aren’t just shifting, they’re moving, inch by inch, like they’re alive. Like they’re reaching for her.

A girl whimpers behind me,  someone drops a fork. No one laughs. No one speaks.

Elle barely breathes, she’s still standing over Tobias, scarf half-off, eyes wide and locked on the frost spirals curling toward her feet.

“Did it just say her name?” someone whispers.

“Not Elle. Elowen.”

It says it again.

Soft. Too soft. But everyone hears it.

“Elowen.”

Elle takes a step back like it burned her, her scarf slips from her neck. Frost blooms across the fabric in real time, fine and silver, forming spirals exactly like the ones on the floor. It spreads fast.. too fast.

The scarf drops to the ground, and freezes solid. A shudder runs through the room. The air sharpens. Candles flicker wildly, the chandelier above gives one long creak before falling still.

The spirals stop moving, not melted, not gone. Just… waiting. 

I don’t move, behind me, Elle whispers, “Luke?”

Her voice shakes, and I realize I’ve heard that name before. Elowen.

But not from her, not from anyone here. I heard it from the cold, from the dark. From whatever’s been watching her all this time.

And now?

Now it’s calling her by name.