“I feel like”—she tilted her head, voice dripping sugar—“certain new inmates are manipulating the boys here. Using whatever they’ve got to turn heads.”
Her eyes slid to me.
Then to Jess.
“And allowing other girls to think they matter more than they should.”
Jess sat up so fast her chair screeched across the floor.
“Say that again,” she snapped.
Wendy raised both hands. “Let’s try to avoid—”
“No, Wendy,” Dev murmured, voice low and icy, still twirling his knife lazily between his fingers. Wendy watched the blade and shuddered involuntarily.
“Mr Redgrave, I don’t think—”
“Let her finish,” Dev cut her off.
Wendy went silent.
Lyra faltered.
She did not like being the centre of Dev’s attention — not when he wasn’t smiling. Not when his aura felt like a noose tightening around the room.
“I—I’m just saying,” she stammered, “actions have consequences.”
“True,” Dev said softly. “And some actions are very, very stupid.”
Lyra’s glare snapped to him.
But she shouldn’t have looked at me.
Because I saw it — her aura.
Darkening. Spiking. Rippling beneath her skin like ink dropped into boiling water.
She was trying to reel it back in, I could tell, but the harder she fought, the worse it got.
The air thickened. The pressure built. A low vibration skittered through the floor.
Then—
the wardsstirred.
A faint sigil flared to life in the corner of the ceiling, its lines glowing hot white for a single pulse—
THUMP.
Like a heartbeat.
Metal fixtures buzzed sharply, lights flickering as the pressure in the room tightened. Everyone felt it. Even Wendy froze—her pen slipping from her fingers—because she knew exactly what that meant.
“Lyra. Stop,” I said quietly.
Lyra’s breath hitched. “What are you talking about?” she hissed, but her aura was already spiking again—ugly, jagged, a violent flare that sent a second ward-glow rippling across the opposite wall.
“Lyra!” I looked around. A low whirring sound was starting to build.
