Thorn had been sitting in the cemetery all morning, her knees drawn tight to her chest as the wind tugged at her freshly dyed hair, lifting it in restless crimson waves.
She hadn't slept.
She had spent the entire night preparing for her parents' arrival.
Scrubbing every inch of her dorm room until her fingers smelled like polish and bleach. Refolding clothes Pippa had abandoned in soft, careless piles. Rearranging her desk three separate times. Wiping down her mirror. Polishing the violin her mother had given her until the wood gleamed like a dark pool of honey.
Perfect.
It all had to be perfect.
Because if it weren't, if they saw even the smallest crack, they would worry.
It wasn't like Raphael and Valarie were cruel. If anything, the opposite was true. They adored her.
And that was the problem.
Their love had always come with vigilance. With watchfulness. With soft hands, checking her forehead for fevers that weren't there. With prayers whispered over her when they thought she was asleep.
After the night she died, it had only gotten worse.
Her mother hovered in doorways. Her father sat longer at the kitchen table in silence. The house shrank around her like it was trying to keep her safe by swallowing her whole.
She knew what today would bring.
Valarie's careful voice.
Mi hija… come home.
You can finish your studies with me.
It's safer there.
We can protect you.
Thorn had chosen Reichenbach.
She had fought for it.
A school built for Outcasts, for anomalies, for those who didn't fit neatly into the world outside.
She thought it would help her understand what she was becoming.
Instead, they looked at her like a liability.
Too volatile.
Too unstable.
Too much.
An outcast at a school built for them.
She twisted a strand of hair around her finger as she stared at the grave in front of her.
Bartholomew Whitaker.
1812–1876.
He had been here long before wards and politics and whispers in the hallways, long before the Resonance had taken over.
"You do make good company, Bartholomew," she murmured.
Her voice carried easily in the wind as the shadows pooled beneath the headstone stirred. They slithered upward with too much enthusiasm, stretching toward her like curious hands.
Full of energy, hungry energy.
Thorn didn't move at first.
She just watched them.
The way they trembled without her pulling them.
The way they leaned toward her was like iron filings toward a magnet.
"Behave," she said under her breath.
They twitched, listening.
It hadn't always been like this.
Before the blood pouch, her shadows moved only when she summoned them.
Now they moved when she felt.
And she was feeling too much today.
The wind picked up again, lifting her hair and the hem of her coat.
The shadows rose higher in response.
Reaching, almost eagerly, towards her.
Thorn pressed her chin to her knees.
"Don't make this harder than it already is," she whispered.
The cemetery stayed quiet, and the shadows did not fully settle.
Not gone.
Just waiting.
She heard the footsteps before the voice, gravel shifting under measured weight, familiar rhythm, unhurried but deliberate.
"There you are."
Xavier's voice slipped into the space like it had every right to be there.
Thorn didn't turn.
"Damn," she muttered dryly. "You're getting really good at hide and seek."
There was a soft exhale behind her, half scoff, half laugh. The sound warmed the cold air more than it should have.
"Forgive me for wanting to make sure you don't implode before your parents arrive."
She finally looked up.
He towered over her from this angle, all long limbs and quiet concern, dark curls shifting in the wind. Six-foot-two looked even taller when she was sitting on the ground like a feral cemetery gargoyle.
She broke eye contact first.
Patting the space beside her, she didn't say anything.
He understood anyway.
Xavier slid his hands from his pockets and lowered himself beside her, careful in that way he always was, like the world bruised easily and he didn't want to add to it. The cold ground bit through the fabric of his pants, but he didn't complain.
For a moment, they just sat.
Wind through dry grass.
Distant bells.
Shadows stretching just a little too far before pulling back.
"What about your parents coming to visit makes you so nervous?" he asked quietly.
"I'm not nervous."
He let that sit for exactly one beat.
"Thorn," he said gently, "I can hear your stomach doing somersaults and your heart trying to outrun it."
She rolled her eyes, but it lacked heat.
"You're exaggerating."
"I'm a Raven," he replied mildly. "Heightened perception. Remember?"
She side-eyed him. "Oh, so now you're using your powers against me?"
He bumped his shoulder lightly against hers. "I'm using them for you."
That did something dangerous to her ribcage.
The shadows at her feet twitched in response.
Xavier noticed.
His gaze dropped, just briefly, to the thin threads of darkness curling along the base of the gravestone.
"Are they worse today?" he asked carefully.
Thorn's jaw tightened.
"They're fine."
One of the shadows reached toward his boot, like a snake deciding to coil under a rock, then paused, and then withdrew.
Xavier didn't move.
"Okay," he said softly. Not arguing, and most importantly, not pushing.
She stared straight ahead at the name carved into stone.
"They love me too much," she admitted finally.
