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All the self-confidence I had ever believed I possessed felt far away.

It was as if paralysis was starting in my feet and slowly, destructively moving up my limbs.

“Watch out!” she blurted out. “For God’s sake!” She adjusted her glasses and I stared into Azara’s eyes. “These disrespectful juveniles these days!”

I couldn’t blink.

Only her last words reminded me who was standing in front of me, and the hatred in my chest exploded on so many levels, but the fucking shock didn’t go away.

What the fuck was wrong with me? Was it because I was seeing her up close for the first time in years? Or because of who she was, who she should have been, before she had made me her enemy?

Her gaze focused on me, and I fought hard not to clench my jaw, which created a barely audible cracking sound.

I knew my eyes had started to glow. She knew it too.

“You...” she blurted out, and for a moment she didn't seem like the woman she presented to the students and the press. “You're one of them.” Her frightened expression smoothed out, and she immediately stepped back. “Have you been lying in wait for me?” Her high-pitched voice sounded threatening. “And where is your uniform?!”

I was incapable of anything but staring at her.

“What is your name?” she demanded, her voice tinged with suspicion.

My eyes tried to memorize every detail of her angular features, but with every inch of her face, my shock intensified.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

I felt weak.

It was an agonizing feeling, as if she were reaching for my heart and digging her sharp fingernails into it before crushing it in her hand.

She stepped closer, her gaze hostile.

My inner tension intensified. Except that I was trapped. In a paralyzed body.

“Your vile kind is lurking everywhere,” she whispered menacingly. “You'll get a warning, young man, if you don't tell me your name.”

I tried to think, but I could only stare into the gray of her eyes.

I should have been relieved that they only looked like Azara's from a distance, that in reality, there were worlds between the two.

But I spotted the tiny dark pigment spot on her right iris. And it felt as if my soul, if I had ever possessed such a thing, was leaving my body. As if I wasn't really here...

Her eyes began to glow grayish.

A shrill ringing broke the tense silence.

Abruptly, her irises returned to normal, and she reached into her bag to pull out her cell phone.

With a snort and one last withering look of disgust, she turned away from me and hurried across the path in her high heels, not without turning around once more, as if she expected me to attack her and tear her into all the pieces she deserved to be torn into.

I stared after her until she disappeared around the next corner, continued to stare and completely lost track of time.

I didn't know how long it really took me to snap out of my trance. Eventually, I crossed the meadow covered with black ravens, which glistened green now that the snow was gradually melting.

The ravens around me shot into the air, cawing.

My fixed gaze drifted into nothingness. And I tried to remember exactly when Rebecca had broken me.

Larghetto – Piano, Celesta, Strings