Chapter 1

Elara

I had been sitting in the Moon Department’s archive for the entire afternoon.

The book open in front of me was titled Ancient Methods of Lunar-Magic Regulation. My eyes had been fixed on the same line for more than half an hour, but I had not absorbed a single word.

The inside of my wrist felt faintly hot.

I lowered my sleeve without making a sound, covering the thin silver lines that had appeared beneath my skin. The moon mark was the first warning sign of the Eclipse Curse, and the next full moon was only three days away.

My body could sense it more accurately than any lunar calendar.

A student turned a page somewhere behind me. Two others whispered over a book near the window, and when someone passed my table, the movement of their sleeve stirred a small current of air.

The prickling beneath my skin sharpened by another degree.

I kept my hands flat on the table and breathed in slowly through my nose.

The library was not loud. No one was touching me. Nothing was actually wrong.

That was the problem with the curse. It did not need a real threat. Sometimes a sound, a draft, or the awareness of too many people nearby was enough to make my body feel as though it were searching for something it could not name.

I opened my notebook and wrote down the day’s symptoms.

Third consecutive day of flare-ups. Lowered threshold for skin stimulation. Concentration impaired.

I stared at the sentence for a moment, then added a small mark beside it.

Severity: manageable.

The lie looked neat in my handwriting.

I closed the notebook and performed five minutes of lunar meditation. I let my awareness sink toward the pale magic inside my chest, searching for a steady rhythm beneath the restless current.

It did not work.

When the timer crystal chimed softly, I opened my eyes, returned the book to its shelf, and left the library.

The hallway outside was brighter than I expected.

I paused beside a window and looked toward the western sky. The sun had already begun to sink behind the academy towers, leaving a thin amber line above the rooftops.

My wrist burned again.

I pressed my thumb against it until the sensation dulled.

I had planned to return to the dormitory early, take my lunar stabilizer, and spend the evening with the white-noise crystal beside my bed. If I followed the routine, I might sleep through the night without waking from another dream.

Then my communication crystal chimed.

It was a message from Emma Collins.

Where are you? Come back soon. We have news.

I looked at the message for two seconds before putting the crystal away.

I already knew what kind of news could make Emma sound that excited.

And I was almost certain I would not want to hear it.

When I opened the door to Moonlight Tower, Room 403, the dormitory was already in chaos.

Tara Ellis was lying on her stomach across her bed, holding a communication crystal above her head and reading from it in an unnecessarily dramatic voice.

“Liam Sullivan is treating us tonight. The restaurant is Starfall, in the annex city, and—” She paused just long enough to make everyone look at her.

“Kael Blackwood is coming too.”

The room erupted.

Lillian Harper spun around from the mirror.

“The Kael from the Shadow Department? The one who broke five barriers at once during last month’s practical?”

“That exact Kael.” Tara nearly rolled off the bed.

“And have you seen him? You don’t want to meet him in person?”

I hung my bag beside my bed and sat down quietly while the conversation moved around me.

Piece by piece, I reconstructed the plan. Emma’s boyfriend, Liam Sullivan, was a second-year student in Shadow Defense and the social center of his dormitory. He had invited Emma’s roommates to dinner in the annex city, and Kael Blackwood—one of his roommates—would be there as well.

Kael Blackwood.

I knew the name.

He was a second-year Shadow Department student with excellent practical results, frequent absences from lectures, and a permanent place on the academy’s popularity rankings and discussion boards.

I had never paid much attention to him.

I did not pay much attention to anyone.

Emma was arranging her hair when she caught sight of me in the mirror. Her hands slowed, and a careful hesitation entered her expression.

“Elara,” she said, turning around, “do you want to come with us tonight?”

Her voice was cautious.

“Liam said he’d feel bad if I went alone,” she continued. “He might think our room doesn’t like him.”

It was a terrible excuse.

Emma knew it was terrible. I knew she knew. Across the room, Tara and Lillian suddenly became very interested in their own things.

I did not answer at once.

A sharp pulse ran through the inside of my wrist. I pressed my thumb over it with my other hand.

The moon was almost full. I should have gone back to my routine, taken my medicine, and prepared for the night.

Then I looked at Emma’s face.

She was trying to appear casual, but there was expectation beneath it, carefully hidden and therefore even more obvious.

“Okay,” I heard myself say.

Emma’s eyes lit up immediately.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Tara sat up so quickly that her hair ornament almost fell off. Lillian clapped once and announced that they had only twenty minutes to prepare.

I looked down at my hand.

I had agreed because Emma was happy.

That was all.

At least, that was what I told myself.

The dormitory entered a state of emergency.

Lillian pulled Emma in front of the mirror and began discussing makeup combinations. Tara searched through a box of hair ornaments, rejecting one after another with the seriousness of someone choosing a weapon before battle.

I sat on the edge of my bed and opened my wardrobe.

The first thing my hand found was a loose gray-white jacket. I put it on over a dark shirt and paired it with plain trousers, then tied my hair back without styling it.

Tara looked over from the mirror.

“Elara.”

I turned.

“You’re wearing that?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Tara opened her mouth, then glanced at Emma and stopped.

I looked down at myself. Gray-white jacket, dark trousers, loosely tied hair. Nothing memorable.

That was exactly what I wanted.

During freshman training, someone had found my communication crystal account and sent me a message calling me “the legendary beauty of the Moon Department.” I had blocked them before replying.

Being noticed had never brought me anything useful.

I did not need people to remember my face.

We left the dormitory just after six.

The academy gates were crowded with students heading toward the annex city. Floating lanterns drifted above the road, and small transport arrays opened and closed in the square like circles of blue fire.

I walked at the edge of the group, leaving enough distance between myself and the others that no one’s sleeve brushed mine.

The prickling under my skin had not gone away.

It had only become quieter because I was concentrating on it.

That was often how the curse worked. If I watched it closely, I could sometimes convince myself that I still had control.

We entered the transport array together.

For half a second, the world dissolved into light.

Then the annex city rose around us—narrow streets, glowing shop signs, floating bridges, and the warm gold lights of evening gathering between the buildings.

The Starfall Restaurant stood at the end of a busy street. Its sign was made of suspended silver stars, each one rotating slowly inside a circle of blue flame.

Emma hurried ahead to greet Liam.

I stayed a few steps behind the others.

The closer we came to the restaurant, the more clearly I could feel the magic carried by the crowd.

Fire, wind, water, shadow, metal, and countless weaker traces overlapped in the air.

My skin tightened.

I lowered my gaze and kept walking.