THE LETTER

Arwen’s pov

The drive home takes exactly seventeen minutes. I know because I watch the clock on the dashboard the entire way, and it's the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart. Margaret doesn't turn on the radio. She doesn't try to talk to me. She just drives with both hands on the wheel, her jaw clenched so tight I'm worried her teeth might crack.

When we get home, she parks in the garage and sits there for a full minute without moving. I can hear her breathing. I can hear my own breathing. I can hear the sound of the garage door closing behind us like a coffin lid.

"Go to your room," she finally says.

"Margaret, I need to understand what happened back there. I need to know what's wrong with me."

"Your room. Now."

I've never heard her use that tone before. Margaret doesn't do authority. She does gentle guidance and quiet wisdom and the kind of parenting that makes you feel supported even when everything is falling apart. But right now she sounds like a different person entirely, and it scares me more than the frost or the plants or the light coming out of my hands.

I go upstairs and sit on my bed, and I try not to cry. I'm eighteen years old and I just destroyed an entire gathering with magic I didn't know I had, and Margaret is downstairs doing something that involves a lot of angry pacing and then nothing but silence.

After about thirty minutes, I hear her on the phone.

"We need to talk about what happened today," she says quietly. "At the gathering. Yes, I know you warned me this might happen. No, I'm not ready to discuss it yet. But you were right. The signs are becoming impossible to ignore."

I creep out of my room and position myself at the top of the stairs where I can hear better. Margaret is in her bedroom now, and her voice is getting more strained.

"The girl needs training. She needs guidance. She needs people who understand what she actually is, because I clearly don't. You said the academy could help. You said they specialized in situations like this."

My stomach drops. Academy. Training. Understanding what I am.

"I know they were supposed to wait. I know the plan was to give her a normal life for as long as possible. But that was before she accidentally destroyed her entire pack's gathering with frost patterns and plant growth and light that made grown men bleed from their noses."

The person on the other end of the phone is talking, but I can't hear them clearly. Margaret's voice drops so low I have to strain to hear.

"There's also the matter of who might be looking for her now. Yes, I understand that part too. The bloodline is significant. Yes, I'm aware that certain people would consider her a threat just for existing."

I sink down onto the stairs, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. Bloodline. Threat. Looking for her.

Looking for me.

"Send whatever paperwork you need me to sign," Margaret says. "And the information about the academy. I'll read through everything tonight. She needs to be gone before anyone official starts asking questions."

Margaret hangs up, and I hear her moving around in her bedroom. I should go back to my room. I should pretend I didn't hear any of that conversation. But instead, I press myself against the wall and wait.

After a few minutes, I hear her opening drawers. Opening what sounds like a safe hidden somewhere in her bedroom. Moving papers around like she's looking for something specific. I risk peeking around the corner, and that's when I see her.

Margaret is sitting on her bed with a photograph in one hand and a letter in the other. The photograph shows a woman who looks almost exactly like me, except she's older and wearing clothes that belong in some kind of fantasy movie. She's beautiful in a way that feels dangerous, like looking at her too long might actually hurt.

The woman in the photograph has my face.

Margaret is crying. Actual, real tears that she's not trying to hide anymore. She reads the letter again, and I watch her lips move without being able to hear the words. Whatever is in that letter, it's important enough to make Margaret's hands shake.

"I'm sorry," Margaret whispers to the photograph. "I'm so sorry. I tried to give her a normal life. I tried to keep her safe. But this is who she is, and I can't hide it anymore."

I don't know what to do with what I'm seeing. I don't know how to process the fact that Margaret has had a photograph of my biological mother this entire time, and she's never shown it to me. I don't know why she's apologizing to a picture, or what she means about hiding who I am.

Before I can move, before I can decide whether to reveal myself or go back to my room, Margaret's phone buzzes. She picks it up and reads something on the screen, and her entire body goes rigid.

"No," she breathes. "That's not possible."

She reads whatever message she received again, and then she's moving. She's putting the photograph and letter back into a wooden box. She's locking the box. She's moving toward her bedroom door, and I barely have time to scramble back to the stairs before she sees me standing there.

"Arwen." She looks shocked, then guilty, then something harder settles over her features. "We need to talk. In the kitchen. Right now."

I follow her downstairs, and my heart is pounding so hard I'm sure she can hear it. The kitchen suddenly feels too small, too bright, too real for whatever conversation is about to happen.

"How much did you hear?" Margaret asks.

There's no point in lying. There's never really been a point in lying to Margaret, even though she's apparently been lying to me my entire life.

"Enough," I say. "You have a photograph of my mother. You have a letter about an academy. You're talking about people looking for me. You said I needed to be gone before anyone official starts asking questions. So tell me what's actually happening, because I'm done with the careful answers and the half-truths."

Margaret sits down at the kitchen table like she's run out of strength to stand. She looks smaller somehow, older, defeated in a way I've never seen before.

"Your bloodline is important," she starts. "More important than you understand. More important than I understood when I found you as a baby. There are people who would want to control you, or contain you, or eliminate you entirely just because of who your biological parents are."

"Who are they?"

"We don't have time for that conversation right now."

My phone buzzes. Then again. Then a third time. I pull it out of my pocket and see three missed calls from numbers I don't recognize. Government numbers. Official numbers.

Margaret's face goes completely white.

"Oh God," she whispers. "They're already looking."

The landline rings. Then my phone buzzes again with a voicemail notification. Margaret stands up and walks to the answering machine like she's moving through water.

"Ms. Blackthorne, this is Agent Torres with the Department of Supernatural Affairs. We need to speak with you regarding Arwen Blackthorne immediately. We'll be arriving tomorrow morning for a mandatory evaluation. Please ensure the subject remains available for questioning."

The line goes dead.

"Pack a bag," Margaret says, and her voice sounds hollow. "Only the things that matter. We're leaving in ten minutes."

"Leaving? Where are we going?"

"To a place that might be able to protect you from what's coming. It's called Blood Moon Academy, and whether you're ready for it or not, that's where you're going to learn who you really are."

I stand there, frozen, watching my entire life collapse in the span of a single evening. There's a woman in a photograph who has my face. There's a letter that Margaret has been hiding for years. There are government agents coming tomorrow morning. And in ten minutes, I'm supposed to walk away from the only home I've ever known.

"Arwen, please," Margaret says. "Upstairs. Your bag. Now."

I go upstairs and start throwing clothes into a backpack, my hands shaking so badly I can barely hold anything. Outside my window, the sky is darkening, and storm clouds are gathering in a way that doesn't match the weather forecast I saw this morning.

Something inside me is responding to my fear. Something is changing.

And I'm terrified of what happens next.