Chapter 1: The House that Remembers

St. Valen’s Academy didn’t rise out of the fog so much as lurk in it.

Stone towers pushed through the gray, their spires clawing at a sky the color of bruised metal. Ivy clung to the walls like veins too stubborn to stop feeding a dead thing. The air tasted of wet stone, iron, and the faint stale sweetness of incense that had seeped into centuries of wood and bone.

Althea Sombra stepped out of the town car as if she were stepping onstage.

Black boots met damp gravel. The wind tugged at the hem of her black skirt, slid cold fingers up her bare thighs, tried to get under her second skin of matte-black blazer and . She’d left the top buttons of her blouse undone on purpose, a clean, sharp V of skin at her throat. No tie. No apology.

Umbra jumped down after her, a solid shadow of muscle and sleek black coat. His paws landed with quiet finality beside hers. He glanced up at her once, as if confirming she was real and still here, then pressed his big head lightly into her hip.

“I know,” she murmured, her hand dropping automatically to his neck. “You hate it already.”

He huffed, affronted, and leaned harder.

From the outside, she knew what they’d see: a girl in head-to-toe black, long straight hair like a spill of midnight down her back, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and a mouth made for unkind truths. Sin wrapped in Catholic uniform lines.

None of them would expect the way she softened for the dog.

Her fingers slid into the thick fur at his neck, scratching the spot he always leaned into.

“We’re just visiting their little empire,” she whispered in Tagalog. “Hindi sila diyos. They’re not gods.”

At her right hand, the obsidian-and-gold ring caught a thin sliver of winter light. Sombra insignia. A stylized sun with too many points, carved into black stone and caged in gold. Legacy condensed into a weight on her finger.

She twisted it once. A reminder. A warning. You are ours.

The driver cleared his throat from the safety of the car. Her suitcases were already waiting on the gravel, handles turned toward her like they expected her to grab them and run.

No one got out to open her door. No one offered to help.

Good. She was tired of being handled.

The main staircase loomed ahead. Wide stone steps slick with fog led up to a set of heavy oak doors banded with black iron. The threshold sat in shadow, dark as a held breath.

A voice from memory clicked her tongue

Huwag kang tatayo sa gitna ng pintuan, Althea. Don’t stand in the middle of the doorway. Spirits cross first.

She shifted to the left of center without thinking, boots whispering against wet stone. Old rules were stubborn. They stuck even when you crossed oceans.

Umbra pressed closer, nose working, catching all the unfamiliar scents of this foreign country and its polished cage.

“Creepy as hell,” she told him. “Ten out of ten haunted for sure. Lola would love it.”

The school watched her.

Not literally. The windows were just glass, and the portraits inside just paint and varnish. But the concentration of money, history, and quiet cruelty had its own gravity. Old places like this remembered things. Screams. Secrets. Blood.

Her magic, coiled deep under her ribs and bone where they’d force her to keep it, stirred.

Not flaring, not yet. Just waking. A slow, low thrum, like something under the floor deciding if it wanted to rise.

Hinga apat… Labas anim.

In. Two, three, four. Out. Two, three, four, five, six.

The breath slipped past her lips, invisible in the cold air. The restless thing inside her settled, not asleep, but silent. Waiting. Hands empty, she climbed.

Halfway up, the heavy doors opened.

The woman framed in the archway wasn’t what St. Valen’s brochure would have chosen. Too sharp for the polished warmth those photos pretended to promise. Her hair, steel gray and scraped into a precise chignon, pulled the skin at her temples taut. Her navy suit stayed immaculate despite the damp. Everything about her said control.

“Miss Sombra,” she said. “Welcome to St. Valen’s.”

The accent was Old English polished thin over something newer. Authority wrapped in courtesy.

Althea adjusted the strap of her satchel and let her mouth soften into something just short of a smile.

“Headmistress Langford,” she replied. “Thank you for having me.”

She could hear her father in the back of her skull: Chin up. Shoulders down. Smile enough to look expensive, not enough to look eager.

Langford’s gaze dropped to Umbra. The dog watched her back with the suspicious calm of something that had been trained to bite only when it really mattered.

“Pets are not permitted on campus,” Langford said.

“He’s not a pet.” Althea stayed pleasant. “He’s my service animal.”

“And what service does he provide?” The question was glossy. The edge beneath it wasn’t.

“He keeps people,” Althea said, “from touching what they shouldn’t.”

