Ivy didn't look at the message again.
She stuffed her phone into the front pocket of her coat and kept walking.
Her fingers were still cold. Not from the air, but from whatever that voice inside the crow had been—whatever thread had tugged at her chest when she heard her name spoken wrong. No, not wrong. Older.
Welcome back, Mirelen.
It shouldn't mean anything. But the syllables sat inside her like a memory she didn't want to unpack.
The sky was lowering into a deep violet by the time she turned the corner onto her street. Her apartment was on the third floor of a building that leaned slightly toward the train tracks, like even the bricks were exhausted. She stepped inside, nodded at the landlord's cat, and climbed the narrow stairwell in silence.
Her mother was already home. Rhea Calen stood by the stove, one hand holding a wooden spoon, the other wrapped around a chipped mug of wine. The kitchen smelled like burned thyme and something bitter.
"You're late," her mother said without looking.
"Detention," Ivy muttered, pulling off her coat.
Rhea raised an eyebrow. "Again?"
Ivy dropped the sketchbook on the kitchen counter with a thud. Rhea glanced at it, frowned, then went back to stirring whatever she was pretending to cook.
They didn't talk about the weird things anymore.
Not since the summer incident. Not since the mirror in the hospital room.
Ivy microwaved tea. She sipped it in silence.
Then the kettle whistled, and her mother winced, like the sound hurt more than it should have.
She looked older than yesterday. The lines around her eyes seemed deeper. Ivy wondered, not for the first time, how much of Rhea's tiredness was from work… and how much was from keeping something buried.
When Ivy finally crawled into bed that night, she reached for her sketchbook with hesitant fingers.
It was still full of runes. Still covered in a language she didn't know how to write but somehow had. They curled across the paper like vines—organic, dangerous, beautiful.
She traced one with the pad of her thumb.
It felt… warm.
Her eyes burned. She blinked the sting away and flipped to a blank page.
She meant to draw something simple. A tree. A cup. Her own hand.
But the pencil moved faster than she expected. Her wrist loosened. Her breathing slowed.
And there, in the center of the page, a face began to form.
Not hers.
His.
Eyes like scorched silver. Mouth curved like he was keeping something. The boy from detention. Arlo.
Only this version wore armor. A collar of glass and shadow. A crown hovering just above his head.
Ivy dropped the pencil.
She stared at the drawing.
Then closed the sketchbook and shoved it under her pillow.
---
The next morning was too bright. The sky was scrubbed clean with October wind, and the clouds had vanished like they'd never meant to be there.
Ivy walked to school slowly, feet dragging over sidewalk cracks, earbuds in but no music playing. Her hair was braided today, the way her mom used to do it when she was little. It made her feel ten percent more like a person.
As she rounded the gate of Morley Prep, she saw him again.
Arlo Vane.
He was sitting alone on the edge of the stone fountain in front of the quad. Book in his lap. Legs crossed. Unmoving.
Ivy's stomach twisted.
She didn't plan to say anything. She just… walked past.
But as she did, his voice drifted up to her.
"You drew me," he said without looking.
She stopped.
He turned a page. "Last night."
She didn't move. "How would you know that?"
Arlo closed the book. Looked up.
"I only exist when you remember me."
His voice was soft. Matter-of-fact.
Ivy blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"
He smiled.
"You'll see."
Then he stood. Slipped his hands into his pockets. And walked into the school like nothing was wrong.
---
End of Chapter Two