The Lies We Tell, Greyson Academy Year Two

1. Ashley

CHAPTER ONE

Ashley

The iron gates of Greyson Academy look like prison bars.

I don’t remember them looking like that last term — twisted metal spires reaching toward a slate-gray sky, frost clinging to the joints where the iron meets stone.

Maybe they always did and I just wasn’t paying attention.

Or maybe two weeks of freedom has ruined my ability to pretend this place feels anything like home.

Winter break ended too fucking quickly.

Two months away from constant surveillance. Eight weeks of letting my shadows stretch and breathe and move the way they actually want to. And now I’m standing here in January cold with my heart hammering and my shadows pressed flat against the cobblestones like they’ve been stapled there.

Just another dark Nephilim student returning for spring term.

Except I’m not. Not anymore.

I adjust the high collar of my uniform, making sure it covers Constantine’s pendant where it rests against my collarbone. The silver and black fabric feels heavier this term. Might be the weight of every secret sewn into the lining.

Students stream past me laughing, trading stories about their breaks, breath forming little ghosts in the frigid air. A girl bumps my shoulder without apology, already deep in conversation about some party I wasn’t invited to and wouldn’t have attended anyway.

Bael’s presence flickers at the edge of my awareness — distant but focused, like hearing someone call your name from three rooms away.

He spent our last night together drilling concealment techniques into me until I could run them in my sleep.

I can feel his confidence in what he taught me.

I can also feel the fury he’s barely containing at having to let me walk through these gates alone.

I push through before I can talk myself out of it.

The changes hit immediately.

Where last term had the occasional silver-uniformed Hunter strolling the grounds like they owned the place, now they’re posted at every major intersection.

Not strolling — stationed. Feet planted, hands clasped behind their backs, silver badges catching what little January sunlight pierces the cloud cover.

Their eyes track students with the detached evaluation of farmers sorting livestock.

The air itself has changed. A sharp metallic bite underneath the normal January frost that wasn’t here last term, like the sheer volume of detection equipment has altered the atmosphere.

A sign on the ancient oak notice board reads: “New security protocols. For the safety and proper classification of all students.”

Right. Because nothing screams safety like doubling the people paid to watch your every fucking move.

New detection devices gleam from building corners — silver housings with crystalline centers that pulse soft blue when students walk beneath them. The hum they produce sits right at the edge of hearing, the kind of frequency that lives in your molars and won’t leave.

Shadow resonance detectors.

Bael warned me about these during our last night in the forest — specifically calibrated to flag unusual shadow movement patterns. My shadows flinch toward the nearest one like a dog that’s been shocked by an invisible fence, and I yank them back into formation before anyone notices.

Acting weird around detection equipment is basically a signed confession.

“Ashley!” Iris materializes from the crowd in a burst of copper hair and lavender perfume, her empathic abilities clearly picking up my tension even through whatever neutral face I think I’m pulling off. “You made it back! I was starting to worry.”

“Train delay,” I lie. The smile I paste on feels about as convincing as a paper mask.

The truth — that I spent my last night of break in a forest clearing with an ancient vampire-Nephilim hybrid who bit my throat and fed me blood that enhanced my shadow abilities beyond anything these people have classified in centuries — isn’t exactly small-talk material.

She links her arm through mine and steers me toward the dormitory. “You missed orientation. They’ve gone full paranoid. All dark Nephilim have mandatory shadow demonstrations first thing tomorrow. They’re calling it ‘baseline assessment’ or some bullshit.”

My stomach drops. “Mandatory demonstration? Since when?”

“Three days ago.” Her voice stays cheerful, but her arm tightens on mine — a squeeze that says pay attention. “Something happened during the break. Hunter Council sent specialists. They’re everywhere.”

We pass beneath another detector. The crystal pulses blue as we cross its range, a soft flare that makes the skin between my shoulder blades prickle. I keep my shadows perfectly, painfully still and stare straight ahead.

Nothing to see here. Just a girl walking to her dorm.

“What kind of specialists?”

