The second I stepped foot back into Goldspire Tower, the air felt wrong. Not the kind of wrong you could touch. No cracked ward or misplaced enchantment. Just quiet. Too quiet.

And not the good kind of quiet either. The suspicious, maybe-someone-went-missing-and-no-one-seems-to-care-kind of quiet.

I swung my pack just inside our quad and took a long look around. Same stone walls. Same too-perfect ivy climbing up the corners like it had nothing better to do. Same three idiots I’d willingly signed up to live with again.

My idiots, though.

Ardorion was already sulking like he’d been personally offended by gravity. Shara was unpacking with all the grace of a ceremonial dancer. Rielle hadn’t even made it to her room yet. She just stood by the window, arms wrapped around herself like she could ward off whatever chill had settled into the room.

None of us said it at first. But we were all thinking it.

Halven should’ve been here.

He was the quiet between the rest of our chaos. And now it was just… silence.

Instead, the air felt like a question no one wanted to ask out loud.

Ardorion finally broke the silence by flinging himself into a nearby chair like it owed him an apology. After looking at each of us, he said, “We should check on Aster. Maybe her face will finally crack if we ask the right question.”

Subtle.

Shara gave him one of her patented Wood-Fae stares. Soft, steady, and marginally disappointed. The kind that says, “Please don’t burn anything down today.”

“We should go,” Shara said, in that soft-but-firm way she uses when she’s already made up her mind. “Rielle, would you want to? I mean, you and Halven were close once.”

Those two were a little more than close. Rielle and Halven had dated, only to end their relationship over the summer break. But we all had a special bond with the missing Air Fae.

Halven was the first person who seemed to understand me. Maybe because he was survivor of the Galestone Wars, he knew what an unstable childhood looked like.

Of my quadmates, I was the only one not born here in this peaceful valley of Nythral.

Nothing had been stable about my childhood as my very human mother had been run out of almost every town and city once they knew she had a hybrid Metal Fae daughter.

We didn’t find peace until we came here to Nythral.

Just like Halven.

Now Halven was missing, and it felt like this peace was just as fragile as the rest of my life.

I was worried for Halven. And what that meant for me and everyone living here.

It was a good idea to check in with Aster. And we might as well see if Halven left anything useful behind. A note, clue, severed finger. Something.

The air in our shared quad tightened. The four of us had barely returned, barely unpacked, and already we knew things weren’t right.

We left together. Me, Ardorion, Shara, and Rielle. Just across the hall. Goldspire Tower held all the second-years and Halven’s quad wasn’t far, with the same stonework, same floor. But the moment we stepped inside, I felt it. The kind of wrong that clings.

Aster was inside. No surprise there. She stood by the window like she was auditioning to be a statue, hair the color of river ice, expression carved from pure apathy. I gave her a nod. She didn’t return it.

Ardorion, of course, couldn’t resist as he leaned against the doorway. “Well, look who decided to keep the icicle throne warm while the rest of us were actually worried.”

She didn’t even flinch. Deep violet glowed like moonlight seen through ice. “And look who decided to speak without thinking. Again.”

Gods help us. I rolled my eyes. The two of them had more unresolved tension than a binding spell mid-chant.

“You know, for someone who’s supposed to be calm and collected, you’re awfully quick with the frostbite.”

“Forgive me if I’m not impressed by theatrics in leather and flame.”

I swear they flirted like it was a duel.

“Oh, come on,” Ardorion said, stepping inside now when Rielle pushed him forward. “Just admit you missed me.”

“I missed the silence more.”

“Forgive me if I thought maybe you’d stopped pretending you didn’t care.”

“I care,” Aster said, voice still like snow. “I just don’t shout about it like a Summer Fae with something to prove.”

That one landed, and Ardorion’s jaw tightened.

While they traded barbs like weapons, I drifted further into the room. Everything was a little too neat. Beds made. Floor swept. No real signs of life except Aster, who didn’t exactly radiate warmth.

Shara had already moved deeper into the room, going to Halven’s chamber. “Guys. I found something.”

That snapped the tension.

She crouched near Halven’s bed, holding a piece of water-stained parchment. Torn... probably nothing. But the way her voice had gone sharp made me turn.

We gathered around.

The writing wasn’t just messy. It was madness. Half-thoughts and warnings. An Emberglyph. Voices. Something about a seal. And that last line: Do not trust—

Then nothing. Just water damage where the rest should have been.

No one spoke.

Even Aster turned from the window, her expression unreadable.

I glanced at Rielle. Her lips were pressed tight, but her eyes were wide.

“We should copy this,” I said, breaking the silence. “Create one for all of us.” Then the door slammed open.

“Ardorion!”

Elio.

The Stone Dragon himself, Aster and Halven’s quadmate. Bounding in like a storm given legs. He clapped Ardorion on the shoulder with the force of a minor earthquake and grinned like nothing was wrong in the world.

I stepped back as they started making a scene. Loud, ridiculous, and honestly kind of nice to see.

“Missed you, flamebrain,” Elio said to Ardorion.

“You too, rock skull.”

And just like that, the mood cracked.

Elio made the rounds with a nod to each of us. “Hey, strangers.”

Then he got serious. “Lo went back to the Spring Quadrant. To talk to Halven’s family.”

Lo was their final quadmate.

Aster, ever the queen of the frost, finally broke her silence again. “I brought this to Lady Isa. Told her it’s not natural, this disappearance.”

She looked around the room. Her face didn’t change, but her shoulders gave something away. “She brushed me off.”

That landed like a rock in the gut.

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. The room spoke for all of us.

And then the bromance started up again, Elio and Ardorion tossing jokes back and forth like they were back in sparring class.

I ducked out.

I didn’t need more noise.

