"—basically accused Tomlinson of playing favorites—"
"—and she was right there—"
I walked out before I could hear more.
The bench behind the science building was occupied.
I stood at the edge of the pathway, staring at the two students who'd taken my hiding spot. They looked up, registered my expression, and quickly gathered their things.
"Sorry," one of them muttered. "We were just leaving."
They hurried off, and I sank onto the cold stone.
My hands were shaking again. Not from anger this time—from something worse. Something that felt like the ground shifting beneath my feet, every solid thing I'd built turning to sand.
I'd come to Frosthaven to learn. To prepare. To gather the skills I needed to climb Denali and save the wolf in my visions.
I hadn't planned on becoming a story.
But that's what I was now. The academy had taken my name, my history, my connections, and woven them into a narrative I couldn't control. Every whisper added another thread. Every sideways glance stitched me tighter into a shape I didn't recognize.
Orphan. Connected. Problem. Cheater.
The words formed a cage.
And the worst part? The worst part was knowing that nothing I did would change it. I could ace every assignment, excel in every class, prove myself a hundred times over—and they would still see what Twilson had told them to see.
Because that's how stories worked. Once they took hold, truth became irrelevant.
I pressed my palms against the cold stone and stared at the sky. Gray clouds were rolling in from the north, heavy with the promise of snow. Another storm coming. Another test of endurance.
Gregor's voice echoed in my memory:You can't control what people think. You can only control what you do.
But what was I supposed to do? Keep my head down and let them define me? Fight back and confirm every accusation they'd made? Leave, and prove that I couldn't handle it?
None of those options felt like winning.
The sound of footsteps made me tense, but it was just Ivy, picking her way across the frozen grass with two cups of coffee.
“Figured you’d be here.” She handed me one and sat beside me. “Or somewhere like this. You have a type.”
“A type?”
“Cold. Isolated. Broody.” She glanced up at the gray sky. “Honestly, very Edward Cullen. Are you secretly a vampire?”
I huffed a breath that might have been a laugh.
“I’m not brooding.”
“You are absolutely brooding. It’s fine. I’d brood too if the headmaster was running a quiet smear campaign and pretending it was about fairness.” She took a sip of her coffee. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you cheated.”
“Thanks.”
I wrapped my hands around the warm cup, letting the heat seep into my frozen fingers. "It doesn't matter what I did or didn't do. They've already decided."
"So change their minds."
"How?"
