Something Wicked

Kai:

Ashwyck always smelled like sealed wax and secrets.

You got used to it, eventually. The same way you got used to blood magic residue clinging to your cuffs or the feeling of something watching you when the mirrors fogged.

I took my usual seat—third from the left—at the long stretch of obsidian we so affectionately called the High Table. A little on the nose, but no one here was particularly subtle. Especially not the ones in charge.

Lucien was already lounging like a fallen angel bored of Earth, swirling a glass of something definitely not from the wine cellar. His lips curled as he sipped it, crimson eyes gleaming like sin under candlelight.

Silas was dissecting his food with surgical disdain, like it owed him money. The shadows under his eyes had grown deeper lately, almost beautiful in their decay. Death wore him like a favorite coat.

Rhett hadn’t even bothered pretending to care today. A sophomore with too much perfume and too little shame was trying to crawl into his lap. He ignored her. His gaze was fixed elsewhere. Sharp. Wild. Hungry, in a way that had nothing to do with the pathetic creature touching his arm.

I followed his eyes.

There she was.

Isadora.

New girl. New energy. New disruption.

She entered the cafeteria like a bad omen—graceful, quiet, uninvited. She didn’t glow the way some legacies did. No aura screaming her lineage, no overt flex of power. But the room noticed her. We all did.

It was like someone rang a silent bell only monsters could hear.

She moved through the candlelit gloom with that sunlight-embodied girl, Loralie, trailing behind her like the last good thing she’d ever know. They made an odd pair—sun and stone, sugar and smoke. Isadora drifted like a whisper across a mausoleum floor, pale and deliberate, all edges and elegance. A contradiction in heels.

And I couldn’t stop watching.

“She doesn’t belong here,” Lucien murmured, still swirling his drink. Not looking at me. Just…knowing.

“None of us do,” I said, tapping one of my silver rings against the rim of my goblet. The sound echoed too long. “That’s what makes it charming.”

“She’s not like us,” Silas added, voice flat and low, like a tolling bell. “Not yet.”

Not yet.

Interesting choice of words.

I turned to him. “But she will be.”

Silas didn’t respond. Which was as close as he ever got to agreement.

I let my gaze slide back to her.

She was sitting in the back corner with Loralie, tucked away like a secret. Her eyes—gray, maybe blue, too stormy to decide—lifted and met mine across the expanse.

Everything inside me paused. Not skipped. Paused.

She didn’t look away.

Neither did I.

Then, slowly, like peeling off bandages, she looked at each of us. Lucien. Silas. Rhett. Her stare lingered—not long enough to challenge, not short enough to cower.

Brave little raven.

“She’s watching us,” Rhett said finally, voice like gravel. He shoved the sophomore off his lap with a grunt and a snarl that sent her scurrying. His eyes—wolf-gold and brutal—never left Isadora. “Trying to figure out what we are.”

“She’ll learn soon enough,” I murmured, still half-smiling.

Lucien drained his glass, fangs visible. “She’s trouble.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He raised a brow. “It is.”

“She doesn’t feel like trouble,” Silas said quietly, fingers still wrapped around his untouched fork. “She feels… unfinished.”

Unfinished. Like a spell half-cast or a curse mid-sentence.

I liked that.

I studied her again. Her clothes were too meticulous to be accidental—black-on-black elegance, deliberate in its rebellion. Her hands were graceful but still. She moved like someone who’d learned to hide pain in plain sight.

But more than that… there was something wrong with her.

Not broken.

Bent.

Tuned to the wrong frequency.

The kind of wrong that intrigued me.

The kind that made the Fae part of me lean forward, tongue pressed against the back of my teeth, just to taste the imbalance. Chaos hummed beneath her surface, tightly coiled. Like a storm that hadn’t figured out how to be rain yet.

I wanted to see what happened when it broke.

“She’s not marked,” Lucien said. “No sigils. No bond rings. No inheritance threads. She doesn’t belong to anyone.”

His voice held the edge of curiosity. Or maybe hunger.

“She will,” Rhett said, too quickly.

I blinked.

Lucien tilted his head. “Possessive, are we?”

Rhett didn’t answer. But his jaw flexed.

Interesting.

“She’s not afraid,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “That’s new.”

Most first-years cowered through their first weeks. Understandable, given Ashwyck’s hazing included illusion torture, bloodline duels, and an ‘accidental’ summoning that nearly turned the south wing into a demon’s chew toy.

But she looked like she was waiting for something.

No. Not waiting.

Inviting.

“She’s not here by chance,” I said.

Lucien rolled his eyes. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Pot, meet kettle.”

“She’s just another mystery,” Silas said, finally picking up his glass. “Ashwyck devours mysteries. She’ll be gone by winter solstice.”

But he didn’t believe it. I could see it in the tension behind his eyes.

She wasn’t leaving.

She was already part of the story.

And the story was bending around her.

Across the room, Isadora looked down at her tray. Stirred her food. Said something that made Loralie laugh.

But I saw the tightness in her shoulders. The way her hand clenched the fork. The flicker of darkness that shimmered, then vanished, around her fingers.

She didn’t even know yet.

I wanted to be the one to tell her.

No. That’s a lie.

I wanted to be the one to break her open and see.

“Do you think she knows?” I asked quietly. “What she is?”

Rhett’s gaze cut toward me, sharp and dangerous. “She knows she’s different. That’s enough.”

Lucien licked a drop of blood from his fang. “Curiosity killed the witch, Kai.”

“But satisfaction brought her back.”

I said it with a smile, but the air shifted. Magic prickled across the table like static. Even the chandeliers above us flickered, blue flames guttering for half a second.

Silas stood abruptly. “I need air.”

He vanished into shadow before we could stop him.

Rhett muttered a curse and ran a hand through his hair, pushing back from the table like he needed to escape too. His chair scraped like a scream across the stone.

Lucien sighed. “Theatrics.”

But he was rattled too. Just a little.

Only I stayed seated.

Watching her.

Still watching her.

Isadora Gravelle.

Pretty name. Too soft.

She needed something sharper.

Something wicked.

I traced a rune on the edge of the table with my thumb, just a whisper of old Fae script. Not a spell. Just a reminder.

Names had power.

And hers was already echoing.

She had no idea what she’d walked into.

But I did.

Ashwyck didn’t make room for anyone. You either carved your place with teeth or faded like smoke.

She wouldn’t fade.

I’d make sure of it.

And gods help the world if she decided to carve.