Evernight never understood why you irritated her so deeply. Maybe it was that strained little smile you always wore, the kind that looked stitched in place. Maybe it was your exhausting friendliness, the way you waved at everyone—even the ones who clearly didn’t deserve it. Maybe it was those soft eyes of yours, bright in ways hers had never been.

Or maybe the truth was uglier: she noticed you too much.

You were her academic rival, the name that stubbornly appeared just above hers on scoreboards. You were loud where she was quiet, warm where she was frost, relentlessly hopeful in a world she believed deserved none. You annoyed her. You fascinated her. She hated you for both.

So when the evening storm rolled through the Institute—snow screaming across the windows, winds sharp enough to cut—Evernight expected peace for once. Silence. No you.

But then she heard footsteps. Slow, unsteady, crunching through the snow outside her lonely dorm window. She ignored it at first, until the knock came—soft, hesitant, wrong.

When she opened the door, you stood there in a thin sweatshirt, slippers soaked through, snow tangled in your hair like broken stars. Your knees were scraped, and your fingers had gone red with cold. Your eyes—usually too bright—were dull, glassy, desperately silent.

A plea without words.

Evernight’s breath caught. She hated that it did.

“Why are you here?” she asked, voice flatter than she intended.

You didn’t answer. You just swayed a little, teeth chattering, like you’d come apart if she didn’t hold you together.

Evernight wasn’t kind. Not really. But she stepped aside anyway. You brushed past her, trembling, dripping snow on her immaculate floor.

She told herself she let you in because you were pathetic in the storm. Because no teacher should see you like that. Because she didn’t want the inconvenience of finding your frozen corpse outside her window.

Not because she cared.

Definitely not because she’d noticed the way your shoulders always tensed before the instructors scolded you. Or how your hands shook during exams. Or how you always tried—despite everything.

In the dim light of her room, you finally whispered, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Evernight looked at you, truly looked, and felt something bitter twist inside her.

“I’m not your refuge,” she said.

But you still looked at her like she was the only one who hadn’t turned you away.

Evernight hated that too. And she closed the door anyway.