Chapter 1 NAVY

“Goddamnit, Navy!” 

I stop dead on the driveway, chest heaving, the strap of my bag cutting into my shoulder, and stare at the very large, very locked iron gate of Aurelian Academy like it personally decided to ruin my life tonight.

Which, honestly? It kind of did.

"No," I say out loud, to no one. "No, no, no."

The elderly gentleman's inhaler is still in my jacket pocket. I forgot to return it before the ER doors closed and by the time I remembered I was already in the cab and it was already too late to go back.

I grab the gate with both hands and rattle it anyway, because apparently I need physical confirmation that iron doesn't bend for desperate girls. The chain looped through the bars doesn't even tremble. I press my forehead against the cold metal and close my eyes.

The email said six o'clock:

Resumption day curfew: 6:00 PM. Students arriving after this time will not be granted entry and will face disciplinary review.

I have read that email four times since August. Screenshotted it even. Yet here I am, standing outside my new school at six minutes past six with absolutely no plan.

"Okay," I mutter, stepping back from the gate and looking up at it properly. It's tall. Maybe eight feet. The bars are thin but the top is flat, no spikes at least — whoever designed this was optimistic about the honour system. There's a stone wall running from either side of it, disappearing into the tree line. "Okay, Navy. Think."

The academy grounds glow softly beyond the gate — warm lights in the windows of the main building, a cobblestone path curving up through perfectly maintained lawns. It looks like a postcard.

I've never been the kind of person who feels pulled toward things. Places, people, moments — they're just coordinates on a map to me. You go where the logic takes you. You don't feel called anywhere.

Standing here, chest heaving, looking through these bars at a school I've been preparing for since August, I feel something I don't have a name for yet.

Whatever. I'll figure it out later.

"There has to be a buzzer," I say, running my hands along the gate post. "An intercom. A camera. Something. Schools have cameras."

"They do."

I spin around so fast my bag swings out and nearly takes out a plant.

A boy is leaning against the stone wall to my right, on the other side of the gate,  arms folded, watching me with an expression of mild amusement. He's wearing the Aurelian first year lanyard around his neck, which means he's a student — a student on gate patrol, as mentioned in the academy brochure.

He is, and I note this purely as objective information, extremely good looking.

Blond hair that catches the last of the evening light. Green eyes the colour of sea glass, sharp and bright and currently dancing with something that looks very much like enjoyment at my situation. He's tall in the relaxed way of someone who's never had to work for a room's attention.

There's something about him that feels like the opening page of a story you've read before. Familiar in a way I can't place. 

"How long have you been standing there?" I demand.

"Long enough," he says, and smiles. It's a very charming smile.

"The intercom," I say, nodding to the gate post. "Where is it?"

"Switched off at six." He pushes off the wall and strolls over, like we have all the time in the world. "I'm Roman," he adds. "First year. Gate duty."

"Navy," I say. "Also first year. Very late."

"I can see that." He stops in front of me with his hands in his pockets. "Where'd you come from?"

"The hospital."

He blinks. "Sorry?"

"There was a man at the ferry terminal." I shift my bag strap. "His bag got mixed up with mine by accident. When I caught up to him to swap them back he had an asthma attack right there on the pavement." I pause. "I couldn't just leave him."

Roman looks at me for a moment with an expression I can't quite read. "So you followed a stranger to the hospital."

"Well, I took him to the hospital." I look at my watch. Ten minutes past now. "Is there another entrance? A side door? Anything?”

Roman tilts his head thoughtfully, and something in the way he does it makes me think he already knows exactly what he's about to say.

"There's a section of the fence," he says slowly, "around the east side. Where the groundskeeper brings the equipment through." He pauses. "It's lower than the gate. Theoretically."

I stare at him. "Theoretically."

"I'm on gate duty," he says, spreading his hands, his green eyes brimming with innocence. "I can't tell you to use it."

"But you're telling me it exists."

"I'm making conversation."

I look at the gate. I look at my watch. I look at Roman, who looks back at me with that easy smile.

"Theoretically," I repeat.

"East side," he says.

I take off immediately, finding the fence in no time.

Roman was not wrong — it's lower than the gate by at least two feet, the stone wall dropping where it meets an older section of fencing. Wooden posts. Wire stretched between them. On the other side, a narrow strip of grass and then the groundskeeper's path curving toward the main grounds.

"This is fine," I tell myself, grabbing the top of the fence post. "This is completely fine. People climb fences all the time. This is a normal thing that normal people do on their first day of school."

The wood creaks under my grip.

"That's fine too," I add. "That's just wood. Wood makes sounds. That's science."

I get my foot up onto the lower rung of wire. It holds. I pull myself up, balancing on the post, my bag hanging off one shoulder and doing its best to drag me sideways.

"Okay," I breathe, looking down at the other side. The drop is maybe four feet onto grass. Easy. Simple. "You have done harder things today, Navy Hayes. You can jump a fence."

I swing my other leg over.

The bag swings with it.

My balance goes with the bag.

I have approximately one second to process that this is going to go very badly before I drop — in a full sideways sprawl that ends with a sound like two people colliding because that is exactly what happens.

Because there is someone on the other side of this fence.

We are now both on the ground in a heap and my bag is somewhere and I have no idea whose elbow that is but it's in my ribs.

"What—"

"Get off—"

"I'm trying—"

"Your knee—"

"Sorry, sorry—"

I scramble sideways and land on the grass and push my hair out of my face and look at the person I just fell on.

He's sitting up, jaw tight, one hand pressed to his shoulder where I apparently landed hardest. Dark hair, slightly dishevelled now. And eyes — even in the low light, even with the expression he's currently wearing, which is somewhere between furious and disbelieving — the most striking shade of glowing blue I have ever seen on a real person. Deep and sharp, like the water off the south cliffs on a clear day.

He is staring at me like I materialised from thin air specifically to inconvenience him.

"I am so sorry," I say immediately. "I didn't see you, I was — there was — I—" I stop. Regroup. "Hi, I'm Navy."

The blue eyes do not warm.

"I don't care," he says.

A torch beam hits us both at the same time, freezing our movements.

We both whip our heads toward the light at the exact same speed.

The woman holding the torch is short, silver-haired, and wearing the expression of someone who has caught students doing exactly this before and has never once found it charming. A clipboard is tucked under her arm. Her lanyard reads: Vice Principal.

The silence stretches out for one long, terrible second.

"Names," she says.