Chapter 18
Seph
“You have got to be joking.”
Jess grimaced. “Unfortunately, no.”
Click. She flicked her empty lighter between her fingers, the metal snapping in a restless rhythm.
She smelled faintly of smoke. Acrid, sharp.
When I’d returned to the room earlier, I’d found a pile of clothes in the corner—ash-stained, smudged, singed at the edges.
That was when it clicked.
Jess lit fires at night.
Little ones. Controlled. Hidden.
She did it so she wouldn’t sleep.
She led me into a room where a circle of chairs had been arranged like some kind of cult meeting. A woman sat in one of them, hair scraped into a severe bun, horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose as she scribbled on a clipboard.
“We are actually doing a feelings circle?” I muttered.
“The key is to say I feel,” Jess said dryly. “Like—‘I feel… that you had a crazy psycho sleeping in our suite last night.’” She shot me a look sharp enough to cut skin.
Click.
I winced. I hadn’t warned her about that. “I’m sorry. Did he bother you?”
“He scared the shit out of me when I got home! But no, he didn’t hurt me,” she snapped. “What are you doing with Ash anyway?”
“He seems to have attached himself to me,” I said, shrugging. “And… I don’t know. I like it.”
I hesitated.
“I like him.”
Jess stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “You know he tortures people for fun, right?”
“Not in front of me.”
Her jaw dropped. “Seph, that’s not a defence!”
“It kind of is.”
“They say he broke two guards’ legs the other day chasing them around the Institute.”
“Probably true,” I admitted. “He has a certain way about him, for sure.”
Jess just looked at me like I was the dangerous one. “I just hope you know what you’re doing. People are also talking about you and K.”
I shrugged. “K… is another story.”
“What story?” she asked, spinning the empty lighter like a nervous tick. Click.
I pointed at it. “Are they really letting you take that in here?”
Click. “It’s empty. They won’t let me fill it anymore.” She scowled. “But don’t change the subject.”
People began filing into the room. Lyra was among them; when she spotted me, she glared.
“Okay, everyone take your seat!” Wendy Hart called.
I slunk into a chair. Jess took the one beside me. An empty seat remained on my other side.
A tall guy went to sit there—then froze.
“I believe that’s my chair,” Dev said, voice cold enough to frost bone.
The guy took one look at Dev’s expression and bolted.
Dev lowered himself with effortless menace. He turned his head.
“Nice to see you again, Seph,” he nodded, like this was a business meeting.
I just stared and acknowledged him. “Dev.”
He smiled at me — brief, sharp — but it transformed his whole face, softening something I didn’t expect.
Wendy began. “We have some new faces, so why don’t we introduce ourselves?”
She pointed at a chubby girl across from me, nervously chewing her hair.
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Yes. Speak.”
“Um. I—I’m Mandy. Amanda. Muh-Mandy.”
Ollie snorted. “You don’t know your own fucking name?”
“Mr Donahue!” Wendy snapped, appalled. “You will wait until it’s your turn.”
“Are you serious? We’ll be here all day if muh-muh-Mandy has her way!”
“Mr. Donahue!”
Mandy went beet red, humiliated. She leapt up and fled the room in tears.
Something in my stomach curdled.
Nobody deserved that.
A few people shifted uncomfortably.
Rod and Travis snickered.
Ollie leaned back in his chair, smug, like he’d won something.
Jess muttered, “Prick,” under her breath.
Wendy Hart clapped her hands sharply, trying to regain control.
“Alright, let’s keep going. Travis, why don’t you—”
“I’ll go,” Lyra cut in, lifting her hand like she was volunteering for a talent show.
Of course she would.
Wendy blinked. “Alright… Lyra. Share how you’re feeling today.”
Lyra straightened, smoothing her perfect ponytail. Then she flicked her gaze directly to me.
Lyra kept going.
“I feel like”—she tilted her head, voice dripping sugar—“certain new inmates are manipulating the boys here. Using whatever they’ve got to turn heads.”
Her eyes slid to me.
Then to Jess.
“And allowing other girls to think they matter more than they should.”
Jess sat up so fast her chair screeched across the floor.
“Say that again,” she snapped.
Wendy raised both hands. “Let’s try to avoid—”
“No, Wendy,” Dev murmured, voice low and icy, still twirling his knife lazily between his fingers. Wendy watched the blade and shuddered involuntarily.
“Mr Redgrave, I don’t think—”
“Let her finish,” Dev cut her off.
Wendy went silent.
Lyra faltered.
