Eydis slapped the oak so hard but of course, it didn’t budge. She didn’t even notice the bark scraping her skin, too consumed by the burning in her thighs and her heaving breaths.

  This. Was. Torture.

  Or exercise.

  Leaning against the oak, she winced when her T?shirt snagged on the rough bark. She took a moment do take in the loamy, mossy scent of wet maple leaves. Pleasant, sure, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to hex someone.

  Kicking at the pile of leaves beneath her, she wondered, Do leaves really turn orange?

  From somewhere behind her came Natalia’s voice, oddly upbeat this early.

  “So, what do you think, Eydis? Are trees better company than people?”

  “Trees don’t ask questions.”

  “Yeah, well, trees also don’t ditch class for three days.” Natalia, dressed in her green uniform, evaluated Eydis from head to toe. “Nice outfit. Very ‘escaped from gym.’”

  “Showing up is also a choice,” Eydis said, “I prefer mine.”

  She had already gone through the study materials on her own, partly out of morbid curiosity, partly out of boredom. To her surprise, she understood all of it. One of her magic required equations far more complex than anything this academy taught.

  Would it work here?

  There seemed to be one mystery after another. She had given up trying to investigate the owner of this body, since her phone revealed nothing but a handful of contacts: Father, Mother, and Natalia. Her browser history was so empty it might echo.

  Eydis was still getting the hang of “Goggle”—clearly a lesser form of her talking mirror, which she admittedly missed. At least it had opinions.

  "Look." Natalia sat down next to her. “If you miss class without a valid reason for seven days, they contact your parents, you know." Her voice softened. "And… Tiffany’s already been expelled. You don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

  Parents. Right. The two people whose faces she’d seen in photos on the phone. In every picture, they were hugging the owner of this body, their smiles irritatingly white. Would they know? Could they tell that she was an imposer?

  That was an unnecessary risk to take.

  She sighed, stood up, then began to walk back to Primrose Dorm. “Fine. You win, Natalia.”

  “Wait. Was that my name? No more 'handmaiden,’ or, or that passive-aggressive ‘friend.’” Natalia followed behind. “You okay? Like, not dying or anything?”

  “Emotionally, perhaps,” Eydis muttered. “Friend.”

  Natalia groaned loudly. “Oh my god, you’re doing it on purpose…”

  Eydis tuned her out but couldn’t bite back a smile.

  Later in class, Eydis had her Maths textbook cracked open halfway when that creepy tingle hit the back of her neck, the feeling of being watched. She pretended to stretch and caught Amanda staring from two rows over.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Their eyes met.

  Amanda went red, then snapped her head back toward the board fast enough for her joints to hypothetically pop.

  Definitely suspicious. Eydis arched a brow.

  Just then, a chair scraped across the floor, and Astra settled into the only seat available, beside Eydis. Silver hair fell perfectly over one shoulder, a few loose strands falling softly over a pair of stunning scarlet eyes that were fixed toward the front of the room, as if Eydis wasn’t even there.

  "Fashionably late, roomie?" Eydis quipped.

  Astra didn’t look at her. “Don’t talk in class.”

  Eydis leaned in, fully intending to invade personal space. “Discipline from someone who just walked in?”

  Astra edged an inch away. “Eydis.”

  Hearing her name in that voice did something strange to Eydis. She ignored it, failed to see the teacher squinting at her from the board, and murmured, “Just making sure you’re still alive. Haven’t seen you in the room for three days.”

  “Busy." Astra opened her textbook, then looked to the right. “Is Amanda bothering you?”

  Amanda jerked her head away fast, her ears flaming as she met their eyes.

  Eydis blinked. “Didn’t know you cared.”

  How observant.

  “Miss Eydis!” Mrs. Henderson snapped.

  The teacher spun toward the board and started slashing out linear algebra in thick black strokes: determinants, eigenvalues, eigenvectors. Definitely above this level.

  "If you think you’re above today’s lesson, how about you solve this for everyone?” Mrs. Henderson challenged. “One mistake, and you’re sitting in detention.”

  The class fell silent. The honours kids traded nervous look as Eydis rose gracefully from her chair.

  “Of course, Mrs. Henderson. Though I have to ask…” She glanced at Astra’s open notebook, her smile growing sly. “Is this actually on today’s differentiation lesson, or are we sneaking in a preview of an advanced course you’ve been dying to teach?”

  “One more remark like that, Miss Von Apfelhof, and detention is a certainty.”

  “So I’ll still earn it even if I solve the problem? Purely for the sin of asking an honest question?”

  “Disrespect has consequences.” Mrs. Henderson’s pen scratched across a detention slip. “And I’ve given you more than enough warnings, Eydis.”

  “In my experience, respect is earned, not forced down my throat.” Eydis slung her bag over her shoulder.

  She picked up the slip, gave the teacher a small nod. “The answer’s negative one, zero, negative one.”

  The class remained silent for five full seconds. Then Mrs. Henderson turned back to the board and wrote out the long, tedious solution with stiff, angry movements.

  The numbers matched Eydis’s answer exactly. What seemed like an simple solution required a maze of steps, one that could not simply be worked out in someone’s head.

  Amanda stared at the empty doorway while a few people exchanged looks. A fluke? Or...

  Meanwhile, Astra didn’t react at all, eyeing the textbook, expression unreadable.

  Damien slammed his hand on the metal table with a rattling clang.

  “I’ve said it five times now, to five different men who all look like you. I am a Knight of the Celestial Empire, and my charge is to find the Queen of Shadows.”

  The middle-age man across from him eased back in his chair, one half of his face lost in the shadow. “So, walk me through how that noble quest brought you crashing into Dallas Women’s Prison, Mr. Damien.”

  “Sir Damien,” he corrected automatically, though his stomach flipped. Dallas? That wasn’t a kingdom or a village he recognised. “Where am I?”

  “Dallas, Texas, United States of America.”

  Damien’s expression must have given him away, as the stranger began to chuckle. “You’d be amazed what the universe likes to throw at me, Sir. Don’t worry, we’ll be transferring you somewhere livelier. Better suited for friendly collaboration.”

  “Collaboration?” Damien’s jaw tensed. “And why should I believe you’re not one of hers?”

  "Trust." The man adjusted his glasses. "Because I trusted you wouldn’t conjure that oversized weapon of yours and skewer me across this table.” He rose from his seat and held out a hand. "Professor Indigo Crane. Pleased to meet you.”

  Damien stared at Indigo, then at the door. To him, killing an unarmed man, even a suspect one, went against his principles. Indigo looked scholarly, with kind features and short, dark brown hair.

  “I don’t kill without cause.” With a burst of light from his palm, Damien obliterated the steel door. Lowering his voice, he added, "But I don’t wait for permission, either."

  Smoke filled the room as Damien stepped out, instinctively closing his eyes against the sudden brightness. When he opened them, a dozen men in strange dark uniforms were staring at him, raising black, metallic contraptions he didn’t recognise.

  “Definitely not home," Damien muttered.

  Behind him, Professor Crane coughed, brushed off his sleeves, and then gestured to the men to lower their weapons.

  “Fascinating,” Crane said calmly, smiling as if nothing unusual had happened. “We’re going to get along just fine.”