Five people left.
Four.
Three.
The girl next to me finishes. “Lira. Whisper.”
Everyone looks at me.
I don’t move.
“Your name?” the professor prompts.
“Nova.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I don’t—”
I stop. The words won’t come. I don’t have a mark. I’ve never had a mark. I’m the anomaly, the glitch, the thing the system doesn’t have a name for.
I start to stand.
“Miss Wilder.” The professor’s voice is calm. “The faculty has been briefed on your situation. Please, sit down.”
The room is silent. I can feel everyone staring, but it’s two sets of eyes that burn the most. Trey, watching me with something I can’t read. And Harrick’s friend, watching me like I just confirmed something he suspected.
I sit.
My hands are shaking. I extend my wrist anyway, showing them nothing. Bare skin where a mark should be.
Someone inhales sharply. Someone else shifts in their seat. The professor just nods and moves on.
“Next.”
The introductions continue. I’m not breathing. I’m counting the remaining students, waiting for it to be over, when—
“Trey.”
Ilook up.
He extends his wrist and I see it—two patterns overlapping, bleeding into each other, neither one complete. Dream and Memory tangled together in a way that looks almost painful.
“I couldn’t figure out who I wanted to be,” he says.
He’s looking at me when he says it.
The words light up something inside me. I don’t look away. I can’t.
The moment stretches. Then he drops his wrist and the professor moves on.
“Silas. Shadow.”
Harrick’s friend. Silas. I file the name away and watch him extend his wrist. Clean mark, sharp lines. Nothing abnormal.
But when his eyes meet mine, he smiles. Just a little. Just enough to make my skin crawl.
The introductions end. The professor starts talking about mark inheritance, activation sequences, the factors that influence when and how a mark manifests. Every word feels like it’s aimed directly at me.
I try to take notes. I try to focus. But I keep feeling Trey’s eyes drifting back to me, and Silas’s smile, and the weight of that bare wrist everyone just saw.
By the time class ends, I’m wound so tight I might shatter.
