Eleven years earlier—
On the first day of the new term, Jaynara Stevens was late.
To be precise, she had made sure she would be late.
She had deliberately set her alarm for nine. Not six-thirty, not seven, not even eight. Nine.
When the alarm finally went off, she lay on her back and scratched absently at her head of natural curls, hair sticking up in every direction like a small bird's nest gone rogue. After a moment of lazy contemplation, she decided this had to count as standard-issue teenage rebellion. If you couldn't be difficult at sixteen, when else were you going to do it?
She padded slowly down the stairs.
The long dining table came into view first—the gleam of polished wood, the tall-backed chairs lined up like soldiers. Only one place had been set: a single plate, a single bowl, a solitary set of cutlery.
She exhaled, almost inaudibly.
Only then did her steps turn lighter.
"Jayna, come have some breakfast. It's the first day of school…"
A warm, familiar voice floated out from the kitchen.
Mrs Rose emerged a moment later, balancing a tray with porridge and a small selection of pastries. She had been with the family for years; to outsiders she was housekeeper, but to Jayna she was something closer to a second mother.
Seeing the household's little tyrant finally up and moving, she hurried forward.
"There you are," she said with a smile. "Quick, eat while it's hot."
"It's fine, Mrs Rose. On the first day they never really teach anything anyway," Jayna replied around a mouthful of pastry, her tone breezy. She had long since grown used to homeroom teachers' scoldings; they rolled off her like water.
Her eyes flicked toward the head of the table, that perpetually empty throne.
"When did he leave?" she asked.
Mrs Rose knew perfectly well who "he" was.
Because of everything that had happened between her parents, the relationship between the Mr. Stevens and his daughter had descended to something close to open warfare. He insisted on being at home for breakfast every Monday before flying out for business; she did everything in her power not to breathe the same air. Today's calculated lateness was almost certainly another small act of avoidance.
"Mr. Stevens had an eight o'clock flight," Mrs Rose said. "He left right after breakfast. Oh—and he asked me to give you this."
She held out an envelope.
Puzzled, Jayna took it and glanced at the neat handwriting on the front. Her father's script was as spare and uncompromising as the man himself.
Class 2–1. Don't be late.
"Tch."
Her lips curled.
Without a second thought, she crumpled the note into a ball and tossed it into the trash.
"Mrs Rose," she said, swallowing another bite, "how about we make a deal. You help cover for me and I don't go to school today. Then I'll just—"
"No," Mrs Rose cut in before the girl could finish.
She disappeared briefly into the hallway and came back with a jacket, draping it firmly over her shoulders. As she reached up, she paused, surprise flickering over her face.
"Jayn, have you grown again?" she said. "You're getting tall. It's hard to reach your shoulders now."
She measured her with her eyes, lips pursing. "You must be close to one-seventy by now."
Hearing that, Jayna immediately bent her knees and leaned against Mrs Rose like a spoiled child, all flashing eyes and mischief.
"Then in honor of me growing taller," she said sweetly, "how about you pretend you didn't see me secretly skipping school and… not tell my dad?"
"Nice try," Mrs Rose said, laughing as she righted her. "I'm going to drive you there myself. Hurry, we're going to be late."
She really didn't want any accidents happening on the first day of term. With this particular girl, "accident" included detouring to the arcade, getting caught by a teacher, and setting the whole staff room buzzing before noon.
She watched with resigned helplessness as Jayna took an eternity to put her shoes on, every movement radiating reluctance. She was not always like this, Mrs Rose thought. Once upon a time she had been easy to shepherd along.
"What are you thinking about?" Jayna asked, catching the look.
"Nothing."
Mrs Rose stooped to zip up the girl's backpack, smoothing the zipper all the way to the top. "Just… this new class of yours. I heard it's very hard to get into. The children there…"
"Oh, I know, I know," Jayna drawled, rolling her eyes theatrically. "They're all rich kids or prodigies. Arrogant, domineering, cold, heartless. You're worried I'll get bullied?"
She laughed, flashing her small, sharp tiger tooth of a canine.
"You'll scare me if you keep saying that."
"That's not what I meant," Mrs Rose protested. "I just hope you'll study properly and make some friends, that's all."
What she had almost said—I'm worried you'll be the one doing the bullying—she swallowed back.
There was no need to hit a teenager over the head with that reality.
After all, this little ancestor rarely came out on the losing end of anything.
Make some friends, huh.
We'll see, Jayna thought. That kind of thing depended on fate.
She dawdled all the way from the school gate to the teaching building, her steps unhurried, posture loose. By the time she reached her floor, the reporting period had long since ended.
Which meant: front door, absolutely not. Back door it was.
She stopped just outside the door of Class 2–1 and stood there, rooted, for a long moment.
From inside, she could hear the voice of the homeroom teacher—female, firm, methodical—calling names and asking students to introduce themselves.
