Isabelle's POV
The atmosphere at St. Aurelia had shifted from a cold war to a high-voltage cage match. While the school remained divided between the "Saints" and the "Devils," the Academy's curriculum marched on, demanding perfection despite the social wreckage.
Today was the Advanced Chemistry Invitational, a tradition where the top-tier students were pitted against each other in a live, high-speed laboratory quiz.
I stood at my lab station, the sharp, sterile scent of ethanol and the metallic tang of reagents filling the air. Across the aisle, Dmitri Volkov stood with his sleeves rolled up, revealing the lean muscle of his forearms. He looked less like a student and more like an apex predator disguised in a lab coat. Julien's seat was empty again, leaving the stage entirely to the two of us.
"The rules are absolute," Professor Thorne announced, pacing the center aisle. "I provide the molecular end-product. You provide the reaction sequence and execute the titration. Speed is a factor, but precision is the only currency."
The board lit up: C_{27}H_{44}O.
My mind sparked. Cholesterol synthesis. Acid-catalyzed hydration.
I reached for the flasks, my movements a blur of practiced grace. Beside me, I felt Dmitri's presence, a magnetic, disruptive force. He wasn't just working; he was testing me.
"You're fast, Isabelle," he murmured, his voice low enough to be a secret shared between us over the clinking of glassware.
"I have to be," I snapped, adjusting the burette with steady fingers.
He chuckled, a dark, rich sound as he began his own titration with terrifying efficiency. "Focus on the meniscus, Enigma. If you lose this, you lose the bragging rights to the entire science wing."
"I don't intend to lose," I whispered.
As the experiment progressed, the air between our stations seemed to thin. It became a dance of glass and fire. Our hands moved in near-perfect sync, reaching for reagents, calculating molarities on the fly. At one point, we both reached for the same bottle of silver nitrate positioned on the shared rack.
Our fingers brushed.
The spark was instantaneous, a jolt of electricity that had nothing to do with the chemicals on the table. I looked up, and for a second, the bustling lab went silent. There was only the searing heat of his skin and the dark, consuming intensity of his gaze. The attraction was no longer a hidden, whispering thing; it was a physical weight, undeniable and suffocating.
I pulled my hand away, my heart hammering a rhythm that was entirely unscientific. I finished my titration a split second before him, the solution turning the exact, faint shade of blush pink required.
"Done," I breathed.
Thorne checked the results. "Duval: 99.9% purity. Volkov: 99.8%. A victory for Miss Duval."
Dmitri didn't look angry. He looked... exhilarated. He leaned over my station, his eyes tracing the line of my throat. "You have a rare kind of brilliance, Isabelle. Don't ever let this place dull it."
Dmitri's POV
The victory in the lab was a momentary high, but the real world was waiting outside the classroom doors.
My father, Viktor Volkov, didn't visit St. Aurelia for parent-teacher conferences. He came only when something needed to be reshaped or erased. He was a man of cold iron and absolute silence, and his presence usually signaled a shift in the Academy's power structure.
I was walking Isabelle toward the library, a move of quiet, arrogant protection when the heavy mahogany doors of the administration wing swung open. My father stepped out, flanked by Director Alexandre Rousseau and a small retinue of advisors.
My father looked exactly as he always did: a pillar of ruthless Russian steel. But as his gaze swept the hall, it landed squarely on Isabelle.
The change was visceral.
The man who had never flinched in the face of absolute ruin went suddenly, unnervingly rigid. He stopped in his tracks, his face draining of color until he looked like a marble statue carved from ice.
"Elena?" my father whispered.
The name sounded like a ghost's breath. His voice, usually a commanding baritone, was thin and brittle. He took a staggering step forward, his eyes wide with a haunting, frantic disbelief that I had never seen in my life.
Isabelle froze, her hand tightening on her violin case. "My name is Isabelle, sir."
Viktor didn't seem to hear her. He reached out a trembling hand, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to touch her to see if she was real. The mighty Viktor Volkov was cracking in plain sight.
Director Alexandre Rousseau stepped in immediately, his expression unreadable but his movements swift. He placed a steadying hand on my father's shoulder, stepping between him and Isabelle with a polite, masking smile.
"My apologies, Miss Duval," the Director said smoothly, his voice a calm anchor. "Mr. Volkov is feeling a bit under the weather today. The stress of the board meetings can be quite taxing." He turned to my father, his tone shifting to something more firm. "Viktor, let's finish our discussion in my office. We have much to cover regarding the winter budget."
Director Rousseau guided my father away, the older man still looking back over his shoulder at Isabelle as if he were being pulled away from a vision.
I turned to Isabelle. She was trembling, her face as white as my father had been. The confusion in her eyes was heartbreaking.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice uncharacteristically soft. I stepped closer, blocking her view of the departing men. "My father is... he's been under a lot of pressure. Don't think too much about what he said. He clearly mistook you for someone else."
"He looked terrified, Dmitri," she whispered.
"He's just a man, Isabelle. Sometimes they see things that aren't there," I assured her, though my own heart was racing. "Everything is fine. Go to the library. I'll see you later."
Dmitri's POV
I didn't go to the library. I waited until the Director's office door closed, then I made my way to the private guest lounge where my father was being held.
I didn't knock. I walked in to find him sitting in a high-backed chair, a glass of neat vodka in his shaking hand. He looked like he had just seen his own execution.
"Who is Elena?" I demanded, standing in front of him.
My father took a long, jagged swallow of the drink. "She was a memory I thought I had erased, Dmitri. A girl who was never supposed to exist in this world again."
"She looks exactly like Isabelle," I said, my voice like a blade. "And Isabelle's mother was Elena Valois. You didn't just see a ghost, Father. You saw a bloodline."
My father looked up, a flash of his old, cold rage returning to his eyes. "She was the daughter of a king among men, Dmitri. A violinist who was supposed to be the jewel of our circle. But she chose a man who was more than a match for us. A man whose name we were forbidden to speak."
He looked at his hands, his voice dropping to a low, bitter rasp. "Isabelle's father wasn't a nobody. He was royalty in his own right, a prodigy whose status made even the Volkovs look like peasants. Your mother and he... they didn't just give up a crown. They built a world we couldn't touch. We tried to erase them. We thought it was over."
I stood there, the weight of the history settling into my bones. Isabelle wasn't just a scholarship student. She was the daughter of two legends, a noble prodigy and a disgraced queen.
I looked at my father, seeing his weakness for the first time. He hadn't just lost a girl; he had lost to a man he couldn't defeat.
"I'm not you, Father," I said, turning toward the door. "And I'm not going to let history repeat itself."
I needed to know more. I needed to know exactly who Isabelle's father was and why his name was a curse in these halls. The game wasn't about high school anymore. It was about a throne that had been left empty for eighteen years.
And I was going to be the one to put her back on it.