{CAROLINE}
What is she doing? I wondered.
I lay on my side, facing the wall, eyes closed, breathing slow and even—pretending to sleep.
Iris was moving around the room.
Soft footsteps. The faint scrape of something being placed down. The rustle of cloth. I didn't turn. I didn't speak.
I watched her only through the sliver of shadow reflected on the stone wall ahead of me.
Sleep refused to come.
How could it, when only hours ago my own kind had turned their backs on me?
Cowards!
My jaw tightened as I clenched my teeth, staring at the wall as if I could bore a hole through it with sheer resentment.
We were all students here. No one was supposed to be superior. No noble blood. No hierarchy. No predator and prey.
That was the lie they sold us.
Guilt seeped in, unwelcome and heavy, when my thoughts drifted back to Iris.
Hadn't I done the same to her?
