The next morning, the halls of Morley didn't feel like halls anymore.
They felt like loops.
Ivy walked from the main entrance to her locker, but when she passed the band room, she passed it again thirty seconds later.
Twice.
Then a third time.
She stopped walking.
The walls looked normal. The lockers still hummed faintly. But when she reached out and touched one, the metal felt warm. Breathing. Just barely.
Calla appeared beside her.
She didn't seem surprised.
"It's started," she said.
"What has?"
"Spatial bleed."
Ivy blinked. "That's… not real."
Calla raised an eyebrow. "And neither was Eli. And yet…"
They turned the corner, and sure enough—they were back at the band room again.
"This isn't how schools work," Ivy muttered.
"No," Calla said. "It's how memory does. When it's been fractured too hard. Time and space start to echo."
Ivy's hand tightened around the edge of her backpack.
Then she noticed something.
A locker up ahead—number 218. The one beside the rusted heater, always sealed shut. Everyone said it was welded closed after a mold outbreak five years ago.
But now?
It was open.
Just a sliver.
And inside: a single photograph.
Ivy stepped closer. The hallway held its breath.
She pulled the photo from the locker slowly.
Three people stood in it.
A girl with storm-gray hair—Calla. A boy half-hidden behind the light—Arlo. And a third figure standing between them—
Ivy.
But not this version.
The girl in the photo wore the mirror crown.
And she was smiling.
Ivy dropped the photo.
It landed face-up.
And when she looked again—there were only two people in it.
Calla. Arlo.
Ivy was gone.
---
Later that day, Ivy looked across the cafeteria and frowned.
There was an empty seat at Table 9. The loud one near the windows.
That seat belonged to Nina Larchmont.
But Nina wasn't there.
Not in the cafeteria. Not on the attendance roll. Not in her usual over-lip-glossed, overly loud way.
Gone.
Ivy turned to Calla.
"Where's Nina?"
Calla blinked slowly. "Who?"
Ivy stared at her. "You know who. Nina Larchmont. Pink hair. Obsessed with glitter pens. Second loudest laugh in the school."
Calla shook her head. "Ivy, I have no idea who you're talking about."
And that's when Ivy knew.
The Veil hadn't waited.
It had taken someone.
---
She ran to Arlo after school. Found him outside the ripple-locked wing.
"I said the word again yesterday," she gasped. "Neh'varein."
Arlo nodded.
"And I think the Veil took someone."
He looked at her gently.
"Ivy," he said. "That's what it does."
"But she was real."
"She was your real. That doesn't mean she was everyone else's."
Ivy's voice shook. "What if it chooses someone else next?"
"It won't," Arlo said softly.
"Why not?"
He stepped closer.
"Because next time, it's going to ask you."
---
End of Chapter Thirteen