“Shadow classification experts.” Iris shrugs as if it’s campus gossip and not a death sentence. “Apparently they’re updating the student registry with more detailed ability parameters.”

Ability parameters. Which means they’re building a database of what everyone can do so they can flag anyone who doesn’t fit the mold later. Create a baseline, document the ceiling, then wait for someone to accidentally punch through it.

They’re looking for me.

The dormitory courtyard buzzes with returning students, but the vibe is wrong.

Dark Nephilim cluster in smaller groups than usual, their shadows pulled tight and well-behaved instead of the typical lazy displays of casual ability.

Last term this courtyard was full of students shaping shadows into animals and flowers between classes, showing off with the easy confidence of people who’d been doing it since childhood.

Now everyone’s shadows cling close to their feet like nervous pets.

Even the air feels different — thick with suppressed magic and the sour tang of collective anxiety that Iris must be drowning in.

“There’s more,” Iris whispers on the stairs, words nearly swallowed by the echo of footsteps on stone. “Elara’s organizing a light Nephilim study group focused specifically on shadow detection techniques. She’s already recruited half a dozen students.”

Wonderful. As if professional Hunters weren’t enough, the student body is forming its own little surveillance committee. Led by Elara Lightbringer, obviously — a perfect golden princess who’s been gunning for me since I had the audacity to exist in her general vicinity.

“Let her watch,” I say, sounding almost convincing. “Not like I have anything to hide.”

The biggest fucking lie I’ve ever told.

Our door swings open, and I freeze.

Everything looks almost right. Almost.

The scent hits first — cleaning solution and something sharper underneath, chemical and foreign, where there should only be dust and Iris’s lavender and the old-book smell that seeps from the walls.

I stand in the doorway cataloging wrongness with the paranoid precision that’s become second nature since last term.

My books sit with their spines perfectly aligned.

I always leave them slightly angled — a habit so consistent it functions as a tell.

The lock on my trunk is closed, but the secondary latch — the one I always, always engage — hangs open.

My star chart is pinned just slightly higher than where I left it, the bottom edge no longer aligned with the nail hole I use as a reference point.

Someone went through our room. Every inch of it.

“Did you let anyone in during the break?” I keep my voice light, dropping my bag on the bed.

“Just cleaning staff.” Iris frowns. “Why?”

I stretch casually, using the movement to scan the ceiling corners.

There — a pinprick of silver where the wooden beams meet, barely visible if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

A second one nestled beside the window frame, angled to cover my bed.

A third disguised as part of my desk lamp’s hardware, positioned to monitor the space where I study and practice.

Three monitoring crystals. In my bedroom.

“No reason. Just feels weird coming back.”

Iris buys it, launching into a story about her family’s holiday traditions while I unpack with hands that want to shake and won’t be allowed to.

Three surveillance devices in the room where I sleep.

Where I dream. Where my shadows sometimes slip their leash in the small hours and move with the autonomy that would get me killed if anyone saw.

Every night for the rest of this term, I’ll need to maintain suppression even in unconsciousness — keeping my shadows flat and obedient while monitoring crystals record everything.

They’re not just watching dark Nephilim in general anymore. They’ve moved into our private spaces. And the specific attention paid to this room tells me everything I need to know about whose name sits at the top of their list.

After unpacking, I tell Iris I need to check on assigned reading and head to the library.

The truth is I need to map the full scope of what we’re dealing with before tomorrow’s demonstration.

The ancient library usually calms me — soaring stone arches that disappear into shadow-draped vaulting, the papery whisper of ten thousand leather-bound books, the particular hush that settles over a space where people have been quietly thinking for centuries.

The smell alone normally works like a sedative.

Old parchment layered over candle wax and wood polish, with that underlying hint of something sweet that might be the binding glue aging or might be magic settling into the shelves like dust.

Today it smells wrong.

The familiar base notes are buried under something sharp and institutional. Detection devices perch at every shelf intersection like silver spiders, their crystalline eyes pulsing in slow rhythm.