Chapter 3 The Boy Who Sees Through Her

POV: Elara

I watch the photograph curl and blacken in the bathroom sink until there’s nothing left of my sister’s face but ash swirling down the drain. My hands don’t shake anymore. I think I’m past shaking now. I’m somewhere colder than that.

By the time the sun comes up, I’ve splashed water on my face, pinned my hair the way Wren always wore it, and walked out my door like a girl with nothing to hide.

The assembly hall is packed for the welcome back ceremony, rows of students in matching uniforms who all seem to know exactly where to look without looking like they’re looking. Cassian sits two rows ahead, and I don’t even have to search for him. My eyes just find him, like something in my chest is wired straight to wherever he is in a room.

Every time I glance up, he’s already watching me. Not staring but watching. There’s a difference, and it makes my skin prickle every single time.

The headmistress drones on about tradition and excellence and I hear none of it, because I’m busy memorizing the exits, the guards near the doors, the way Cassian’s jaw tightens whenever her voice mentions our returning student.

After the assembly, they herd us into a campus tour for anyone who’s been away which is really just me and two nervous transfer kids clutching their schedules. I let the group drift ahead near the science block, and then I slip sideways down a corridor that isn’t part of the tour at all.

The door from Wren’s sketches is exactly where she drew it. Old, iron-banded, half-hidden behind a bank of lockers nobody uses. The lock is ancient, stubborn, but a hairpin and ten years of watching Wren pick the lock on our childhood diary drawer pays off. It gives with a soft click.

The tunnel beyond is dark and cold and smells like wet stone. My phone flashlight shakes across the walls and there, in the dust, fresh footprints. Not old but Recent. My heart climbs into my throat.

Something pale catches the light near the wall. I crouch and pick it up. A student ID card, laminated, a girl’s smiling photo staring back at me. The name reads Priya Anand. The date stamp says she transferred out six months ago.

Except her ID is still down here. In the dark. Where nobody transfers back from. That’s when the alarm starts screaming.

I bolt, flashlight off, hairpin gone, footsteps echoing too loud in my own ears, and I take the corner too fast and slam straight into someone solid in the dark. Hands catch my wrists before I can hit the floor. Cassian.

For a second neither of us moves. Then his gaze drops to the dirt smeared across my palms, to the ID card still clutched white-knuckled in my fingers and his whole body goes rigid.

“You’re not her.” His voice is low, quiet, dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with volume. His grip on my wrist tightens, not painful, just absolute, like he’s daring me to lie to him.

My pulse is hammering so hard I’m sure he can feel it under his fingers. I could deny it. I could cry, play scared, play innocent every excuse is right there on my tongue.

Instead I lift my chin and meet his eyes dead-on.

“Then prove it.”

Something changes in his face. Anger first, sharp and sudden. Then something else underneath it curiosity, and a heat that has nothing to do with suspicion at all. For one long second his grip doesn’t loosen, like he’s forgotten he’s still holding me. Then he lets go slowly, like my skin burned him on the way out.

Footsteps and flashlights round the corner before either of us can say another word. The headmistress, flanked by two security guards, sweeping the beam straight toward us.

Cassian steps in front of me without a flicker of hesitation.

“She got lost.” His voice is smooth, bored, utterly convincing. “I was bringing her back.”

The headmistress’s smile stretches thin across her face, not touching her eyes for even a second. “How fortunate you were nearby, Mr. Vale.” Her gaze slides past him to me. “Elara. You’re expected in the Vale family wing this evening. A conversation. Nothing to worry about.”

The way she says nothing to worry about makes my stomach drop straight through the floor.

That night, two silent guards walk me down a corridor I’ve never been allowed near, past doors carved with the same symbol from Wren’s sketches, until we reach a set of heavy double doors that swallow the sound of my footsteps the second they close behind me.

Cassian stands by the window, back to me, moonlight cutting sharp lines across his shoulders. When he finally turns, the coldness from the courtyard is gone. What’s left is something worse. Something lethal.

He holds up a phone. Not his usual one. A second phone, older, the screen still open to a familiar twelve-second video. The same one that started all of this.

My knees nearly give out.

“I know exactly who you are.” His voice doesn’t rise. It doesn’t need to. “And I know what you’re here for.”

I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe right.

“The only question left,” he says, taking one slow step toward me, close enough now that I can see the muscle ticking in his jaw, “is whether I hand you over to my family.” A pause, deliberate, cruel. “Or whether I help you.”

Another step. The distance between us is nearly gone.

“Decide carefully, Elara.” My name in his mouth sounds like a warning and a promise at the same time. “Because if you choose wrong—”

His eyes hold mine, unblinking, merciless.

“neither of you leaves this place alive...”