Chapter Seven

The morning came slow, pale and gray.

Ravenwood stirred beneath a blanket of clouds, the streets damp with dew and silence. Evelynn sat at the edge of her bed, still in yesterday’s clothes, her hands wrapped around a mug of cold tea she hadn’t touched. The fire in her veins had quieted but it hadn’t gone out.

It never did now.

Aiden hadn’t come inside. He never stayed long, just long enough to make sure she was okay… then he’d disappear, swallowed up by the forest like he was part of it. And maybe he was.

Maybe he always had been.

She stared down at the faint glow beneath her skin the bite mark. It didn’t look like a wound anymore. It looked like a seal, a symbol as if something had been unlocked in her. Not just pain. Not just fire.

A door.

And whatever was on the other side of it was wide awake.

Downstairs, her aunt moved through the kitchen. Plates clinked. A chair scraped. The sound of a normal morning.

But Evelynn didn’t feel normal anymore.

She slipped on a hoodie and made her way outside, her shoes crunching softly against the gravel. Ravenwood High sat in the distance, its red-brick walls damp and half-shrouded in fog.

Cassian was waiting by the fence.

“I thought you weren’t coming today,” he said.

Evelynn offered a tired smile. “I almost didn’t.”

“You look like hell.”

“I feel like it.”

Cass studied her, eyes sharp despite his usual slouch. “You’re different.”

“I know.”

“Is it the thing in the woods?”

She didn’t answer right away. How could she explain it? The way the world looked now like something had been peeled back and the truth was raw and everywhere.

“I’m not sure what it is,” she said finally. “But it’s inside me now. And it’s not going away.”

Cass hesitated. “You’re not scared?”

“I am. But there’s no undoing it.”

He glanced toward the trees. “Is Aiden involved in all this? Because I swear, if he”

“Cass, stop.”

The words came sharper than she meant, edged with something that wasn’t hers or maybe was.

Cass blinked. “Okay… whoa.”

She exhaled. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t have answers yet. And whatever’s happening to me… it’s connected to him.”

Cass didn’t press. For once.

Inside the school, whispers followed her.

It wasn’t just paranoia she felt it in the way people glanced, then looked away too quickly. Like she was marked. Like something about her had shifted just enough to be noticed, even by those who didn’t understand it.

And then there was Mira.

The girl had always hated Evelynn for reasons she never understood maybe it was jealousy, maybe something worse. But today, when Mira passed her in the hallway, she stopped.

She stared.

Longer than necessary.

Her gaze slid to Evelynn’s chest, where the mark burned faintly under the fabric, then back up to her face.

“You smell like ash,” Mira said, nose wrinkling.

Evelynn’s skin prickled. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re not fooling anyone.”

Then she walked away, her heels clicking like punctuation.

Evelynn stood frozen, heart racing. Mira had always been cruel, but this felt… pointed. Like she knew something. Or worse like she was something.

The day blurred after that.

Teachers talked. Bells rang. But Evelynn barely heard any of it. Her thoughts drifted like smoke, always circling back to the same question:

What exactly had she become?

And why did it feel like the world was watching?

After school, she didn’t go home.

She walked toward the woods.

Not because Aiden told her to. Not because she was chasing him. But because something inside her needed to return. The forest called to her now — not with fear, but with familiarity. Like it remembered her.

The moment her shoes touched dirt, the air changed. Colder. Wilder.

Then she heard him.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

Aiden stepped out from behind a tree, his hair damp with mist, his hoodie half unzipped.

Evelynn didn’t flinch. “I wasn’t alone.”

He studied her in that quiet way of his the way that said he saw more than he let on.

“What happened today?” he asked.

“People are noticing me,” she said. “Even the ones who shouldn’t.”

He nodded. “That’s how it starts.”

She met his gaze. “Start of what?”

“Being hunted.”

A shiver crawled up her spine, but not from cold. “Who’s hunting me?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Finally, he said, “Not everyone wants you dead. But not everyone wants you alive either. Some will want to use you. Others will try to destroy you before you fully change.”

“What am I changing into?”

His eyes darkened. “Something rare. Something old. I don’t know what name they’ll give you. But I know what you’ll feel like.”

“Like fire,” she whispered.

“Like hunger,” he said. “Like instinct. Like the wild itself.”

She swallowed. “I’m not ready.”

“You don’t have to be. The fire is.”

They stood in silence again, but it wasn’t empty.

It was charged.

And somewhere deep in the forest, something howled not a coyote, not a wolf.

Something else.

Something older.

Evelynn turned toward the sound, eyes narrowing.

She wasn’t running anymore.

She was beginning to understand.

And soon?

She’d be ready to fight.