E L L E

I don’t even remember leaving the common room, one second Maribel’s voice is slithering through the air, Ashriel’s taking her too and the next I’m in the hallway with my pulse climbing into my throat. The cold hasn’t left my hands and it’s in my elbows now, creeping up like I’m turning into someone I don’t recognize. Girls stare as I pass, some whisper and some don’t bother hiding it.

“Did you see the frost?”
“Luke’s going to lose it.”
“I swear she plays innocent..”

It’s too much, all of it! Luke’s hope, Ashriel’s silence, Maribel’s poison, the Rift whisper still echoing in the back of my skull like someone knocked on the inside of my ribs.

Choose.

I want to hide in a broom closet and never come out, but Anya catches my arm before I can disappear into the nearest staircase. “Elle, there you are, come on, the seamstress is ready, and if you don’t get fitted now, Maribel’s going to steal your slot.”

I try to say no. Honest to god, I try, but my mouth opens and nothing comes out except a shaky, “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t believe me, but she tugs me along anyway, and maybe I’m grateful for it because the alternative is standing alone while the whole academy decides what kind of witch I am today. The fitting room door swings open, and warm light spilling out like a trap.

Inside, it smells like hairspray and fabric steamers and someone’s vanilla perfume. Dresses hang everywhere, sequins, silk, colors so bright they hurt my eyes. Mine is hanging on a mannequin in the corner, a soft dawn-pink that’s supposed to bring out “warm undertones.” I don’t have warm undertones, instead I have frostbite undertones.

Anya nudges me toward it. “Try it on, and don’t look like you’re heading to a funeral again.”

My stomach twists, this dress is supposed to be for Luke, he’d smiled when he asked me, soft, nervous, boyish in a way that made something in me hurt. First dance? With me? Like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to want anything, and I said yes, and I meant it.. I think.

But the second my fingers brush the fabric, I think of Ashriel instead, of the way the air shifts when he’s near, how my pulse goes haywire like it’s not mine anymore. I hate that, I hate that I’m putting on a dress for one boy and thinking about another.

I tug it on anyway, the silk sliding cool over my skin. In the mirror, I look… not awful, maybe even pretty. If you ignore the shadow-blue circles under my eyes and the thin, shaky way I hold myself.

Luke would tell me I look fine, and Ashriel wouldn’t say anything at all, just stare until I forgot how to breathe. The guilt hits hard and sharp, right under the ribs, I step out and instantly regret existing. A cluster of girls near the vanity goes dead quiet, then erupts into whispering behind their hands, someone snorts and someone else giggles. Maribel doesn’t bother hiding her grin, she’s in a champagne-gold dress that hugs her like it was stitched onto her body by angels with grudges.

“Well, look at that,” she says, voice syrup-sweet and mean underneath. “Wrenwood actually cleans up.” The girls titter.

I pull my shoulders back, because if I shrink they’ll smell blood. “Can we not do this today?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Maribel croons. “Are you too busy juggling your dates?”

Heat slams into my cheeks so fast I swear the temperature spikes. “I don’t..”

Maribel tilts her head at me, all faux sympathy. “You know, it’s a little greedy, because some girls can’t even get one boy to look at them.” She gestures at me with her curling iron, casual and lethal. “And here you are with two.”

A girl near the back pipes up, “I heard Luke nearly punched Cassian for making a joke about her.”

Another adds, “Ashriel stared at her in Folklore like he was memorizing her.”

My stomach free-falls. This isn’t a rumor anymore,it’s gospel.

“Don’t worry,” Maribel says brightly. “Everyone knows Luke’s first dance is mine anyway.”

Like a match to gasoline, the room crackles, my vision tightens, something cold unfurls under my skin, begging to break loose. The worst part is I’m not even trying to listen, but the words find me anyway. Maribel turns back to the mirror, smoothing her hair like she’s in a commercial. “Luke told me himself,” she says loudly, like she’s announcing a holiday. “First dance. With me.”

My heart drops straight to the floor. No, he didn’t, he couldn’t, Luke wouldn’t do that, not after… everything, but the girls breathe it in like oxygen.

