**CHAPTER 5: ONE ONE BELIEVES THE VILLAIN!

Aurora Veyl 💜 

The courtyard did not empty after the vampire prince walked away. If anything, the circle of students tightened. Conversations that had paused for his arrival restarted with sharper edges the moment he was gone. I stood in the middle of it all, wearing a face everyone hated and a uniform that somehow still smelled like someone else’s perfume.

A girl with silver hair and vampire marks on her wrists wrinkled her nose as she passed. “I can’t believe she showed up.”

Her friend didn’t bother lowering her voice. “She probably came back to finish what she started.”

I exhaled through my nose and started walking. Every step I took created a small wave of movement. Students stepped aside like I carried a contagious disease. A few openly glared. One boy from a werewolf house muttered something about hybrids and bad blood loud enough for me to hear.

*Fantastic,* I thought. *I’ve inherited a body, a wardrobe, a reputation, and a school full of people who want me gone. Still no instruction manual.*

I tried the direct approach first. A cluster of students near the fountain looked less murderous than the others, so I stopped a few paces away.

“Can any of you tell me what exactly happened at the Forbidden Well?” I asked. “I keep hearing different versions.”

Three pairs of eyes turned on me with identical expressions of disbelief.

“You’re joking,” one of them said.

“I’m not. I genuinely don’t know the details.”

A short, bitter laugh answered me. “Right. The same way you didn’t know what you were doing when you pushed her.”

“I didn’t push anyone.”

“Sure. And I’m the next headmistress.” The speaker linked arms with her friends and steered them away. “Stay away from us, Veyl. Some of us actually liked Evelina.”

I watched them go and felt the familiar mix of frustration and dark humour rise in my chest. Of course no one believed me. The original Aurora had spent months, maybe years, building a reputation so solid that even the truth bounced off it.

I tried two more groups with the same result. One girl actually flinched when I spoke. Another told me, quite seriously, that pretending to care about Evelina only made me look more guilty. A tall werewolf student advised me to stop asking questions before someone decided I was gathering information for my next crime.

By the time the midday bell rang, I had learned exactly three things: Evelina Rose was still missing, the Forbidden Well was still off-limits, and every person at Nightshade Academy believed I was the reason for both.

I found an empty corner of the upper courtyard and leaned against the stone railing. Below me, students moved between classes in neat, colourful streams. None of those streams came anywhere near my location.

*So this is what it feels like to be universally hated,* I thought. *Ten out of ten. Would not recommend.*

I replayed the prince’s words from earlier. He had looked at me like I was something toxic he wanted removed from the academy grounds. The students spoke about him and Evelina in the same breath—how protective he was, how furious he had been when she disappeared, how everyone knew the hybrid girl had finally gone too far.

I pressed my palms against the cool stone. “I didn’t do it,” I said to no one. “Not that it matters.”

A soft voice behind me made me turn. A younger student, maybe first-year, stood a careful distance away with a stack of books hugged to her chest.

“You’re still trying to pretend,” she said. Not unkind, exactly. Just tired. “Everyone knows what you’re like. Stop asking about Evelina. It only makes people angrier.”

She walked away before I could answer.

I stayed at the railing until the next bell forced the courtyard to empty. The silence that followed felt heavier than the whispers. I was alone in a school full of people, and every single one of them had already decided my guilt.

Fine.

If no one was going to give me answers, I would find them myself. If the entire academy insisted on treating me like the villain of the story, then maybe it was time I started acting like one—at least long enough to learn what had actually happened at that well.

I pushed off the railing and headed toward the library wing, where the restricted archives were rumoured to keep old maps of the academy grounds. Including, if I was lucky, the path that led to the Forbidden Well.

No one tried to stop me. No one offered to help.

And for the first time since waking up in this body, I decided that might be an advantage.

:)