Chapter 88: Someone Wearing Her Face

Astrid

"We tell Aldrich," Josh said immediately.

"No," Eliza said.

"Eliza—"

"No."

I understood immediately. The academy already suspected the transferred students. Whispers everywhere. Watching eyes. An academy authorization registered under her name, connected to sabotage. If Aldrich got involved before we had anything else, she became the easiest answer.

"But keeping this to ourselves isn’t smart either," Josh said.

"Neither is handing someone a reason to arrest me."

"You said we’d find out who registered the pass," Eliza said to me.

"We will."

"Then we start with the classroom," Criston said. "Before someone cleans the corridor."

We walked back through the quiet hallway, classes still in session, a professor’s voice drifting from behind a closed door. My skin prickled as we approached the same stretch of corridor where I’d found the note the night before.

Josh stopped suddenly, eyes closed, expression serious.

"What?" I asked.

He took a slow breath. "Someone was here."

"Brilliant deduction," Criston said.

"I’m serious."

He crouched near the floor, explaining quietly. Several familiar scents, students who regularly used the corridor, nothing unusual. Then his brows drew together.

"This one is different."

"Different how?" Eliza asked.

"I don’t recognize it."

That alone was strange, given how long he’d been at the academy. He followed the trail three steps, four, then stopped. "It ends."

"People leave," Criston said.

"No, you don’t understand." He pointed at the floor, then further ahead. "It’s here. Then here." Another step. "Then nothing."

"Maybe they went into a classroom," I said.

"I’d still smell them."

Cold crawled up my arms. "What are you saying?"

"Someone was standing here," he said. "And then they weren’t."

We entered the empty classroom, and I finally forced myself to say what I’d been hiding. "There’s something I didn’t tell you."

"I knew it," Josh said.

I pulled out the folded note and handed it to him. He read it aloud, eyes widening. "You had this?"

"I didn’t know if it was real."

"It’s literally in your hand."

Criston took it next, unsurprised. "You knew," I said.

"I assumed you were hiding something."

Eliza studied the paper carefully, running her finger just above it without touching. A faint warmth moved through the air. "There was magic used here," she said.

"On paper?" Josh asked.

"Yes." She looked up. "This isn’t mine."

"Can you tell whose it is?" Criston asked.

She explained magic wasn’t like handwriting, that she couldn’t identify a caster from a trace alone unless she knew their signature well. But she was certain of one thing. It wasn’t hers.

"Could someone use magic to impersonate you?" Criston asked.

"Not exactly," she said, then, at Josh’s skeptical look, "They can’t magically become me. But they can make you believe they are."

My mind went straight to Estelle. Criston noticed immediately.

"You’re thinking of someone."

"No."

"You’re lying."

"Stop doing that."

Eliza explained witchcraft and illusion abilities worked differently, both affecting perception in their own way, one hiding or distorting details, the other creating convincing images.

"Could someone make a fake authorization pass?" I asked.

"It could look real," Eliza said.

"Long enough to use," Criston added.

"But the system should recognize the difference," Eliza said, "unless someone had access to the real information."

That quieted us. Someone hadn’t just used magic or illusion. They understood Moonshade’s systems well enough to manipulate them. Josh broke the heavy silence, asking Eliza why she hadn’t told us about her family before.

"Because I barely know you," she said.

He nodded, surprisingly gentle. "Fair. Honestly, I wouldn’t tell me anything either."

I laughed. Eliza almost smiled. "But we’re being stalked by someone using your identity now," Josh continued. "So I think we’re upgrading from strangers."

"That’s your version of friendship?" I asked.

"It’s worked so far."

"Don’t make this sentimental," Criston muttered.

"You’re jealous because nobody likes you," Josh told him.

"I read that thought before you said it."

"And you still let me say it?"

"I enjoy watching you embarrass yourself."

I laughed, genuine and warm, and for the first time since the challenge, we felt like a group rather than four labels forced together.

Then something moved outside. I looked toward the window. Nothing. I turned back, Criston still talking, Josh complaining, Eliza setting the note down. Then I saw her. At the end of the hallway.

Eliza, completely still, dark hair over one shoulder, arms at her sides, staring directly at me.

My heart pounded. "Eliza." The real Eliza looked up beside me. "What?"

I pointed. "There."

Everyone turned. The hallway was empty.

"What?" Josh asked.

"She was there."

"Who?" Eliza asked.

I turned toward her in confusion. "You."

Silence. "What exactly did you see?" Criston asked. "Eliza," I said. "Standing at the end of the hallway."

"Did she speak?" He asked.

"No." I answered.

"Move?" He added.

"No."

"Look away?"

"No." I rolled my eyes.

Eliza went pale, standing slowly.

"What?" I asked.

"That wasn’t an illusion," she said finally.

"How do you know?"

"Because I can’t feel illusion magic."

"What does that mean?" Josh asked.

She looked at me. "If someone showed you me, they weren’t trying to trick your eyes."

"Then what were they doing?" Criston asked.

Eliza’s face had gone completely still. She looked directly at me. "They were trying to make you think you saw me."

"What’s the difference?" I asked.

Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "An illusion changes what you see." A pause. "Something else changes what you believe you saw."

I looked back toward the empty hallway, cold spreading through my entire body. Because suddenly the note felt different. The sabotage felt different. Even last night’s meeting felt different.

How much of it had actually happened the way I remembered? And how much of it had someone simply made me believe?

My hand closed slowly around the edge of the desk.

Josh’s voice came from somewhere beside me, quieter than I’d ever heard it. "So we don’t actually know what’s real anymore."

Nobody answered him. Criston kept his eyes fixed on the empty corridor, like he expected the figure to reappear if he stared long enough. Eliza hadn’t moved at all, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

I thought about every version of the last two days I’d trusted completely, and wondered how many of them had actually happened.