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Rationally, I realize I can’t break the nose of everyone who offends me, but I’ve never been particularly rational. Besides, this Foundation could benefit from being knocked down a peg or two.

“We’re here for this guy,” Bellamy, the chatty vampire, says. He slings his arm over Carver’s shoulders, but it’s immediately shoved off. Carver scowls at Bellamy, who simply smiles. “Ah, don’t be like that, we’re bonded.”

“Don’t remind me,” Carver grumbles.

Surprise ripples through me, and I tuck that knowledge away. I knew the trio was bonded, but I had no idea Carver was part of their vinculum. How did that happen? Carver doesn’t seem pleased about the situation.

Drake gives me a pointed look. Get the fuck out.

Sneering at him, I stifle my questions and snatch my bag off the floor, racing up the many steps toward the exit. I know better than to stay where I’m not wanted.

The majority of the dorms for the Vanguard order aren’t actually in the spire. That in itself is more decorative, but I’ve heard there are a handful of Foundations staying in swanky rooms on the upper levels, just below the start of the peak of the spire. As with everything else, I’m sure they paid for that luxury and space, while the rest of us are practically stacked on top of one another.

“Hey, look! It’s the Threshold Breaker,” some guy calls when I push through the doors.

“Seriously, what is with that hair?” someone else says, voice low, but not at all discreet considering they know I can hear them.

I ignore them and turn toward my hall. The large, square-shaped entryway has four hallways attached to it—two going to each side at a ninety-degree angle—and rooms run along their lengths and continue up to the fourth and fifth levels. Each hallway connects to the other spires, Bastion or Crucible, depending on which corridor one travels down, and in the heart of the building are even more dorms. I haven’t figured out how to get to Archive yet, and I don’t intend to go exploring with the way everyone has been watching me.

“Hey, Raina,” a girl with short, pixie-cut bleach blonde hair says—Lana, at least I think that’s what her name is. She waves at me, the many rings on her fingers catching the light, and looks like she wants to have a conversation.

Lana is in a few of my classes and seems nice enough, but I’m not in the market for more friends. I simply nod in acknowledgement and continue on my way. The more people I get to know, the more I’ll start to care about being accepted or worry about how they’re doing in classes, and I can’t afford any more distractions.

As soon as I’m in my room, I collapse onto the bed with a groan. Only two years of this left. Hugging the pillow, I roll onto my side and glare at the wall, simmering somewhere between frustration and sadness.

If Addy were here, there wouldn’t be this massive hole in my chest. I could tell her about Carver. How I admire and kind of hate him at the same time. We could plot against Melody together. I rub at my aching chest, throat suddenly thick. She’s out there somewhere, I can feel it in my bones.

“Are you there?” I ask aloud, knowing it’s silly to keep trying to reach her when it never works. I close my eyes, clutch the necklace, and send my senses out. “Addy?”

Nothing but silence answers me. I squeeze my half of the butterfly charm a little tighter. She’s not dead. I’d know if she were. Something in my bones tells me she’s out there. We may have been separated when⁠—

The thought is cut off by a violent throb in my head, the pain so fast and fierce the air is shocked out of me. Grief carves my twin’s name into my skin, and a yawning void threatens to swallow me whole as my vision wavers, one eye blurring. Part of me here in the room and the other part somewhere else. The acrid scent of smoke invades my senses. The crackle of flames. Haunting screams.

My throat begins to close, almost burning with sadness, pain. Guilt I don’t understand.

{No,} the voice hisses, and as suddenly as those . . . memories? Thoughts? Visions? . . . whatever they were, invaded my senses, they’re plucked out of my mind. The thoughts may be gone, but my body remembers them, riddled with acid and hollowed out, like I’m nothing more than a husk of a being.

I struggle to catch my breath, grasping at my sheets.

Tremors race through me. What was that? It was almost like⁠—

Someone knocks on my door. Anxiety spears into my sternum. In Mr. Peters’s house, I was more than aware whenever he approached my door. Here at Diremount, the sound dampening spell prevents me from hearing most noise outside my door, and while I appreciate the quiet, I’m not sure I like that someone could sneak up on me.

Still clutching the sheets, I contemplate whether I should get up. I’m not really in the mood to see anyone. There’s only one person who would voluntarily be at my door. I know I’ll be miserable company, and Ever deserves a better friend, someone without baggage.

Someone with actual power. I’m a liability. She’s been nothing but kind to me, and I like her, maybe a little too much since she reminds me of Addy. All the more reason to keep my distance. I don’t know if I could bear the pain of losing her without being reminded of my twin.

The knock comes again. Ever is not easily deterred. “I know you’re in there, Raina!” She has to shout for her voice to carry through the sound dampening magic. “You don’t have to answer, but I was really hoping you’d want to hang out.”

That’s so . . . strange. Unexpected, really. While I tried not to listen to Mr. Peters, I assumed one thing he said would be true: that I’d be alone. But here Ever is, asking me to hang out, wanting to be around me.

Mustering up the strength to socialize when my battery is depleted, I push myself off the bed, rearrange my face so I don’t look like a raging dick, and open the door. A towel hits me square in the chest. I catch it and glance at her in question.

Her hair is piled on top of her head in a bun, and she has a towel of her own. “We’re going to the baths.”

I sense Bree before she steps out from behind Ever and holds up a bottle of glimmering mage liquor.

“Fancy a nightcap?” Bree’s red hair is in twin plaits, her towel slung over her shoulder.