The girl lying on the bed looked up when we entered.
She had sharp features, dark red curls cropped short around her jaw, and eyes that caught the light like glass—pale, unfriendly, unreadable.
“Jess,” Lyra said sweetly. “This is your new roommate. Persephone Harrin.”
“Seph.” I said, my voice flat.
Jess didn’t move. “I don’t do roommates.”
“Well,” Lyra said, still smiling, “now you do.” She turned back to me and handed me the card. “Unpack. Dinner’s in an hour. Cafeteria’s on the east side—follow the noise. And don’t expect me to escort you again.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I murmured.
Her aura shimmered as she stepped back into the hall—that same cloying sweetness curling through the air—and then she was gone.
Silence stretched.
Jess exhaled a thin stream of smoke, eyes never leaving me. “You snore, you’re dead.”
“Good to know.”
She smirked faintly. “Welcome to Darkmoor, princess.”
Then she rolled over, cigarette glowing in the dim.
I stepped into my room and closed the door behind me.
It was pitiful. A narrow single bed with a thin, worn blanket; a pillow so flat it looked ashamed of itself. The sheets were grey.
Above the bed, a small window with no blinds stared out at nothing. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, its light harsh and lonely, bleeding pale over the vinyl floor.
A thin rug lay beside the bed — once blue, now a tired grey, a foot too short to be useful.
I sat down and touched my bracelet again.
How had things gone so wrong?
Of course I knew how.
It was my fault.
I sighed and began to unpack. The small desk was bolted to the wall — the kind that didn’t trust you not to steal it. I set my notepad and pen on top, beside a boxy white computer that looked twenty years old and probably slower than sin.
As I turned away, something clattered.
I froze. The pen lay on the floor.
Frowning, I picked it up and set it back on the desk.
It stayed still for a moment. Then, slowly, it began to turn — a single, deliberate circle, as if nudged by an invisible finger.
My heartbeat thundered. I stumbled back.
The pen fell again, clattering onto the vinyl with a sharp, hollow sound. Still.
My breath came too fast, the room suddenly colder.
And then it hit me.
