The Blackwood wing smelled like old money and quiet threats.
Seraphina felt it the moment the doors closed behind her—an oppressive stillness that pressed against her ears, against her thoughts. The air was cooler here, scented faintly with cedar and something metallic she couldn't place. Not blood. Not quite. More like power left too long in a sealed room.
"This is where you'll stay."
Lucien's voice came from behind her, unhurried, as if he hadn't just altered the trajectory of her life.
She turned slowly.
The corridor stretched endlessly in both directions, lined with oil portraits whose eyes seemed to follow her movement. Men in tailored suits. Women draped in silk and jewels. All of them beautiful. All of them hollow.
"Stay?" she echoed. "Or be kept?"
A pause.
Lucien studied her the way one might study a locked door—not with frustration, but calculation. "You're perceptive," he said again. "You should learn when not to be."
She crossed her arms, refusing to shrink beneath his gaze. "You should learn that ownership isn't the same as control."
Something flickered in his eyes then. Not anger. Interest.
He stepped aside and gestured toward a set of double doors at the far end of the hall. "Your room."
It was larger than any space she'd ever slept in. High ceilings. Tall windows framed by heavy curtains. A four-poster bed dressed in black linen. A sitting area with a fireplace that hadn't been lit in years.
Nothing personal.
Nothing warm.
"This was prepared quickly," Lucien said, watching her reaction. "You'll want for nothing."
She laughed softly. "Except freedom."
"That," he replied, "was never an option."
She turned to face him fully. "You enjoy this."
His expression didn't change. "Enjoyment implies indulgence. This is duty."
"Then you're very good at pretending you don't like it."
For the first time, he smiled.
It was brief. Sharp. Gone too fast to be reassuring.
"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, you'll be introduced properly."
"To who?" she asked.
"The rest of your cage."
The door closed behind him before she could respond.
Sleep didn't come easily.
Every sound felt amplified—the tick of an unseen clock, the whisper of wind against glass, the soft echo of footsteps passing in the corridor long after midnight.
She rose eventually, padding barefoot to the window. The academy grounds stretched below, bathed in moonlight. Perfect hedges. Stone paths. Everything manicured into submission.
Just like the people.
Her fingers brushed the faint scar at her wrist, a habit she hadn't broken since childhood. Her mother's voice echoed in her memory, sharp and urgent.
Never let them decide who you are.
Seraphina exhaled slowly.
Too late for that.
Morning arrived with a knock sharp enough to rattle her nerves.
A woman entered without waiting for permission—tall, elegant, dressed in charcoal gray. Her gaze swept Seraphina from head to toe with professional detachment.
"I'm Mara," she said. "I manage the Circle's… investments."
"I'm not an investment," Seraphina replied.
Mara's lips curved faintly. "You are now."
She placed a black velvet box on the table and opened it. Inside lay a necklace—a thin chain of dark metal bearing a small crest etched in gold.
"The mark," Mara said. "You'll wear it at all times."
Seraphina stared at it. "And if I don't?"
Mara met her gaze evenly. "Then Lucien will come himself."
The threat didn't need elaboration.
Seraphina lifted the necklace and fastened it around her neck, the metal cool against her skin. The weight of it settled instantly—subtle, constant, impossible to ignore.
"Good," Mara said. "You're learning."
Lucien was waiting for her in the courtyard.
Students moved around them, laughing, whispering, living as if the world wasn't quietly dividing them into rulers and sacrifices. Conversations faltered as Seraphina approached. Eyes followed her. Some curious. Some resentful.
All knowing.
"You're marked," Lucien said, his gaze dropping briefly to the crest at her throat.
"Like cattle," she replied.
"Like a warning," he corrected. "To others."
"And to me?"
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "To remind you who intervenes when this world turns on you."
She looked up at him then, really looked. At the shadows beneath his eyes. At the tension he carried like armor.
"You're not protecting me," she said softly. "You're containing me."
His jaw tightened.
"Be careful," he murmured. "People who confuse those two don't survive long."
Seraphina smiled.
"Then you should be very careful with me."
For a moment, something dangerous passed between them—recognition, perhaps. Or challenge.
Lucien straightened. "Come. The Circle expects you."
As they walked side by side into the heart of the academy, Seraphina understood one thing with chilling clarity:
She hadn't been chosen because she was weak.
She had been chosen because she wasn't.
— End of Chapter Two