L U K E

The frost hasn’t melted from my boots, every step across the courtyard crunches like guilt. I didn’t sleep,  I kept hearing her voice, that broken I don’t know, looping until it stopped sounding like words, just static, the sound of me losing her.

Now it’s morning and the sky looks like wet steel and the greenhouse glows against it, warm light bleeding through fogged glass. Professor Brielle waves us inside, all cheerful chaos and ink-stained hands, like last night didn’t split something open in the air.

Elle stands near the door, scarf fixed, expression careful. Not angry. Not anything. I’d almost rather she yell.

“Morning,” I tried. My voice cracks like the ice underfoot. She nods once, eyes down. I want to say sorry, but it feels too small, too late. So I followed her inside instead. The greenhouse hits like another world, humid and alive, the glass dripping condensation. The air smells of soil and mint and something sharp, like winter trying to claw its way in.

Maybe this is my chance. One class, one normal moment, maybe if I can make her laugh, the frost will finally let us breathe.

I grab a pair of gloves off the bench and toss her a set. “Careful,” I say. “These plants bite. Last semester, some genius tried to feed one his sandwich.”

Her mouth twitches. “Did it like it?”

“Too much. He lost half his sleeve.”

A breath of something like a laugh slips out, quiet, but it’s there. It hits harder than it should. I grin, ridiculous, and relieved because I’ve missed that sound like oxygen. Around us, students move between tables, mist sprayers hissing, copper lamps casting everything gold. It feels normal for a heartbeat, like any other class, like we aren’t haunted by whatever that thing wants from her.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and glances up. “You shouldn’t make jokes about cursed plants,” she says softly.

“Right. I should start with cursed mirrors and work my way up.” Her eyes lift long enough for me to see the corner of her smile. Small, fragile, but real. 

Brielle claps for attention, voice bright over the hiss of mist. “Let’s see what our frost herbs are up to today!” The words echo strangely, like they mean more than they should.

Professor Brielle flits between tables like a crow in a lab coat, her excitement contagious and unsettling. “Today we’re testing resonance,” she says, pulling a tarp off a bed of pale-blue herbs. “Frostleaf, bred to survive the Rift winters. Sensitive to emotional frequency.”

Her words prickle under my skin, Emotional frequency, I glance at Elle. She’s standing too straight, hands clasped, pretending she doesn’t hear the subtext. Brielle flicks a switch on a copper lamp, and light spills across the plants. They shimmer faintly silver, leaves trembling as mist curls around their stems. The air hums like glass before it cracks.

“Now,” Brielle says, eyes bright behind her glasses, “pair up. Observe reactions. If the leaves darken, note temperature and proximity.” The class scatters, I stay close, like always. She kneels beside the tray, her breath fogging the glass dome as she leans in. The frostleaf shifts, just barely like it’s listening.

“See?” Brielle beams. “Alive. Responsive.”

Alive, yeah. Maybe too much. I can feel it already, the wrong kind of stillness, the one that comes right before everything changes.

At first it’s nothing, just the hum of lamps, the mist, the low rustle of students taking notes. Then the air drops a few degrees. I see my breath ghost once, brief but real. Elle stiffens beside me. The color drains from the leaves nearest her hand; blue turns to gray, then to a bruised, ugly black that spreads vein by vein.

“Whoa,” a boy at the next table says. “Did you see that? It went dark.”

“It’s her,” another whispers, and the words snap through the greenhouse like static.

“Shut it,” I bark before I can stop myself. “It’s the vents, cold air, that’s all.” They look away, but the damage is done. Elle backs up, bumping the bench. Her glove brushes a hanging vine, and frost blooms along the glass behind her like a reflection spreading too fast.

Brielle looks fascinated, not scared. “Extraordinary,” she murmurs, jotting notes. “Emotional-frequency spike..”

“Professor,” I cut in, “something’s wrong with your plants.” She doesn’t hear me, or maybe she just doesn’t care. The blackness keeps crawling outward, and the vines start to move, slow, deliberate, reaching toward Elle like they remember her name.

