Chapter 105

• Zara
• Morning came like an insult.
• The sun’s pale rays filtered through the academy windows as though nothing in the world had shifted, as though last night I hadn’t been tricked, locked away, and forced to dig through fragments of a past I could barely hold on to. My hands still ached from pounding that damned door. My throat was still rough from screaming at Seraphine. And my chest—well, my chest was worse. Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Atlas’s face in those fragments, and heard the way he begged me to explain why I was breaking him apart.