That surprised him more than anything else she could have said.
"They worry," she continued, voice thinner now. "And when they worry, they try to fix things. And when they try to fix things, they try to fix me."
Xavier's shoulders stilled.
"You don't need fixing."
She gave a humorless little smile. "Tell that to my mother."
A beat.
"She thinks if I come home, if I let her homeschool me again, if I stay where she can see me…" Thorn swallowed. "Then none of this would've happened."
Xavier understood what she didn't say.
The transformation.
The blood.
The instability.
The shadows that no longer fully listened.
He rested his forearms on his knees as he looked straight towards the other headstones.
"Are you going to go back?" he asked quietly.
She snapped her head toward him, offended. "No. Of course not,"
He nodded once. Good.
"But I'm going to have to look at them," she said. "And see it in their faces."
"See what?"
"That they think I'm in danger."
Xavier turned and studied her profile, the sharp line of her jaw, the wind in her hair, the way she tried to fold herself smaller when she felt too big.
"You are," he said.
She stiffened.
"Not from them," he added quickly. "From everything else."
The shadows shifted again, a low ripple across the stone.
"But you're not fragile," he continued. "And you're not broken."
Her throat worked around the words stuck there, "You don't know that," she whispered.
"I do."
The certainty in his voice was quiet. Absolute.
The wind lifted her hair again, and this time the shadows leaned toward him instead of her.
Xavier glanced down and then back at her.
"If they try to take you home," he said lightly, though there was steel under it, "I will absolutely cause a scene."
She huffed despite herself.
"Please don't."
"No promises."
She bumped her shoulder into his this time.
The contact grounded her more than she'd admit. Even the shadows had calmed down just a fraction.
They weren't gone, but they were softer. Still watching from a distance.
Once the shadows finally curled back into the earth, reluctantly, Thorn's phone buzzed in her pocket.
She froze, and Xavier glanced at her. Thorn didn't look at him as she pulled it out.
"It's my mom..."
Her thumb hovered for half a second before she answered.
"Hello?"
Valarie's voice came through warm and immediate.
"Mi amor, we're here."
Thorn's spine straightened instinctively, "Already?" she asked, softer now. Less edge. More daughter.
"Yes. We are in Headmistress Maren's office. Where are you?"
Thorn glanced at Xavier.
He didn't speak; he watched her carefully, not wanting to startle her.
"I'll meet you there," she said. "Give me five minutes."
There was a slight pause before Valarie's voice gentled.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, mamá."
Another pause, but Valarie didn't push.
"Okay," she said finally. "We'll be here... having a talk with Maren."
The line went quiet.
Thorn stared at the dark screen for a second longer than necessary.
"You okay?" Xavier asked carefully.
She shoved the phone back into her pocket.
"Yeah."
They both stood, and the movement felt heavier than it should have.
"They're probably tearing into her right now," Thorn whispered.
"It's not like it's not deserved."
Thorn brushed grass off the back of her coat, smoothing it down unnecessarily.
"Walk me?" she asked, like it wasn't important.
"Always," he replied, without hesitation.
The word hung between them, but neither of them acknowledged it.
They left the cemetery side by side like they had done a dozen times since the start of the semester.
They didn't talk much as they crossed the quad. Thorn's shoulders squared the closer they got to the main building, and Xavier lingered behind a few steps, ready to help if she needed.
By the time they reached the administrative wing, her expression had shifted completely.
Away from the scary, uncontrollable hybrid the academy wanted her to be and into the calm, careful daughter Rafael and Valarie knew her as.
She paused outside Maren's office door, smoothing her hair back once more.
"You don't have to stay," she said quietly.
"I know," Xavier answered.
He didn't move.
She looked at him, just once, "But you're going to anyway, aren't you?"
Xavier tried to bite back the smirk that tugged at the corner of his lips as he nodded, "Guilty."
Thorn huffed something that could have been a laugh if it wasn't shaky before she lifted her fist and knocked.
The door opened almost instantly.
The office smelled like cold authority and old paper as the pair stepped forward.
Maren walked over towards the window, hands folded neatly behind her back, posture composed as ever.
Thorn barely registered Maren in the corner now that her parents were already there.
Valarie Rosales rose the moment the door opened.
She crossed the room in three swift strides and cupped Thorn's face in both hands, fingers trembling despite how steady she tried to appear.
"Mi hija," she breathed, pulling her close.
Thorn melted into her, having craved her mother's warmth since the semester started.
"Mamá..."
"You're thinner," Valarie said immediately, pulling back to inspect her. Her eyes were already scanning: jawline, collarbones, shadows beneath her eyes. "You are too pale."
"I'm fine," Thorn said automatically.
Raphael made a low sound in the back of his throat, and Valarie's eyes shifted past Thorn.