For a heartbeat, something flickered in the woman’s eyes. Not fear. Not quite. Recognition, maybe. The way adults looked at a live wire they thought was insulated.

Then the moment snapped shut.

“Your father was… insistent,” Langford said. “We made allowances. Do come in, Miss Sombra. The cold is cruel to those who aren’t used to it.”

Althea stepped past her into the entryway. Umbra trotted through at her side, shoulders brushing her leg, as if he were the one escorting her in.

The air inside was warmer, but it carried its own chill. Beeswax and old wood, chalk dust, and the faint stubborn ghost of incense where some long-dead donor had insisted on a chapel.

Portraits climbed the walls along the main corridor: men with sharp collars and sharper gazes, women in silk with hands folded over jeweled throats. Generations of legacies who had never heard of the word “no” unless it came from someone richer.

“St. Valen’s has educated some of the most distinguished families in the world,” Langford said, heels clicking, pace measured. “You’ll find our students uphold certain standards of conduct.”

Rich, Althea translated. Entitled. Dangerous in all boring ways.

Aloud, she said, “I’ll do my best not to drag your reputation through the mud.”

Langford’s mouth didn’t curve, but something in her eyes did.

“You will not find this institution easily dragged, Miss Sombra.”

They walked beneath a high window, where winter light slanted in and caught the edge of Althea’s ring. Obsidian drank the brightness, gold flashing a brief, sharp halo. Langford’s gaze brushed it, then moved deliberately on. People pretended not to see the things that made them uncomfortable.

“And you,” Langford said, “will remember who you represent.”

As if she had ever been allowed to forget.

They passed a gilt-framed mirror. Althea kept her eyes from her reflection, focusing instead on the carved cherubs at the corners. Their marble faces seemed too interested.

Don’t look at mirrors in the dark, anak. You don’t know who’s looking back.

Umbra’s nails clicked in a steady rhythm beside her. Each step with him grounded her in her body. In her choice, however limited it actually was.

“Your room is in the West Hall,” Langford went on. “We house the legacy students there. Old families. Certain… expectations.” A pause. “There will be an orientation tonight. It would be useful for you to attend.”

Useful for whom, exactly? Langford didn’t specify.

“Will there be coffee?” Althea asked, deadpan.

Langford’s profile didn’t move, but the air around her shifted by a fraction.

“There’s always coffee.”

Male voices slid into the corridor ahead of them, low and easy, the kind of laughter that belonged to boys who had never seriously doubted that the world would bend around them.

“… what I’m saying,” one of them was talking, “is that martyrdom is a strange hobby, even for you.”

The second voice replied, quieter but edged. “Someone has to clean up after you.”

Langford’s pace didn’t change. “Speak of the devil,” she murmured.

The two boys stepped out from a side hall.

The first might have been pulled from the school’s promotional brochure and then sharpened at the edges. Blond hair, cut with ruthless precision, lay smooth and neat; his tie was perfectly knotted, his blazer flawless. He was tall, all lean lines and controlled strength, the build of someone who treated fencing and swimming not as hobbies but as disciplines.

He turned his head—and for a moment, St. Valen’s stopped pretending not to be haunted.

His eyes were a winter blue that should have been cold. Instead, when they met hers, they went wide.

It wasn’t lust. Not yet, at least. It was shock. Recognition that didn’t make sense.

Something in her chest clenched, hard. The ring on her finger felt hot.

It’s nothing, she told herself. Just a pretty boy who’s used to people rearranging themselves in his orbit, startled that you’re not doing it fast enough.

But the air between them tightened. The corridor seemed to narrow. Every portrait along the walls suddenly felt too observant.

Noah Laurent, her memory supplied. St. Valen’s golden boy. Student body president. Son of Sebastian Laurent, the man her father’s voice could turn glass around.

The second boy was wrong in an entirely different way.

Where Noah was all precision, the other lived in the slant. Dark hair fell in artful disarray, like he’d pushed his hand through it one too many times. His tie hung loose, top button undone, blazer open. Everything about him said expensive and careless.

Except his eyes.

They were green, deep, and sharp, with the kind of focus that made it feel like he could peel a person back with nothing but curiosity. When they landed on her, the lazy tilt to his mouth gained a private edge.

Luca Ashford. Old money. Laurent-adjacent. The Ashfords had seats on the same boards, donated to the same institutions, and moved in the same rarefied circles. Her father had flagged the name for her: not magical, but near enough to danger to be a problem.

