“Not one that is strong enough it seems,” she replied in a jovial tone but the way her eyes flashed lent a different impression.

  Tychon got up and faced the pews, back straight even after what happened, renewed confidence returning to his stature. He raised his arms as if about to present a grand speech to an invisible congregation. After a moment, a smile stretched over his lips—content, grateful, peaceful.

  Despite it all, perhaps he was glad to share this part of himself with Elise finally, as suggested by the cycle of their relationship. Two best friends crossing paths years ago, somehow divinely paired for their shared vigour, their desire to bring something deeper to the world. They forever walked the Wheel of Fortune, every turn bringing something new. And all they had was each other.

  Elise stood up and stared at Tychon, arms dropping to her sides, that air of another world drawn to her character. She raised her right arm as if about to pat her companion on the back for his honesty. After a moment, a smile stretched over her lips—vengeful, crude, disdainful.

  She plunged the ritual knife into Tychon Alastor Galacia’s back.

  Despite it all, perhaps Elise didn’t want this anymore, trying to figure out Tychon, as led by his secretive ways. Two best friends, crossing paths years ago, somehow not meant to last, drifting away with animosity, their inability to disconnect what was meant for each other and meant for one always forcing a wedge between them. They forever walked the Wheel of Fortune, every turn bringing risk and ache. And now they couldn’t have each other.

  Tychon choked and brought a hand to his mouth, pulling away to find blood. No words came out, hardly a sound apart from another whine. The cathedral spun, each thick pillar turning to slush, every statue in the building jeering and mocking him. The floor disappeared and the ceiling came crashing down. He stumbled forward once, twice. And in that motion, Elise twisted the knife, pulled it out and stabbed him again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

  Fire ignited in her heart, and she kept moving and screaming and crying. She refused to turn him around, refused to stare into those eyes darkening from their wonderful mix of brown and purple. Her attention remained on the wound that continued to grow larger with every hit and the pool of red that formed around her feet.

  Then she stopped, dropped the knife, and got on her knees.

  And Veaer joined her in prayer.

  CHAPTER 5

  THAT NIGHT

  Moonlight pooled around her, shooting bright missiles from circular windows that formed glass halos for Ter and Mian’s statues.

  Crickets played a song outside, somewhere in the grass, and it was the only sign of life apart from the frantic breaths that left her.

  The carpet sliced into her knees and burned them as she scrubbed a steel brush against the stains. No one can know what I did. No one can know what happened.

  Her body was set aflame, anguish yet excitement, as she mixed dish washing liquid with cold water and sponged the area with a white cloth. Red seeped into the fibres and remained stuck. It couldn’t leave even if it wanted to—there was nowhere to go.

  When the blood wouldn’t lift entirely, she mixed ammonia and warm water and continued to press on the area until it only appeared as if someone had spilt water.

  The body was disposed of earlier, not long after the deed. It made the clean-up easier.

  Each broken artifact, every half-melted candle, every piece of chalk and feather became rubbish in a plastic bag.

  By the time she was finished, she could only wonder how she managed to get away with entering with a stolen key after lights-out.

  Before she left, she entered a chapel room and lit a candle in remembrance.

  And when she did return to Miriam Manor, throwing the bag among everything else to be taken away in the morning, and buried herself in her sheets, only the gods would know that Tychon Alastor Galacia was murdered in Adraredon Cathedral.

  CHAPTER 6

  DESTINED TO STAY

  1, 2, 3, 4.

  “It’s just a not now, not right now, I can tell you everything but you must trust me.”

  But Elise did not trust him. She didn’t. And she took that mistrust and pushed it back onto him.

  1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4.

  “Stop, please! Stop, stop stop—”

  She didn’t stop, she didn’t stop.

  Everything was a paradoxical vortex. Crackling fire and rushing waterfalls. Voices too loud before they became whispers. Then the flames snuffed out and the water became a drought. Phantom limbs carrying me to the altar, and away to a faraway place at the same time.

  Someone high above pulled the strings, dragging her through the dirt. All for entertainment, all for laughs.

  Students surrounded Veaer as she sat incredibly still in her seat at homeroom. She was never one for arriving early in the morning. But to stay at Miriam Manor was to stay with her thoughts.

  Her thoughts, and the ghost of Tychon.

  “Don’t. You know I don’t like it when you say those things.”

  Her head twitched the side at the sound of his voice. What would he have said if he had the chance to preach to his invisible congregation? He sat beside her now, in the spare seat to her left, inching close to her ear and his cold, lifeless breath blowing as he recited his last words like a prayer.

  For a split second, she tuned into the conversations around her, a futile attempt to ignore the ghost that held her head in place, pushing against her ears, forcing her to stare straight ahead. The motion of getting lost behind her eyes without a worry wasn’t new to her, but here she was very aware of how she couldn’t turn her head to the door when it opened, in hopes her friends had arrived to release her. A conversation passed by her as her classmates walked to their seats.

  “No one’s seen him,” whispered one.

  “Where could he have gone?” questioned another.

  “Who?” a third voice asked.

  “Galacia. Tychon Alastor.”

