Chapter 3 3

Layla's pov

I did not like the way Blackwater Hall moved after dark.

Not because the building actually moved, not in some dramatic fantasy way, but because the place changed when the corridors emptied and the students started disappearing into their own little corners. The light got thinner. The quiet got heavier. Even my own footsteps sounded like they were trying too hard to be heard.

Tahlia caught me outside the media office just as I was heading back from class, her tote bag hanging off one shoulder and her expression already saying she had something to say.

“You look annoyed,” she nudged my shoulder as she spoke.

“I am annoyed.”

“That bad?”

“Someone has been in my room.”

She stopped walking. “You’re sure?”

“No,” I said, because that was the worst part.

“Which is why I hate it.”

Her face changed after that. Not dramatically. Just enough for me to know she believed me.

“Did you tell anybody?”

“I told the office.”

“And?”

“And they made the kind of face that says, ‘Welcome to a school full of rich liars, please enjoy the wallpaper.’”

Tahlia let out a short laugh and then shook her head. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

We started walking again, slower this time. I had the uncomfortable feeling that if I stayed still for too long, my skin would start noticing every shadow.

Tahlia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “What exactly was wrong?”

“My drawer was open. My papers were moved. The room felt off.”

She glanced at me. “Nothing missing?”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Then someone wanted you to know they were there.”

I shot her a look. “You say that like it’s normal.”

“It’s Blackwater Hall,” she said. “Normal is kind of dead here.”

I huffed a quiet breath through my nose. “That’s not helpful.”

“I’m not trying to be helpful. I’m trying to be honest.”

That was the problem with Tahlia. She was easy to like, hard to ignore, and annoying in the exact way people are when they keep being right.

We reached the junction where the media corridor split from the student archive wing, and that was where I saw him.

Callum.

Same Callum guy.

He was standing near the notice board with one hand resting in his pocket and the other holding a folder against his side. He did not look hurried. He did not look surprised to see me. He looked like he had already been standing there for a while and was deciding whether my existence was worth the interruption.

I stopped without meaning to.

Tahlia noticed immediately and made a low sound. “Oh, this should be good.”

I glared at her. “Not helping.”

“It’s not my fault he looks like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like he knows something. Such a sexy type of knowing."

I did not answer because Callum had already looked up.

His eyes landed on me with that annoying precision of his, and my irritation rose immediately to meet it.

“You’re late,” he said.

I stared at him. “For what?”

His gaze flicked briefly to the folder tucked under my arm, then back to my face. “For telling someone your room was searched.”

I folded my arms. “I did.”

His jaw tightened. “You told the office.”

“And they told me to report it properly.”

A muscle in his cheek moved. He looked as if he had to work to keep his expression from sharpening.

“Did you touch anything?” he asked.

That was such a strange question that I almost missed my own annoyance.

“Excuse me?”

“Did you move anything after you noticed the drawer?”

“No,” I said slowly. “Why?”

His eyes stayed on mine. “Because if someone went into your room, they may have been looking for something specific.”

The hallway felt narrower after that.

Tahlia gave me a quick side glance that said she was listening harder now.

I tilted my head. “You sound awfully certain.” And concerned, I wanted to add.

“I am.”

“And how do you know that?”

He did not answer immediately, and that was enough to make my spine stiffen.

Instead, he tipped his chin toward the archive wing and said, “Come with me.”

I stared at him. "Huhhnnn?"

Tahlia did too, which was probably the first time I had seen her look genuinely amused by something since I met her.

I crossed my arms tighter. “No.”

He looked at me like he expected that answer. “Then stay here and keep pretending this is a coincidence.”

I took a step toward him before I could stop myself. “You don’t get to walk up to me like that and start giving orders.”

His expression barely changed, but his voice dropped. “Then stop putting yourself in places that need them.”

That irritated me so much I almost laughed.

“You always talk like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve already decided I’m a problem.”

His gaze held mine a second too long. “You keep proving it.”

Tahlia made an exaggerated little cough and looked from one of us to the other like she was watching a sport she had paid for.

Callum ignored her completely.

That only made him more irritating.

He gestured once toward the archive wing. “Are you coming or not?”

I looked at him, then at the corridor, then back at him, because for all my annoyance, there was something in the way he was standing there that made him look less like a boy trying to be clever and more like someone trying not to say too much in public.

Fine.

I hated that I noticed.

I hated more that I followed him.

Tahlia stayed behind with a quiet, “I’m not dead, by the way, in case you get murdered before lunch.”

“Comforting,” I muttered.

The archive wing was colder than the rest of the school. Not physically colder, though that too. More like the air itself knew it was carrying too much information and preferred not to be touched. The shelves were tall. The lighting was low. Everything smelled like paper, dust, and old wood polished over and over until the grain disappeared.

The archive woman checked Callum’s folder, then my card, then gave me a look that made me feel like I had interrupted something on purpose.

Callum stood beside me with his shoulders squared, very still, while I signed my name on a visitor sheet.

“Why am I here?” I asked under my breath.

He did not look at me when he answered.

“Because you’re not listening properly elsewhere.”

That was not a real answer and we both knew it.

The woman pointed toward a side table and said, “Wait here. Do not touch anything.”

I glanced at the room full of locked shelves and almost laughed. “That seems rude.”