“Elle, step back,” I say, but she’s already frozen. The vines brush her sleeve, curling gentle as fingers. She gasps, the air smells like metal, like winter lightning. The motion isn’t random, it’s patterned, too smooth, too exact. A single vine wraps around her wrist, circling once, twice, three times before crossing itself into a spiral.

Not a tangle. A sigil.

I’ve seen that shape before, burned into frost on her dorm mirror, etched in ice on the courtyard stones after the fight.

“Luke…” she whispers. The vine tightens slightly, not enough to hurt yet. Students whisper, shuffle backward. One of them records on their phone until Brielle snaps, “No filming!” without looking up from her notes.

The spiral glows faintly, like veins of silver under skin. The greenhouse hum deepens, every lamp flickering in rhythm with Elle’s pulse.

“It’s copying a sealing mark,” Brielle says, almost reverent. “Do you feel anything, Miss Wrenwood?”

“Just cold,” she murmurs.

I reach for her hand. The temperature drops again, but when my fingers close over hers, the glow flickers, dimming, for a heartbeat the vines hesitate, uncertain.

“Hey,” I whisper, “look at me, breathe, okay? In. Out.” Her eyes meet mine, the spiral loosens half a turn, and then, as if the whole place exhales, the frost hushes.

Her hand is small in mine, trembling and I can feel the pulse under her skin, fast but steadying.

“That’s it,” I tell her, quietly. “Just keep breathing. You’re fine.”

“I’m not,” she says, voice barely there. “It’s moving.” I glance down. The vine edges twitch, like they’re deciding what to do next.

“Then we move first.” I slide my other hand between the vine and her wrist. The thing is cold enough to burn, but I hold on anyway. “See? Easy.”

She almost smiles, for a moment it feels like the world might give us a break. The black tint fades to gray. The mist warms. Somewhere behind us, Brielle murmurs approval, as if she’s watching a lab result instead of two people trying not to fall apart.

I can smell her shampoo, the one that always reminds me of Nan’s garden, mint and rain. It hits me how much I want to keep her here, in this small bubble of warmth that’s ours, but the vine shivers again, like it’s waking up from the pause we stole. The hum in the air sharpens, and he calm doesn’t last.

“Fascinating,” Professor Brielle breathes, stepping closer. Her glasses are fogged, her notebook already full of frantic loops. “Don’t move, Miss Wrenwood. It’s responding to you, your signature’s stabilizing the spiral.”

Elle’s voice cracks. “It’s not stabilizing me.”

I start to pull the vine away, but Brielle catches my wrist with surprisingly strong fingers. “Wait. If you interrupt, we’ll lose the data.”

“Data?” My voice spikes. “She’s not a lab rat.”

The professor doesn’t blink. “Do you feel any numbness? Vertigo?”

“Professor..”

“Hold still,” she insists, eyes bright as the lamps stutter, the air smells of ozone and wet earth. Students back away, one knocking over a tray with a clatter that nobody notices. The vines are all turning, their tips aligning toward Elle like compasses seeking north.

Something inside me snaps at the sight. I shove Brielle’s hand off and step between them. “You’re done taking notes.” The lamps buzz harder and the spiral around Elle’s wrist begins to tighten again, like it’s waiting for permission to hurt.

The vine contracts. A sharp sound, soft as thread snapping, loud as a gun to me. Elle gasps, jerks, and a single drop of blood beads on her pale skin. Red against green, too bright to be real.

The sigil flares. Light spills from it in thin lines, silver and blue, etching her name into the air before the steam swallows it. The temperature crashes. Every pane of glass frosts over in a heartbeat; the sound is a chorus of tiny cracks.

“Elle!” I grab her hand, yanking the vine free. It tears cleanly but doesn’t fall, it dissolves, ash into air. Her blood hits the floor and spreads in a thin spiral that mirrors the mark.

Brielle finally stumbles back, murmuring, “This should be impossible.”

The mist thickens until we’re breathing clouds. I can barely see her face, only the frost crawling up the windows, and for a second I swear I hear something whisper through the cracks. My name, her name and something else between them.

Elle’s eyes roll back white for a heartbeat, and then she’s back, shaking, clutching her hand to her chest.

“Luke,” she whispers. “It heard me.”

Then the lights die. The only thing glowing is the spiral on her skin, cold and alive.