“This is Miss Althea Sombra,” Langford said. “Our newest legacy.”

Noah’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly at the name. Luca’s brows lifted, and his gaze went briefly, thoughtfully, to the ring on her finger.

“Miss Sombra,” Noah said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried. “Welcome to St. Valen’s.”

Those eyes stayed on her, too steady for comfort. Up close, they weren’t just blue; there were iron-gray streaks in them, like storm clouds over the sea.

Something low in her stomach curled.

She forced her lips into a polite shape.

“Laurent,” she said. “Ashford.”

Luca’s mouth curled into something that was not quite a smile. “So she does her homework.”

His eyes dragged down, slow, taking in the black boots, long legs, the razor line of her skirt, the deliberate looseness of her blouse, the Sombra ring, the hand anchored in Umbra’s fur. His appreciation wasn’t vulgar. That almost made it worse. It was clinical. Interested.

She felt the look like heat on her skin.

Umbra gave one soft, warning growl.

Luca’s gaze flicked to him, then back to her. “He has taste.”

“Mr. Laurent and Mr. Ashford will help you settle in,” Langford said. “West Hall can be… difficult to navigate at first.”

“I’m very good at getting lost in expensive buildings,” Althea replied.

Langford didn’t dignify that with a response.

Noah stepped forward, offering a paper.

“Your schedule,” he said. His expression had settled back into something composed, but his eyes were still too intent. “Langford asked me to bring it to you.”

His hands were steady. Hers was too. Their fingers brushed as she took the page. The contact was nothing. A touch of skin to skin. Barely anything at all.

Her magic lunged.

Not outward. Inward. A reflexive clench, a flare behind her ribs, like a match struck in the dark.

For a second, she felt something that was not hers. A sharp, visceral jolt of hunger that hit so fast it almost doubled her.

Not mine. Not mine.

She snapped the door shut on it, the way she’d been taught.

Hinga, apat. Labas, anim. In. Four. Out Six.

Her expression never shifted. Noah’s didn’t either. But his pupils had blown dark.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re in West Hall third floor,” Noah said, voice a fraction rougher. “The upper dorms. It’s quieter there.”

“Quieter,” Luca repeated, amused. “What a tragedy.”

Noah didn’t look at him. “There’s a student orientation tonight,” he continued. “Reception hall, eight p.m. It’s… useful for getting the lay of the land.”

Useful for letting everyone sniff you, she translated. For letting legacies decide what you’re worth.

“Will you be there?” she asked.

The question surprised both of them. It came out softer than she intended, curiosity wrapped in challenge.

Noah held her gaze. “Yes.”

Luca’s smile sharpened. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

There is was. The shape of something ugly and complicated forming between the three of them, even in this first brittle interaction.

A king, a storm, and the girl the stone couldn’t quite swallow.

Langford’s phone chimed. She consulted it with a faint frown. “I’ll leave you in their hands, Miss Sombra. Remember: this school is an opportunity. And an observation.”

She gilded away, heels across stone until the sound faded. Silence settled in her wake, thick and watchful.

Noah cleared his throat. “West Hall is this way,” he said, gesturing down the corridor.

She didn’t move immediately. She let the moment stretch, watching both boys from beneath her lashes.

Noah, all contained tension and restrained heat.

Luca, lounging against the wall like a sin waiting for someone to confess it with their body.

“If I get lost,” she said lightly, “does the school eat me?”

“Depends who finds you first,” Luca said.

His eyes caught the light; the green looked almost golden for a second.

Umbra’s growl deepened.

Noah stepped subtly between them, the move so practiced it almost looked unconscious. Protective, Possessive. He probably didn’t even know which.

“Come on,” he told her. “We’ll walk you.”

We. Not I.

She twisted the ring once, feeling the obsidian bite into her skin. Sombra to the bone. A hammer, her lola had called her. A weapon. A failure at being anything gentler.

She smiled anyway.

“All right, Mr. Laurent,” she said, matching his formality, letting the words curl slow. “Show me the cage.”

She stepped forward, Umbra at her side.

The two heirs fell into step with her as the corridor stretched ahead, dark wood and old portraits and the weight of generations pressing in. Somewhere outside, a bell began to toll the hour, slow and solemn, as if the school itself were marking the moment she crossed into its story.

Behind her ribs, the thing they’d spent years trying to suppress turned its head towards both boys at once.

Interested.

Hungry.