So they were in the middle of self-introductions. Perfect.
She pressed her tongue against her teeth.
At the end of last semester, during the final math exam, she had written only one character—"Solve"—under the last few big questions, and then handed the paper in. For that to be the performance that got her placed in the top class of the year, there was only one possible explanation: her father's business card, discreetly placed on the principal's desk.
The thought made her jaw tighten.
"Hey there. Which class are you in? Is this your class?"
A voice sounded from behind her.
She turned to see a balding middle-aged man in a dark suit and thick black-framed glasses. His hairline had retreated so far that the remaining fringe clung desperately to the sides of his head, leaving a proud, polished expanse in the middle.
She knew exactly who he was.
Mr. Quinn, the discipline director—better known among the students as "Chrome Dome Quinn."
She straightened up at once and put on her most obedient expression.
"Mr. Quinn," she murmured, almost whispering, "I… don't dare go in. I'm late."
"What's your name? Are you in this class?"
He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, eyeing her with suspicion.
The girl in front of him did not look like a model student. Long curls tumbled over her shoulders, her shirt collar was undone at the top button, and her backpack hung off one shoulder in a way that screamed nonchalance.
Jayna lifted a brow. She could practically see the thought process ticking behind his glasses: trouble.
"This is my class," she said, pointing at the closed door. "My name's Jaynara Stevens."
The name made Mr. Quinn pause.
He looked her up and down again, more carefully this time. He knew that name—knew that the principal himself had arranged her placement. He didn't know the details about her father, but "formidable" was the word the staff used when they lowered their voices.
If the principal was willing to give that man face, then so was he.
He rapped on the classroom door and gave her shoulder a companionable pat.
"Ms. Harper," he said when the door opened, "this student ran into a few things on the way and ended up late. I'll leave her to your care."
The homeroom teacher, Ms. Harper, looked from him to the girl at his side.
She scanned the roster in her hand.
The last name on the list—Student Number 40—matched the girl in front of her: Jaynara Stevens. Her grades, however… the gap between her and the second-worst student in the class was not small.
Ms. Harper's lips parted as if she wanted to say something, then closed again.
"I'll take it from here," she said instead, with a polite nod.
She stepped aside and beckoned Jayna in, leading her toward the front of the room.
"Everyone," she announced from beside the podium, "this is our new classmate, Jaynara. Please introduce yourself."
Jaynara Stevens knew how to stand in front of people. Even in her school uniform she was striking—a small, neat oval face framed by dark curls, black brows drawing gentle arches over bright eyes, a tiny teardrop mole at the corner of one eye, and a dimple that appeared when she smiled, softening everything.
She felt dozens of eyes on her. The weight of them made her shoulders tense just slightly.
She smiled anyway, a little stiff around the edges.
"Hi, everyone," she said. "My name is Jaynara Stevens. Please take care of me from now on."
Her voice was light, almost careless, but there was a faint wariness in her gaze as it moved over the room.
Class 2–1 was famous across the school. It was where academic excellence went to sit up straight—kids who had both the family background and the grades, the set of shining stars everyone else was meant to look up to.
She could feel their curiosity, the prodding evaluation behind their looks.
No one had seen her name on the ranking lists—not in the top fifty, not in the top hundred. And yet here she was, standing at the front of their room.
For a heartbeat, the class held its breath. Then one student, quicker than the rest, began to clap. The sound spread across the room, palms coming together in what passed for a welcome—warm enough on the surface, perfunctory underneath.
Or so it seemed to Jayna.
"Jaynara, you can pick one of the remaining seats," Ms. Harper said.
Being the last to arrive meant being stuck with leftovers.
Naturally, she headed to what she considered the best of those leftovers: the back row, by the window, in the corner. The most defensible position in any classroom.
Except someone had already taken it.
She blinked. The window seat, her window seat in her heart, was occupied.
The desk beside it, though, was empty.
She glanced quickly around the room. The vacant seat next to the podium at the front was also still unclaimed—no surprise there. Who wanted to sit under a teacher's nose all day? Other than that, every seat was filled.
So why was this one empty?
Did everyone just… avoid whoever sat there?
She felt a tiny thrill of curiosity. Then a sigh. Then acceptance.
"Okay," she said aloud, more to herself than anyone else.
She swung her backpack from her shoulder, letting it hang against the desk as she slid into the last row, second seat from the window.
As she walked down the aisle, she could feel the looks changing slightly.
Not just curiosity this time. Something more complicated. Almost… sympathetic.
She pretended not to notice.
Once seated, she placed her hands obediently on the desk, fingers drumming quietly. Then she turned her head.
She had expected to see a boy claiming the coveted window corner. It would have fit the narrative—a lanky, half-bored troublemaker, maybe, owning the back row like a throne.
Instead, she found a girl.
