Night pressed against my window like a question with no answer.
For the first time since Aria's spectacular escape, I was alone truly alone in my dormitory room, surrounded by the velvet hush of sleeping halls. The lamplight flickered over books stacked in teetering towers, shadows thrown by silken curtains and the fluttering of parchment on my desk. Outside, the castle's bells tolled the late hour, muffled by stone and distance, but inside my skull the clamor of the day rang on and on.
I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, knees drawn to my chest, staring at nothing in particular. The familiar trappings of my life felt suddenly alien a bedspread I'd chosen for its ridiculous purple tassels, a wardrobe stuffed with uniforms and cloaks I barely remembered buying, the chipped mug emblazoned with "World's Best Tyrant (In Training)." All of it was my life, but none of it felt real anymore.
