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"Mara. Don't drink that wine."
Ivy caught the girl's sleeve before Mara reached the ceremony hall. Two hours. That was all Mara had left before she choked on her own blood in a basement corridor.
Mara looked down at Ivy's hand, then at Ivy's face. "Let go."
"Not until you hear me. Don't drink anything tonight. Especially wine. Especially if someone offers it in private."
Blonde curls framed Mara's sharp face. Her traveling cloak was too expensive for the crowded academy corridor, and her smile had the polished edge of someone used to being obeyed.
"Do I know you?"
"No. But you're gonna listen anyway."
Mara pulled once. Ivy held on.
"You're making a scene."
"I'm trying to stop you from dying."
That wiped the smile off Mara's face.
Students streamed around them toward the ceremony hall. Nobody slowed down. Nobody noticed the noble heiress and the scholarship student locked in a quiet tug-of-war beside the doors.
Mara lowered her voice. "Who sent you?"
"Nobody."
"Then why are you warning me?"
Because Ivy had watched Mara collapse in a basement hallway. Because the girl's tongue had swollen shut while Ivy clawed at her throat. Because the loop had reset before Ivy could find the killer.
She couldn't say any of that. Not yet.
"There's a rumor about poisoned drinks at orientation," Ivy said. "A prank that went bad last year. I don't know who's behind it. I do know you shouldn't accept anything from a stranger."
Mara studied her. "That's your explanation?"
"It's the one that'll keep you from calling a proctor."
For a moment, Mara's eyes flicked toward the hall. Then she looked back at Ivy's grip.
"If I agree, will you let go?"
"Say you'll avoid the wine."
"Fine. I'll avoid the wine."
Ivy released her.
Mara rubbed her sleeve. "You'd better be right."
"I hope I'm not."
Mara walked into the hall.
One down.
Ivy turned—and hit a solid chest.
A hand closed around her elbow before she lost her balance. Warm fingers. A firm grip just above her pulse.
Her body recognized him before her mind caught up.
Leon.
The same hand had held her steady beside a morgue table in the erased loop. The same thumb had pressed against her wrist while they decoded alchemical formulas over a dead body.
His face held none of it.
"Watch where you're going," he said.
"You could've moved."
His mouth tightened. "You ran into me."
"You always this helpful?"
"Only with strangers."
He let go and stepped around her.
"Leon."
He stopped but didn't turn. "Have we met?"
The question landed harder than his grip.
"Not yet," Ivy said.
He glanced back. His eyes lingered on her face for half a second, as if some part of him almost remembered. Then he walked into the ceremony hall.
Ivy followed before she could talk herself out of it.
The ceremony played out almost exactly as she remembered. Headmaster Caron's speech. The sorting rituals. Candles burning along the stone walls. Students whispering whenever a name was called.
Ivy sat in the back row and watched Mara instead of the stage.
Mara kept looking at the untouched wineglass beside her chair.
Good. The warning had stuck.
Half an hour later, Mara stood and slipped toward the washroom.
Ivy waited ten seconds.
"Stay seated," the student beside her whispered. "The headmaster said nobody leaves during the oath."
"Tell him I had an emergency."
"You don't look sick."
"I didn't say it was my emergency."
She slipped out before he could answer.
The corridor outside the hall was empty. Ivy crossed it fast, boots quiet against the marble. She reached the washroom just as Mara stepped through the door.
A second-year in formal robes blocked her path.
"Lady Frost," he said. "Compliments of House Valen. A welcome gift for our new scholarship recipients."
He held out a crystal cup filled with dark red wine.
Mara hesitated.
Ivy saw the decision forming on her face—the polite smile, the hand lifting, the fingers reaching for the stem.
"Don't," Ivy snapped.
The second-year turned.
Ivy slapped the cup out of his hand.
Crystal hit marble. Wine splashed over the floor and soaked into the pale grout.
Mara jerked back. "What the hell?"
"That was poisoned."
The boy stared at the broken cup. "Are you insane?"
"Maybe. Smell it."
"You just assaulted me."
"And I saved her life."
Ivy crouched and touched one finger to the wine. She brought it close to her nose.
Iron. Bitter almond. Something sharper underneath.
"Belladonna," she said. "And a second compound. Fast-acting. It would've stopped her heart in under a minute."
Mara's face went pale. "You know poisons?"
"I know this one."
The second-year backed away. "I was told it was ceremonial wine."
"By who?"
