The dining hall was enormous. Not in an overwhelming way—not cavernous or chaotic—but vast, designed for flow, for observation, for control.

  The ceilings arched high above them, soft-lit with a golden warmth that felt more hotel than school. Quiet hums of conversation drifted through the air like music, never rising to chatter. Everything seemed… modulated.

  The lights weren’t just golden—they were deliberately indirect, tucked behind arching beams that cast everything in soft shadow. No bulbs. No glare. Even the floor was too polished to be loud. Noise didn’t belong here. Neither did Eve.

  Too bad.

  Here she was, for now.

  There were five sections–groups of fifty students–in the hall, one from each year. First-years were gently steered to one side. The rest of the room was dotted with older students, polished and precise. None of them seemed to be eating. They were performing competence—deliberately, elegantly.

  And the food—

  She smelled it before she saw it. Grilled meat, spice, sugar and vinegar. Her stomach clenched.

  Not hunger.

  Something sharper.

  A trap.

  Eve hadn’t seen anything like it.

  The stations stretched across the back wall: grilled fish laid in intricate spirals, meat in complex reductions, vegetables arranged like diagrams. Every dish came with a card—multiple languages, sometimes a flag, sometimes a name. She caught a few: feijoada, injera with doro wat, bánh xèo, fondue bourguignonne. Bread steamed in linen-lined baskets. Rice came in six variants, each fragrant.

  Her fingers twitched.

  Too much food. Too easy to take. Everything inside her—learned, drilled, adapted—screamed: move fast, take little, blend in. Don’t make yourself a target.

  “Come on, Carter.” Sophie’s voice was playful, but just shy of mocking. “I know it’s overwhelming, but we can’t just stand here forever. Some of us have eaten before.”

  Eve shot her a look. Sophie, naturally, looked like she owned the place—already drifting toward the station with a slight curl to her lips, the way rich girls did when they smelled dessert. Beside her, Lila held still, too still. No hesitation, no visible discomfort—but her fingers were curled tight at her sides.

  Maya, by contrast, stood a little apart, gaze flicking across the room like she was mapping it. Food options. Table arrangements. Seating patterns.

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  Eve hesitated.

  This wasn’t a queue.

  It was choreography.

  She watched as girls ahead of them selected dishes without pause, not greedy, not shy—just entitled, like they ate this way every day. Perhaps they did. Some used chopsticks with unconscious fluency. Others took two forks and began composing dishes like essays, with enough food to keep her going for several days. One girl sniffed a sauce and rejected it with a look of cool neutrality.

  Her face heated, uninvited. Once she’d rejected a yoghurt with that gesture–expired, too sharp. Her mother slapped her. Girls eat what they’re given.

  This was a different world.

  She couldn’t read the rules.

  And then—Lila moved.

  She stepped forward, lifted a ceramic plate, and began to serve herself. Not too much, not too little. Two unfamiliar dishes, one plain rice, a folded piece of bread. Balanced. Normal.

  Eve exhaled. She followed.

  The plate was heavier than it looked. The cutlery wasn’t plastic. The knife had weight. She picked it up awkwardly, shivering as an unwanted memory–a different knife held in her hand, blade just as gleaming–came and went.

  The last knife she held had been shorter. Duller. Still dangerous. Still something she might’ve needed. Her grip now was wrong—like she’d forgotten how to hold things that weren’t weapons. She felt the clean metal balance against her fingers. Unfamiliar. But she could learn.

  She adjusted—watched the girl beside her set hers down, tines angled toward the plate edge, folded napkin on her lap. A sign. A code.

  She mimicked it.

  Maya reappeared with a precise, colourless plate—boiled egg, spinach, rice, soup. No adornment. No indulgence.

  Eve smiled, relieved. Another person playing it safe. Then Sophie returned with a buffet’s worth, arranged for aesthetic contrast. Not excess—variety. A slice of everything she found interesting. She had no intention of finishing it. She didn’t need to.

  At the table, Eve sat too fast. Her chair scraped against the floor. Glass touched ceramic. No one commented—but two second-years turned their heads. Just a moment’s eye contact, a precise dose of disapproval.

  She froze. Felt her back tighten, breath catch. Like she’d triggered something—some silent alarm she didn’t know how to disable. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just waited to see if anyone else would react.

  The moment passed. She had the absurd urge to laugh. What the hell was she doing here?

  Her fork hovered, uncertain. Which dish first? Do they eat clockwise? Was that a thing?

  Then—Lila’s hand.

  Just a light pressure on Eve’s knee, under the table. Not instructive. Not demanding.

  Grounding.

  Eve breathed in. Picked something plain. Ate it.

  And stopped.

  It was good.

  Too good.

  Flavours layered on her tongue—sweet and salt, crunch and warmth. They filled something other than hunger, a craving she hadn’t known she carried. Even her spine shuddered. She didn’t know food could do that. Could open her. Remind her of every hurried gulp, every rushed mouthful, every forlorn empty spoon after the plate was clean.

  She set her fork down, breathless. Her body didn’t know what to do with this abundance. She had never eaten like this. Not for taste. Not for… pleasure. It shocked her. It felt illegal.

  Once, when she was little, she’d stolen an apple tart. A warm one, from the posh supermarket. She’d never had anything better since. Not until today.

  She looked up. No one else seemed surprised. No one was even thinking about it.

  Sophie leaned in, eyes glinting.

  “Good?” she asked.

  Eve scowled. “It’s fine.”

  Sophie smirked.

  At another table, a third-year loomed to correct a firstie’s grip on chopsticks. Quietly. Precisely.

  Maya watched all of it.

  “Another test,” Sophie murmured.

  “Everything can be a test,” Maya replied.

  Eve forced herself to swallow. To breathe. To stay.

  Let them watch.

  She picked up her fork again, correctly this time.

  She was here.

  She was eating.

  She wasn’t leaving.

  One day, nobody would wonder if Eve Carter belonged.

  Not even herself.