Snow fell in thick flakes, slowly settling on the frozen ground of the training ground. The sun had barely crawled above the horizon, struggling through gray clouds. Shadows were smeared, undefined. I gripped the handle of my scythe and exhaled a small cloud of vapor.

  When Aris died, the trees here were still in bloom. Now the first snow covered their bare branches. How fast everything changes. Another memory surfaced, one tied to cold. The rooftop back in the city... Need to kill those kinds of thoughts.

  I swept the scythe in a smooth arc. Couldn't tell you how many times I'd done it by now. Every movement honed to reflex. Getting better by the day. My body knew what to do, how to move, all on its own. That's what scared me.

  Before Elliot forged this scythe from titanium scraps, I'd never held a weapon like it. But even with his gift, it felt like the thing had always been part of me. How?

  Another swing. Air split clean. The scythe sang a thin, barely audible note that I'd been hearing in my dreams for three months now. My grip had changed after losing the fingers, but I'd adapted somehow. The nubs didn't even hurt anymore. They were healing too fast for a normal person.

  Three months of training to total collapse. Meditating in the dead of night while everyone else slept. Studying those damned symbols that followed me everywhere.

  Swing, pivot, strike. I used to drop after half an hour. Now I could go for hours. My body didn't tire. Only my brain begged for a break sometimes. Strange feeling, when your body is stronger than your mind. The fingers... or rather, the lack of them. Didn't even bother me anymore. The nubs had closed up too quickly. "Abnormal healing," the physician said, shaking his head. I remembered how carefully he avoided looking at me. Started noticing everyone did that now. Wouldn't look straight at me. Averted their eyes. Like they were afraid of seeing something. Maybe I was underestimating myself?

  A fat snowflake landed on the blade and melted instantly.

  "Still swinging at shadows, Caers?"

  I didn't even turn. Val. As always, out of nowhere. The guy had a talent for sneaking up on people.

  "You're up early. Classes aren't for another two hours."

  "Same as you," he said.

  He walked closer, leaving deep prints in the untouched snow. Pale skin, dark circles under his eyes. Hadn't slept, by the look of it.

  "Can't sleep either?"

  "Can any of us sleep properly since the mines?" he said, grimacing. "Whatever."

  Val was spinning the Norse family signet ring on his finger. Never took it off, not even during training. Used to brag about it constantly. Now he just wore it in silence. "I'll bring honor back to the Norse name, whatever it costs me," he'd said a week ago, after getting a letter from home. Maybe he'd grown up a little.

  "Faculty lounge is buzzing about the eastern forts," he said, sitting down on a bench and brushing the snow off with his hand.

  "Something happening again?"

  "Not just there."

  I nodded toward the northeast, toward the mountains. The sun was lighting up their snow-capped peaks right now. Beautiful, if you could forget what was going on out there.

  "Something's waiting for us out there."

  I clenched my fist without thinking. Snowflakes melted on my skin almost instantly, as if my body was burning from the inside.

  "You've changed, Luten." Val looked at me without his usual arrogance. "Every day you're more... I don't know... stronger?"

  "Is that a bad thing or a good thing?"

  "Hard to tell."

  Val stood up and straightened his collar. A battered leather jerkin, knee-high boots, strange amulets hanging on his chest. All of it had appeared after Aris... Tara had supplied the whole team with protective charms. And Val had dragged in enchanted knives from somewhere. Bought them on the black market from some trader in the back alleys.

  "Mira found something important. She's waiting for you in the library after classes. I'd go myself, but I need to check on Kyle. Got into another fight with the third-years."

  "He alive?"

  "He's fine. Knocked out three guys' teeth, nearly broke a fourth one's arm. Doing community service in the infirmary now. Director wanted to expel him, but Tyler went to bat for him."

  I nodded silently. Tyler was probably the only professor who actually tried to help us. Covered for our training sessions, slipped us information from classified sources.

  "See you in first period."

  Val dusted off his gloves and headed toward the building. I stayed. Stood there a few more minutes, watching the rising sun turn white snow pale pink.

  The library clock struck six in the evening. The last students groaned as they gathered their books, yawned, and shuffled toward the exit, whispering among themselves. The great hall was emptying. I sat in a corner, the lamp above my head barely glowing. Notes, maps, drawings covered the table. A daily ritual: after classes, come here, try to find a system, crack the pattern. The symbols repeated, intertwined, as if promising answers. If only I could figure them out...

