Chapter One — Amelia

The smell of bleach and damp wood clung to the walls of the house, like it had soaked into the bones of the place.

I’d learned not to breathe too deeply — too much air meant too much noise, and noise got you noticed.

“You’re late,” she hissed from the kitchen doorway. The woman I was forced to call “Mother” leaned against the frame, fingers tapping a chipped mug. Her eyes, cold and pale, slid over me like she was counting flaws. “The market closes at six. We can’t have people asking questions.”

I kept my gaze on the floor and held out the bag. The bread inside was still warm. I’d run the whole way back, lungs burning. “They were short-staffed.” My voice came out too soft, like it belonged to someone else.

She took the bag without thanks, without even looking at me again, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Somewhere deeper in the house, he was moving. Heavy boots on warped floorboards — the sound that made my stomach twist.

I headed for the stairs, praying I could make it to the attic before he noticed me. My hand brushed the banister and the wood splintered under my touch. Not much, just a thin crack running down the grain. But I hadn’t gripped it hard enough to do that.

It wasn’t the first time.

The attic was my room. If you could call a place with no door and a single cracked window a “room.” I crouched on the thin mattress, knees to my chest, heart hammering.

My fingertips still tingled from the wood breaking. That same strange heat I’d felt before — the one I never spoke about — pulsed under my skin like a secret heartbeat.

I was careful with secrets here.

Theirs could kill me.

Mine could kill them.

Downstairs, the man’s voice rose — low, angry. The woman answered sharply, and a chair scraped back hard against the floor. I could feel it again: the heat, the pull, the something in me that always woke when they fought.

Sometimes I wondered if it wanted out.

Sometimes I wondered what would happen if I let it. The Saturday market was loud. Too loud. The air was thick with spices, fried food, and the crush of bodies shuffling past narrow stalls. I kept my hood up, weaving through the crowd with the list clenched in my fist.

The list was always short: bread, eggs, and whatever fruit was bruised enough to be cheap. Nothing else, the woman had said, her nails biting into my arm as she pressed the money into my hand.

I just wanted to get it over with.

A vendor called out prices. Someone laughed too loudly behind me. I kept my head down, focused on the scuffed pavement—until a man’s voice cut through the noise.

“Watch where you’re going, girl.”

I froze. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and blocking my path. His sneer curled like he enjoyed the way I flinched. “You bump into me, you pay for my time.”

“I didn’t—”

He grabbed my wrist. Too tight. My pulse spiked, and I felt it again — the same heat from last night in the attic.

“Let go.” My voice shook, but underneath it, something else moved — a strange resonance, like a growl buried inside my chest.

The man’s smirk faltered. His grip loosened. And then it happened.

The air between us snapped. A wind — no, a force — erupted from my skin, slamming into him like a physical blow. He stumbled back, eyes wide, as the nearest stalls rattled and fruit tumbled from crates.