"A professor's assistant. I don't know his name. Dark robes. Academy pin. He said House Valen wanted the scholarship students included."
"You didn't check the bottle?"
"Why would I?"
"Because you were handing it to someone you wanted dead."
His mouth fell open. "I didn't know!"
"Then help me find the assistant."
"I don't know where he went."
Mara grabbed Ivy's wrist. "You're both going to explain this. Now."
"Later. Move."
"Don't order me around."
"Mara, if you stay here arguing, whoever poured that wine gets another chance."
Mara looked at the spill.
Then at Ivy.
"Where are we going?"
"Back to the hall. Find Headmaster Caron. Tell him the east wing needs to be locked down."
"The east wing?"
A scream cut through the corridor.
High. Sharp. Gone too fast.
Ivy's fingers slipped from Mara's wrist.
Mara caught her sleeve. "You know that sound."
"Go to Caron."
"What happened last time?"
Ivy stared at her.
Mara's grip tightened. "You said this wasn't your first warning. What happened last time?"
Another sound came from the east wing—a heavy crash, followed by a muffled groan.
Ivy pulled free. "Someone died. I'm not letting it happen again."
"Then I'm coming with you."
"No."
"You don't get to save my life and then leave me blind."
"Find the headmaster!"
Ivy ran before Mara could answer.
The east wing was closed during orientation. Faculty offices. Private laboratories. Wards strong enough to throw a first-year through a wall.
She took the servants' stairs two at a time. At the landing, a lock clicked behind her.
Ivy spun.
No one stood there.
"Great," she muttered. "Love that."
She reached the alchemy prep room and shoved the door open.
A boy lay facedown beside the workbench, his new academy robes soaked in something dark. Sulfur and burnt sugar coated the back of Ivy's throat.
She dropped beside him and rolled him over.
"Garrett."
Garrett Voss. Loud, arrogant, impossible to miss. Alive until midnight in the last loop.
His lips were blue. His tongue had swollen against his teeth. Ivy pressed two fingers to his neck.
Nothing.
"No, no, no."
She checked again. Still nothing.
On the workbench, empty vials sat beside a shattered beaker. A scrap of parchment lay half burned beneath them.
Ivy picked it up.
Her blood turned cold.
The formula on the page was hers—the neutralizer she'd written for nightshade compounds. Someone had copied her handwriting, or stolen the page straight from her journal.
Footsteps struck the corridor.
Fast. Deliberate.
Ivy shoved the parchment into her pocket and sprinted after them.
A flash of black robes vanished around the corner.
"Stop!"
The figure didn't slow.
Ivy turned left at the three-way split, nearly slipping on the polished floor. Storage rooms blurred past her. At the end of the passage, a tall window overlooked the inner courtyard.
Empty.
She slammed both hands against the glass.
A hooded figure stood below.
It was looking directly at her.
The stranger lifted one hand. Silver symbols twisted around their fingers, too clean and complex for a first-year spell.
Ivy stepped back.
The figure pointed at her wrist.
Her scar flared hot.
New symbols crawled across her skin, silver replacing the old black mark. The pain punched up her arm and locked her knees.
"What did you do?" she shouted through the glass.
The hooded figure's lips moved.
Ivy couldn't hear the words, but she knew the shape of her name.
Then the figure vanished.
A pale message appeared across the window, written in glowing frost.
FIVE HOURS LEFT.
Ivy pressed her palm to the glass. Cold stabbed through her skin.
Five hours until midnight. Five hours until the loop reset and erased everything she'd learned tonight.
Unless she found the killer first.
She ran for the main building.
Selina might believe her. Leon might not remember the morgue, but he could still recognize a trap. Ivy needed both of them before the killer changed targets again.
She rounded the corner—and stopped.
The bell tower door stood open.
She'd passed it twice in the last loop. Both times, it had been locked behind professor-grade wards.
Now the hinges hung broken, and a thin line of ritual light shone between the stones.
Someone inside spoke her name.
Not aloud.
The voice slid through her skull, the same voice she'd heard each time the loop reset.
*Ivy Kline. Come up. We need to talk.*
Ivy took one step toward the tower.
From the ceremony hall, Mara screamed.
Ivy looked over her shoulder.
The tower waited in the dark. Mara's voice rose again, closer this time, followed by the scrape of something heavy being dragged across stone.
The voice in Ivy's head whispered, *Choose.*
Her scar burned hotter.
Ivy grabbed the tower door with one hand and reached for the hall with the other. The lock beneath her fingers clicked open, and the door began to—