  "So the rumors about your obsession are true."

  Mira. As usual, she materialized right across from me, sliding into a chair. Hair pulled into a simple ponytail, eyes bright with some inner excitement.

  "Look what I dug up."

  She placed a battered book in an old leather binding on the table.

  "'Altered Omens'? What is this?"

  "A researcher's journal. Someone who studied demons before the otherworlders showed up. Most of the pages are damaged, but some of the symbols match your drawings."

  I turned the fragile yellow pages. The dialect was ancient, complex. But between the lines, there they were. My symbols. The very same.

  "Where did you get this?"

  Mira hesitated.

  "Well... I found a way into the restricted section. The Director keeps special books there. The kind students aren't supposed to see."

  "Risky."

  "Says the guy who runs around the training ground with a scythe every night, past curfew no less!"

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  I smiled despite myself. Mira had really changed over these months. Braver, maybe? After Aris's death, she'd taken on the role of researcher: digging through archives, watching the professors, gathering data.

  "Here, look at this." She jabbed her finger at a page with some kind of diagram. "The author writes about places of power. Points where the boundary between worlds is thinner. He calls them 'Gates of Possibility.'"

  I studied the diagram. The lines formed a familiar shape. An infinity sign, only distorted. The exact same one I'd seen on the wall in the mines.

  "And one of those places is..."

  "The mines. Where Aris died," Mira finished for me.

  The mines. I saw them constantly in my dreams. A stone chamber with a towering ceiling, ancient symbols on the walls glowing with some unnatural light.

  "Listen, there's something else." Mira pulled a small pouch of black cloth from her bag. "I want to test an idea. Give me something... personal. Something you use a lot."

  I understood immediately. Her gift of psychometry let her see an object's history through touch.

  I took the leather cord from my neck with its metal shard, a piece from the very scythe I'd fought with in the mines. She took it carefully. Her eyes widened, then closed. Her face froze, shoulders went tense.

  I didn't rush her. The library had gone completely silent, only the old clock ticking on the wall. Suddenly her fingers clenched until her knuckles went white. Her breathing turned ragged, and a tear rolled from beneath her eyelids.

  "Mira? You okay?"

  She opened her eyes. Her pupils were blown wide, and strange flickers danced around the edges.

  "It's strange... There's something there, Luten. Something that knows your name."

  "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

  "The mines... they're not just a place. There's something down there. Not just demons. Something meant for you."

  She blinked. Her eyes returned to normal. The shard slipped from her weakened fingers.

  "What the... What just happened?"

  "I have to go back there."

  The words left my mouth on their own.

  "That's insane," Mira said, grabbing my arm. "The whole place collapsed after the otherworlders' explosion! Nobody can get through."

  "I need to understand what's happening down there. Every day I feel it stronger. Like I'm missing something important. Something I'm supposed to find."

  "Something dangerous?"

  Her question hung in the air.

  "I don't know. But I need answers."

  Night had long since wrapped itself around the academy. It was so quiet you could hear snow crunching underfoot. The cold cut to the bone. Winter was going to be brutal this year. I'd been waiting by the eastern entrance to the library for fifteen minutes. No sign of Mira. Strange. She was never late. I was absentmindedly turning the scythe shard in my hands. The metal stayed warm even in this cold. As if it had a life of its own.

  "Luten."

  I flinched. A figure stepped from the shadows wearing a dark blue cloak with gold trim. Hood thrown back, light hair shimmering almost silver in the moonlight. Selena. The princess herself.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Looking for you. Mira won't be coming. She was sent to help in the infirmary."

  "How do you know about Mira?"

  "I know a lot of things. For example, that you've been looking into the mines. And those strange symbols."

  I tensed. How did she...

  "We need to talk. But not here. Come with me."

  Without waiting for an answer, she moved along the wall toward a small gate leading to the old part of the gardens. I could've just turned around and walked away. But there was something in her words, in that certainty... I decided to follow.

  We walked in silence. She glided like a shadow, the snow barely registering her weight. I sank to my ankles with every step. The old part of the gardens had been abandoned even before we enrolled. In summer, everything had been swallowed by tall grass. In winter, it became a kingdom of snow and ice. Selena led me along barely visible paths winding between old trees. Eventually we reached a frozen pond. Water mages used to train here. Now reeds choked the edges, and a thick layer of ice sealed the surface.

