E L L E

Morning light filters through the cracked windows, catching on the yellow tape stretched across the corridor. The sign reads Emergency Maintenance in bold red letters. No one says what really happened last night, but everyone feels it in the air. The frost stains haven’t melted, and the floor still hums faintly under the boards, like it’s breathing.

Someone already scrubbed away the scorch marks and dust, yet the smell of cold metal lingers. Students hurry past, whispering about a burst steam pipe, pretending they believe it. I don’t. Not when I can still feel the pulse in the ground under my shoes, steady and alive.

Silas stands near the sealed archway, clipboard in one hand, salt pouch hanging from his belt. He’s wearing his usual custodian uniform, but his eyes flick toward the floor every few seconds. When I approach, he doesn’t greet me. He just mutters, “Stay clear, Miss Wrenwood. The floor’s still unstable.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” My voice comes out smaller than I mean.

His gaze sharpens, and for a moment I think he might actually tell me the truth. Then he sighs. “Some things aren’t meant to be looked at twice.” He presses his hand against a chalk spiral on the tile. The air ripples faintly, frost shrinking back. “Go to class,” he says, softer.

I nod, but I don’t move. The chalk spiral keeps glowing faint blue, even after he walks away. The hum beneath the tiles grows louder, pulling at me like a string.

The corridor beyond the warning tape looks normal at first, just cracked tiles and dust. But when the sunlight hits the floor, the reflection shivers, half a second behind reality. My reflection doesn’t blink when I do.

A chill skims the back of my neck. “It’s still here,” I whisper.

A faint breath answers from the darkness ahead, almost a sigh. My heart trips. I step closer without thinking. The air smells like old snow and burnt wires.

A single droplet of water slides down the wall and freezes before it hits the floor. The spiral pattern forms again, tracing itself in thin ice lines. The Rift wants to be seen.

A hand catches my wrists before I can touch the frost. Warm, steady, unyielding.

“Don’t,” a voice says behind me. It’s low, calm, but the sound curls straight down my spine.

I twist slightly, looking up. The boy’s eyes are the same gray as the frozen floor, unreadable and bright. “It’s reacting to you,” he says.

“I know.” The words scrape my throat. “It’s calling me.”

His grip tightens, not to hurt, just to hold me still. The hum under our feet deepens until it feels like a heartbeat. He lowers his head a fraction, close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath. “If you step closer, it will open again.”

I swallow hard, the air thick between us. “You felt it too last night.”

His jaw flexes. “I feel it now.”

We stand there, caught between cold air and the sound of our own breathing, neither of us moving. Beneath us, the floor hums louder, answering something in my chest I don’t understand.

A sound drifts through the corridor, faint and muffled, almost familiar. It’s a man’s voice, low but warm.

“Elle, back up.”

My pulse stutters. It sounds like Luke. The exact tone he uses when he’s half worried, half angry.

I glance behind me, but the hallway is empty. Only sunlight slanting across cracked tiles.

“Luke?” I whisper.

No answer. Just that same voice again, closer this time. “Please. Move away from the grate.”

The boy beside me tenses. “That’s not him.”

I blink at him, startled. “What?”

He doesn’t look away from the floor. “It’s learning your voice, your memories. The Rift uses what you trust.”

My stomach twists. The hum deepens into a growl.

The tiles nearest the grate begin to frost over, thin lines of ice crawling outward in spirals that match the faint mark on my wrist. I want to believe it’s still Luke calling for me. I want to believe in something safe.

But the voice changes.

“Elle.”
The same word, but too flat, too even. The syllables scrape wrong at the end, like a recording stretched too far.

Fear spikes through me. “That’s not him,” I whisper, this time to myself.

The boy’s expression shifts. His eyes flick toward me, sharp and certain. “Do you hear it?”

“I hear everything,” I breathe.

The whisper returns, layered now, echoing up through the floor. “Not him.”

The sound isn’t mocking this time. It’s a warning. The words crawl up through the tiles, curling around my ankles. For a second, I think the floor itself is speaking.

“Not who?” I whisper back.

The hum surges, answering with a pulse of light. The frost ripples outward, a breath from beneath. My mark burns cold against my skin.

The boy’s hand tightens on my wrists. “It wants you to look down.”

The grate between us shudders, bolts rattling. White frost blooms in a perfect spiral around the edges.

Every instinct tells me to run. Every part of me wants to stay.

Pain flashes through my palm, sharp and sudden. I gasp, staring as the spiral mark burns bright through my skin, light bleeding through the cracks between my fingers.

The frost on the floor answers, glowing with the same pale blue. It’s like the tiles are breathing with me, pulse for pulse.

The boy steps closer, his voice low. “You have to control it.”

“I’m trying.” The words shake. I can barely feel my hand. The cold bites straight through, but I can’t pull away.

The light spreads faster, reaching for the warning tape, for the walls, for him. The air fills with that same hum from last night, deeper now, alive.

He moves in front of me, blocking the glow with his body. “Look at me, not the floor.”

I force my eyes up. His face is shadowed, but his voice cuts through the noise. “Breathe.”

The mark flares one more time, then the frost stills, waiting.

The silence that follows is worse than the sound.

