L U K E

The candles relight one by one, but the room doesn’t warm.
No one talks, only the scrape of chairs, the soft panic of notebooks slamming shut. The word Seal-bearer still hums through the air, too loud to be forgotten.

Elle moves first. Quiet, careful. She packs her things while half the class stares and the other half won’t look at all. Maribel mutters something poisonous; Cassian forces a laugh that dies halfway out of his throat.

I reach for her without thinking. “Elle..”
She’s already gone. The frost spiral on her notebook glows faintly after she leaves, like it remembers her better than any of us.

By the time I hit the corridor, she’d vanished into the crowd of whispering students.

The rest of the day blurs.
Every hallway hums with rumor: She’s the Seal-bearer. She froze the desk. He was staring at her the whole time.

By the last bell, I can’t take it. The gossip, the lies, the way everyone says her name like it’s a curse.

Then I see her, alone behind the gym, sunlight bleeding through the ivy wall.
The spot’s half-hidden from the main yard, used by Combat Squad kids to ditch drills. Now it’s just her, bag at her feet, head tilted toward the sky like she’s trying to breathe again.

Frost glints on the ivy even though it’s nearly warm enough to sweat. It should melt. It doesn’t.

I step closer. “Elle.”

She huffs a breath, half-laugh, half-defense. “They’ll calm down. They always do.”

“No,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it. “They’ll twist what Maelor said until it ruins you.”

“I’m used to it.”

“I’m not.”
The words rip out before I can stop them. I scrub a hand over my face. “Sorry. I just.. I can’t keep watching them act like you’re something to whisper about.”

Her shoulders soften, but her eyes stay distant, haunted. Around us, a few students linger at the far fence, pretending not to watch.

I take one more step, close enough to see the fine frost crystals catching light between us. “Give me one day,” I say quietly. “A real day. Just us. No rumors. No watchers. No… whatever that thing is that keeps following you.”

The wind stills. Sunlight glances off the wall, scattering white.
She looks up, eyes wide, as if the world itself is holding its breath.

She blinks, like she’s waiting for the rest of my sentence. “A day?”

“Yeah.” I try to smile, but it wobbles. “Just one. We skip class, go to town, sit at Spiral Café until they kick us out. You can laugh again, and no one will stare.”

Her mouth parts, surprise flickering through the tiredness. “You’re serious?”

“I’m done waiting for things to get better on their own,” I say. “Let me make it better.”

She looks away, eyes tracking the sunlight trembling over frost. “You can’t fix this, Luke.”

“Maybe not.” I step closer, pulse pounding. “But I can remind you what’s real. Before all this..” I gesture toward the towers and shadows. “..you used to love normal things. Cocoa. Bad jokes. The smell of Nan’s garden after rain.”

Something cracks in her expression. Her guard slips. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make me miss things I can’t have anymore.”

Her voice is soft, but the words sting.

I exhale slowly, the warmth fogging between us. “You still have me.”

That’s when the frost shifts, so faint it could be imagination. Tiny crystals climb the ivy, lacing green with silver.

Her eyes widened. “Luke..”

“I mean it,” I push, ignoring the cold threading through the air. “Whatever’s haunting you, whatever he is..” the word bites out sharper than I intend, “..he’s not the one who’s stood by you all these years.”

She flinches like I struck her. The air tightens, the cold deepening until my breath ghosts white.

Students near the fence pretend not to stare, their voices a low hum. I hate that they’re watching, turning even this into a show.

Elle steps back a fraction. “You don’t understand. He’s..” She cuts herself off, shaking her head. “It’s complicated.”

“Then uncomplicate it.” My voice cracks. “Tell me you’ll take one day. Tell me you’ll stop letting him follow you like a shadow.”

The frost glows faintly under her palm when she steadies herself against the wall. Sunlight hits it, scattering light across her skin like shards.

“I can’t promise that,” she whispers.

“Then promise me something.”

Silence stretches. Only the distant bell rings, echoing through the courtyard. She looks at me, really looks, and for a heartbeat I think she’ll turn away.

Instead, she nods once, barely there. “One day.”

The words tremble in the cold air, and the frost curls brighter, alive.

The wind shifts again. The warmth drains, slow and certain.

Elle’s breath fogs in the sunlight. She wraps her arms around herself, but it doesn’t help. “Luke, stop. Please.”

“I’m just talking,” I say, though my throat’s tight.

“It’s not you,” she whispers. Her gaze darts to the wall behind me. “It’s.”

Frost blooms across the stone before I can blink. Not a trick of light but real, crawling and alive. It races outward from her shadow, curling through the ivy like veins of ice, catching sunlight and throwing it back in white fire.

Students at the far end of the courtyard gasp. One drops a phone. Another laughs too loudly, trying to make it sound like a joke.

My pulse spikes. “Elle…”

She stares at her hands like they’re foreign. “I didn’t.. it just.”

