The room was still, but Ivy's mind was anything but still.
She lay in her dorm bed, staring at the ceiling, her sheets tangled around her legs. The shadows on the walls moved like they had minds of their own. Somewhere in the quiet halls, a grandfather clock chimed midnight.
But Ivy wasn't tired.
The events of the last few days whirled in her head like a storm the strange students, the whispers about Lucien Valehart, the mysterious book she found in the ancient library, and the symbol that matched her mother's locket.
When she finally drifted into sleep, it came thick and heavy.
She was outside.
The stone gates of Velmire loomed behind her, cold and unmoving.
The world was quiet except for the rustle of wind through dead leaves.
Her feet were bare, and the ground beneath them felt oddly warm.
Something pulled her forward an invisible thread tugging at her chest.
She followed it.
The forest ahead seemed alive, breathing, pulsing with hidden energy. Branches parted as she walked.
The sky above turned crimson.
And there, on a blackened branch, sat a crow its feathers sleek, its eyes glowing blood-red.
It cawed once and took flight, leading her deeper into the woods.
She followed until she came upon a massive tree ancient and twisted, its roots wrapped around bones, stones, and broken masks.
Symbols glowed along its bark, pulsing with quiet power.
On its trunk burned a mark—the same sigil from the book.
The same one on her mother's locket.
She reached out to touch it
and woke up with a gasp.
Ivy sat upright, chest heaving.
Her heart pounded.
Sweat slicked her back.
She looked down at her palm.
A reddish mark, shaped like the sigil, shimmered faintly before vanishing.
"Are you okay?" Celeste asked the next morning, handing Ivy a mug of bitter black coffee.
"You look like you haven't slept in days."
"I had a weird dream."
Celeste smirked.
"Welcome to Velmire. Everyone has weird dreams here."
"I'm serious." Ivy said
"You should hurry up and get dressed we need to get breakfast" Celeste added
Steven, sitting at the far end of the breakfast table, leaned forward.
"Was it about crows?"
Ivy froze. "How did you"
"Kidding," Steven said with a grin, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
They ate in relative silence, Ivy poking at her toast while her thoughts raced.
She wanted to tell them more, but even she didn't understand it.
Was it just a dream or something more?
Their second literature class was strange.
Professor Harrow a tall, pale man with a bald head and thick spectacles droned on about the use of metaphor in mythic texts.
Ivy wasn't really paying attention.
Not until he flipped to a new slide.
On the board appeared the symbol.
Her breath caught.
It was exactly the same, an intricate design like a twisted flame with an eye in the center.
She raised her hand.
"Professor, what does that symbol mean?"
He glanced at it, then quickly moved to the next slide.
"Merely an archaic embellishment. Irrelevant. Let's move on."
Celeste leaned toward her and whispered, "You okay?"
"You didn't see that?" she asked.
"See what?"
Ivy blinked. Had she imagined it?
After class, Blaire Wyland appeared like a bad omen.
He brushed past Ivy in the hallway, knocking her shoulder hard enough to sting.
"Velmire eats the weak," he muttered. "You'll be gone before October."
"Excuse me?" Ivy called after him, but Blaire was already gone.
Celeste looked furious.
"One of these days I'm going to trip him down a flight of stairs."
" Is he always like that?" Ivy asked.
"Worse. He used to be normal until, Well, never mind.
Just ignore him."
Later that day, Ivy found a note folded into her textbook:
If you want answers, follow the crow.
There was no name.
That night, just before curfew, Ivy saw a black crow land on her window railing.
Its eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight. It stared at her for a long, unsettling moment, then flew off toward the distant woods.
She didn't follow it.
Not yet.
Instead, she returned to the ancient library.
The doors groaned open, dust swirling in the air.
The place felt even older at night, as though the walls were whispering in a language she couldn't understand.
She walked between shelves until she found the aisle where she'd first seen the book.
It wasn't there.
She turned and saw it on another shelf.
The same red glow pulsed faintly from its spine.
Her hand reached out.
Just as her fingers brushed the cover, a voice behind her said,
"Looking for something?"
Ivy gasped and spun.
It was someone with a commanding tone.
It was a girl with deep violet eyes and dark curls that shimmered under the candlelight.
"Maera Voss," the girl said.
"And you're Ivy Morrow."
Ivy stepped back. "How do you know my name?"
Maera smiled cryptically.
"Names carry weight here.
Some more than others."
"What do you mean?"
But Maera didn't answer.
Instead, she looked at the glowing book.
"You saw that, didn't you?" Ivy asked.
Maera tilted her head. "What makes you think anyone else can?"
Ivy turned to look again.
The glow was gone. The book looked ordinary now.
"I don't understand," Ivy said.
"You're not supposed to.
Not yet."
Maera brushed past her and whispered, "Stay out of the forest.
It remembers everything."
Then she was gone.
As Ivy left the library, heart racing, she heard shouts from the eastern courtyard. She didn't bother to follow.
In the eastern court yard before the boys block follow two students dragging a boy away, unconscious.
A girl with blood around her lips stood nearby, smiling.
Another student, one of the Six stepped in and whispered something to the boy making sure to keep eye contact.
The boy's eyes fluttered open.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Why am I outside?"
"Nothing," the vampire said smoothly.
"You fainted."
He guided the boy away.
Velmire was hiding a secret related to her.
Back in her dorm, Ivy didn't sleep.
The symbol, the crow, the glowing book, Maera's warning, it all swirled in her head.
Whatever was going on at Velmire, she was in the middle of it.
And it was only just beginning.