  He’s right here. In my eyes, in my ears. He’s haunting me.

  The space in front of her snapped against the force of books piling onto the table. She glanced up, with a stiffness still in her neck, to see Adair and Haiwrin smiling at her and then walking around the table to take their seats. No nerves shaking their hands, no patchy sleep drawing the dark from their eyelids. They didn’t know what happened. It was just another day.

  “You know if we want to assume the worst,” Haiwrin began, and with the smirk on his lips, this could go anywhere between two extremes, “Adraredon is perfect grounds to murder someone. In the middle of nowhere, huge area, many places to hide someone or get rid of someone—”

  Veaer squeezed her knees under the table and held her breath. Her bones locked in place, like guilt tunnelling through the marrow and leaving her helpless. Her eyes flickered to Adair, in hope that she wouldn’t see the worry and secrets behind her eyes, but perhaps a call for help in such a sensitive topic.

  “Hai, we shouldn’t say that about our classmates.” Adair’s gaze briefly moved to Veaer before going back to Haiwrin, acknowledging her silent request. “At least, that’s what you’re implying. We should hope for the best instead.”

  The two fixed up their mess of books that toppled over, continuing their conversation. Adair propped her chin in her palm though Haiwrin took out a book of puzzles and started completing them. They spoke of theories as to what happened this time, a similar thought experiment to Veaer’s own around an investigation Tychon may have gotten himself lost in. Haiwrin suggested, alternatively, that Tychon could be looking into someone else’s murder case and that’d take up so much time. Adair mumbled about trying to find Tychon, lest he got caught up with the wrong people and got hurt himself.

  “I’m not asking you to find me, you don’t have to.”

  Veaer sighed and forced herself to shift her attention, at least something to break her away from these bounds she found herself in. She hooked a hand over Adair’s thigh under the table and faced the open door and watched more classmates file into the room.

  But across the hall, the few students that Elise usually wrapped herself in were on their own. In the sunlight and without being huddled in a circle, they looked like any other student, neat uniform, styled hair, a few accessories to define their individuality, but she’d never seen them as outgoing or even speak above a whisper—apart from that one-time last Friday. Without Elise’s presence, it was as if they had always been this way.

  “Maybe the two are wagging together. Lover’s getaway.” Haiwrin closed his book and got up to step around the table, positioning his head next to Veaer’s. “She’s not in class either.”

  Adair’s smooth skin slipped away as the cat caemi moved back and Veaer tucked her hands together. “She could’ve gone before them? Or just a little late?” Adair’s head joined on the other side, and now the three of them were staring out the door.

  Before they could theorise anymore, another student stepped into the frame, immediately ripping their attention just with his appearance. His uniform was especially dedicated to his role as a student council member, his blazer an intricate mix of gold and red, instead of black, with embroidered hems and a white band around his right bicep with the school’s insignia. His blonde hair was brushed and gelled back and usually Veaer thought that style silly on teenagers, especially for school instead of a formal event, but he pulled it off well enough that she could admit it.

  Izot Excava walked into their classroom, his shoes clicking against the wooden floor planks, and his Vice President, Harquin Carrash, in a similar getup except with his dark skin and curly hair complimenting his deep red jacket rather than contrasting, followed closely behind with his cane.

  The classroom immediately fell into silence, but it was obvious by the buzz in the air that it was not out of fear, but respect and admiration. Veaer didn’t quite subscribe to the idea of his boyish charm, but she could understand why he had such a following. Conventionally gorgeous, talented, and a leader.

  “Attention senior class 12B,” Harq began, straightening a few papers against the desk at the front, and the teacher, who Veaer hadn’t realised entered the room, stepped to the side.

  Izot took over, maintaining steady eye contact with the entire class, “As student council representatives, we are notifying classes that Tychon Alastor Galacia of senior class 12B has been declared missing by the headmaster, and that he will be reported as missing and to be investigated to the authorities in twenty-four hours.”

  Murmurs rippled through the room and for good reason. Their beloved diviner and tarot reader hadn’t been reported missing before.

  Veaer shifted her hands and held the hem of her blazer tightly, trying to regulate her breathing. She wasn’t close enough to Tychon to garner such a dramatic reaction about him being missing. 1, 2, 3, 4.

  “Not if you’re only going to compare me to Izot.”

  Her gaze bore into the golden boy at the front of the room, scrutinising him. Yes, Izot was the older brother of Elise, despite them sharing a year level. Elise started her education at the same time due to her birthday being earlier in the year.

  But what comparisons were there to be made between Tychon and Izot?

  “We do not advise that you go searching for your classmate, as this may be dangerous.” Izot nodded towards the class, and a few others nodded in return. Veaer noted his charming nature, in the words he chose to use and in his mannerisms. “But if you do have any information on the whereabouts of Galacia, or even any clues to the places he would go, please notify Harq, myself, or any other student council member. Ideally, he is found safe and sound by this afternoon.”

  That’s not going to happen.

  Veaer didn’t know whether that was her own thought or the apparition of Tychon running circles around her. She also didn’t know if that was about any information getting back to the council’s ears or finding Tychon today.

