Eydis tilted the quartz, watching the last rays of daylight struggle to make it shine. It was nothing more than a dull, dusty lemon drop compared to the heirlooms she once own. But an exiled queen living off a library paycheck and riding a garishly yellow bus couldn’t afford to be picky.

  Astra slid into the vinyl seat beside her, as animated as a statue. Eyeing the quartz, she said, “Your taste in pebbles is as questionable as your napping habits.”

  Eydis smirked. “Oh, this one’s not for me.”

  Astra’s automatic scowl looked close to genuine annoyance. Yet her features stayed composedly soft, evening light poured over her hair, making her look irritatingly ethereal.

  “But for you, amethysts,” Eydis watched the way light fell across Astra’s face instead.

  The Ice Princess's eyes widened. "Amethysts? Why so?"

  "Serenity and intuition.” Eydis’s grin widened after Astra almost, almost smiled.

  “Didn’t take you for the crystal nonsense type.”

  “Ah, Astra. In a world where people shoot fire from their hands, nonsense is a matter of perspective.”

  The bus grumbled onward and sleep began its seductive pull on her eyelids. Eydis refused to surrender to unconsciousness against Astra’s shoulder a second time.

  Dignity, thy name is not Eydis.

  To distract herself, she surveyed the bus. Last run of the night. It was almost deserted, with plenty of seats anywhere.

  And yet… hmm.

  Eydis slid sideways until their shoulders nearly touched. “All these empty seats,” she murmured, “and you still choose the one right next to me. That’s either coincidence… or excellent taste.”

  Pink bloomed across Astra cheekbones. She started to shift away, but Eydis’s fingertip grazed the inside of her wrist.

  "Relax,” Eydis said quietly. “Your particular brand of strategic silence is better company than most people’s conversation.”

  Astra muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse, but she sank back into the seat. “Drool on me again and I’m sending you the dry-cleaning bill.”

  Eydis gasped. “Dry cleaning? In this economy? Astra, the Treasury is held together with hope and unpaid overtime. Besides,” she lowered her voice, eyes on the ceiling. “I’d never dream of leaving a mark on you.”

  Astra’s brow furrowed. “Mark?”

  “Mm. A gentle touch, right amount of pressure… works wonders on even the most stubbornly damp—”

  “Eydis!”

  “—fabric.” Eydis’s eyes sparkled with pure mischief as she locked on Astra’s. “Isn’t that how washing machines work? Where exactly did your mind go?”

  Astra turned to glare at the window like she was calculating how much force it would take to launch either herself or Eydis through it. “Is your brain physically incapable of a normal thought?”

  “I could do straight lines,” Eydis said, beaming, “but why waste all that lovely curvature?”

  Astra’s mouth made a disloyal movement toward a smile. “Between the drooling and the ‘essence’—“ she stopped as Eydis’s grin widened.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  She’d walked directly into it.

  Oh, she knew she had.

  The bus screeched to a halt at St. Kevin’s Primerose Dominorary car park.

  Eydis rose with a grace she had no right to, given the scuffed boots and mismatched earrings. “Time flies when the dialogue is stimulating, doesn’t it?”

  Astra scoffed. “Stimulating? You—”

  “Until we meet again, in our shared chamber, Your Grumpiness.” Eydis winked, then vanished down the aisle.

  The doors folded shut, leaving Astra behind, staring after her, irritation giving way to reluctant amusement.

  Outside, Eydis turned the little lemon drop over in her palm. Cheap glass, really, just a trinket, but the last splinters of light still caught inside it and glowed.

  As she headed for the Dining Hall (the cafeteria, really; apparently, draping dinner in white tablecloths was enough to elevate boiled vegetables into ceremony).

  At lunchtime, the doors were always open to all. But dinner demanded reverence. Arrive late and dinner meant instant noodles. She had learned that the hard way after an unfortunate tennis court incident left her running a week-long noodle-based survival test.

  Disturbingly, she’d even started enjoying Tom Yum. A betrayal of bloodline, really.

