Chapter 13
Nova
The professor waits until the door clicks shut, then looks around the circle.
“Mark Theory is not a lecture course,” she says. “It’s a discussion. You will be expected to participate, to share, and to examine your own experiences alongside the texts.”
Great. My favorite kind of class. The kind where I can’t hide.
“We’ll begin with introductions. Name and mark. Show your wrist as you speak.” She gestures to the student on her left. “We’ll go clockwise.”
My stomach drops. I count the seats between that student and me. Seven people. Seven introductions before I have to figure out what the hell to say.
The first student extends her wrist. A clean mark, elegant lines. “Sera. Dream.”
The next. “Jonah. Shadow.”
They go around. I stop listening to the names and start planning my escape. I could say I’m sick. I could say I need the bathroom. I could just stand up and walk out and never come back.
Five people left.
Four.
Three.
The girl next to me finishes. “Lira. Whisper.”
Everyone looks at me.
I don’t move.
“Your name?” the professor prompts.
“Nova.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “I don’t—”
I stop. The words won’t come. I don’t have a mark. I’ve never had a mark. I’m the anomaly, the glitch, the thing the system doesn’t have a name for.
I start to stand.
“Miss Wilder.” The professor’s voice is calm. “The faculty has been briefed on your situation. Please, sit down.”
The room is silent. I can feel everyone staring, but it’s two sets of eyes that burn the most. Trey, watching me with something I can’t read. And Harrick’s friend, watching me like I just confirmed something he suspected.
I sit.
My hands are shaking. I extend my wrist anyway, showing them nothing. Bare skin where a mark should be.
Someone inhales sharply. Someone else shifts in their seat. The professor just nods and moves on.
“Next.”
The introductions continue. I’m not breathing. I’m counting the remaining students, waiting for it to be over, when—
“Trey.”
I look up.
He extends his wrist and I see it—two patterns overlapping, bleeding into each other, neither one complete. Dream and Memory tangled together in a way that looks almost painful.
“I couldn’t figure out who I wanted to be,” he says.
He’s looking at me when he says it.
The words light up something inside me. I don’t look away. I can’t.
The moment stretches. Then he drops his wrist and the professor moves on.
“Silas. Shadow.”
Harrick’s friend. Silas. I file the name away and watch him extend his wrist. Clean mark, sharp lines. Nothing abnormal.
But when his eyes meet mine, he smiles. Just a little. Just enough to make my skin crawl.
The introductions end. The professor starts talking about mark inheritance, activation sequences, the factors that influence when and how a mark manifests. Every word feels like it’s aimed directly at me.
I try to take notes. I try to focus. But I keep feeling Trey’s eyes drifting back to me, and Silas’s smile, and the weight of that bare wrist everyone just saw.
By the time class ends, I’m wound so tight I might shatter.
The professor dismisses us and I’m out of my chair before she finishes speaking, heading for the door, needing to get out of this room and away from the circle and the staring and—
“Nova.”
Trey’s voice. Low. Behind me.
I stop. I don’t know why I stop.
He catches up to me in the hallway, and for a second we just stand there. He’s taller than I remembered. Broader. His eyes are gray and searching and I don’t know what he’s looking for.
“I just wanted to say—” He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “That was shit. What she made you do. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know what to do with an apology I didn’t ask for.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“It’s not.” He says it simply, like it’s obvious. “But okay.”
There’s a pause. He’s still looking at me like he wants to say something else, and I’m still standing here like an idiot, and I don’t understand why I haven’t walked away yet.
“Trey.” Silas’s voice cuts through the moment. He’s in the doorway, watching us. “You coming?”
Trey’s jaw tightens. Just for a second. “Yeah.”
He looks at me one more time. “I’ll see you around, Nova.”
Then he’s gone, walking toward Silas, and I’m left standing in the hallway trying to figure out what just happened.
I find the exit. Push through the doors into the afternoon light.
The guys are waiting. All five of them, spread across the steps like they’ve been there the whole time. Beckett sees me first and straightens. Then they’re all looking, all reading whatever’s on my face.
“How bad?” Rane asks.
I think about the circle. The bare wrist. Trey’s eyes. Silas’s smile.
“I survived,” I say.
It’s not an answer. They know it’s not an answer.
But no one pushes.
We walk home together, and I don’t look back.