E L L E

The frost hasn’t left my hands since last night.

Not even after they dragged Tobias out. Not after Luke stood between me and Maribel’s glare. Not after the whispers turned from cruel to frightened.

“Elowen,” they all heard it. Not just in their heads. Not just in mine.

Now I’m here. Alone.

The east wing echoes with every step, the mop handle cold against my palms. Frost webs across the floor ahead of me, not just in patches, but spiraled, like something grew here. Or waited.

My boots crunch over it.

Draven called it detention. “Reparations for repeated disruptions.” She never said the word Rift, but I saw it in her eyes. The fear. The calculation.

They think scrubbing frost will make it stop.

They don’t understand.

Neither do I.

The bucket sloshes beside me, lukewarm water doing nothing to the spirals crawling over the stone. Some have already reformed by the time I finish a hallway. Some never leave.

Caretaker Silas walks behind me without a word, his lantern casting shadows that stretch too long. His footsteps don’t echo the same way mine do.

He hasn’t spoken since unlocking the east wing door.

Not until now.

“Start with the mirrors,” he says, voice like fog against glass. “And don’t bother wiping too hard. They never stay clean.”

I pause in front of the first mirror.

The frost clings in soft spirals, thin and perfect like the ones that covered my scarf. I raise the cloth and swipe, but the moment I lift my hand, the spiral reforms. Not identical but different. Sharper.

My breath fogs the glass.

“Elowen…”

The whisper is barely there, more memory than sound. But I jerk back anyway, heart lurching.

Silas doesn’t flinch. He’s watching the frost, not me.

“They like mirrors,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

“Who’s they?” My voice scrapes out, smaller than I mean it to.

His expression doesn’t shift. But the lantern trembles slightly in his hand.

“Some things see better through glass than through air.” He takes a step closer. “They remember faces. Especially ones that linger.”

He turns before I can ask more, moving ahead like he never said anything at all.

I swallow and move to the next mirror. This one’s taller, narrower, like a doorway. The frost spirals here are tighter, almost glowing faintly in the lantern light. My fingers hover near the edge, and the hum begins again. Faint, but rising.

“Elowen.”

I pull back before touching it this time. A ripple moves across the surface anyway. Like breath. Or something behind the glass exhaling.

Silas stops beside me again. “Some scars can’t be cleaned,” he says softly. “Not even by someone who means well.”

He doesn’t explain. Just walk away.

But I feel it, like he left something behind in that sentence. Like he knows what this frost means, and what it’s becoming.

And he’s warning me, in the only way he’s allowed.

The hallway narrows the farther I go.

Colder, too. The stone underfoot sweats frost even where I’ve just passed. My mop leaves streaks, not trails. As if the frost is reclaiming the ground faster than I can erase it.

I round the corner, bracing for another mirror
And stop.

He’s already there.

Kneeling beside one of the taller frames, his hand pressed flat to the glass, head bowed like he’s listening. Not moving. Not speaking. Just… still.

The air warps around him, like candlelight bending before a storm.

My breath catches. I should back away. I should say something. Demand something.

Instead, I move closer.

I don’t know why.

My fingers brush the floor as I kneel beside him, instinct before thought. The frost beneath our hands hums, low and bone-deep. It quiets. Just slightly.

His fingers shift. Just barely.

And then, his hand grazes mine.

Not an accident.

Not this time.

It’s the faintest touch, skin to skin but it sends something sharp and silent through me. Like being seen without being named.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look.

But I feel him watching.

His voice, when it finally comes, is softer than I’ve ever heard it. “This frost… it’s drawn to you.”

I swallow, not trusting my voice. My palm is still pressed to the frost. I can’t feel the cold anymore.

“I don’t want it to be,” I whisper.

His hand shifts, knuckles brushing mine again, and I flinch, not from fear. From wanting more of it.

“But it is,” he says.

And I know he’s not just talking about the frost.

For one heartbeat, we kneel like that hands touching, breath held, frost quiet.

Then he pulls back.

The moment breaks like a ripple across still water.

His eyes gray as stormclouds, find mine at last.

“You shouldn’t be alone here,” he says.

Neither should you, I almost say.

But I don’t.

Because somehow, being alone together is worse. And better. And impossible.

Behind us, a step echoes.

I jerk away from the mirror, from him, guilt rushing in like cold water.

Silas stands at the end of the hallway, lantern raised, face mostly shadowed. I hadn’t heard him approach. I don’t think he had either but he shifts back a fraction, posture tightening.

The frost doesn’t respond. It just hums now, low and steady, like it’s waiting.

Silas doesn’t speak for a long moment. Just watch. The flame in his lantern flickers once, then steadies.

“I told you not to linger,” he says.

It’s not scolding. It’s… something else. Tired. Resigned.

He straightens without a word, fading back into shadow like he was never there. I don’t know if Silas even saw him fully, but something in his gaze sharpens, like a man who’s spent too long noticing things he shouldn’t admit.

“You see them, don’t you?” I ask, standing slowly. My voice sounds distant to my own ears. “The spirals. The whispers.”

His eyes meet mine. “I see what needs cleaning.”

It’s not an answer. But it’s also not a lie.

He walks past me toward the mirror, slow and deliberate. When he gets close, the frost shifts again, just slightly. A ripple, like acknowledgment.

Silas doesn’t touch the glass. 

He just stares at it and says, “Some stains are older than dust. Older than this place.”

Then he turns to me, voice lower now. “Some scars aren’t meant to be erased. Just carried.”

I want to ask what that means. I want to scream. But I don’t move. Because deep down, I know he’s not talking about mirrors anymore.

He nods to the far corridor. “Last one. Then you’re done.”

Then he walks away again, his lantern glow shrinking behind stone and shadow.

The mirror remains. Silent. Watching.

The last hallway is darker.

Older stone. Less light. The frost spirals here are heavier, thicker patterns that cross each other like veins. They don’t fade when I pass. They pulse.

The mop handle feels like dead weight in my hands. My arms ache. My breath mists in front of me even though I’m indoors. The temperature shouldn’t drop like this.

I reach the final mirror. It’s cracked at the corner. The spiral pattern across it looks burned in, not delicate like the others, but jagged, scarred.

I don’t touch it.

I just stand there, staring at my own warped reflection.

The girl staring back looks hollow. Tired. Pale. My scarf is still damp where it thawed earlier, now stiff with frost again. My fingers are white around the handle.

“Elowen.”

I flinch.

The whisper doesn’t come from the mirror this time.

It comes from behind me.

I spin, breath caught and find nothing. No one.

The corridor is empty.

Except…

My eyes fall on it instantly.

Locker 237.

Just a few feet down. Set into the stone wall like it’s always been there. Just sitting. Silent.

The last time I saw it, it slammed shut in my face. The first time. The beginning.

Now?

The lock rattles.

Soft. Almost curious.

I take a single step forward. Then another.

The frost creeps along the floor, spirals crawling toward my boots. I stop just short of the door. My breath sounds too loud in the stillness.

And then..
creeeeeak..

The locker door inches open.

No hand. No wind. Just that slow, deliberate sound of hinges long unused. Inside, darkness. Deeper than it should be. No shelf. No books. Just… a void.

The frost rushes forward, spirals clustering at my feet, drawn to it.

“Elowen.”

The voice is softer now. Almost gentle.

I don’t move. Can’t move.

The locker is open.

And it’s waiting.