She did not even blink.

Callum watched her walk away, then looked at me. “You’re still ignoring the part where someone was in your room.”

“I’m not ignoring it,” I said. “I’m trying not to let it crawl into my face.”

His mouth moved, a tiny shift that was not quite a smile. It vanished before I could decide whether I hated it.

“I was going to ask what you noticed,” he said.

“That’s a very polite way of saying I’m overreacting.”

“I would never.”

I gave him a look.

He took the folder from under his arm, set it on the table between us, and opened it with two quick movements. “Your intake file.”

I frowned. “Why do you have my intake file?”

“Because the office sent the wrong version to the archive.”

“Why would that matter?”

He looked at me then, properly. “Because it should have been checked before you were placed.”

I stared at him. “Checked for what?”

There was a pause.

Just a small one.

Enough to make me suspicious.

Then he said, “Your birthday.”

I blinked once. “My what?”

He slid the folder a little closer. “The school vets birthdays for transfer intake. It’s old policy.”

That made me stare harder. “You’re joking.”

“No.”

I let out a short breath. “Why would a school care about birthdays?”

wait, Tahlia wasn't joking for real!?

His gaze did not move. “Because of the myth.”

I looked at him like he’d grown another head.

“There is no way in hell this place has a birthday myth."

“It does.”

“And everybody just accepts that?”

“Most of them do.”

I laughed once, but it came out flat. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s also real enough for the school to check records before placement.”

I folded my arms so hard it almost hurt. “And the myth is what, exactly?”

He looked toward the shelves before answering, as if he would rather the books overhear than the woman at the desk.

“Students born on the same day are considered unstable together. Dangerous. Bad luck. The school used to treat it seriously.”

My mouth opened, then shut again. “You cannot be serious.”

He looked back at me. “Oh but I am.”

That made me stare at him for a second too long.

Then I looked down at the intake folder.

The date printed there was clear enough.

Callum’s birthday.

The same as mine.

I looked up so fast it nearly hurt. “You’re telling me we share a birthday?”

His jaw tightened. “Yes.”

My voice dropped in disbelief. “And the school just… put us here?”

“It shouldn’t have.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

I stared at him, then at the folder again. “So what, they thought I was some kind of bad omen?”

His face hardened. “They don’t use the word omen.”

“Then what do they use?”

“Problem.”

That answer sat in the air between us.

I looked at him, really looked this time, and something about the way he stood there changed the shape of the conversation for me. He wasn’t enjoying this. He wasn’t joking. He looked like someone carrying a rule he hated and still following it because the consequences of not following it were worse.

That made me more irritated, not less.

“So why do you care?” I asked. Asides the fact that I'm pretty much sure he doesn't want me killing hom before he kills me.

His eyes met mine and did not move. “Because somebody should have caught it before you got here.”

“I’m not a bomb.”

He gave a small, dry exhale. “At Blackwater Hall, that’s not a comforting statement.”

I stared at him, then glanced toward the door, because I had the very irritating feeling that I was missing something and he knew exactly what it was.

“You keep talking like this,” I said, “and I’m going to start thinking you enjoy making me angry.”

“I don’t need to enjoy it.”

“That was smooth. Annoying, but smooth.”

He looked at me with the tiniest tilt of his head. “You’re still angry.”

“Because you’re still talking like a cryptic warning label with a face.”

That finally got something close to a real reaction out of him. Not a smile. Just the faintest, most dangerous softening at the corner of his mouth, like he knew he shouldn’t be amused and was irritated that he almost was.

It made me stare at him even harder.

Tahlia had been right. This boy was not social in the normal way. He did not move like someone with a group waiting for him outside. He moved like someone used to being watched but not liked. Like someone who had learned to keep his space because nobody else was going to protect it for him.

That made his attention to me feel different.

Not better.

Just heavier.

The archive woman returned then, carrying a stack of old folders, and the moment broke.

Callum shut mine closed with one hand. “Don’t go near the east path after dark.”

I frowned. “You already said that.”

“I know what I said.”

“Then why are you repeating it?”

“Because you keep ignoring warnings.”

I crossed my arms. “And because you enjoy being bossy.”

His eyes held mine for a second. “And because you are not the only one being watched.”

That landed harder than I liked.

The archive woman set the folders down with a pointed little sigh. “If you two are finished, I have actual work to do.”

I nearly laughed.

Callum didn’t.

That was another clue, if I had been in the mood to collect them. He was too controlled to be casual. Too isolated to be relaxed. Too careful to be simple. The more I noticed, the more he seemed like a boy carrying a job nobody thanked him for.

And I hated, for one stupid second, that I wanted to ask what he was carrying.

I didn’t get the chance.

A crash sounded somewhere in the shelves behind us.

A hard, sudden thump.

The archive woman swore under her breath and turned sharply. I did too.

Callum moved before I had time to think.

He caught my wrist and pulled me back behind the table, his hand tight enough to make the message clear without hurting me. His body blocked mine instinctively, all focus and tension and immediate protection.

Then he went still.

Too still.

His eyes fixed past the shelves.

I held my breath, every nerve in my body going sharp.

From somewhere in the back of the archive, a voice whispered, almost amused, “Found her.”

Callum’s hand tightened on mine.

And every thought in my head stopped at once.