Ellis women don’t hide, darling. We strategize.
And isn’t that what I’ve been doing up here? Hiding? While Alexander sinks his teeth into our research. While Luna drowns in his curated benevolence, mistaking his control for kindness. Mom would be disappointed. Not because I’m grieving, but because I’m doing it so inefficiently. If she taught me anything, it was that pain should be useful. Even grief can be a weapon, if you wield it right.
“Fine.” The word slips free. “I’ll come.
Our hover-car glides throughCrown Heights. The curved drive leading to Darkmoor Hall offers what tourist guides call “the most breathtaking view in Eclipsera”—the four Founding Family towers locked in an architectural pissing contest over who can impale the sky more dramatically. The Darkmoor spire wins, obviously, because Alexander would sooner raze half a district than let someone else’s monument rise higher than his own ego.
Next door, the Blackwood Tower glitters blood-red, its top floors housing the infamous Eclipse Lounge. At least they’re transparent about their depravity. The Silva Spire maintains its academic superiority. I still remember Ruby Silva’s lectures about how its ivory-and-gold design was “engineered to evoke scholarly ambition.”The Vale Ascendant gleams with the kind of clinical brilliance Mother used to swoon over. I’m sure its newest medical breakthroughs will be circulating in tonight’s cocktail murmurs.
Luna practically vibrates beside me, rattling off details about the Guardian Gala. I’ve been half-listening, the way I used to during mother’s dinner parties when she’d host the other Founding Families.
The Darkmoors have always controlled Eclipsera’s security. It’s their birthright. Their “sacred mandate to defend the city,”asAlexander loves to drone in every self-congratulatory speech. Their soldiers patrol every district, from Crown Heights all the way down to the Lower Rings, keeping the peace through perfectly legal intimidation. But clearly having the city’s entire military and police force under his command wasn’t enough for his standards. He had to give his army of soulless minions pets.And Luna, bless her heart, has been gushing about it like they’re not just another way for Alexander to remind us all who really runs this city.
“Fascinating,” I deadpan, watching hover-cars parade past. “Did he personally agonize over which shade of existential black to outfit his army of doom in, or did Vivienne handle the branding?”
“Oh, Vivienne’s been so busy lately,” Luna chirps. “She’s expanded her mentorship program with three more girls from the Rift District. TheWhispersilkran this stunning exposé last week. Full spread on how she’s personally curating their etiquette training, arranging magical refinement tutors, even hosting private salons to introduce them to eligible bachelors from good families. Such a wonderful opportunity for them.”
I can’t help but smirk. Classic Vivienne. Every time Alexander’s attention drifts, she unleashes another perfectly timedcharitable initiative. Takes the whispers of scandal and transforms them into touching stories of elite philanthropy. After all, who would dare question why Alexander was seen with these girls when his wife is so publicly invested in their social success? By the time Vivienne’s done, they all have respectable marriages to carefully selected bachelors, and any hint of indiscretion is buried under mountains of goodwill.
I used to live for nights like this. The delicious drama, the calculated faux pas, the way one perfectly timed whisper could reshape alliances that had lasted generations. Crown Heights’ favorite bloodsport, watching the powerful cannibalize each other over champagne that costs more than a Lower Rings apartment block.
Darkmoor Hall looms ahead, all brutal geometry and throbbing wards that practically shout “I have control issues and I’m overcompensating through masonry.”Unlike the Blackwoods’ glitteringparties, or the Silvas’ intellectual orgies, Darkmoor gatherings are theatrical exercises in dominance. Every levitating marble stair, every ambient pulse of enchantment, are choreographed to remind you this is Alexander’s arena, and you’re here on sufferance.
I shouldn’t be here.
I clawed my way out of this polished circus of veiled threats and curated perfection. Yet here I am, drawn back like a dumb moth to a particularly well-tailored flame, telling myself it’sjust one nightwhile knowing that’s a lie. It’s never just one night. It’s another turn on the board where even the victors leave with blood on their hands.
At least the champagne will be good. Alexander would rather die than serve anything less than imported ego juice in those pretentious crystal flutes of his.
The ancient wards flicker ahead, a shimmer of dormant menace clinging to the air. They pulse like something alive, stitched into the bones of Darkmoor Hall and encrypted with magic so old no one has ever managed to decode it. One truth remains certain. Once you’re scanned, you’re catalogued.Marked. And if you wander too far from the version of yourself they admitted, the wards notice.
I eye the line of enforcers stationed along the ward boundaries as our car approaches. Their presence is a stark reminder of what happened a long time ago, when someone collapsed right after crossing. The wards let them in, then shredded them from the inside out. They called it a glitch. A clearance error. But no one ever confirmed who they were, or why they were really there. Since then, they’ve kept the muscle close, just in case the ancient magic decides tomalfunctionagain.
The moment we cross the threshold, the air turns hostile. The wards press into my skin like static-laced needles, magic worming through my veins, testing, tasting, confirming. Dissecting me from the inside out to determine whether I’m still Aria Ellis. Still acceptable. Still within parameters. The pressure builds, my lungs forgetting how to breathe—
Andthen it lets me go.
“Remember,” Luna says, reaching over to tuck an artfully styled curl behind my ear. “You’re just happy to be back. Nothing else matters tonight.”
The car door swings open and the weight of Crown Heights crashes down around me. Old money, new magic, and the stench of power veiled in perfume. The late fall air bites, but it’s memory that chills me deeper. This used to be my world. I walked these halls with ease, fluent in every unspoken rule. The Ellis name may not have been carved in marble, but we were close to it.
The servers, all from Everreach district, move with drilled efficiency. Their faces are blank masks, trained to fade into the background of these elite gatherings. It’s funny how I never used to notice them at all. Luna practically preens as we approach the grand staircase, soaking in the attention, and I square my shoulders and lift my chin. Let them look and search for weakness, I won’t give them any.
The floating marble steps rise before us, each one a work of magical excess. Pools of refracted light paint everything in soft focus, while thousands of suspended crystals orbit overhead in perfect synchronization. I used to think they were beautiful, these displays of wealth and power. Now I see the calculation behind every shimmer, how even the air itself is choreographed to remind us who commands it.
We ascend, and the shift is immediate.
Conversations fracture, laughter falters, and crystal flutes hover mid-gesture. The scrutiny is sharp enough to bleed, but I won’t give them that either. And so, I climb. Because that’s how Crown Heights works—you rise, or you’re crushed. No mercy or middle ground.
“Aria Ellis.”
The voice slices clean through the murmur of the crowd. Ruby Silva stands before us, her white-blond hair pulled into its signature severe twist, not a strand out of place. Her golden eyes gleam behindrimless glasses, dissecting me with the same methodical cruelty that used to make first-years weep during theoretical magic exams.
“Two months,” she says, each word honed to a razor’s edge. “No work. No research. Not even the barest maintenance of social courtesy. Grief has protocols, especially in our circles.”
“Measuring my mourning period, Ruby? How clinical of you.” I drop her title deliberately, savoring the flicker of tension that hardens her jaw. “I’m not your student anymore. The Academy’s rules don’t dictate my life.”
“No,” she agrees smoothly, “you made that quite clear when you chose Dominic Blackwood over your studies. Though even I must admit, breaking three centuries of theoretical constraints while violating every Academy regulation? Quite the feat. If only you’d applied that brilliance to something beyond impressing the Blackwood boy.”