Pale skin. Clean, composed features. Hair pulled back, not a strand out of place.
She was reading with the kind of focus that made the rest of the room disappear.
"Hey," Jayna whispered, lowering her voice so Ms. Harper wouldn't hear. "Looks like we're desk partners. I'm Jaynara. What's your name?"
She was genuinely pleased it was a girl; somehow that always made things easier.
The girl turned her head just a fraction. Her eyes, a cool, clear dark, slid over Jayna's face.
Then she looked back down at her book without saying a word.
"…"
The silence rang louder than the applause had.
Jayna stared for a few seconds, caught somewhere between offense and confusion.
Everyone in her life talked to her. Teachers, neighbors, strangers. Even people who disliked her at least reacted.
This—being simply ignored—was a first.
A small, prickly knot of irritation tightened in her chest.
Fine. She could take a hint. For the moment.
She forced herself to look away, pulled out her textbook, and opened it to a random page.
Within minutes, her mind had gone somewhere else entirely.
In her head, she was raising a wine cup to clink it against Bacchus' in some rowdy, impossible banquet, laughing, about to drink—
And just as the cup touched her lips, someone snatched it away.
"Give it back…" she mumbled, half under her breath.
A sharp flick landed squarely on her forehead.
Calista Renner narrowed her eyes at her across the aisle.
"Wake up," she hissed.
"Ow!"
Jayna clapped a hand dramatically to her forehead, eyes wide with mock outrage. "Calista, what was that for?"
"For being you," Calista said, arms folding. "Uncle Stevens specifically asked me to keep an eye on you. And here you are—first day of school and already late."
"No I wasn't. There was traffic," Jayna said immediately.
Calista gave her a look that said, Do you hear yourself?
They had grown up together, the textbook definition of childhood sweethearts—only in their case, it was two little girls sharing snacks and homework. Calista had always been the golden child: top marks, polite to adults, teachers' darling, the model "someone else's kid" parents sighed over.
She had also, from grade school onward, been the one who cleaned up most of the messes left in Jayna's wake.
"Don't look at me like that," Jayna laughed, shrugging off the accusation with practiced ease. She glanced toward the empty chair beside her. Her mysterious deskmate had vanished sometime during the period. "Hey, why the frown? What's wrong with this seat?"
"You really picked this one?" Calista muttered.
"Did I have a choice, my lady?"
"There's an empty seat right by the podium."
"Please," Jayna said. "I have no desire to breathe in chalk dust all day. And my eyesight's fine. Back here is perfect."
She thumped the desk lightly with the heel of her hand, satisfied.
Calista sighed.
"All right, but did you go and embarrass yourself?" she asked, unable to keep the laughter completely out of her voice.
She knew exactly what Jayna was like: bright, chatty, incapable of letting silence sit for more than five seconds. The idea of her trying to chat up the ice sculpture by the window was almost too much.
"I did not," Jayna said quickly.
Her pride would not allow the truth out of her mouth.
Calista raised a brow but let it pass.
"You really know how to pick them," she said. "Do you even know who you're sitting next to? That's Ginevra Volkova. Top of the entire year. Her name says it all—cold as a river in winter. Rumor is she's very hard to get along with. That's why no one wants to be her desk partner. First, you constantly feel dumb by comparison. Second, people joke you'll freeze to death."
She nudged Jayna's arm. "May the gods help you. Next time they change seating, I'll volunteer to sit with you, okay?"
"Cold to the point of being impossible to deal with?" Jayna scoffed. "I don't buy it."
"Just wait. You'll see."
When Calista left, Jayna turned back to the now-empty desk beside her. The books were stacked neatly, edges aligned, as if their owner hated disorder on a cellular level.
Difficult people were difficult with everyone, she thought.
But she was… well, she was herself. Charming. Funny. Adorable.
There was no way she'd fail to win over one frosty classmate.
Reality, however, was not especially interested in her self-confidence.
Over the next few days, every attempt she made at conversation slid off Ginevra Volkova like rain off oiled glass.
It wasn't that Ginevra couldn't speak.
Whenever Ms. Harper called on her, she answered with quick, precise, flawless responses, her voice smooth and steady. She could break down a physics problem in three sentences and walk the class through a chemistry equation without a single hesitation.
But when Jayna tried—
"Hey, Ginevra, what did you get for number three?"
Those dark eyes would lift, look at her for half a second, expression unreadable.
Then drop back to whatever she was doing, leaving the question hanging unanswered in the air.
"Ginevra, do you have an extra pen?"
A pause. A flick of her gaze toward the pencil case.
Still nothing.
After several days of this, something inside Jayna snapped.
"Hey, Ginevra Volkova," she muttered under her breath one afternoon, leaning closer, "I'm talking to you, you know. We're desk partners—whether we look up or down, we're going to be seeing each other. Do you really dislike me that much?"