E L L E
The gates begin to open before the bus fully stops.
Black iron groans through the fog, slow and heavy, like Ravenshade Academy already knows I’m here.
I stay frozen in my seat while the other students lunge for bags and phones and freedom.
Beyond the rain-streaked window, the school rises out of the mist in sharp black towers and wet stone, all of it watching.
Warm light glows behind tall windows. Gargoyles crouch along the ledges with cracked mouths and broken wings.
The place looks less like a school and more like something waiting to swallow us whole.
The bus doors hiss apart. Cold air rushes in.
My fingers find the scarf at my throat before my feet touch the ground.
Lavender and smoke still cling faintly to the wool. My mother’s scent.
The fabric scratches under my chin, rough and familiar, and for one stupid second I let myself pretend it can protect me.
Then I step into Ravenshade. Voices lower the second I pass.
“That’s her.”
I keep walking.
“The Wrenwood girl.”
My grip tightens on my suitcase handle.
“I heard she’s cursed.”
Heat crawls up my neck, but I don’t look at them. Rain slicks the cobblestones under my boots.
Fog curls around my ankles. Somewhere above, a bell tolls once, deep enough to vibrate in my chest.
A girl laughs softly behind me.
“No wonder her parents died.”
My lungs empty all at once. I nearly stopped.
Don’t. Not here. Not in front of strangers who want to watch me crack open.
I lift my chin and keep going, shoulders locked, scarf suddenly too warm against my throat.
A voice cuts through the whispers.
“Elle!”
I turn so fast the wheel of my suitcase jerks sideways.
Luke Hart jogs across the courtyard toward me, hood shoved back, brown hair damp from the mist, grin bright enough to split the gray morning in two.
Relief hits so hard my shoulders drop before I can stop them.
He catches the handle of my suitcase like it belongs in his hand.
“Let me.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yeah,” he says, easy and stubborn, “I do.”
The whispers shift at once.
“Why’s Luke helping her?”
“Maybe he pities her.”
“She doesn’t deserve him.”
My face heats, but Luke steps beside me like none of it matters. Like none of them matter.
“You didn’t tell me you were already here,” I say.
He starts steering my suitcase over the wet stones.
“Wanted to surprise you.”
A small laugh almost escapes me.
We cross the courtyard together, and for a few precious steps I can breathe again.
Rain beads on Luke’s hoodie. Fog slides low across the black benches and the twisted elm tree in the courtyard center, its bark carved with initials layered over initials.
Luke follows my stare. “Apparently couples carve their names there and bind their fate forever.”
“Romantic,” I mutter.
“Terrifying,” he corrects. “Same difference.”
That one does pull a weak smile from me.
The rest of Ravenshade is dark. The east wing is dead. Boarded windows.
Black ivy strangling cracked stone. Even the gargoyles there look wrong, their faces sharper, their wings hooked like claws. Cold slides down my spine.
“Elowen.”
I stop walking. Luke takes two steps before he notices.
“What?”
I stare at the east wing. The mist shifts across the broken windows. My breath leaves me in a thin white cloud.
“Elowen.”
The whisper is soft. Too soft to be real under rolling suitcases and student chatter.
But I hear it. I feel it. It slips across my skin like cold fingers.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
Luke’s expression changes at once. The teasing disappears.
He listens, head tipped slightly, all easy warmth turning sharp.
But there’s nothing except laughter, footsteps, and rain.
“Hear what?”
I force myself to look at him.
“Nothing. First day nerves,” I say too fast. “That’s all.”
He studies me for a beat, then lowers his voice.
“You don’t have to fake being okay with me.”
The words land gentler than the whisper did, and somehow that makes them hit harder.
I manage a shrug.
“I’m not faking. I’m just trying not to run back onto the bus.”
That earns me the smallest corner of his smile.
“Now that, I believe.”
He guides me inside through iron-banded doors and into a corridor lined with metal lockers.
Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Wet bags thud against cinder-block walls.
Voices bounce off the narrow hall in bright, sharp bursts.
Students crowd past us in clumps, shoulders brushing mine, perfume and rain and damp wool all mixing in the air.
It should feel normal. Instead, it feels like the building has a pulse.
Luke stays close as we move with the crowd. A group of girls glance at me, then lean together at once. I don’t hear what they say this time. The back of my neck goes hot anyway.
Locker numbers flash by in scratched silver.
I slow. Then stop.
The next locker sits crooked under the fluorescent glare, one corner dented, paint chipped near the handle.
237.
Sound drops away.
Not really. The corridor is still full of footsteps and voices and slamming metal doors, but all of it goes muffled, distant, like I’ve fallen underwater.
A low hum starts under my ribs. I stare at the locker.
It looks ordinary. Scratched paint. Rust at the hinge. Vent slats clogged with dust.
It does not feel ordinary.
“Elle?” Luke’s voice comes from somewhere behind me.
My hand lifts without permission. Cold prickles over my fingertips before I even touch the metal.
“Elowen.”
The whisper brushes the shell of my ear. My breath catches.
Every muscle in my body locks. I should step back. I should run.
Instead I move closer, drawn forward by something quiet and certain and waiting.
The hum deepens. I can smell iron. Dust. Rain.
And underneath it—lavender smoke. My stomach drops.
“Elle.” Luke is closer now, tension pulling at his voice.
My fingers hover an inch from the locker door.
BANG.
The locker slams shut hard enough to shake the entire row.
The crack of metal tears through the corridor. A girl gasps. Someone yelps.
I jerk backward, my shoe sliding on the wet floor, and Luke catches my arm before I fall.
“Elle!”
My heart is everywhere. In my throat. In my wrists. Behind my eyes.
The locker row rattles once, then goes still.
A boy farther down the hall says, too loudly,
“Did that just move by itself?”
“No one even touched it.”
Luke’s grip tightens on my sleeve. “What happened?”
I open my mouth, but cold has already worked too far under my skin. My hand still tingles like I touched the metal, even though I didn’t.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
It’s a lie. Because I know exactly what I felt.
Locker 237 knows me.
And it just said hello.