  All she knew was that Adair was staring at her for some reason, and she wondered if she let her face express something it shouldn’t have, in which it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Izot continued with other general announcements before taking his leave and the room burst into conversation before their homeroom teacher caught their attention and quickly summarised what was said. The entire time Adair kept looking at her and she couldn’t read the thoughts behind her almost unmoving eyes. A slight twitch here and there, a blink naturally. But nothing came to mind. It was as if Tychon had taken her mind and ran away with it.

  Finally, once they were dismissed for their morning classes, Adair spoke, “This all seems too strange. He wouldn’t go so long without telling anyone.”

  Veaer sighed, relieved, but passed it off as a cough to the side. Then she straightened her blazer and stood up, her chair making an ugly sound as it scraped against the floor. “Well, someone must know. Maybe they just haven’t told anyone. None of us are really friends of his.”

  “Who, like Elise? But she’s not here either. Maybe something happened to both of them.” Haiwrin rubbed his chin as he picked up his satchel and tossed a couple books in there.

  “I thought the story was that they were having their getaway.” Adair stood beside her twin and raised her eyebrows at him.

  “Let me be creative. It’s what I do.”

  The twins bantered and an ache settled in Veaer’s heart. He was gone. And they were joking. There were no jokes to make or anything to say or anywhere to look that would bring the boy back. And even now, while he was left somewhere on the grounds, he would not be remembered as he should be until they reported him missing to authorities, then launched an investigation, then pronounced it a murder case. And either Elise didn’t care about the consequences, or she was ready to clear herself as suspect.

  She took a deep breath of fresh air as she went over the bridge that connected the learning centre and the fitness complex. It wasn’t like the twins knew Tychon was gone, and their jokes were only a form of coping with the idea that a classmate of theirs could have had something much worse than a lover’s getaway happen to him.

  The gnawing guilt flooded in, making her limbs stumble and her hands shake. Her mind raced and her attention flickered here and there, in and out of reality. She had to rely on her muscle memory to get herself to the changing room.

  What if someone came up to her and said to her face that they knew what she saw? That they knew Veaer for what she really was. What if her stall opened this instant and not only would she be left physically bare but mentally bare, her classmates peeling her head away to reveal things she shouldn’t have witnessed etched into the mounds of her brain.

  Best and worst of all, they would know her most sickening secret. Not that she watched Elise do it, not that she did nothing to stop it, not that the ghost of Tychon was following her around like a piece of tape stuck to one’s clothes and gone unseen. No.

  They would know that Veaer would never tell anyone what happened. That Veaer felt a protective urge so strong that she would cover her eyes and claim to have never left to chase after Elise that day and watch her take the knife and commit the deed. And it reeled her guts and tossed her around in her own mind to know that she wanted to see the light flash in Elise’s eyes at knowing Veaer knew all along but didn’t do anything about it. It would be the two of them, together, against the world. Crossing paths and destined to stay.

  CHAPTER 7

  IZOT EXCAVA

  Year 1, Semester 1, Week 12

  As much as she didn’t want to, she knew meeting Izot Excava was inevitable.

  The boy was like a burning ball of fire that one couldn't stare at for long unless they wanted to sear their eyes out of their face. He strutted through the academy like a celebrity, with a perfect smile of white teeth and an everlasting entourage.

  He was in the same freshman cohort as Veaer, but on a completely different level in many ways. A national fencing champion, an up and coming leader, and within the top ten students who excelled in a prestigious entrance exam at another academy, that he did just for fun. Of course, he didn’t take that offer. Why wouldn’t he attend the senior school that his father headed, becoming the richest, most popular, and most powerful student here?

  As bright as a star, as judgemental as anything.

  He stared Veaer down as she sat in the headmaster’s office after being caught in the faculty room looking for gods-know-what. While the headmaster was in the chair, Izot was just as intimidating. It was a unanimous idea that Izot held even more power than the teachers themselves.

  “No friends, poor taste in uniform, breaking into rooms you shouldn’t be in. What are you doing, Miss Rosell?” Izot grinned and shook his head. “What are you doing at Adraredon Academy?” Izot probably meant to ask. “What are you doing in my school?”

  Veaer opened her mouth, a sting piercing her heart. “I don’t need—”

  The headmaster lifted a hand and gave Izot a sideways glance that slightly chipped his facade. He remained silent for the rest of the time while the headmaster explained that Veaer’s scholarship depended on good behaviour and great academic performance. He believed in her.

  Veaer didn’t know if she believed that. Especially when Izot grabbed her shoulder after they left the office and then didn’t say a word. He stood there, keeping Veaer in place, like a message and a promise.

  Maybe it would be smart to make a friend, so she could protect herself from the likes of the Excava family.

  CHAPTER 8

  A MATCH OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS

  Year 3, Semester 1, Week 9

  Veaer walked the path between the changing rooms and the gym to find it empty. Perhaps she had spent too much time looking at her reflection while everyone around her headed out. She couldn’t blame Tychon’s ghost for tardiness, or for how long she had tried to search for the spirit in the mirror.