Chapter 41: THE SILVER PIN

Georgia

Mandi picked my dress like she was arming me for battle, which, in hindsight, she was.

Gala night arrives faster than I’m ready for. Four days pass with Puck’s words turning over and over in my head, *I am trying to keep you alive*, without landing on anything close to an explanation. I’ve replayed the moment so many times that the words have started to lose their shape, becoming sound without meaning, the way any phrase does when you turn it over too long. And now there’s no more time to sit with it. Mandi and Alexa descend on our dorm room that evening with a garment bag, a makeup kit the size of a small suitcase, and an intensity that feels less like typical pre-party excitement and more like preparation for something neither of them is willing to name outright.

"This one," Mandi says, voice bright with false cheer, pulling a deep green dress from the bag and holding it up against me with a critical eye, turning me slightly toward the mirror. "The color’s right. Trust me."

"Right for what?" I ask, watching her reflection instead of my own.

"For you." She’s already moving on, already reaching for a pair of shoes to match, and I let the deflection slide, mostly because I’m too tired to chase down one more half answer tonight. Exhaustion has settled into me these past few days, a bone-deep weariness that has nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with carrying questions I can’t put down.

They work on me with a kind of focused precision that feels almost clinical. Alexa does my hair in careful, deliberate sections, her fingers quick and sure, while Mandi fusses over the dress’s fit with more attention than any school dance should reasonably require, tugging at seams, smoothing fabric that’s already smooth. There’s a rhythm to it that feels rehearsed, practiced, like they’ve done this exact routine before. Some other girl in some other year sat in this same chair with the same unanswered questions pressing against her ribs. I catch them exchanging looks more than once, quick and murmured, words passed between them too low for me to fully catch.

"Did you get the-" Mandi starts, voice dropping low, glancing toward Alexa.

"Already handled," Alexa answers, tone clipped and final, cutting her off smoothly, and neither of them elaborates further, both returning to their tasks like the exchange never happened at all.

"What are you two not telling me?" I ask, watching them in the mirror.

"Nothing," Mandi says, words tumbling out too fast, pinning a loose curl into place with more force than necessary. "Just gala jitters. It’s a big night."

"It’s a school dance," I say, flat, refusing to let it go that easily.

"It’s a big night," she repeats, firmer this time, warning threaded under the words, and something in her tone makes me let the subject drop even though every instinct in me says there’s more to it than she’s willing to admit. I’ve learned, over these past months, to recognize the silence that means a person has decided something is not mine to know.

I notice Alexa glancing toward the window more than once as she works, her attention drifting away from my hair every few minutes to look out at the darkening sky beyond the glass, toward the tree line just visible past the edge of campus. The sun sinks fast, the last of the light bleeding orange and gray behind Rosethorn Forest, and each time she looks, something tightens almost imperceptibly around her eyes before she catches herself and returns her focus to me. I’ve spent enough time in this school learning to read the faces of people who are frightened and pretending not to be.

"Everything okay?" I ask, watching her in the mirror’s reflection.

"Fine," she says, smile warm and practiced, the same careful deflection I’ve come to recognize from her over the past few months. "Just want to make sure we’re done before it gets too late."

"Why does it matter what time it is?" I press, my stomach tightening.

"Big night," Mandi says again, quick to cut in before Alexa can answer, and the two of them share another glance that I catch but can’t decode.

By the time they finish, I look genuinely striking in the mirror, the green dress fitted perfectly, my hair styled in soft, careful waves I never could have managed on my own. I should feel excited. Instead there’s a low, persistent unease sitting under my ribs, the same feeling I’ve had every time this school hands me something beautiful and dangerous at once. The girl in the mirror looks confident, even radiant, but I know better than to trust what Rosethorne lets me see of myself.

"One more thing," Mandi says, reaching into her bag and pulling out something small, catching the lamplight as she holds it up.

It’s a pin, delicate and silver, shaped like a small crescent, simple and unassuming against her palm.

"For luck," she says, voice softening, stepping forward to fasten it carefully near the neckline of my dress, her fingers precise and steady despite the strange gravity settling over her expression.

"What is it, actually?" I ask, studying her face for the crack in the performance.

"Just a pin," she says, breezy on the surface, smoothing the fabric around it once it’s fastened, her tone light in a way that doesn’t match the careful seriousness of the last hour. "Family tradition. Every girl gets one before a big Rosethorne event."

"Mandi." I say her name like a question she can’t dodge twice.

"You’ll be fine," she says, gaze sliding away from mine, not quite answering, stepping back to admire her work instead. "Better than fine. You look incredible."

*She’s lying,* I think, the certainty settling cold and immediate in my chest. *Or not lying. Just not telling me everything. Same thing, most days, in this place.*

I glance down at the pin, small and unremarkable against the green fabric of my dress, and reach up to touch it without really thinking, my fingertips brushing lightly against the metal.

It’s cold. Not room temperature cold, not the ordinary coolness of metal against skin. Genuinely cold, a sharp, biting chill that seeps into my fingertips the second I make contact, spreading up through my hand before I can pull away, the kind of cold that has no business existing in a warm dorm room in early winter with the heater running steadily in the corner.

"Mandi, what *is* this thing, actually-" I start, alarm sharpening my voice, looking up at her, but she’s already turning away, gathering up brushes and bobby pins with a briskness that feels deliberate.

"It’s time," Alexa announces, urgency clipping her words short, before Mandi can answer, checking something on her phone and rising abruptly from her chair. "We should go. Now, actually."

Mandi seizes the excuse without hesitation, ushering me toward the door with a hand at my back, already talking about coats and shoes and whether I’ll be warm enough, the question dissolving into the noise of departure. Alexa lingers a moment behind us at the window, and as I glance back, I catch her go very still, head tilted, as though she’s listening for something beneath the ordinary sounds of the dorm. For half a second I think I hear it too, a low sound from somewhere out past the tree line, more felt than heard, gone before I can decide if it was real. The lamplight in the room seems to flicker, or maybe I only imagine it.

*Something is coming tonight,* I think, the thought arriving whole and unbidden, cold as the pin still pressed against my collarbone. *And nobody is going to tell me what it is until it’s already here.*

Then Alexa turns, her face smooth again, and follows us out, and the moment closes over like it never happened at all.