Chapter 2: Wagon
POV: Raven
The wagon was too nice for how nervous I felt.
Black lacquered wood, red velvet seats, curtains that blocked the outside world entirely. I sat with my back straight and my hands folded in my lap, trying to look like I belonged in it.
Raiden sat beside me. Virella sat across from us with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed on the curtain like she was already bored by my existence.
The horses lurched forward. We moved.
Nobody spoke for a while. The wagon swayed gently, and I focused on the rhythm of the wheels against the cobblestones to keep myself from picking at my nails. My red hair kept falling into my face. I pushed it back for the fourth time and felt Virella's gaze land on me like a blade.
"You look like a Halloween decoration," she said.
"Virella." Raiden's voice was quiet but firm.
"I'm being honest." She tilted her head. "The fake fangs are a nice touch, though. Very committed."
I didn't answer. I pressed my tongue against the plastic and felt them shift slightly. I had practiced smiling with them in the mirror for twenty minutes that morning. They still didn't feel natural.
Raiden nudged my knee with his. Just a small pressure. It meant he saw, and he was sorry.
I looked out through the gap in the curtain. We had crossed into the Academy district now. The streets were wider here, the buildings older. The architecture shifted from the clean lines of the noble quarter into something heavier, something that had been standing for centuries and knew it.
I had heard stories about the Royal Academy of Nocturne my whole life. Every vampire child of status was sent there eventually. Hex had talked about his years there with a kind of careful reverence, like the place had shaped him in ways he still hadn't fully processed. Carmilla never mentioned it.
Virella had been preparing for two years. I had been preparing for two weeks.
"Are you going to survive the marking?" Virella asked. She wasn't looking at me when she said it. She was examining her nails.
"What marking?" I asked, even though I already knew.
"The ceremony. At orientation." She glanced up. "They call a drop of blood from each student. The Academy reads it. Determines your magic class, your lineage, your rank." She paused. "Human blood reads differently. It reads wrong. They'll know the moment the needle touches your finger."
Raiden cleared his throat. "That's not entirely true. The marking just—"
"I'm not talking to you," Virella said without looking at him.
The wagon slowed. I could hear the sound of voices outside, dozens of them, maybe more. Students arriving. Families saying goodbye.
"What happens if it reads wrong?" I asked.
Virella smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "Nothing good."
The wheels stopped completely. A footman opened the door.
I climbed out first. My boots hit the ground, and I looked up.
The Academy was enormous. It rose above everything around it, towers and spires and archways stacked on top of each other in a way that looked impossible from a human engineering standpoint but made perfect sense in a world where stone could be shaped by magic.
Students streamed through in clusters. All of them moved like they owned the air they were breathing. Noble posture, expensive clothes, the lazy confidence of people who had never once been the least important person in a room.
I was absolutely the least important person in this room.
Raiden appeared beside me. He looked at the gate the same way I did, but his expression was different. Excited, maybe. Or something close to it.
"First years enter through the east arch," he said, reading from a small card he had pulled from his jacket. "We separate there. Different orientation groups."
"We separate?" I repeated.
"Only for the first hour. I'll find you after." He folded the card and put it back. He looked at me, and I could see him doing the thing he always did, checking my face for how bad it was. "You'll be fine."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I keep believing it." He touched my shoulder briefly. "Don't let them smell your fear. Literally. Breathe slow."
I nodded. He moved toward the main arch with the rest of the stream. Virella had already disappeared somewhere ahead, absorbed into a group of girls who greeted her like royalty. Which, I supposed, she was.
I followed the signs for the east arch alone.
The crowd thinned slightly as I walked. Most of the students around me were deep in conversation, reconnecting with people they hadn't seen over the break, comparing their summer training, throwing around the names of noble houses like currency. Nobody looked at me. I kept my head down and moved steadily, trying to match their pace without drawing attention.
I turned the corner under the east arch and walked directly into something solid.
I stumbled back. My heel caught the edge of a stone and I went down hard, catching myself on my palms. The impact stung. I looked up.
He was already looking down at me.
The same man from the courtyard. Same deep red eyes, same stillness, same expression that gave away absolutely nothing.
