The Humanities building felt colder than outside, even though the thermostat probably said otherwise. Old stone, high ceilings, that faint paper-and-dust smell that all English wings learn in building school.

  I walked in on legs that still didn’t feel entirely attached, clutching my Latin book like a shield. Bandages circled my wrists in neat white rings; the skin underneath throbbed in time with my pulse. Every fluorescent light hum sounded like a warning.

  The main hall was between-classes busy—clusters of kids by lockers, a couple of people sitting cross?legged against the wall, earbuds in, a teacher with a stack of essays tucked under one arm.

  And then there was her.

  She stood about halfway down the corridor, not leaning on anything, just there, and the space had arranged itself around her. A loose ring of students—mostly juniors and seniors by the look of them—tilted toward her. They laughed too fast at things she said, leaned too close, mirrored her posture without realizing it.

  For a second, I thought Montana—that same center?of?gravity thing. But no. Montana played at this. This girl embodied it.

  She was what Montana wanted to be when she grew up.

  Breathtaking, in a way that hurt a little to look at. Delicate features, cheekbones sharp as knives, light brown skin with a kind of expensive glow. Her hair fell in honey?gold waves to mid?back, catalogue?perfect, not a frizz halo in sight. Blazer tailored within an inch of its life, skirt hanging just right, shoes that said I teach classes on leather care. She wore the Northbridge crest like it had been designed for her.

  She opened her mouth and said something. The kids around her laughed, the sound warm and adoring.

  And then I felt it.

  Pressure, the way I’d felt it around Ms. Cho—but different. Soft, like the tide coming in. Gentle, then gone. Gentle, then gone. Little waves rolling up against my skin. If Cho’s presence was someone politely knocking on a door, this was a lullaby.

  I realized, belatedly, the kids around her weren’t just listening to her; they were leaning in, bodies angled like plants toward a grow light. In the same way the twins had angled toward Theo on the lawn. Not just liking her. Orbiting.

  The pressure kept nudging at the edges of me, and sliding off in little slips. I braced for a push.

  Instead, the girl’s face changed.

  A tiny frown creased that flawless forehead. Her gaze, which had been sweeping lazily over her admirers, sharpened and snapped to me like someone had yanked a string.

  Our eyes met.

  The next pulse didn’t feel like a wave. It felt like a waterfall.

  Pressure slammed into me, straight on, as if someone had suddenly dropped a weight onto my chest and behind my eyes at the same time. My breath stuttered. My knees went loose in a way I really did not appreciate after already being tackled by one nightmare today.

  It hit me full on, slamming into whatever invisible thing inside me kept other people’s charm tricks at bay. My knees buckled a little. For half a heartbeat, the hall stretched weirdly, like I was at one end of a long tunnel and she was at the other, bright and sharp and too much.

  Every instinct I had screamed bend, bow, something. The urge to move toward her, to smile, to agree with whatever she might say next, surged up out of nowhere.

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  No.

  I grabbed onto the word like a ledge. Dug metaphorical fingernails in. I pictured the pressure as water and myself as…not a rock, exactly, but maybe a very stubborn sandbag.

  The world narrowed—just her, at the center of my vision, and everything else smeared out toward the edges. My ears rang. For a second I was sure my legs were going to fold whether I wanted them to or not.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had spiked, it cut off.

  The weight vanished and, off-balance, I nearly fell. Sound snapped back in: locker doors, footsteps, someone laughing too loud. I sucked in a breath I didn’t remember deciding to take.

  The place where she’d been was empty. The knot of admirers had dissolved into a normal stretch of hallway with a flyer for Drama Club peeling off the corkboard. Someone jostled past me with an apologetic “Sorry,” and kept going. A locker slammed.

  Had I blinked and missed her walking away? Had I…imagined that?

  My head felt stuffed with cotton, everything a fraction of a beat late.

  “Hey. Sinclair.”

  The voice sounded like it was coming from the far end of a tunnel. A hand waved in front of my face.

  I blinked again and my head cleared.

  Theo.

  Up close, he looked more put together than he had on the lawn—tie mostly straight, blazer unrumpled—but the scruffy edges were the same. That little scar in his eyebrow. The easy lean that belonged on a stage. Right now, the grin was gone; he was squinting at me like I was a problem set that had come out wrong.

  “I’ve been saying your name for, like, thirty seconds. You all the way back now?” he asked. “Because you’ve been staring at that wall like it owes you money.”

  “I…” My tongue felt thick. “What just—there was a girl. With…hair. And people. And…waves.”

  He followed my half?gesture down the hall, toward the spot that still felt charged somehow.

  Then he rolled his eyes. “Oh. So, you met Janessa.”

  “Met,” I said weakly. “Is that what we’re calling…that?”

  He huffed a laugh, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “Janessa Kerrington. Senior. Student council president. Reigning monarch of the school. More or less.”

  Monarch. Yeah. That tracked.

  “What was that?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve felt…something before, with Ms. Cho, and with you a little, but this was like…getting drop?kicked by a sunbeam.”

  He huffed out a laugh at that, but his eyes were sharp. “She’s got a field,” he said. “Passive. Always on. That’s rare, even for us.”

  “Us,” I echoed faintly.

  “Satyr?kin,” he clarified, like that explained everything.

  “I’m not—” I started, then stopped. I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.

  “Legacy gift. Most of us have to choose to push it. Janessa leaks it just by existing.” He gestured vaguely in the direction she’d been. “You felt that, yeah? The gentle background thing?”

  “And then the not?gentle,” I said. “Pretty sure she tried to turn my brain into a yes?button.”

  He gave me a considering look. “When her field hits most people, she feels it slide into them. Us?” He spun a finger the air, marking out a hole. “Blank spot. Void in her radiance. Since you’re Satyr?kin, you’ve got resistance to the ability. She doesn’t like that.”

  I latched onto a word that didn’t have context yet. “Satyr?kin,” I repeated. My tongue felt clumsy. “And…‘our’ legacy ability?”

  “Charm,” he said, like it was obvious. “Influence. Whatever you want to call it. We broadcast; people respond. Janessa’s crazy strong, a natural floodlight. She likes to make sure we all know where we stand.

  “Think of it like a dominance display,” he said. “Congratulations, you got a sample of the deluxe package. And by the way, that? That was her being…let’s call it ‘polite.’ If she really tried, you’d already be out knocking doors for her first Senate run.”

  A chill skated down my back that had nothing to do with Wraiths or infirmary antiseptic.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Welcome to Northbridge, Sinclair. We’re all very lucky she lets us in the door.”

  He said it with a brightness that didn’t match the pinch at the corner of his mouth.

  The bell rang again, sharp and insistent. Latin was waiting, with its charts and its tiny, know?it?all verbs.

  “Come on,” Theo said, hitching his bag higher. “Before you find out what happens when you’re late to Dr. Moreno’s class. Trust me, Darklings are friendlier.”

  He started down the hall. After a beat, my legs remembered how to move and I followed him on autopilot, too distracted to ask what Darklings were.