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Prologue

I hate the rain.

Rain and I have a complicated relationship. Mostly because every time it shows up, my life somehow gets significantly worse.

First panic attack? Rain. One of the worst beatings of my life? Rain. My mom dying? Rain.

Mother Nature is a petty bitch, and she has a vendetta against me.

I sit on the low stone wall outside the art campus, elbows braced on my knees, staring at the gray sky overhead. The air has that damp smell that always comes right before the first drop.

“Hey, are you coming?” My sister’s voice slices through the mess in my head. I turn to look at her, and just like that, the static settles.

She’s my light, my other half, and I mean that literally, because we’re twins. Same face, same blood, same parents, but somehow she got the calm, functional version of our genetics. I got whatever the fuck went wrong.

I smile and look her over. She has blonde hair that catches the morning light and the same green eyes as mine, only hers are calmer. Mine look like trouble. Shocking, I know. I’m sure my personality has nothing to do with it.

I nod. “Yeah, I’m coming. Has anyone ever told you your impatience is terrifying?”

She shakes her head in amusement, but I can tell she is trying to hide behind that composed little face of hers. It’s her first day, and even if she won’t admit she’s anxious, I can feel it anyway. Twin thing. We came with the annoying ability to read each other’s moods.

Naturally, I told her I’d come with her. Naturally, I also told her I’d kill anyone who tried to give her problems. And trust me, I mean it. I may be a terrible person, but I’m an excellent brother. Balance.

Bloodburn College sprawls across New York, split into its polished little kingdoms. Business on one side, the one I’m going to be stuck on. Then astronomy. Law. Medicine. And a few other overpriced corners of the same circus.

But the art campus takes the biggest chunk of it, and it’s surrounded by entitled rats who think they have the hands of God just because they can paint.

My sister shifts beside me, and immediately my attention drags back to where it belongs.

“You’re staring,” she says.

“No, I’m counting how many of these assholes I’d punch.”

That gets a smile out of her, and something unclenches in my chest. That’s the thing about her. She can do that without trying. She can pull me back from the edge like it’s nothing.

We keep walking through the courtyard, side by side, and people move around us in waves. I stay half a step closer to her than necessary, not because she needs it, but because I need everyone else to understand that if they so much as look at her wrong, I’ll decorate this campus with body parts.

She’s clutching her bag a little tighter than usual. Anyone else probably wouldn’t notice, but I do.

I tilt my head down toward her. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m not.”

“Sure. Your death grip on that bag is purely recreational.”

“I mean it. I’m not,” she says, too quickly.

I raise a brow, and she exhales through her nose before she mutters, “Okay, maybe a little.”

She’s stepping into a den of pretentious little vultures who’ve spent their whole lives being told they’re brilliant. I’m sure she’s more talented than any of them, but she’s still insecure sometimes, and these pricks all seem arrogant. I can already tell half of them have never been told their work looks like shit. I’m almost tempted to fix that.

We stop near the building her class is in. She turns to face me fully now, blonde hair brushing her shoulders, those green eyes fixed on mine. She looks calm, but I know better.

I lean down. “You’ve got this.” And because I’m physically incapable of being normal for more than three seconds, I add, “And if someone picks on you, just give me a call. I’ll hang him by the balls and—”

“Ilya,” she hisses, shushing me with a look that is half horror, half laughter.

“What? I’m being supportive.”