He was wearing different clothes now, a dark jacket with a high collar, the tattoos on his neck just visible above the fabric. He held a stack of folders in one hand and didn't appear to have moved at all when I hit him.
I scrambled to my feet. My palms were scraped. One of my fake fangs had shifted.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't watching where I was—"
"You were watching the ground," he said. "Which is interesting. Most students watch the competition." He tilted his head slightly. "You were watching your feet."
I didn't know what to say to that.
He reached out and adjusted one of the folders in his stack without looking away from me. "The east arch is for first-year students. Not faculty." He let that sit for a second. "You were heading to the wrong orientation."
My face went hot. "I followed the signs."
"The signs say east arch, first years." He looked past me briefly at the arch I had come through, then back. "You came through the south passage. Different arch. Different destination."
I turned. He was right. The arch behind me had a crescent carved into the keystone. Not a star. I had misread it entirely.
I looked back at him. He was watching me with something that might have been amusement, if amusement could look completely dead.
"The first-year orientation is that way," he said, pointing left. "You have four minutes."
I picked up my bag and moved. I got three steps before his voice came again, low and unhurried.
"Miss Nightshade."
I stopped.
"The fangs are crooked."
I pressed my lips together and kept walking. Behind me, I heard nothing.
I found the right arch. I straightened my fang with my thumbnail. I walked through.
The orientation hall was already full. A woman at the front was calling names from a list. Students were lining up in a long row along the wall, each one extending a hand in turn while a small device, silver and needle-tipped, moved down the line.
The marking had already started.
I counted the students ahead of me. Twelve. Maybe thirteen.
I took my place at the back of the line and stared at the needle.
A boy appeared beside me. I hadn't heard him approach. He was lean, dark-haired, with shadows under his eyes and a jacket that was slightly too big for him. He looked at the line, then at me, then at the line again.
"First time?" he asked.
"Is it that obvious?"
He glanced at my hands. I was gripping my bag strap hard enough to whiten my knuckles. "Little bit."
I loosened my grip. "Is the marking painful?"
"Depends on what you are," he said. He said it plainly, without cruelty. "I'm Loki. Ashwood." He paused. "The house is basically gone now, so don't bother placing it."
"Raven. Nightshade."
He raised an eyebrow. "And you ended up at the back of the line alone?"
"It's been a complicated morning."
He nodded slowly, like that made sense to him in a way it probably shouldn't have. He looked at the device again as it moved to the next student. A small flash of light, a color that bloomed and faded in seconds. Red for one, deep violet for the next.
My turn was coming. Three students away. Two.
I thought about what Virella had said. Human blood reads wrong.
One.
The girl in front of me stepped forward, extended her hand, and the needle touched her fingertip. Gold light, bright and clean. The woman at the front made a note.
Then it was me.
I stepped forward. I extended my hand. The device hovered over my fingertip, and the woman holding it looked up at me for the first time.
She had pale eyes and a thin mouth. She looked at my red hair and my black dress and my slightly crooked fang, and something shifted in her expression. Not recognition. Something sharper.
"Name?" she asked.
"Raven Nightshade."
She looked down at her list. She found it. She looked back up.
"Nightshade." She said it again, quieter. Then she looked at the device in her hand and hesitated.
The needle hadn't touched me yet.
"Is there a problem?" I asked.
She didn't answer. She looked past me, over my shoulder. I turned slightly.
He was standing at the entrance to the hall. Folders still in hand. Eyes on me.
The woman straightened. She looked back at her list, then at the device, then at me. Her jaw tightened.
"Proceed," she said, and brought the needle down.
The prick was sharp. Light bloomed from my fingertip. It was not red. It was not gold. It was not violet. It was none of the colours expected from vampires.
It was white. Blazing white, and it lasted three full seconds before it died.
The hall went quiet.
I pulled my hand back. Loki said nothing beside me. The woman stared at her device like it had malfunctioned.
I looked at the doorway. He was still there.
He looked at the light fading from my fingertip. Then he looked at my face. He tucked the folders under his arm and turned and walked away, and just before he disappeared through the arch, I heard his voice carry back through the silence of the hall.
"Find me after orientation," he said. "We need to have a very serious conversation about what you are."