Chapter 003

Mirelle's POV

I'd imagined a hundred ways the crown prince of Crescent Moon Kingdom might finally speak to me, surrounded by my own underwear.

He didn't say a word.

Hardin Scott — I'd know his name back at orientation, not in the second his hand closed around my last fallen book — simply held it out to me, platinum hair catching the corridor light like frost catching sun.

His face gave away nothing.

But his eyes stayed on mine a full beat longer than a stranger returning a book had any reason to, long enough that my pulse forgot how to behave itself.

I opened my mouth to thank him. I didn't get the chance.

"Ooh, cookies." A second boy dropped into a crouch beside my spilled suitcase, plucked one straight from the crushed container, and took a bite before I could so much as blink. Dark hair, easy grin, the kind of confidence that assumed

the whole hallway existed for his entertainment. "Not bad. A little dry, but I'll allow it."

"That's not — " I snatched the container out of his reach before he could finish robbing me blind. "You absolute thief."

"Aldric Graham," he said, entirely unbothered, like I'd asked. "And technically it's not stealing if it was already on the floor. That's just recycling."

"Congratulations. Recycling garbage is still garbage."

"Stealing from someone who's already having the worst day of her life isn't exactly princely behavior, Aldric." The third voice arrived without hurry, gold eyes sweeping the scene with the calm of someone who'd already decided how it would end.

Adrian Lancaster. He didn't reach for the cookies. He didn't need to — the way the hallway went even quieter around him did all the work.

I hadn't noticed until then that every conversation in the corridor had already stopped.

Three alpha heirs. One hallway. All of them

standing around a girl the entire academy already knew as wolfless. Girls nearby looked at me like I'd committed a crime. A boy near the stairwell whispered something to his friend that ended in my name and a laugh neither of them bothered hiding.

Let them stare. I hadn't spent eighteen years carrying someone else's luggage just to fold now over a hallway full of gossip.

Aldric grinned wider, delighted rather than deterred by the audience. "I like her. Feisty." He extended a hand like we were meeting at a garden party instead of over a pile of spilled underwear. "Aldric Graham, in case the cookie theft didn't already give it away."

"I know who you are." I didn't bother softening it. "All three of you, actually. Hard to avoid it when the entire academy's spent the whole day whispering your names like scripture. Personally I don't see what the fuss is about."

Aldric's eyebrows shot up. "Careful. That almost sounds like you've been paying attention."

"Paying attention isn't the same as being impressed."

That got a laugh out of him — a real one, loud enough to turn a few more heads. Hardin's mouth twitched at one corner before he covered it with a cough that fooled absolutely no one. Even Adrian's expression cracked, one dark eyebrow lifting like I'd said something worth filing away.

"She's got a mouth on her," Adrian said, delighted.

"I'm into it."

"Get used to it," I said, chin up, already reaching to gather what was left of my dignity off the floor. "I don't do impressed, and I definitely don't do intimidated. Save that for the girls who faint when you walk past."

For a second, nobody said anything at all. Then Adrian turned without a word and walked off down the corridor, unreadable as ever, and after a beat the other two peeled away to follow — Hardin's gaze lingering on me half a second longer than Aldric's did, like he hadn't quite finished whatever he'd been reading.

I stood there with my heart slamming and several hundred pairs of eyes still crawling over my back.

By the time I made it to my room, the story had already outpaced me.

***

I woke up the next morning before the sun, dressed and braided my hair onto my shoulder and out the door before my roommate Audrey so much as stirred, hoping — stupidly — that one quiet morning might slip past unnoticed.

It lasted exactly as long as the walk to the main path.

Whispers trailed me like a second shadow before

I'd gone ten steps. "She actually thinks she can claim all three alpha heirs for herself," one girl said to another, not bothering to lower her voice. "Wait till they figure out what she really is."

"I still can't believe the academy let a worthless little nobody enroll."

"No wolf, but somehow she charmed her way into a Corwin house and this school." A pause, deliberate, meant to carry. "Has to be dark magic. What else explains it?"

I kept my eyes forward and my jaw locked. I'd survived worse than whispers before breakfast.

A girl with blonde hair stepped directly into my path, smiling like we were already old friends. "Irene," she said, holding out a paper cup. "Welcome gift. Figured your morning could use it."

"Didn't realize I had a fan club," I said, taking it more out of exhaustion than trust. "Careful — the reputation might not survive contact."

Irene's smile didn't waver. Behind her, another girl's expression went tight and warning, mouth opening like she wanted to grab my wrist and pull me somewhere else entirely, and thought better of it a half-second too late.

"Thanks," I said, setting the cup down on the nearest stone slab as something caught my eyes from across the plaza . I turned to see what it was.

I never got to drink it.

By the time I turned back, the place had already come apart.

A boy lay sprawled on the ground, the cup on its side beside him, coffee soaking into the grass. His skin had gone the color of chalk. His chest rose and fell in short, wrong little jerks, like his lungs had forgotten the correct rhythm.

"He said he'd drink it — it was a dare!" someone was shouting, backing away like distance might undo it. "We just wanted to embarrass her, we didn't — he wasn't supposed to — "

"What did he drink?" I was already on my knees beside him before I'd decided to move, hands hovering uselessly over a body that didn't know how to hold still. "Somebody tell me what he drank!"

"The coffee on the stone slab," a girl said, horrified, pointing at the overturned cup like it might bite her.

"Someone get a professor — now!" My voice cracked in a way I didn't recognize as my own. "Hurry!"

His eyes found mine for one horrible second, wide

and terrified and utterly without understanding, before they rolled back and his whole body seized against the grass.

I looked up, searching for Irene.

She was already gone — slipping backward through the crowd, weaving between shoulders like she'd rehearsed the exit before she'd ever

handed me that cup. Nobody else seemed to notice her go. Nobody but me.

She hadn't waited around long enough to see if

he'd live.

Which meant one thing clearer than anything else

in that entire plaza.

The coffee had never been meant for him at all.

It had been meant for me.