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I retreated around the corner, pressing my back to the wall and praying none of them would turn in my direction.

“… really thought she could say no. Can you believe the nerve?”

“The look on his face when Cade told him to pick up the knife …”

“Stupid fucking blightborns.”

Quinn, the other girl, and a boy I didn’t recognize reached the split in the hall. To my relief they turned left instead of right, moving away from me.

I waited, still hugging the wall. Then I looked carefully around the corner again. That’s when I saw them: two bodies, lying on the stone, a boy and a girl. They lay sprawled in the center of the corridor, a growing pool of blood around them. Each one held a dagger in one hand. It looked as if they’d stabbed one another to death.

I pressed my lips together. But maybe they weren’t dead. I couldn’t just leave them like this. I stepped around the corner.

Stay where you are.

I stilled for a moment.

Go back to your mother’s apartment. That’s where a fledgling like you belongs.

I can’t, I hissed. Go away. Why are you watching me?

Whatever you’re about to do, stop and do the opposite, little fledgling.

I’m not your fledgling, I said furiously. If they aren’t dead, I have to help them.

I moved around the corner as quickly as I could. Reaching the girl, I dropped to my knees, stretching out two fingers to feel for a pulse at her throat. Her skin was cold. There was no rise and fall to her chest. Stomach twisting, I moved over to the boy, checking him in the same way. Nothing.

They were gone.

I could have tried to fetch a professor, a healer. Someone, anyone. But if I went searching, who would I encounter? A highblood or a blightborn? I thought of Professor Sankara, Professor Allenvale. I thought of Headmaster Kim. Highbloods had done this; highbloods didn’t care if blightborn died.

I saw it then, written on the wall behind where the boy and girl lay—their own blood had been used as ink. The school motto was scrawled like a taunt: Sanguis et Flamma Floreant. Beneath it, in sloppier letters, words even more cruel. Never refuse a highblood.

My hand flew to my mouth. I choked back a cry, looking around. I was alone; there were no teachers coming to rescue me. Medra wasn’t there to save me. Shakily, I got to my feet, looking down at the boy and girl. I didn’t even know their names. Would their parents ever learn the truth about what had happened here? Would I? But then, I already knew what must have happened. The boy and girl had been walking down the hallway, probably hand in hand. They’d been talking and laughing. They’d looked just a little too safe, a little too happy—for blightborn, that was. They’d made a fatal misstep without even knowing it. They’d turned a corner and encountered Quinn and her friends. One of the highbloods had probably wanted to feed. The blightborn girl had refused. The boy had tried to protect her. Or maybe they’d wanted to feed from the boy first. Either way, someone had dared to refuse.

Cease your dawdling and return to the safety of your home, Nyxaris growled impatiently.

My legs moved on their own, somehow pushing me forward, forcing me to stumble away. There was blood on my hands from where I’d knelt in the puddle. I wiped it off on my skirt as best I could. Then I ran. I forced myself to stop at every junction, checking around each corner before dashing on. Finally, I reached my mother’s suite, unlocked the door, and slammed it shut behind me. The lights were low: I knew she’d gone to sleep.

I fell onto the sofa where I’d been sleeping each night, curled into a ball and let the sobs come. My whole body shook.

Thrallweave.

I paused my sobs. What?

That is how the tale ends. Thrallweave.

They … used it on them? They made them hurt each other? I hadn’t been there on the first day of school, but my mother had returned at the end of the day looking tired and somber. She’d told me what Regan had done to the blightborn woman on the balcony.

Highbloods do what brings them pleasure—they always have and always will. They delight in cruelty. It is their nature. Nyxaris sounded both repulsed and resigned.

My skin crawled. I knew exactly what thrallweave was. It had been used on me my very first year at Bloodwing. I’d nearly died because of it.

Do you know how to defend yourself against it?

I shook my head in the dark. No. Of course I don’t. I’m blightborn.

You’re more than that now. You must be. You need to learn.