For the next few weeks, I heeded both of Blake’s warnings and kept to myself. This place had always felt eerie, but now, a layer of somberness weighed down on me as I walked the halls. Cody and Skylar gave their lives to learn the secrets Nightfall promised. Cody wanted a fresh start. A life away from the desperate and terrible conditions he grew up in. Nightfall was a way to escape that for him.
It wasn’t fair.
Skylar had never shared much of her life with me. She was quiet and timid, but it was clear she had an underlying ambition—one I’d never understand.
The lure that was Nightfall had been their downfall, as it had been Annabelle’s. Had the same fate befallen her?
I stayed buried in my coursework, relentlessly going over this strange language with Isabella, and training to the point of exhaustion every day with Caelan. It wasn’t until one of my meditation courses that I heard Ezreal’s name spoken again.
“Are you serious?” one of the older Initiates asked. She was friends with Reece. Sophie? Sonya? She was always rude and touting her seniority. I ignored her most of the time.
Reece smirked and glanced at me, sitting on the mat, her torso leaning forward with her arms reaching for her toes as she stretched.
The other girl peered over too, her eyes wide and her lips twitched upward in a smirk.
“What?” I asked, glaring at Reece.
She sat up, taking her time and stretching her arm behind her back.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard yet,” she taunted.
Isabella cast a warning look my way.
“Everyone knows you’re sleeping with the Adept’s Raicanya instructor,” she drawled.
I recoiled, chest locked as I stared in silent shock.
“I most definitely am not!” I finally spat. “Where did you hear that?”
Mischief claimed her countenance.
“Heard it in the Catacombs last weekend. Everyone was talking about it. Apparently, Commander Everson saw you with him in the middle of the night,” she said.
Thinking of seeing Ezreal in the Aurkai’s meeting room made me freeze. It was Blake who’d seen me, and he wouldn’t tell anyone. What the hell? How did anyone know?
Had Everson seen what happened that night?
Reece grinned.
“Damn, Anna, way to be obvious about it,” she said, shaking her head. “Honestly, it’s pretty bold. Just own it.”
I spluttered, trying to get words out, but I couldn’t. Reece got up, taking her stuff. She glanced at me.
“Let me know when you’re done with him, got it? Easy way to get ahead in his class when we get to Adept,” she said, winking and heading out of the room.
I stared at the empty space where she had passed through the door.
“That was unexpected,” Isabella said.
I glanced at her. “It’s not true.”
“Of course,” Isabella said, nodding quickly in support. “I wonder who’d start a rumor like that.”
I groaned, dropping my head into my hands.
Reece had been hanging around Melanie a lot lately, and it was showing.
But I had an odd feeling that she was telling the truth about Kalmont sleeping with a student. It was the first and probably last time she’d pay me a compliment.