To Xavier.
The warmth in her expression didn't disappear, but it sharpened slightly.
"And you are?"
Xavier hadn't meant to stare. He really hadn't, but it hit him square in his chest.
Thorn was her twin.
Not literally, they weren't identical, but it was enough that it caught him off guard. The same fire in the eyes. The same proud chin. The same kind of beauty that felt earned, not decorative. Down to the same beauty mark on her cheek.
"Xavier Thorpe," he said, straightening instinctively. "I— work with Thorn."
Raphael's gaze locked onto him.
Slow. Measuring.
His expression didn't change, but something in his shoulders shifted. Raphael's lips pressed into a thin line as his jaw flexed once.
"¿Dije Thorpe?" he muttered to his wife without looking away.
Valarie didn't break her composure. She rested a steadying hand against Raphael's chest.
"Horita," she said softly.
But Xavier didn't miss the look they shared. They knew his father.
And they did not like him.
"Well," she said lightly, reclaiming the air in the room, "Xavier, thank you for escorting our daughter."
Thorn didn't miss it at all, the subtle tension while her mother tried to keep a lid on it.
Their quiet judgment, and the way her father's gaze hadn't softened.
"He wanted to meet you," Thorn added casually, though her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
Xavier blinked.
That hadn't been how he would've phrased it.
Raphael noticed.
"Oh?" Valarie said, eyebrows raising in surprise. "Oh," she said again in realization.
This was Xavier, Thorn's acquaintance, the one she mentioned on the phone.
Thorn didn't look at Xavier when she answered.
"He's been helping," she said. "With everything."
That meant more than she let it.
"¿Ah, si?" Raphael's face didn't change, though his tone felt belittling. Xavier could feel the way Thorn shifted on her feet.
"Papa, Déjalo." Thorn looked up at her father, her tone softer than Xavier had ever heard her, "No es malo. Dale un chance."
Raphael's shoulders fell a little; his mustache twitched as he looked towards his wife, who had a smile tugging at her lips.
Rafael's eyebrows rose a fraction as he turned the other way, a signal to his wife that this was hers to handle.
Xavier looked down at Thorn. He knew now what she meant about intense, but it had partly been his fault; he was born a Thorpe after all.
"Well, we have finished our lovely conversation with Principal Maren." Valarie turned toward the woman who was still standing in the corner, her lips pressed tightly together.
"It was a productive conversation indeed, Mrs. Rosales." Maren agreed, her eyes avoiding Valarie's.
"So, why don't you show us your room?" Valarie said to Thorn before she turned to Xavier, "Have you been to her dorm, Javier?"
"Don't answer that," Thorn warned, her gaze locked onto her mother, who had a knowing smile plastered on her face. "And his name is Xavier, Mamá."
"Oh, I see," Valarie smiled, "My mistake."
Thorn turned toward the door before her mother could throw another overloaded question at him.
"You coming?" she called over her shoulder.
Xavier blinked like he'd almost forgotten how to move.
"Yeah," he said quickly. "I'll be right there."
Valarie and Raphael stepped into the corridor first, and Thorn followed, shooting him one last look that could have only meant, 'Come on.'
Xavier turned to do the same and stopped.
"Mr. Thorpe."
Maren's voice was smooth and cool as polished marble.
He didn't turn immediately, but he knew that tone. It was the same as what his father used when he was on thin ice. The same tone he used when he was told he was going to Nevermore, and then Reichenbach.
"You're burning through your chances," she said quietly. "Your father will not be pleased."
Now he looked at her.
"You going to tell him?" Xavier asked evenly. His jaw tightened just slightly. "You seem to have him on speed dial. You called him fast enough after the incident in Mrs. Weaver's class."
Maren didn't react outwardly, but something in her eyes sharpened.
"I contacted your father," she said calmly, "because he funds half of the new east wing. And because when his son is involved in an incident, he expects to be informed."
"An incident," Xavier repeated softly.
"You have a habit," she continued, ignoring the shift in his tone, "of placing yourself in situations that blur the line between heroism and liability."
"And you have a habit," he replied, "of starving a student and calling it policy."
Silence.
Maren's lips thinned.
"The dietary adjustments were precautionary."
"They were negligent."
The word landed harder than he intended.
Or as hard as he meant it to.
Maren's posture straightened.
"I would implore you to be careful," she said, her voice losing its polish. "Your father's influence can only shield you so far."
Xavier's smile was faint. Valarie and Raphael had done enough damage here that Maren was scrambling to hold onto control of something, even if that something was an eighteen-year-old boy who hadn't been careful once in his life.
"Tell my father I said hello."
Then he turned and walked out.
No dramatic exit. No slamming door.
Just certainty.