Chapter 88: Bianca’s Slip

GEORGIA

I mention the equipment report a second time, and this time Bianca is the one who cracks.

I find her alone outside the mailroom, sorting envelopes into neat, precise stacks. Bella isn’t with her, which almost never happens; the two of them are usually inseparable, orbiting each other like matched satellites. I take the opening before it closes.

"Bianca," I say, coming to a stop beside her, my cane tapping against the tile floor.

"Georgia." She doesn’t look up from the envelopes. "Bella’s not with me," she says, matter-of-fact, like she’s already anticipating why I’m here.

"I know. I actually wanted to talk to you."

That gets her attention. She glances at me sideways, one eyebrow raised, her expression as flat and pleasant as it always is, a mask so practiced I almost believe it. "Oh?" she asks, breezy, like we’re discussing the weather instead of the thing that ended my career.

"I’ve been thinking more about that equipment report," I say, keeping my voice easy, like I’m just making conversation while I wait for the mail slot to open up. "The one about my skates."

Her hands go still over the envelopes.

It’s such a small thing, barely a pause, a held breath disguised as nothing at all. If I hadn’t been watching for exactly this kind of reaction since the common room weeks ago, I might have missed it entirely. But I’ve replayed that night so many times in my head, turned it over and over until the edges are worn smooth, that I know what to look for now. I know the shape of the lie before it even finishes forming in her mouth.

"I thought you’d have let that go by now," she says, dismissive, though the words come a half second too fast, like she didn’t quite let me finish the thought before jumping to shut it down.

"I keep coming back to it. The wear pattern on the blade mount. It’s weird, right? My skates were basically brand new."

"I wouldn’t know anything about blade mounts," she says, clipped, turning back to her envelopes as if the conversation is already over, as if she can will it closed by sheer refusal.

But she can’t quite manage it. She finally turns to face me fully, and for the first time since I’ve known her, something in her composure isn’t perfectly smooth. Her jaw is tight. Her shoulders, always so relaxed, so effortlessly elegant, have gone rigid, like she’s bracing for impact. I feel a strange, unsteady thrill at the sight of it, proof that the crack I’ve been searching for is finally real.

"You should really stop bringing this up," she says, warning lacing every word. "It’s not good for you. Dwelling on it."

"I’m not dwelling. I’m asking a question."

"Well, stop asking it." The words come out clipped, faster than before, and underneath the ice in her voice there’s something else now, something that sounds almost like fear dressed up as anger. Her fingers tighten around the envelopes until the paper crumples slightly at the edges, a small, telling violence.

That’s when I see it.

Her eyes flash amber, just for an instant, the same warm, impossible gold I saw flare through Bella’s eyes weeks ago in the common room. It’s brighter than I expect, brighter than Bella’s was, like it’s been held back for longer and finally slipped its leash. It’s gone almost as fast as it came, blinked away, but I saw it clearly, and I know I saw it. My pulse stutters once, hard, against my ribs, and for a moment the hallway seems to tilt.

I don’t say anything. I don’t think I could if I tried. My mouth has gone dry, and the hallway suddenly feels too narrow, too quiet, like it’s holding its breath along with me.

Her hands, still full of envelopes, begin to curl. Not into fists exactly, something stranger than that, her fingers bending inward at a wrong angle, tight and sharp, like they’re trying to become something they’re not supposed to be here, in a mailroom hallway, in the middle of the afternoon, under fluorescent lights that suddenly feel far too bright. I stare at her hands and my stomach drops straight through the floor. The envelopes slip an inch in her grip before she catches them.

Then she catches herself, too. I watch her force her fingers flat, one by one, like she’s talking her own body back into behaving, negotiating with something just beneath her skin.

"You have no idea what’s actually - " she starts, and then stops herself so abruptly her teeth click together.

"You what?"

Her eyes snap back to mine, and any trace of the amber is gone now, replaced by something cold and furious and, underneath all of it, afraid. I recognize that fear because I’ve been wearing a version of it myself for weeks.

"You don’t know what you’re talking about," she hisses, low and dangerous, each word bitten off sharp.

Her lips pull back slightly around the words, and for a split second, one single, horrible second, her canines look sharper than they should. Longer. Pointed in a way that has no business being on a human face. My breath catches somewhere behind my sternum and refuses to move, and every instinct I have screams at me to run.

I don’t wait to see if it happens again.

I take one step back, then another, my cane scraping loud against the tile, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs I can feel it in my throat. I don’t say anything else. I don’t trust my voice to come out steady, and some deep, animal part of my brain is telling me that whatever is standing in front of me right now does not want to hear another word from me.

Bianca doesn’t move to stop me. She just watches me go, her chest rising and falling too fast, her hands pressed flat against her sides like she’s holding herself together by force, like she doesn’t trust what might happen if she lets go. For a moment, I think she might say something else, might call after me, but the hallway stays silent except for the uneven rhythm of my own steps, and somehow that silence is worse than anything she could have shouted.

I turn and walk away as fast as my bad leg will let me, cane clicking hard and uneven against the floor, my pulse hammering in my ears the whole way down the hall, the image of her teeth burned into the back of my mind like something I’ll never be able to blink away.