Classroom 5 was one of the fishbowls. One wall was completely made of glass, looking out into the corridor, the room number etched into the door in clean minimalist lettering. The other three walls were painted that pale mint green that Amelia had never quite made her peace with. Row after row of students faced the front, where Mr. Rafferty perched on the edge of his desk—dark sweater rumpled over his midriff, neck in the early stages of an old-age stoop—like a bored vulture, waiting for something to die.

  Behind him, the digital whiteboard cycled through various facts, statistics and images. Evie, as efficient as ever, seemed to know exactly what Rafferty would say before the words passed his lips.

  "—and what historians tend to overlook,” Rafferty continued, "is that the Aurion Empire didn't fall overnight. There was no grand battle. No plague. No catastrophe.” He pushed himself up off the desk and paced down the aisle, hands in his pockets. "Just a series of bad decisions, made by a handful of people in power. Small pivots, minor ripples—the kind that would have barely been noticeable to the average citizen at the time. But they accumulated. Compounded. And by the time anyone noticed—" He shrugged. “Three centuries of the most powerful empire in recorded history was already over.”

  Amelia glanced up as he passed her shoulder on the way back to his desk. Her notebook was open, pen in hand but, other than the date and title, the page was blank.

  Across the aisle, about three rows back, she could feel Marv’s gaze. She turned and gave him a faint smile. For once, he didn’t flash a grin back. She knew why. She could see it in the furrow of his brow; he could never hide when he was worried about something.

  Her mind flashed back to yesterday in the Environmental Sciences lab. She could still smell the soil samples and hear the freezer humming underneath Professor Vale’s words. Transformative. That’s what he had said. Her mother had been working on some kind of secret project. One that would change everything. Amelia wondered what it was, who else was involved, and whether her dad had known about it. Most of all, she wondered if that was what had got them both killed.

  What she knew for certain was this: while her parents were being wheeled off to the mortuary and she was sitting in a police station, four years old, wondering where they’d gone—the Unity Council was ransacking her mother’s office. Orion Blackwell, rifling through everything. Helping himself to a dead woman’s things.

  Whatever her mom had been working on, Vale seemed convinced that the Unity Council had it now. Amelia couldn’t find any reason to argue. She had to find a way to keep following the thread. She couldn't let it go, wherever it took her next.

  Maybe Marv was right to be worried.

  Rafferty’s voice drifted past her again. “As the nations under the rule of the Aurion Empire found out to their detriment, the cost of progress is rarely paid by the people who benefit from it.”

  Amelia blinked and looked down at the page. She’d scribbled a few notes now, but the meaning had already gone. The only one she recognised was 476 CE. The year the Aurion Empire fell. Next to it, her pen had found the margin and made a crosshatch of uneven lines. Squares had emerged from it, half of them scribbled solid in black ink, the other half empty—white.

  A chessboard.

  She didn’t remember drawing it. But there it was. Her pen hovered over the grid. Pieces began to appear on the board. A rook. A knight. A queen. A pawn. She stared at them for a long moment, wondering.

  She was still staring when she heard her name.

  "Amelia."

  Her head snapped up. The room had gone deathly quiet. Rafferty stood at the front, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in performative disapproval.

  “Care to share what you’re doodling with the rest of the class?”

  She slammed the notebook shut.

  “Nothing.”

  Rafferty's eyebrow climbed higher. "Oh, I see. Well, it doesn't seem like nothing. If you know of something more interesting than the fall of the Aurion Empire, by all means—enlighten us."

  Amelia's jaw tightened.

  "No? Very well." Rafferty uncrossed his arms. "Then I'll continue, Miss Swanson. If that's acceptable to you."

  From somewhere near the back of the room came whispers, then a stifled giggle. Bryony, probably. It always was.

  Ten minutes later, the bell shrieked for the last time that day. The whiteboard updated instantly, tomorrow’s timetable already locked and loaded. Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped, a cacophony of voices rising all at once. Bodies pressed through the doorway, and Amelia watched them float away through the glass. She wondered if it was just a coincidence that a group of fish was called a school.

  Marv waited by the door as she gathered her things, leaning against the glass, backpack slung over one shoulder, knee jutting out in his usual slouch. At the front, Rafferty kept his eyes down, making a careful study of rearranging things on his desk.

  Marv caught Amelia’s eye and gave a quick tilt of his head. You good?

  She smiled and nodded. They slipped out into the familiar current of the corridor.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Rafferty was on form today," Marv said as they turned the corner. "What were you doing anyway? It’s not like you to get chewed out in front of the class."

  "Nothing," she said defensively. "If you must know, I was thinking about what Professor Vale told us yesterday.”

  “Yeah. It was… a lot. To process, I mean. What are you thinking about—”

  A voice cut in from behind them, familiar in all the wrong ways.

