“It matters here,” she says. “You don’t bump into a Messina for nothing.” I look past her, where daylight bleeds through stained glass, golds and reds streaking stone like blood.
“I’m engaged,” I say quietly. “To someone else.”
Nora doesn’t blink. “Exactly.”
We start walking again, silent this time, until we reach the hallway outside our room. The sound of laughter floats up from the common lounge below. Someone’s playing piano in the main hall, low, eerie, too elegant for the hour.
“I get it,” she says. “He’s something but dangerous. With your family history, he’d want your blood and his family owns this school. The city too. They’re untouchable.”
“I’m not interested.”
She drops it, and I’m thankful.
We change into Blackstone’s loungewear. Even that feels like a uniform, like the school owns us.
The loudspeaker cracks overhead. “Curfew in thirty minutes. Lights out at eleven. Common areas locked until morning. Gardens open but guarded.”
Nora cracks the window, and cool damp air slips in. The academy glows gold, every window lit like a secret. Beyond the gates, the Hollow deepens darker.
I sit on the ledge, tucking my knees up, staring at the courtyard below.
“Do you think any of the stories are true?” I ask.
Nora shrugs. “Depends on which stories you’re talking about.”
“The ones about what happens after lights out.”
She leans against the opposite wall, arms folded. “I think there’s always truth in legend, and I think people with power like to test the edges of it.”
A flicker in the courtyard arch. A tall figure walks alone, hands in pockets.
Matteo.
He doesn’t look up, doesn’t pause. Vanishes into the eastern wing like the building swallowed him.
I lie back, the ceiling high and dark, like a sky out of reach.
My ring catches the light. Reminder. Weight. Cage.
Promised to a future I didn’t choose. A man I don’t want. A world never mine.
Matteo watched me like he knew a truth I refused to face. Like he saw past the ring and the name, straight into the storm I won’t speak aloud.
I close my eyes. Sleep won’t come. Not tonight.
Chapter 4
Matteo
The courtyard is quiet. Blackstone never sleeps, but it’s the silence that makes your skin prickle. Pressure builds under my ribs, like a secret trying to claw its way out. Grandfather and Father raised us on truths Blackstone pretends don’t exist. The kind that would send half these students running.
I step from the shadow beneath the arch. Blackstone rises like a cathedral built for monsters. Smoke slips from my mouth as I finish the cigarette, the ember burning red like a warning in the dark.
The main stone stairs climb the hill like a throne. Two figures sit on the third step, waiting.
Marco and Milo.
Marco laughs at Milo, probably another theory about the school menu hiding chemical codes. My brothers are in their element, even in the dark.