  "Why here?"

  "Nobody can hear us," she said. She brushed the snow from a bench and sat down, gesturing for me to join her. "Surveillance devices don't work here either. This pond is special."

  I sat but kept some distance.

  "You said you know about the mines. And the symbols."

  "Yes."

  "Ever seen ones like these?"

  She pulled a folded sheet from her pocket and unfolded it. I nearly flinched. Those symbols. From my dreams, from the mines. Identical to the ones in the book Mira had found.

  "Where did you get these?"

  "From the otherworlders. Their classified reports on the mines."

  "How does a princess get access to classified reports?"

  She smiled bitterly.

  "By being someone nobody takes seriously. You'd be amazed how much information you can get when everyone thinks you're just a stupid girl. The otherworlders are too interested in those mines. And in you, Luten. Especially you."

  In the moonlight, her skin looked almost translucent. We were still just kids, but she spoke and carried herself like someone twice her age.

  "Doesn't it strike you as odd that your class was the one sent into those mines? Right when the otherworlders were researching something there?"

  "You think it wasn't a coincidence?"

  "There are no coincidences at Arcanum, Luten. Especially when it comes to you."

  "Why are you so sure?"

  "I heard something. At the last council meeting, the Nexus representative, Larveit, asked about you directly. Called you a 'rare case of adaptation.' Wanted access for observation."

  Something in her tone told me she wasn't sharing everything. Like her source of information was somehow... personal? But I decided not to push.

  "What do they want from me?"

  "I don't know. But I managed to get this."

  She handed me a small metallic rectangle. A memory card, made with otherworlder technology.

  "What's on it?"

  "Maps. Data on demon activity over the past few months. And strange energy surges in the mine area. This data is classified. My brother Cassius and the others on the council don't even care."

  I turned the card in my hands.

  "And you're just giving this to me?"

  "Not just giving it. I want to know the truth. About the mines. About the otherworlders. About what happened to you down there."

  "Why does this matter so much to you?"

  Selena looked away, staring at the frozen pond.

  "I'm not like the others, Luten. Not like the rest of... the royal family."

  She paused, as if choosing her words carefully.

  "My life at the palace is just an illusion. I can pretend I believe in that fairy tale, but inside..."

  She clenched her fists, then suddenly relaxed and raised her eyes to meet mine.

  "Sometimes I see and feel things I shouldn't. I understand things that others don't."

  She was sitting so close I could make out the golden specks in her eyes. Moonlight framed her silhouette, lending it something unreal.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't even know who I really am."

  Her hand brushed mine for an instant. That brief touch made my heart beat faster.

  "But I've always felt that my magic, my abilities... They aren't what an Estrell's should be."

  For some reason, I wanted to take her fingers in mine. Protect her from something invisible. A strange impulse, for me.

  She froze suddenly. Listened.

  "Someone's coming. Come back tomorrow. Midnight. Same place."

  "Wait. You didn't finish."

  "Tomorrow. And be careful, Luten. You're not the only one who's changing. Your brother... I've noticed Elliot pulling away. He's spending too much time with Aura."

  "What does Aura have to do with anything?"

  "Something's wrong with her."

  Selena didn't let go of my hand, staying close.

  "I can't explain it. Just... Watch your brother. He's heading somewhere else."

  We were standing so close I could feel her breath. For a moment I thought she wanted to say something more, or even... But she only brushed my cheek with her fingertips and stepped back.

  "Tomorrow."

  I stood there, feeling the faint warmth where her fingers had just been. The strange heat from Selena's touch still lingered on my cheek. What had the princess meant? What was wrong with her? And why was she worried about Elliot?

  Walking back to the dormitory, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. Invisible eyes watching from the dark, from every corner, from every shadow.

  In my room, I locked the door carefully and took out the memory card. Now I needed to find a way to read it. Maybe Val or Kyle could help? I walked to the window. Snow had started falling again outside, slowly covering the academy in a white blanket. For a second, I thought I saw a figure in a silver suit standing beneath a distant lamppost. But when I blinked, no one was there.

  My thoughts drifted to my brother. We'd grown so distant these past months. Was Aura really influencing him somehow? Or was Selena just seeing conspiracies where there were none? Maybe I'd been too focused on my own problems to notice what was happening with Elliot? I squeezed the scythe shard in my fist. Too many questions and so few answers.

  Tomorrow. Everything begins tomorrow.