E L L E

Morning at Ravenshade feels wrong, the halls hum too softly, whispers curling like smoke after a fire. Frost veins the courtyard stones, thin and fragile, like the night forgot to melt. People keep glancing toward the east wing, where the windows went white, then dark.

No one says it out loud, but the story moves anyway. They say the mirrors screamed.  They say I was there. They’re right. Luke hasn’t spoken to me since. He sat across the dining hall at breakfast, jaw tight, hands wrapped around a mug like it was the only thing keeping him from breaking it. Every time I looked up, he looked away.

The winged boy didn’t come to eat at all.

By midday, clouds still hang low, bruised purple and gray. Combat drills were canceled, too much damage near the gym, Instructor Korran said, though everyone could tell he was rattled. The courtyard smells like wet stone and iron. My scarf clings damp against my throat.

I end up walking toward the gym anyway and I don’t even know why. Maybe because that’s where Luke goes when he’s angry. Maybe because I want him to talk. Maybe because the air feels charged again, like it does before a storm, or before the Rift breathes.

Behind the gym, the path is empty but for puddles and the buzz of one flickering light. The damp smell of earth and metal hits harder here, that’s when I hear him.

“Don’t bother hiding.”

Luke. 

He steps from the shadow of the wall, hood up, sweatshirt soaked, hair clinging to his brow. His voice is rough as gravel.

“I wasn’t hiding,” I say quietly. 

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Could’ve fooled me. You disappeared last night. You and him.”

My stomach knots. “It’s not what you think.”

“Then tell me what it is.” His voice is calm, too calm. “Everyone saw the lights. They saw you with him. And I…” He drags a hand down his face. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t see what’s happening to you.”

Before I can answer, footsteps crunch across the gravel. The boy with storm-gray eyes appears from the far side of the gym, coat damp, eyes unreadable. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says to Luke, low and steady.

Luke turns to face him, shoulders squared. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing.” They stand a few yards apart beneath the broken light. Steam curls from their breath in the cold. I move between them before I can think.
“Stop,” I say. “Both of you.”

Luke doesn’t look at me. His eyes are locked on the other boy. “You think you can keep following her around, whispering in her head? You think I don’t see what you’re doing?”

His jaw tightens, but his tone stays level. “You don’t understand what’s happening here.”

“Then explain it,” Luke snaps. “Because all I see is you.. everywhere she is. Every time she starts to breathe again, you’re right there, dragging her back into this nightmare.” 

The air thickens, colder. I feel it slide under my skin. Puddles ripple at my feet, though there’s no wind. “Luke, please.” I touch his arm. “He’s not the enemy.”

He finally looks at me, eyes glassy with something between fury and heartbreak.
“Then who is Elle? Because it sure looks like you picked a side.”

I flinch. “That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair!” His voice cracks. “You think I don’t see you slipping away? Every day you’re colder. Quieter. Like you’re halfway gone already.” A pulse rolls through the air. The light flickers harder. Frost creeps across the ground.

“Stop,” I whisper, but I don’t know who I’m speaking to anymore. Luke steps forward. “He’s got you under some kind of spell, look at you!”

Silver flashes through His gaze, quick as a blade. “Be careful, Hart.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Luke snarls. “For me to slip, so you can be the noble protector.” His words hit like sparks, frost webs up the fence behind them, veins of ice snaking in the light. The wind whips up sharp enough to sting. I taste metal on my tongue.

“Both of you, stop!”

Luke doesn’t hear me, or refuses to. He steps in again, fists clenched. The air around Him, bends faintly, darker than before. A whisper snakes through the wind: Not him.

My heart lurches. “Did you hear that?” Luke trembles, from cold or rage, I can’t tell. Then the light pops and dies, and silence crashes down. For a second it’s just the three of us, shapes in the dark, frost crawling over stone. The Rift’s hum starts again beneath it all, low and steady, threading under my skin.

Luke’s voice breaks the stillness. “I’m not losing you to this.” He steps closer, and the air sharpens.

“I’ll fight whatever this is. I swear..”

“Don’t,” I whisper. But he keeps going. “I swear I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let him near you again.”

The words carry power, the ground responds, frost spreads like wildfire, spiraling over the gym wall and fence. The very air tenses.

Luke stares. “What..”

“He hears you,” He says. “The Rift. Every promise feeds it.” 

“Shut up,” Luke growls. “You don’t get to act like you know her.”

“I never said she was mine.”

“Then stay the hell away!”

Luke shoves him. A slap of palm on chest, small, sharp, but enough. The air snaps. Frost flares outward, ice slashes through wind.

He doesn’t strike back, he stands still, coat whipping, silver eyes lit like lightning behind glass.

“Stop,” I plead. The wind steals my voice. My hair lashes across my face; my scarf rips loose. Luke lunges again, the boy with the storm-gray eyes raises an arm, just to block. Ice cracks between them. Luke slips, skids, almost falls.

“Enough,” he says, quieter now, almost a plea.

He’s close, close enough that I can see light faint under his skin, veins glowing like frost itself. For a heartbeat, I think I see the outline of wings, shadow and shimmer, but then it’s gone.

Luke pushes up, breath ragged. “What are you?”

He doesn’t answer, just watches me – the boy I can’t name, the one the Rift keeps listening to. The frost circles tighter, my fingers ache. The Rift hums beneath it all, feeding on what’s left unsaid.

Luke’s voice cracks again. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t want him.”

I freeze.

“Say it,” he whispers. “Please.”

The shadow boy doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. His silence says too much. The wind stills, but my heartbeat fills the silence. I want to lie to tell him there’s nothing. That he’s wrong, but Luke would know. He always knows.

He steps closer, voice trembling. “Do you love him?”

The world goes still. I can’t look at him. Can’t look at the boy I can’t name. My chest aches, like my ribs are turning to ice. The Rift hums louder now, listening.

“Elle,” Luke says again. “Please.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, instead frost glows faintly underfoot, casting our faces in cold light. Then the whisper again, thin and sharp: Choose.

I shake my head hard, fighting it. Fighting myself.

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

Everything pauses, then the silence rushes in, absolute. Luke stands frozen, chest rising fast, eyes full of something shattered.

The boy doesn’t move, the glow fades from his skin. The frost at his feet waits, like it’s listening for something I haven’t said. The Rift is still humming, alive inside me.

Luke exhales. “You don’t know?” he echoes, voice raw. I reach for him, but the air is ice. He steps back. Then again.

“Don’t follow me,” he says quietly. His breath fogs the air, then he’s gone, vanishing around the corner before I can move. The boy I can’t name doesn’t follow.

He only says, soft as ash, “It’s already begun.” I look down and the frost pulses once, then fractures in a perfect spiral, pointing east.

The Rift answers, and the wind whispers back:
Come back.