“Hey.” I step in, catching her wrists gently. “It’s fine. It’s okay.”

Her skin is freezing. My fingers burn against it. The frost brightens, spirals climbing higher, delicate and terrible.

“Let go,” she breathes.

“No.”

“Luke, please.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

Her eyes snap up, wide, wet, defiant. “You should be.”

The air hums. For a heartbeat, the world feels like it’s holding its breath again, the same way it did in Maelor’s class when the spiral glowed. I can hear whispers in the ivy, faint and wrong, words that aren’t words.

Behind us, someone mutters, “She’s doing it again.”
Another voice: “Witch.”

I spin, glare slicing toward the fence line. “Get lost.”

They scatter fast, but their voices linger. I can feel them sticking to Elle like static.

When I turn back, her hands are shaking. “I didn’t mean to..”

“I know.”

“But they saw.”

“Then let them,” I say, and I don’t recognize my own voice.

For once, she looks at me like she’s seeing me again, not pity, not gratitude. Just a raw surprise.

The frost on the wall steadies, no longer spreading, just… breathing. I don’t know if it’s waiting for her or me.

“I’ll fix this,” I whisper. “We’ll go to town, hide out, just us. No whispers, no frost, no freak miracles. Just one day where it’s normal.”

Her lips part like she wants to argue again, but something in her expression softens instead. She closes her eyes, breathing in the cold. “Normal doesn’t exist for me anymore.”

“It could.”

“Luke…”

I take her hand before she can finish. The cold numbs my fingertips, but I hold tighter. “Say yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I need you to.”

She opens her eyes then, and they’re glassy with a hundred things she doesn’t say. “You’re asking for something that might break you.”

I manage a small smile. “One day won’t kill me.”

Her jaw trembles. She looks down at our joined hands, my warmth against her frost and something in her decides.

“One day,” she says quietly.

The frost flares in answer, a pulse of light that ripples across the wall, scattering in spirals that melt into the air. It’s beautiful and wrong at the same time.

For a heartbeat, we just stand there with sunlight on one side, frost glow on the other, the world balanced between warmth and cold.

Then the warmth vanishes, all at once, like someone ripped it from the air. The frost returns, sharper this time, whispering across the stones in thin, cracking veins.

Elle jerks her hand back, breathing fast. “Did you feel that?”

“Yeah.” My voice is barely sound.

The courtyard falls quiet. Even the watchers are gone now. Only the sound of dripping frost remains, soft like rain that’s lost its heat.

She glances over my shoulder, frown deepening. “Luke…”

“What?”

Her gaze fixes past me, and all the color drains from her face.

I turn.

At the far end of the corridor, where sunlight shouldn’t reach, a shadow stands, tall, still, carved from the same silence that always follows her.

Not a student. Not human, not exactly. Just stillness in a shape that looks like one.

My body reacts before my brain does arm out, blocking Elle behind me. “Who’s there?”

No answer. The shadow tilts its head slightly, a motion too smooth to be natural. The frost on the ground shivers toward it, drawn as if the stone itself remembers its name.

Elle’s voice breaks the silence, barely a breath. “It’s him.”

My pulse spikes. Him. The word I’ve heard whispered since the day she arrived. The one who’s always near when the air goes cold.

The shadow takes one step forward. The sunlight fades another inch.

“Stay behind me,” I tell her.

“Luke, don’t..”

I move anyway, fists tight, heat sparking under my skin in a way that feels reckless, human, and useless all at once. “You think I’m scared of you?”

The wind answers  sharp and sudden. Frost spirals rise like ash, circling us both.

He stops just outside the light, close enough for me to see the shimmer of silver in his eyes. Not bright. Not alive. Just… ancient.

Elle’s whisper trembles. “Stop, please. He’s not..”

“Not what?” I snap. “Not dangerous? He’s following you!”

The shadow’s gaze flicks between us, and for one terrible moment, I swear the frost itself listens. Then, like mist burned away the figure vanishes. No sound. No step. Just gone.

Silence crashes in behind it. The sunlight returns too fast, too bright, turning frost to water that drips down the wall.

Elle’s breathing ragged. “He was warning us.”

“Warning us?” I can’t stop the edge in my voice. “You call that a warning?”

She presses a hand over her scarf, shaking. “You shouldn’t have seen him.”

“Too late,” I bite out. “If he’s watching you, then he’s watching me.”

She meets my eyes finally, fear cutting through all the other noise. “Then stay away, Luke. Please.”

Before I can answer, the academy bell tolls again, low, distorted and echoing longer than it should.

I look back down the corridor, but the space is empty, sunlight steady once more. Still, I can feel it, the cold under my skin, the ghost of silver eyes that don’t fade.

Elle’s voice is barely a whisper. “Whatever this is… it doesn’t like promises” I force a shaky smile, even as my breath mists in the warmth. “Then it’s going to hate me.”