Julian's warning stayed with Sarah like a splinter under the skin. Small, invisible, but always there.
"This place eats people like you."
He hadn't said it like a threat. He'd said it like a fact. Like he'd seen something in her he already knew wouldn't survive.
For days after that, she walked differently. Slower, quieter, shoulders curled in, eyes to the floor. She avoided the painted eyes in the hallways, avoided speaking and avoided being seen.
And most of all, avoided him.
Julian didn't speak to her again. He didn't even look at her. She saw him sometimes, moving across the wide, empty courtyards of Blackwood, a lone figure in a long coat. But his face was always turned away. As if she'd already become part of the silence he had warned her about.
The academy was quiet, but it was the wrong kind of quiet.
Not peaceful but dead.
She had started thinking of Blackwood as a living thing. A broken body still breathing. The main hall was its ribcage. The winding corridors were veins. Her room in the East Wing? A forgotten organ. One that had been left to rot in the dark.
If the students were the blood flowing through the academy, she wasn't sure what kind she was. Maybe she was already infected.
She hadn't touched her violin since the failed audition. She couldn't. Just the thought of holding it made her stomach twist. It still sat in its case by the window, untouched, untuned.
A coffin, really sealed shut.
Music had once been everything to her, her voice, her escape, her anchor. Now it felt like a locked room she couldn't get back into.
Today was worse.
Today she had to go to Music Theory, a required class. No way around it.
The classroom was in the oldest part of Blackwood. It was clean in the way that felt unnatural.
Too polished, too perfect.
The floor shined like glass. The dark wooden walls were lined with shelves full of untouched books. The smell of old paper and lemon oil filled the air. The windows were tall, arched, staring out over grass so green it looked fake.
It was beautiful but dead.
A room built to impress, not to welcome.
Sarah slid into a seat at the back of the room. Her usual strategy fade into the shadows. Other students entered one by one.
No one spoke or laughed. Their uniforms were spotless, their hair neatly combed. They sat down with their backs straight, hands folded neatly in front of them.
Perfect.
Silent.
They didn't look like students.
They looked like something carved.
At exactly nine o'clock, the door opened.
The man who walked in moved with strange grace, not rushed, not casual, measured.
Like every step had already been rehearsed.
He was tall and slender, dressed in a brown tweed jacket that felt out of place in the cold gothic room. He carried a leather satchel and placed it gently on the wide desk at the front.
His face was clean-shaven, his hair blond and neat, handsome, but forgettable. The kind of face that looked like it had been drawn from memory, not lived in.
And then he smiled.
Sarah's breath caught without her knowing why.
The smile was perfect, wide, bright and even but it was wrong.
Too wide.
Too clean.
Too… deliberate.
It wasn't a smile that made you feel welcome.
It was the kind of smile a mask might wear.
"Good morning," he said smoothly, his voice rich and deep, like something poured from a warm bottle.
"I am Mr. Finch. It's a pleasure to have you in my class this semester. Here at Blackwood, we believe theory isn't just the structure of music, it's the structure of feeling."
His words floated through the room like perfume.
He looked around slowly, making eye contact with each student. But it didn't feel like he was checking attendance. It felt like he was counting something.
Measuring.
And when his gaze landed on Sarah, it didn't move.
His smile didn't change, but something in his eyes did. It sharpened. As if he recognized her. Not from a file or a photo but from something deeper.
"I'll be taking attendance now," he said, still looking at her.
He picked up a piece of paper from his desk but didn't look at it.
He didn't need to.
He read the names without pause.
Then he reached hers.
"Ah," he said softly, almost to himself. "Sarah Vance."
He said it like it tasted good in his mouth.
Sarah sat still. Her throat tightened. She gave a small nod, not trusting her voice.
"I've heard a lot about your talents, Miss Vance. A prodigious gift. I look forward to seeing and hearing it for myself."
The way he separated the words seeing and hearing made them feel like two different things. Like he wasn't just talking about her music. Like she was a project. A curiosity.
The lesson began, but Sarah couldn't focus. His voice filled the room with talk about harmony and dissonance, how emotion lived between the notes. But none of it stayed in her head.
All she could think about was his eyes.
And that smile.
Julian's voice came back again.
This place eats people like you.
Was this how it started?
Near the end of the class, Mr. Finch left the front of the room. He began walking between the rows of desks, silent and slow.
He stopped by a few students, murmuring something too quiet to hear. His movements were smooth, unhurried, too careful.
It felt like he was gliding, not walking.
Sarah stared down at the blank page in front of her, willing herself to disappear.
Then she felt it.
He had stopped behind her.
She didn't look, she didn't need to.
The air shifted, it grew thinner and older.
And then his hand.
A hand rested gently on her shoulder. Light, steady. Like a teacher offering support.
But it wasn't right.
His fingers were long. His touch too still.
She froze.
He kept talking to the class, explaining something about resolving dissonance. His voice calm. But his hand didn't move.
One second passed.
Two passed.
Any normal teacher would've moved on. But he didn't.
That extra second made all the difference.
His touch no longer felt like a gesture, it felt like a claim. A quiet possession. Not rough. Not forceful. Just… wrong.
Her skin crawled under the fabric of her uniform. Her heart pounded like it was trying to get out. But she couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Then, finally, his hand lifted.
He walked on.
The warmth in the room returned, but her body didn't feel it. The cold on her shoulder stayed.
The rest of the class blurred. Sarah couldn't take her eyes off her hands, trembling softly in her lap. She told herself she was imagining it. That she was tired. That she was broken and seeing things that weren't there.
It was nothing, she tried to believe.
Just a teacher. Just a touch.
But her body wouldn't listen.
When class ended, she waited until everyone else had left before slipping out the back. She didn't look at him. Couldn't.
Out in the hallway, her legs felt weak. Her shoulder still burned not from heat, but from memory. As if something had been left behind in his touch.
She walked back to her room slowly. Every portrait on the walls seemed to watch her. Every hallway felt narrower. Every sound felt too sharp.
She thought of Julian again.
He hadn't been trying to scare her. He had been warning her. Trying to save her.
And she had ignored it.
Now she understood.
The monsters at Blackwood weren't just in her head.
One of them had spoken her name.
Or maybe… he had always known it.