  Halfway across the quad she noticed the queue snaking toward the doors. Students shifted from foot to foot, buzzing with odd, restless excitement.

  Astra chose not to join the line. She spun on her heel and stalked away.

  “Patrol duty,” she muttered over her shoulder, which translated neatly to I refuse to die eating that dry beef slab again.

  Eydis moved to stand beside Natalia, Colette, and Birgit, who vibrated near the double doors. If hunger made a sound, this was it.

  “How’d the contact lens fitting go?” Natalia’s grin arrived before the rest of her sentence. “Did you traumatise the doctor?”

  “Traumatise? Please. I’m a delight,” Eydis answered, though a strange tension distracted her.

  The doors flew open before she could elaborate. Students surged forward like they were charging into battle and in a way, they were.

  Inside, the long table laboured under mediocrity. Roast beef floated in oily brown gravy so slick even the hungriest rodent would have passed. Yet the students and staff enthusiastically attacked it like it was a royal feast.

  When Birgit wrestled with her ninth juice box, Eydis intercepted it smoothly and finished it.

  “Hey!” Birgit screeched, bouncing on her toes. “That was mine!”

  “Sugar addiction is the gateway to everything terrible,” Eydis said calmly.

  “I need it,” Birgit insisted, trembling.

  Colette jabbed at her with half a baguette. “Franchement, your juice-box fixation scares me.” She bit down hard with enough force that even Envy would have clapped.

  Impressive, agreed the serpent, uninvited and unhelpful as usual.

  Natalia nodded, or so Eydis assumed since a vanishing bag of marshmallows hid most of her head. The origin of the marshmallows remained, as ever, unexplained.

  Before Birgit could launch into a lecture on juice-box rights, a loud thud overrode the room.

  Two previously mild-mannered boys were now locked in a death match over a single, limp carrot.

  "YOU TOOK MY CARROT!"

  "Bull shit. Took more 'n yer fair share, YA FARKIN’ IDIOT!"

  A Brussels sprout left its orbit and caught Ms May squarely on the blouse. She serenely lifted it, and, bizarrely, popped it into her mouth.

  After swallowing it… whole?, she announced, “Marvellous!”

  That should have been the strangest moment of the day. It was not.

  Birgit’s hands quivered as she reached for more juice.

  “Stop,” Eydis said, covering Birgit’s sticky fingers.

  Birgit jerked away. “Don’t steal my nectar!”

  “Nectar? You’re getting poetic.”

  “One more sip and I might… I might…” Shivers rippled through Birgit; pupils shrank.

  Oh?

  Not good.

  Eydis caught Birgit reflexively before she collapsed.

  “What’s happening?” Natalia and Colette shouted together, finally remembering there were things beyond carbohydrates.

  “Infirmary! Now!”

  They quickly carried Birgit out of the hall, her delirious muttering about juice crimes fading into the commotion, but Eydis’s mind had already leapt ahead.

  Without a doubt, this was Gluttony. But not the version she expected. Even in this chaotic dining hall, she could not sense any of its visible excess, grotesque cravings, signature scent of rot, or compulsion.

  As if muted. It was the food, wasn’t it?

  Gluttony wasn’t indulging them. He was starving them. Slowly. Subtly. Leeching vitality at the source. The poison lay in decay, not indulgence.

  Eydis had been spared for one reason alone: she hadn’t been eating here.

  How long had this been running? Since she’d rejoined the girls for meals or well before that?

  Cold water pulled her back: her cup, overturned at some point, was trickling across her fingers. She watched the droplets and felt the quartz pulse faintly in her pocket.

  Across the room, the two carrot combatants had crumpled to the floor together, bodies writhing, mouths foaming. Theo had already arrived and crouched beside them, silver eyes wide with something close to fear.

  “Look up!” someone called out.

  Thick purple mist bled from the ceiling, creeping like an oozing nightmare. Shadows stretched across every youthful face.

  “The Purple Smoke. It’s here!”

  Theo rose, fingers splayed, a current visibly moving through his palm.

  “Everyone evacuate. Now.”