Ivy shrugged. "I don't know. But you're smart, and you're stubborn, and you've got that whole mysterious loner thing going for you. Use it."
"Use it for what?"
"For whatever you want." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "Look, I've known you for like a week, but I can already tell you're not the kind of person who gives up. So don't give up. Find another way."
I stared at the coffee in my hands. Steam curled up from the surface, dissipating into the cold air.
Find another way.
Easy to say. Harder to do.
But Ivy was right about one thing: I wasn't going to give up. I hadn't survived eighteen years as an orphan, raised by a man who taught me to fight and think and endure, just to crumble because some petty administrator decided to make me a target.
If Twilson wanted a villain, I'd disappoint him.
The academy wanted a story. I was already in the middle of my own, and I didn’t need any of them—
Well. I’d take Ivy. Maybe James. Rae and her mates, definitely. Alexandra. Probably Boone.
Shit.
When did I get a tribe?
That night, I lay in bed and listened to Ivy’s breathing even out into sleep.
The room was dark except for the faint glow of the emergency exit sign bleeding through our window. Outside, snow had started falling—soft flurries that would turn heavy by morning.
I’d heard my name a dozen times that day. In the dining hall. In class. In hallways and stairwells and conversations that went quiet when I passed.
Lumi Orlav. Two words that used to be mine. Two words that now belonged to everyone but me.
I thought about Darian’s story. The woman who walked between worlds, who didn’t fit anywhere but somehow made everywhere home. They’d told stories about her too. Called her dangerous. Called her an abomination.
They’d been wrong about her.
Maybe they were wrong about me too.
Or maybe it didn’t matter whether they were wrong or right. Maybe what mattered was what I did next.
The wolf was still waiting on the mountain. The vision still burned behind my eyes. I had a purpose that had nothing to do with whispers or gossip or administrative politics.
Twilson could watch me all he wanted. None of that changed the truth.
I knew who I was. I knew what I had to do. I closed my eyes and let the snow fall.
Tomorrow would bring more watching. More whispers. More careful steps. But tonight, in the dark, I made myself a promise.
They could tell whatever story they wanted.
I would be the one who decided how it ended.
Chapter nine
My body knew before I did.
It started with small things. Waking before my alarm. Eating faster, barely tasting food before it was gone. Moving through hallways like I was calculating distances, conserving energy, already rationing myself for something my conscious mind hadn't fully acknowledged.
I ran the trail behind the dormitories every morning now—not jogging, running. The kind of pace that burned your lungs and turned your legs to rubber. Then I hit the stairs. Then the climbing wall in the athletic complex, before it opened to other students, while the janitors were still mopping floors.
