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I don’t even know if she’s alive and choosing not to come home, or if she can’t.

Ma and Pa still call her missing. They still talk about her like she might walk back through the door if they leave enough space for it.

I never showed them the photo. I couldn’t. One blurred figure in the back of a bar isn’t enough to hand them hope they might have to lose twice.

Maybe it isn’t even her. Maybe I’m wrong.

But when Caervast Conservatory offered me a full scholarship placement on Sero, housing included, I knew before I finished reading the letter that I was going.

My parents cried. To them, it was a miracle.

To me, it was the first real chance I’d had to find my sister.

My multi-slate dings with a string of messages from Damaris.

I’ve been waiting for you for ten years

I’m in the canteen. Where the hell are you?

If you don’t get down here soon, I’m eating your food too, boo

“Drama queen,” I mutter. But some of the tightness in my chest eases anyway.

I shove myself upright, push my feet back into my shoes, and head for the door.

The corridor outside is quieter than it should be at this hour, the usual sounds of doors opening and voices carrying through the dorm somehow absent.

Stepping into it, I hesitate. For no reason I can name, a shiver skids up my arms, the fine hairs at the back of my neck lifting as a familiar unease stirs somewhere deep in my chest.

The feeling is gone almost immediately.

Still, I stand there for another second with my hand wrapped around the handle, listening.

Nothing. No footsteps echo through the corridor, no voices drift from behind closed doors, and no movement breaks the stillness.

Just the strange feeling that if I turn around fast enough, I might catch something looking back.

Light, get a grip.

It’s an old building, I remind myself. The heating is inconsistent and the stone forever holds onto the cold. That’s all.

Even so, I find myself glancing down both ends of the corridor before pulling the door shut behind me and heading for the canteen.

4

CIARAN

Crossing the foyer, I catch a glimpse of the rain-dark hills beyond the glass wall and the pool stretching into the fading evening light.

Music greets me before anyone else.

Mom is standing by the bow window with the Noctis under her hands when I walk in, the last notes fading as evening rain taps softly against the glass.

Dad is at the sideboard, pouring whiskey into two glasses. Seeing me, he reaches for a third. “Thought you had a party to organize?”

“I have a party to attend,” I correct. “I let other people handle the organization.”

Dad grins. “Fair enough. I got the photo you sent.”