E L L E

I don’t remember leaving the east wing.

One blink, and I’m back in my dorm, damp scarf still clinging to my throat, frost still clinging to my fingers. My arms ache from scrubbing stone, and the smell of cleaning salt still burns the back of my throat. The mop bruised my palms; they throb with each heartbeat.

The locker door stays open in my mind. Waiting. Watching.

Every time I blink, I see that thin slice of darkness inside it. A place that shouldn’t exist but does. A void that knows my name.

I scrub my hands against the blanket, trying to chase the chill out, but it lingers, beneath skin and bone, a hum that won’t quiet. When I finally unwind my scarf to dry, something small slips free and lands in my lap.

A folded envelope.

My name is written across it in careful, looping ink.

Elowen.

My breath catches. That handwriting, I’d know it anywhere.

Nan.

I relight the grounding candle Nan packed in my trunk. The glow’s steadier than the overhead lights, warmer than the dorm lamps.

The candle trembles when I reach for the letter. The wax scent mixes with frost in the air, a faint sharpness that doesn’t belong. I turn the envelope over. The paper is thick, edges uneven, sealed with a thumb-print of pale blue wax shaped like a spiral. Old-fashioned. Exactly the kind of thing Nan would use when she wanted to make me listen.

Except she’s miles away in Moonhollow. She hasn’t written since the term began. And yet the paper is warm, like someone just pressed it into my scarf moments ago.

I glance at the door. Locked. Curtains drawn. The dorm is silent except for the slow tick of the wall clock and the wind breathing against the window. It’s past curfew; Luke’s floor will be quiet too. No footsteps. No laughter. Just me.

The flame bends sideways, as if pulled toward the letter.

“Okay,” I whisper, voice too small in the stillness. “How are you even here?”

No answer, only the faintest crack as frost creeps along the rim of the windowpane.

My pulse stutters. I slide a nail under the seal and break it. Wax flakes away like ice.

Inside: a single sheet, folded twice. Ink smudged at the corners, the handwriting slanted but steady. The same way she wrote her shopping lists and spells. My throat tightens before I even read.

My dearest Elowen,
The frost remembers.
The Rift listens.
The voices wear faces you love.
Trust not the whispers.

Your mark will bloom soon, do not hide it from the light.
The scarf keeps what I could not.

—Nan

The words blur. I blink hard, heart slamming against my ribs.

Trust not the whispers.

I whisper it back under my breath, the way you test a ghost’s name. The candle sputters, throwing quick, nervous shadows across the walls.

How did she know? The frost, the whispers, the mark?

Did she send this tonight or… did something else deliver it?

The ink near the last line glistens wetly, as if it hasn’t dried. I touch it with one fingertip. Cold burns through my skin, a single pulse of ice.

I dropped the letter. It lands face-up on the blanket, words shining faintly, edges crusted with frost.

I stare at the letter, frozen in place. The words glow faintly blue before fading, as if they breathed once and went still. The air smells sharper now, like frost on iron.

My hands won’t stop trembling. Nan’s handwriting is real. Her scent, smoke and rosemary clings to the page. But she’s not supposed to know any of this. I never told her about the frost, the voices, the locker.

Unless she already knew.

Unless she’s been watching somehow.

A gust rattles the window. The candle guttered earlier flares up again, taller, almost white. Light flashes against the mirror across the room. For a heartbeat, the reflection looks wrong, slightly delayed, like it’s remembering to move after I do.

I force my eyes back to the letter, tracing the first line again.

The frost remembers.

The frost remembers. What does that even mean?

My mother used to say frost carried messages for those who listened. That the cold could speak in spirals if you were brave enough to read it. I thought it was one of her bedtime stories.

But now, the frost listens too. It whispers back.

I touch the scarf lying on my bed, the same one Nan gave me before she sent me here. “The scarf keeps what I could not,” she’d written. My throat tightens. What couldn’t she keep? Me? My mother? Herself?

I pick up the scarf, shaking it once. Frost dusts from the edges like glittering sand. The pattern on the fabric is faint, but under the candlelight, spirals shimmer along the weave. They weren’t there before.

My pulse stumbles.

“Nan,” I whisper, “what did you do?”

The wind moans outside, but something else answers, a faint whisper threading through the room, almost kind. My mother’s voice.

Elowen, listen.

The same tone she used when teaching me constellations, soft and sure.

