You are in thrall to the ache at the center of your right hand.
One week in and the scar hasn't faded, only deepened, the blue-green webwork spreading outward every time you pass within range of relict tech—or, more problematically, certain people. The Academy is a cathedral of convergences: every corridor crosshatched with generations of magic and machinery, every room a composite of stone humility and hidden opulence. Your skin tingles whenever you touch the rails, the doorknobs, even the old copper water taps, and you have resorted to gloves when you remember, which is not often enough. You can hear the other students talk about you, in the hush that grows louder the longer you try to ignore it: the stipend ghost, the civvie, the resonance freak.
You learned not to care, or at least to make an art of pretending. In the stacks of the main library—five levels high, and older than the idea of rules—you can almost believe you are only here for the work.
You comb through the iridescent microfiches and dogeared field journals, hunting for a precedent to your own affliction. The Academy officially calls it "unexplained artifact resonance spectrum activity," but the message boards prefer Soul Sickness. You know there must be someone else, some previous test subject whose case was discretely shelved or redacted. What you do not expect, as you balance precariously on the ladder up in the "Noncatalogues," is that the scar will suddenly flex and convulse, as if mocking your amateur sleuthing.
You gasp. The ancient step creaks in warning, the vertigo surges up your spine, and you are barely able to grab a shelf before you pitch off entirely.
Except: you do not fall.
A cool, viscous pressure envelops your torso, cradling you in a cradle of faint force. You float, weightless for an excruciating instant, as every ghost of a childhood nightmare returns, and then, with infinitely more grace than you deserve, you are deposited on your feet at ground level.
You spin, arms flailing, and there she is: a girl—no, a woman, and very much aware of the difference—standing not twenty paces away, fingers twirling in that unmistakable "I'm showing off, please pay attention" pattern of evokers.
She's barely taller than the average book cart. Her hair is that wet spun gold that always reminds you of engineered novelty wheat, and her eyes are a shock of ultraviolet, like the negative of a wound. She's dressed in the Academy's minimum-viable-outfit—smock, leggings, and the universally detested magenta sash—but everything about her makes you think of danger dressed up as mischief.
"Next time, ask for a spotter," she says, droll as a weather report. Her accent is the unplaceable blend of upper-Lumina and something rural, maybe Ferrum. "First years are statistically the most likely to get crushed by the Noncatalogues. It's why they call them that."
You brush dust off your knees, cheeks burning harder than your palm.
"Just trying to find something the curriculum won't," you say, and instantly regret the edge of defensiveness in your voice. "You always hanging out in the reference necropolis?"
She shrugs, a little glint of amusement in her eyes, as if you've passed the first and most important test: not screaming.
"I like the company of the dead," she replies. "Less maintenance." She steps forward, closing the gap—not threateningly, but with a curiosity you know is never friendly in this place. "You're Fairview, right?" She doesn't wait for your nod. "You're already famous. For a week-old, statistically-likely casualty."
You've barely caught your breath before she points at your right hand. "May I?"
You don't know why you let her, but by then it's already too late. She takes your palm between her thumb and middle finger, tilting it to catch the oily light from the overhead. Her own hands are shockingly cold.
You expect an exclamation or a gasp, but all she does is nod, as if confirming to herself a suspicion long held.
"Resonance, all right. But not Soul Sickness," she says, and you are instantly, irrationally, grateful. She makes a quick circle with her thumb in the air over your hand, the way a technician might test voltages on an exposed lead. You feel the tiniest pulse—like the artifact's kick, reduced, filtered.
She releases you, wiping her fingers on her sash. "That's older tech than you. Maybe older than the city."
You try, and fail, not to sound too eager. "You know what it is?"
"Not yet, but I plan to." She glances up and down the aisle, then steps closer, her smile edged with challenge. "Come on. The curriculum's a lie, and the really interesting stuff is never this easy to find." She leans in, stage-whispering: "I'll show you the back corridors if you promise not to get all 'official channels' about this."
You squint at her, new suspicions crowding out the old. "Why help me?"
"Because I'm bored," she says, and it is the first true thing you hear all week. "Also, you're cute when you panic."
Her hand—left, this time—zooms up, wrist flicking in a familiar gesture of evocation, but she waits until you lean in before actually activating it. "Mira," she says. "Mira Wintershadow. Yeah, it's real. Don't laugh."