  “You know, Swanson,” Bryony Thorburn said, “I don’t know how you manage to even screw up doing nothing. Rafferty made you look like a deer in headlights in there.”

  Poppy Maynard and Sienna Fields were at her shoulders, as always, one on each side, a half step behind. They giggled in unison, perfectly timed, like they’d been rehearsing it for weeks.

  Amelia glanced back and kept walking. Not these three. Not now.

  But their footsteps kept pace behind her.

  “You’re really good at that, though, aren’t you?” Bryony continued. “Just sitting there. Looking fragile. Hoping no one notices.”

  “Get lost, Bryony.”

  Amelia kept walking.

  The giggling stopped. She could feel a pause open up behind her—a moment of emptiness. Someone deciding whether to fill the gap or let it go.

  But Bryony never let anything go.

  “I mean, considering you spend your free time playing board games with crusty old men, it’s no surprise that you’re such a bumbling introvert.”

  “Okay. Nope.” Marv spun around, stepped in front of them, arms out wide. “Leave her alone, Bryony. She doesn’t need this. Not today.”

  Bryony’s gaze slid over to him, briefly amused. “What do you think about this, ladies? Scholarship boy seems to have finally found his voice.”

  “Maybe he hit puberty.”

  The corridor went quiet. All eyes snapped to Poppy.

  Marv looked horrified. Nobody else seemed to know what to do with their face.

  Poppy smiled, delighted with herself.

  “Thanks for that, Poppy. Great contribution.” Bryony’s tone was perfectly level. “Maybe just let me do the talking from now on, okay?” Her eyes snapped back to Amelia. “When are you going to fight your own battles anyway? First, you get your little friend to stick up for you. What next? You going to tell your parents?” A small shrug. “Actually, what good would that do? They’re probably nobodies. Just like you. My dad would—”

  Amelia pushed right past Marv, stepping inbetween him and Bryony—shoulders square, back straight. She went still. Very still.

  “We’ve taken a lot of your crap, Bryony.” Her voice was nothing more than a hissed whisper. “But you do not get to talk about my parents. Ever. Do you hear me?”

  Bryony’s chin lifted. The perfectly calibrated smile stayed in place, but she took half a step backwards.

  “Do it again.” Amelia moved in closer, tilting her head. “And I promise you’ll find out.”

  A silence opened up around them, despite the growing group of interested observers pressing forming a ring around them.

  Bryony’s eyes skimmed the crowd. Then moved to Poppy. Then Sienna. Finally, they landed back on Amelia.

  A pause stretched. She flicked her hair.

  “I’ve got better things to do than this.” She turned. “Poppy. Sienna. Come on. We’re leaving…” Bryony marched away. Poppy and Sienna fell in behind her, trading a slightly bemused look as they slinked away.

  The crowd that had closed ranks around them dissipated just as quickly as it had started.

  Amelia turned, Marv followed. Neither of them said anything. They walked down the corridor, through the big double doors, and out into the cold air.

  “Well.” He zipped up his jacket. “That was new.”

  Amelia didn’t answer.

  They stepped down from the school entrance, footsteps bouncing off concrete. Around them, students flooded through the turnstiles, cars fighting for parking spaces on the other side. Amelia paused at the bottom of the steps, glancing back at the building. Willowbrook High stood against the pale sky, gray brick and glass and the weight of a thousand small dramas. It looked smaller than it used to.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Marv asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Look, it’s Friday, Ames. We’re not gonna crack anything tonight, except maybe a couple of diet sodas at Charlie’s later on—what do you say?” He shrugged. “All this will still be there on Monday. Let’s just put it to the back of our minds… for one night.”

  She almost smiled. “I can’t, Marv.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Both, I guess. But, listen, I was thinking—maybe we can’t move things forward yet, but we could make a plan. Figure out what to do next. I want to go to the library tonight.”

  Marv stared her down. “You know it’s Friday night, right?”

  “I know.”

  “The library... you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “Is it even open on Friday night? Even Raymond must have better things to—”

  “It’s open, Marv.”

  “Okay,” he tucked his chin in. “Let’s go get the bus over there then.”

  “Listen—I think I’m gonna walk.”

  “Walk? Ames, it’s three miles.”

  “I know. I just… I need the air.”

  “Okay, I’ll come with you.”

  “Marv.” She met his eyes. “I just need to be on my own for a bit. Okay?”

  A pause, like he was waiting for the punchline to come.

  Eventually, he got the message and nodded. “Okay. I guess. I’ll go home, get changed, grab something to eat. See you there in two hours?”

  “Two hours. Yes.”

  “You certain you’re—”

  “I’m fine, Marv. See you there.”

  He held her gaze a moment longer. Then turned toward the bus stop.

  Amelia turned the other way and started walking.