"I didn't need to hear the words to know danger was coming."

By morning, the poison had already spread through the Academy's corridors like plague through a besieged city.

I felt it the moment I stepped from my dormitory chamber-the weight of whispers sharpened into daggers, the careful way conversations died when I passed, the sideways glances that followed me like hunting hounds. Gideon hadn't wasted a single hour of darkness.

The great hall buzzed with morning activity as students filed ...