Blood Ball

Isadora:

Saturday arrives like a half forgotten promise, soft at the edges, silvered in the pale chill that seeps through my windowpanes. For the first time all week I wake without a bell or a summons, only the low hum of the Academy breathing around me. The sky beyond the glass is the color of wet ash. I lie there for a moment, willing myself to believe in the quiet.

A knock shatters it.

“Rise and shine, sleepy witch,” Loralie sings as she sweeps in, a gust of citrus-scented warmth against the stone. Her honey-blonde hair is a riot of curls, her smile a sunrise I’m not sure I deserve.

“You’re entirely too cheerful,” I mutter, dragging myself upright.

“It’s Saturday,” she says, as if that explains everything. “And tonight is the Blood Ball.”

I blink. “The what?”

Her grin widens, sharp as a secret. “You really don’t know? It happens every year on the blood moon. Music, masks, revelry…a celebration of everything the Academy tries to pretend it doesn’t teach. Think of it as a holiday for sinners.”

The words settle in my chest, humming. A ball. Under a blood moon. My dreams have been steeped in fire and shadow all week—maybe this is the universe’s cruel joke.

“I’m not sure I’m the ‘holiday for sinners’ type,” I say, reaching for the comfort of sarcasm.

“Please.” She flops onto my bed like a cat. “You’ve been vanishing during classes, running off with the Royals, and whatever mystery you’re brooding over. You owe me one night. One. What’s the harm in pretending to be normal?”

Normal. I almost laugh. But guilt digs in where reason can’t reach. She has covered for me more than once—botany, that disastrous morning when nightmares left me late and trembling. Maybe she deserves my company. Maybe I deserve a breath that isn’t laced with shadow.

“Fine,” I hear myself say. “One night.”

Her squeal echoes off the stone. “Dress shop. Noon. Don’t wear black pants again or I’ll hex you.”

The village beyond the wards is a half-forgotten painting of cobbled streets and lantern smoke. A thin mist clings to the rooftops as we walk, Loralie’s arm looped through mine. She chatters about the Ball—old rituals disguised as revelry, spells hidden in music, the way the moon turns the river red if you look from the right bridge. I let her words wash over me like an incantation.

The dress shop waits at the end of a narrow lane, its windows fogged and glowing. Bells chime as we step inside, and the scent of cedar and aged velvet curls around me. Racks of vintage gowns sway like patient ghosts.

Loralie dives in without hesitation, fingers brushing silks that shimmer like captured starlight. “This is it,” she murmurs, holding a gown of rose-gold sequins against her body. The fabric catches the dim light and throws it back in soft fire. “Tell me I look like sin itself.”

“You do,” I admit, smiling despite myself.

“And you,” she says, turning those amber eyes on me, “are going to find something that makes every shadow in this cursed school weep.”

I wander deeper, drawn to the back where the light thins. My hand stops on a gown of black lace, the fabric whisper-soft yet heavy with history. Long sleeves, a high neck that plunges into a daring V, the skirt a slow fall of shadow. When I lift it, dust motes scatter like tiny stars.

It feels…inevitable.

Loralie whistles low. “Of course. Midnight incarnate. Try it on.”

The fitting room is a cathedral of cracked mirrors. I slide into the gown and the world changes. The lace clings to my skin like a memory I’ve always carried; the bodice shapes itself to the lines of my breath. When I step out, the air sharpens.

Loralie presses a hand to her mouth. “Isadora. You look… dangerous.”

I turn to the mirror. For a heartbeat, I almost don’t recognize the girl staring back. The black frames me, devours me, but there’s a glow beneath it—like embers refusing to die. My own eyes catch the light, darker and brighter all at once.

Something inside me answers.

We leave the shop as dusk bruises the horizon, gowns wrapped in tissue and twine. The streets are hushed, lanterns bleeding gold through the mist. I should feel lighter, but the closer the blood moon creeps, the thicker the air becomes. The shadows along the buildings stretch too far, bending where they shouldn’t. Once, I swear I hear my name carried in the wind—soft, coaxing.

I tighten my grip on the package and quicken my pace.

Loralie only laughs, oblivious. “You’ll thank me tonight,” she says. “A night of dancing. Music. Maybe even a kiss.”

A kiss. The word sparks heat low in my chest, unbidden images of eyes—golden, crimson, ice-blue, storm-gray—flashing through me. The Royals. Always near, always watching. I push the thought aside, but it lingers like a heartbeat. The royals would waste thier time with such a silly event.

Back at the Academy the corridors are darker than usual, the stone walls exhaling a chill that tastes of iron. I half expect to see them—Rhett’s prowling shadow, Kai’s sly grin, Silas with his quiet gravity, Lucian gleaming like a blade—but the halls stay empty. Still, I feel them, as surely as I feel the pull of the moon above.

By the time I reach my room, the package in my arms is warm, as if the dress itself carries a pulse. I lay it across the bed and trace the lace with my fingertips. Outside, the first sliver of blood moon rises, staining the window crimson.

Tonight, the Academy will dance.

And so, it seems, will I.