She did not like being the centre of Dev’s attention — not when he wasn’t smiling. Not when his aura felt like a noose tightening around the room.
“I—I’m just saying,” she stammered, “actions have consequences.”
“True,” Dev said softly. “And some actions are very, very stupid.”
Lyra’s glare snapped to him.
But she shouldn’t have looked at me.
Because I saw it — her aura.
Darkening. Spiking. Rippling beneath her skin like ink dropped into boiling water.
She was trying to reel it back in, I could tell, but the harder she fought, the worse it got.
The air thickened. The pressure built. A low vibration skittered through the floor.
Then—
the wards stirred.
A faint sigil flared to life in the corner of the ceiling, its lines glowing hot white for a single pulse—
THUMP.
Like a heartbeat.
Metal fixtures buzzed sharply, lights flickering as the pressure in the room tightened. Everyone felt it. Even Wendy froze—her pen slipping from her fingers—because she knew exactly what that meant.
“Lyra. Stop,” I said quietly.
Lyra’s breath hitched. “What are you talking about?” she hissed, but her aura was already spiking again—ugly, jagged, a violent flare that sent a second ward-glow rippling across the opposite wall.
“Lyra!” I looked around. A low whirring sound was starting to build.
Lyra’s head whipped toward me, panic sharpening her mascara-smeared glare. “What do you want, Persephone?”
“Rein it in,” I said, calm but firm. “You’re setting off the wards.”
“I’m not!” she snapped—but her aura convulsed again, a brutal pulse that made the air tremble.
Wendy’s face went chalk-white.
“Lyra,” she whispered, voice thin with fear. “Are you—are you using your abilities in here?”
Lyra turned on her, wild-eyed. “No! I’m not doing anything!”
She was lying.
And worse—
She was losing control.
The hum in the air sharpened, pressure tightening along my spine. Jess shifted closer to me, heat flaring off her skin in a warning pulse.
Her fear, her anger began to fill the room like a noxious cloud.
Dev stopped twirling his knife.
Not dramatically.
Just completely still.
And when Dev went still, I’d already learned — that meant something was about to go very wrong.
Wendy swallowed hard.
“Lyra, you know the rules. No emotional projection. No persuasion. No psychomantic influence of any kind.”
“I said I’m not doing anything!” Lyra hissed.
Another ripple.
A spike of pressure.
Her face contorted — panic, not anger — like something inside her was clawing for the surface.
Jess muttered, “Bullshit.”
Ollie snorted. “Look at her twitch. Little puppet master thinks she can pull everyone’s strings.”
Lyra’s eyes flashed. “Shut up, Ollie.”
“Make me,” he sneered.
Wendy signalled the guards.
The door opened. A guard stepped inside, syringe in hand.
The whole room tensed.
“Lyra,” Wendy warned, “we can do this here or—”
“Outside,” Lyra snapped, standing so abruptly her chair toppled over.
She shot me a look — pure hatred, dripping from every sharpened edge of her aura — then stormed out with the guard close behind.
The moment she left, the air snapped back to normal.
Like surfacing from underwater.
Ollie let out a low whistle.
“Crazy fucking bitch.”
Rod snorted. “He’s right. Some girls really don’t know their place.”
Something inside me cracked.
My chair scraped loudly as I stood.
Jess whispered, “Seph, don’t.”
But I didn’t stop.
I stepped forward, gloves clenched at my sides, heart hammering.
Ollie smirked. “What? You got something to share, new girl?”
Dev straightened — slow, deliberate, a predator scenting blood.
I lifted my chin.
“I feel…” I began, voice shaky for a second before it hardened.
“I feel like you’re a coward. And a bully. And if you spoke to anyone like that outside this room, you wouldn’t have your asshole friends protecting you.”
Rod let out an “oh shit.”
Wendy looked like she might faint.
Dev’s mouth twitched — one tiny corner.
Approval.
Ollie shoved himself to his feet.
“You think you can talk to me like that?”
Jess stood instantly beside me.
Dev’s hand settled lightly on the back of my chair.
Possessive. Warning. Deadly.
Ollie looked between us — me, Jess, Dev — and something in him deflated.
“Whatever,” he muttered, dropping back into his seat.
I exhaled shakily.
Wendy swallowed. “Th-thank you, Seph. That was… honest.”
Jess squeezed my arm.
Dev leaned back, crossing one leg over the other with the slow grace of someone who owned the room.
“Well,” he murmured, knife glinting between his fingers again,
“this is the best feelings circle I’ve ever been to.”