The hum changes pitch. What was steady and deep turns sharp and uneven, like metal screaming. The floor bulges again, one tile rising just enough to catch the light before it splinters.

A thin line splits across the center of the corridor. Dust lifts from the crack, swirling like white ash. The boy steps forward, pushing me back. His arm brushes mine, heat against the cold air.

“Stay behind me,” he says quietly.

The words sound almost human, but there’s something else underneath, a faint echo that doesn’t belong to him.

The grate near the wall trembles. Frost veins spread from its corners, glowing the same color as the mark on my palm.

A deep growl rolls through the air, low enough that I feel it in my ribs. The metal bars bend outward with a slow, aching sound.

“It’s trying to come through,” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. His gaze locks on the grate, unreadable. I can see his hands trembling slightly, like he’s holding something back.

The tile beside us bursts open, scattering shards of ice across the floor. The cold sweeps over my shoes, burning my skin through the fabric. The whisper rises again, this time inside my chest.

Elowen.

My real name.

I stumble back, breath caught in my throat. No one at Ravenshade knows that name. No one living should.

The grate buckles. Frost shatters outward like glass. A claw, pale and curved, slams against the edge. Then another.

The creature drags itself into the light. Its body is made of ice and smoke, fur rimed in white crystal, eyes hollow and shining blue. Every breath it takes sends shards scattering across the floor.

It shouldn’t exist, yet it does.

The boy shifts his stance, ready to fight, though he has no weapon. The air around him flickers faintly, like heat haze reversed, cold bending light.

The Hound’s gaze snaps toward me. Frost trails in its wake as it crawls closer, ribs moving like cracked glass.

I can’t move. My pulse matches the hum. The mark on my palm pulses in rhythm with the creature’s breath, each glow pulling it nearer.

“Don’t let it look at you,” the boy says.

“It already is.”

He takes another step forward, placing himself between us. The frost recoils from his feet, hissing. For a heartbeat, the thing hesitates. Then its jaws part, revealing a hollow mouth that steams with cold.

The voice comes before the attack. Not from the creature, not from the boy, but from everywhere at once.

Choose or be chosen.

The words vibrate through the air, through me, as if the Rift itself is whispering against my bones.

My vision blurs at the edges. The corridor seems to narrow, walls pulsing with frostlight.

The boy turns his head slightly, eyes flashing silver. “Don’t listen.”

But it’s already inside me. I hear Luke’s voice within it now, twisted into the same phrase. Choose, Elle.

The Hound lets out a sound that is half snarl, half scream, and lunges forward.

The boy reacts first. He catches my arm and pulls me back, the motion strong enough to drag me across the tiles. Ice cracks under his boots.

The whisper doesn’t stop. It repeats, soft and cold, pressing into my mind like a promise. Choose or be chosen.

The words burn through me as the Hound lands in the center of the corridor, claws sparking across stone.

The sound is enough to make me flinch—and that’s when I hear footsteps pounding from the far end of the hall.

“Elle!”

The sound rips through the noise of the Rift, real and human. I turn toward the voice, and Luke is already sprinting down the corridor. His shoes slide on the frost as he skids to a stop.

His eyes go wide when he sees me pinned behind the boy. For one sharp moment, his confusion twists into something darker. “What are you doing?”

Before I can speak, the floor shudders again. The Frost Hound jerks its head toward him, growling scraping like ice on glass.

“Luke, stop!” I shout, but he’s already moving.

He doesn’t see the way the frost reacts to him. Every step he takes melts the edge of it, like the air itself fights for him.

The boy’s hand drops from my arm. “Get him out of here,” he says, voice quiet but heavy with warning.

“I can’t,” I whisper. “He won’t listen.”

The Hound crouches low, ready to strike.

Time folds in on itself. The creature’s eyes flash blue. The boy steps forward, cold radiating from his skin, while Luke moves in the opposite way, warmth breaking through the air like a heartbeat.

They stand on either side of me, two forces that shouldn’t exist in the same space. My mark burns cold on one hand and hot on the other. The pulse of both of them runs through me.

“Elle, get back,” Luke orders. His voice is steady, but I hear fear under it.

The boy doesn’t move. His gaze stays locked on the Hound. “If he steps closer, it will attack.”

Luke grips a broken broom handle lying near the tape. “Then I’ll give it something else to look at.”

“Don’t,” I breathe. “Please, don’t.”

Neither of them listen. The frost curls tighter around our feet. The creature shifts, muscles coiling.

The voice in my chest returns, soft as snow. Choose.

I can’t tell if it’s a command or a plea.

The moment breaks. The Hound lunges, claws scraping sparks across the tiles.

Luke doesn’t hesitate. He drives forward with the broom handle like it’s a weapon, shouting my name.

The boy throws an arm across my chest, holding me back as frost explodes outward in a ring. The light blinds me for a heartbeat.

When I can see again, Luke is already between us and the creature, the wooden handle raised high.

The Hound’s jaws open, mist spilling out like frozen breath. The boy beside me curses under his breath and steps forward, ready to move.

“Luke!” I scream, reaching for him.

He turns his head for half a second, eyes catching mine. “I’ve got you.”

Then the Frost Hound leaps.

The light swallows everything.