“He finally came to his senses,” one says.
“Poor Elle,” another fake-whispers. “Imagine thinking he’d actually stay with her.”

It’s a punch I didn’t brace for, I force myself to breathe, but the air feels thin, like someone siphoned half the oxygen out of the room. Luke would never say that, except… would he? After the poem rumor? After all the frost incidents? After everyone treating him like he’s cursed by association?

It hits harder than I’m ready for. My breath catches, and the air feels too thin, like someone cracked a window and sucked half the oxygen out. Luke wouldn’t say something like that. He wouldn’t. Except… maybe he might, after the poem rumor, after the frost scares, after everyone treating him like he’s cursed just for standing near me.

My chest pulls tight, this is what I was trying to protect him from, being dragged down because of me. Maribel studies my face like she’s waiting for the moment I break, and honestly, she almost gets it, then the cold rushes in ahead of the panic. It starts as a tiny shiver slipping down my spine, then a sudden jolt behind my ribs, like my heart skips and snaps back frozen.

Anya says my name, but her voice turns muffled and far away as the bottom of my dress draws tight around my ankles and I glance down.

Frost, not flakes or a chill, it’s an actual formation of spirals, thin, bright, perfect lines etching themselves into the silk as if an invisible fingertip is drawing straight on the fabric. A curl forms, then another, linking together into a pattern I’ve seen too many times in Nan’s envelope, the locker door, the bathroom mirror not even ten minutes ago.

“Oh my god,” someone squeals.

“Elle, your dress..”

“It’s happening again,” another whispers, backing away like I’m radioactive.

My throat clamps shut. “Stop,” I whisper, grabbing at the fabric. “Please, just stop.” but the frost keeps spreading, slow and deliberate, curling across the pink like it’s claiming territory.

Maribel cuts in over the panic, her voice sharp. “See? This is what happens when she can’t choose a boy.” She tries to sound amused, but her eyes are tight. I stagger back toward the mirror, my reflection glitches just a flash, like a bad camera but enough to send my heartbeat into a sprint.

I don’t let myself stare, I can’t, because behind my reflection, for a split moment, the spirals shine faintly, like they know me, my pulse spikes and the frost surges faster. Girls scatter like I might explode, I back into the wall hard enough to rattle the frame. The mirror fogs over in one breath, mine, or someone else’s, I honestly can’t tell.

My reflection is off by half a second, the tilt of the head, the parted lips, it’s all delayed. Then a sound slips through the fog, quiet and impossible.

“Elowen…”

My name, not Maribel’s mocking tone, but something older, something patient. The spirals on my dress glow faintly, answering it.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Please,” I breathe. “Not now.”

The whisper dies out, but the cold sticks to my skin like it’s sinking deeper, and the mirror stays fogged, like whatever spoke isn’t finished. The door bursts open and the seamstress storms in, complaining about ruined schedules, until she sees the frost and she stops dead.

“What did you do?” she whispers, not accusing, just horrified.

“I.. I don’t know,” I manage. “It just happened.”

She drops to her knees so fast the girls gasp, her fingers hover over the spirals, not quite touching them while her breath trembles.

“No,” she whispers. “Not again. Not after all this time…”

Maribel takes a step closer, her confidence wavering. “It’s just frost, she has these episodes all the time.” The seamstress snaps her head up, eyes wide with real fear. “This is not frost.” Silence slams into the room.

“Then what is it?” I whisper. Her throat moves as she searches for words. Slowly, she lifts a shaking hand and traces the air above the biggest spiral, like the pattern itself is dangerous.

“It’s a weave,” she says finally. “A design older than Ravenshade, older than this valley.” My heart stumbles.

“A sealing weave…”

The room freezes, literally and figuratively and someone swallows, Maribel goes pale, and my knees wobble.

“A sealing what?” Anya asks softly.

The seamstress looks at me like I’m something pulled out of a grave wearing a girl’s skin.

“You shouldn’t exist,” she whispers. “And yet, you’re waking.” The frost brightens like it understands and I can’t breathe. The whisper returns, softer than before. Nearer.

Soon.