I needed answers.

Back in the hallway, I let the heavy stone door sigh shut behind me. The air was cooler here, quieter. But it didn’t feel any better. Something still buzzed beneath my skin.

And it had nothing to do with Elio’s volume.

My boots echoed as I moved through Goldspire, but I didn’t wander aimlessly. Not exactly.

I was thinking about The Nivara Newssheet.

And who would be working on it right now.

Orivian was already putting Halven’s name in bold ink, headlining a piece about his absence and the lack of staff response. It was subtle, but I knew Orivian’s work. You don’t become the Senior Correspondent two years running without learning how to say something loud without raising your voice. The headline might have been professional. The words were careful. But the choice to publish it at all? That was personal.

Halven and Orivian had become fast friends last year. Not the type of match most people expected. Orivian, purest Metal Fae, a Fall-born product of nobility and spine. Halven, an Air Fae from Spring with scars on his psyche and too much stillness in his soul.

But that’s what made it work.

Halven had gravity.

Even the ones who claimed they were immune to emotion—like Orivian—still found themselves orbiting him.

I’d only learned about Orivian because of Halven.

Now that Halven was gone…

How was I supposed to learn anything else?

There was something that drew me to Orivian, something I refused to name, no matter how much it beat inside my skull.

The Scriptorium glowed like a lantern tucked into the stone, and I slipped in without thinking.

He was there. Of course he was. Quill in hand, posture perfect, face like it had been sculpted by someone with a grudge against softness. His armor gleamed even in rest. Polished curves of gold filigree over snowy-white enamel, sharp enough to cut anyone who got too close.

As Docilis, we were all supposed to wear the academy robes, but Lady Isa understood that for us Metal Fae, not having metal touching our skin was akin to dying of thirst.

And Orivian looked good in metal.

His hair was the color of forged steel in the cooling phase, and like all full-blooded Metal Fae, it moved, just barely, like a breeze hummed through iron filings. Alive and restrained, like him.

And those eyes.

Gods, he is gorgeous.

Eyes of green-gold, hard as mineral glass. Focused. Contained.

Orivian didn’t notice me. Not at first.

I watched him. Longer than I should’ve. Something inside me stretched a little, tight and hot and strange.

It was a feeling I didn’t want to recognize.

Didn’t like.

Didn’t trust.

Something that tried to tell me that this is the way things were meant to be, but I hated the restriction of rules. Especially those that governed your future with no way to change it.

So I slipped out again before he could see me watching. Back into the halls. Out of the tower, and outside of the academy walls. The wind caught the robes over my armor and tried to shove me back inside, but I pushed through it.

My feet carried me down to Wintermere Lake. Halven spoke of it in his letter, so I went to see what he might have seen.

The cold there was sharper, purer. It licked across my skin and made the air taste metallic.

And then I saw it.

Near the edge of the frozen lake. Something glinting.

Thin. Burnt.

A scrap of something that should’ve been metal, but flexed like parchment. A rune appeared faint, looking like the ones in Halven’s letter.

So I did what any reckless Metal Fae with questionable instincts would do.

I picked it up.

The minute my skin touched it, I heard a whisper. So low, so indistinguishable. No words came through, but an overwhelming urge filled me, and I touched the metallic paper to the lake./

Pain hit like a hammer.

No warning. No chant. Just heat, light, and a damned high scream I was very glad no one else heard.

Then heat coiled beneath my skin, like an electrical shock, making my body rigid.

It lasted maybe ten seconds.

Then it passed, but a rune had burned itself into my left wrist, on the underside, a raised welt on my gray skin.

“You shouldn’t be holding that.”

My head whipped up.

Orivian.

He appeared from the mist like he’d been called. No hello. No “Are you all right?”

He was like a secret someone forgot to lock away. Same stupid perfect face. Same immaculately insufferable posture. His white-and-gold armor caught the low light and gleamed like he had enchanted it to remind everyone he was noble. Metal Fae to the bone, with that moonlight-steel hair shifting around his head like it had its own set of rules.

His eyes locked on the scrap in my hand then he lunged and ripped it from my hand. Bare-handed. He grimaced. The flash of pain was unmistakable.

“Did something happen to you too?” I asked, already eyeing his wrist.

He turned away, pulling his sleeve down, too fast.

I am not an idiot. That rune branded him too. He just didn’t want me to see it.

He stood stiff, his jaw set like someone had insulted his family line. Typical noble. Always pretending they didn’t feel things.

I reached for the scrap again. “Give it back.”

“No.”

I stepped in closer. “Orivian.”

He stepped back. “It’s not safe.”

“Since when do I care about safety?”

He tried to tuck it into his robes. I lunged.

It turned into a scramble, a full-on scuffle in the frost. He kept trying to twist away, but I was faster. Scrappier. My knee caught his side. He hissed something low and probably not appropriate for public print.

He got the upper hand. Pinned me. Eyes wild. Hair like polished steel, rippling as if it had its own temper. His heart pounded where his chest hovered over mine.

He didn’t say a word.

Neither did I.

Instead, I kissed him.

Hard.

Just enough to throw him off balance.

It worked.

His grip loosened. His eyes went wide.

I grabbed the scrap from his robes and rolled to the side.

He stood slowly, arms still half-lifted like he hadn’t decided what to do with them.

I tucked the metal-paper-thing into my belt and started backing away.

“You’re impossible,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He didn’t chase me.

But just before I turned away fully, he said, “I think it’s tied to the lake. And Halven. I don’t know how. But I’m looking into it.”

Then he was gone.

And I was left alone with a burnt wrist, a stolen clue, and a million new questions.

If Halven left this...

Then what else did he leave behind?

And why did it feel like kissing Orivian solidified something I’d been running from?