“Mom?” My throat scrapes around the word. I clutch the scarf tighter, heart racing.

The frost remembers. The Rift listens.

My stomach drops. It’s the same phrase from the letter, but her voice, not Nan’s.

The candle flickers once, twice. The whisper changes pitch, deepening.

The voices wear faces you love.

The flame snaps sideways, stretching thin. Shadows crawl up the wall like smoke.

“No.” I went back toward the headboard. “You’re not her.”

The whisper softens, mimicking the warmth that used to mean safety. You can trust me, my sweet girl.

I shake my head, tears stinging my eyes. “Nan said not to listen.”

Silence follows, thick enough to choke on. Then the mirror across the room fogs over, a pale spiral blooming across its center.

Elowen.

The voice comes again, gentler, but layered, my mother’s, Nan’s, and something beneath them both. A third tone, lower, wrong.

My knees hit the edge of the bed. “Stop,” I whisper.

The spiral in the mirror pulses once. A frost line crawls from the glass, branching along the wall toward the bed.

I lunge forward, snatch the letter off the blanket, and shove it back into the envelope. The moment I do, the candle steadies. The frost halts mid-crawl. The whisper fades to a sigh.

I stand there, shaking, an envelope crushed in my hands. My breath clouds the air, slow and shallow.

The silence after is worse than the noise.

I sink onto the edge of the bed, staring at the letter like it might start speaking again. Nan’s warning presses against the inside of my skull. Trust not the whispers.

I wish I knew which ones she meant.

A knock breaks the silence.

Not loud. Three soft taps against the door. I flinch, heart still thudding from the mirror.

“El?” Luke’s voice, muffled but familiar. “It’s me.”

I don’t answer right away. My fingers tighten around the envelope. The scarf lies twisted on the bed beside it, the frost spirals still faintly glowing along its weave.

Another knock. “I brought cocoa. Thought you might need..” He stops. “I saw your window.”

I cross the room and open the door just enough to see him. He’s in his hoodie, damp from the mist, a paper cup in his hands. His eyes flick past me, scanning the room, then back to my face.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

His gaze drops to my hands. “What’s that?”

I hesitate. “A letter.”

“From who?”

“Nan.”

His brow furrows. “How?”

“I… don’t know.” I hate how thin my voice sounds.

Luke steps inside before I can stop him, gaze sweeping the scarf, the letter, the way I’m holding them like a secret.

“Elle,” he says, quieter now, “you promised. No more hiding.”

“I’m not..”

“You are.” His voice isn’t angry, but it’s strained. “If it’s dangerous, if it’s more of the weird stuff you’ve been avoiding. I need to know.”

I want to show him. I do. But Nan’s words echo again. The voices wear faces you love. Trust not the whispers.

I tuck the letter closer to my chest. “Not yet.”

Luke flinches like I struck him. He nods once, too sharp. “Right. Secrets again.”

“Luke.”

“I’ll go.” His smile is hollow as he turns. “Wouldn’t want to be one of the voices.”

The door shuts softly behind him.

The silence after Luke leaves feels too sharp.

The room hums, low and electric, like a breath held too long.

I set the letter down on the desk and reach for the scarf, but stop.

The mirror.

It fogs again. Slow. Purposeful. The same spiral pattern curls across the glass, frost blooming in delicate lines.

“Elowen.”

This time, it’s my voice.

I freeze. The tone is exact, soft, tired, a little hollow. Just like I sounded a minute ago.

“Elowen,” it repeats. “It’s safe now. He’s gone.”

The frost glows faintly in the mirror’s spiral.

My voice whispers again: “You did the right thing.”

I backed away. My heart climbs into my throat.

The reflection watches me, lips not moving, but the voice doesn’t stop.

“Don’t hide it anymore,” it says. “Let it bloom.”

Pain explodes in my palm.

I gasp, clutching my hand, and stumble back against the bed.

Frost spreads across my skin, veins of it, glowing faintly blue, curling into a spiral that burns even as it freezes.

The same mark as the locker. The same as the scarf.

The whisper in the mirror softens.

It’s already inside you.

My breath shatters. I look down.

The spiral pulses once, then fades, leaving the shape scorched into my skin like frostbite.

I clutch my hand to my chest, eyes stinging.

Whatever this is…

It’s no longer just whispering.

It’s claiming me.