You don't. Instead, you remember the ghost of a smile on Professor Evergreen's face, the way he'd said you'd change everything if you made it past your first year.
You follow her into the maze of back stairwells and archive annexes, the phantom itch of the resonance receding as you leave the main corridors behind. Mira narrates her version of the Academy as you go—a tour equal parts legend, cynical observation, and dare.
"The Archives aren't just dusty books," she says. "The oldest stuff is alive. True story: they used to keep it chained, before they figured out how to build the wards. Some of the stacks still try to migrate after hours, but you need special clearance to see it move."
You pass a set of doors labeled "RESTRICTED: NO NOVICES," so of course that's where Mira takes you next. She disables the alarm with a passphrase muttered in a language you don't recognize, and you glide through into a claustrophobic hallway stinking of ozone and ancient leather.
She points at the ceiling. "See those tiles? Ley sensor grid. If you go too quickly, it triggers the incinerators." Then, with a straight face: "That used to be a problem, but now they mostly just expel you. Emphasis on mostly."
Every minute of this impromptu tour, you learn something new—about the Academy, about yourself, about how little you understand the world you've been grafted into. Mira is a magpie hybrid of conjurer and prankster, but she shuffles the roles at will, sometimes mid-sentence. One moment she is reciting the history of the oldest souls "trapped in the wifi," the next she is triple-dog-daring you to touch the forbidden runestone in the maintenance closet. You do not, but you're glad she asked.
Eventually, you emerge into an open courtyard—one that the floorplans do not show. It is dusk now, and the rain is holding off, but the ground sweats with the promise of another deluge. Mira produces a flask from a hidden pocket and gestures at the lone bench. "Sit," she commands, and the night is suddenly bare of all other presences.
"Fairview," she says, "you ever had your resonance tested by someone who actually understands how it works?"
You shake your head. "Until this went arboreal," you say, flexing your palm, "I thought resonance was a grad student rumor."
She laughs—unexpectedly loud, echoing off the slick flagstones. "You're lucky. Mine started at puberty, and entire sections of the dorm still catch fire if I sneeze wrong." She grows suddenly intent, peering into your eyes. "Mind if I try something?" She waits for the barest shrug of your shoulders, then holds up a finger, brushing it along your scar.
"Try to relax."
You try, and instantly fail: your blood surges, and the world goes diamond-hard for a second. Mira's finger on your skin feels like a third rail, and you sense—no, you *see*—the light bending around her, a faint corona the exact shade of your own hallucinated blueness. It's not synesthesia. It's resonance. Yours, and hers, overlapping in a pulse that is too intimate, too raw.
She hums, as if considering a new chord on a favorite instrument. "You're amplifying it," she says, voice dreamy. "I didn't think that was possible."
You're dizzy. You brace yourself on the bench, blinking hard. "Is that… bad?"
She leans away with reverence, eyes somber for the first time. "No, it's wild. Alignment that strong usually means you're—well, compatibly entangled with someone." She seems about to say more, then bites it back.
You laugh, despite yourself. "So, soulmates?"
Mira snorts. "It's never that romantic." Her eyes flicker, the intensity returning. "But it's dangerous, sometimes fatal, if you don't know what you're doing."
The conversation lapses into silence. You watch the lights of the campus blink through the mist as you flex your ruined hand.
Eventually you ask, "So what's the point? Why bring me out here? You could have left me to fall on my face."
She shrugs, looking up at the faded perimeter wards. "Maybe I wanted to see if you'd make a better friend than an enemy." A long pause. "Or maybe I just like being the first one to break the rules."
You want to tell her you also have a thing for secrets and long odds, but the words tangle in your throat. Instead, you trace the stutter of light under your skin, and wonder what it means to have a resonance that is not entirely your own.
Mira stands, stretching with dancer's grace, and offers her hand. "Come on. If the Night Monitors find us, we'll both end up as tomorrow's safety video."
You hesitate, and for the first time, she seems a little uncertain. "Trust me?" she says, the words so plainly spoken that you cannot help but smile.
You take her hand. The connection is immediate, heady, but you think, just maybe, you could get used to it.
She guides you back through the hidden halls, avoiding every sensor and patrol. By the time you return to your dorm, the scar on your palm is quiet, almost dormant.
It only starts to glow again once you realize Mira has left you a note, tucked neatly into your jacket pocket, written in the same ink as the night sky.
It reads: You're not alone. —M.