At Ravencroft Academy, secrets are currency-and Elena Vale is broke. When seventeen-year-old Elena wins a scholarship to Ravencroft, an elite boarding school tucked into the stormy cliffs of Scotland, she expects stone walls, stiff uniforms, and too many rules. What she doesn't expect is Julian Alden: heir to a vast aristocratic fortune, flawlessly charming-and already engaged. But Julian isn't the only mystery Ravencroft has to offer. Theo Moreau, the brooding, artistic loner with a French accent and a haunted past, seems determined to protect her... or warn her. As Elena is pulled deeper into the school's dark traditions, her heart becomes torn between two dangerous boys-and the lies they've wrapped themselves in. She'll soon learn that the most dangerous walls are not the ones built of stone... but the ones built around the heart. In a world where power is everything, falling in love could be her biggest mistake.
I watched the gates of Ravencroft Academy rise from the fog like they'd been carved out of the cliffs themselves-tall, iron, and heartless. The car rolled to a stop, the smell of salt and rain thick in the air, and I tightened my grip on the cracked leather strap of my bag.
"You look like you're going to throw up," a voice said from beside me.
I turned. A girl in the car's other seat scrolled casually through her phone, lips glossed and perfectly disinterested. Her blazer looked tailored. Her eyebrows looked expensive.
"I'm fine," I lied.
She looked up at me properly now, one eyebrow arched like it had a life of its own. "No one's fine on their first day at Ravencroft. They're either terrified... or pretending not to be."
She returned to her screen. I swallowed hard.
Outside, students moved like they'd done this their whole lives-laughing, greeting each other with air kisses and lazy waves. Drivers in black coats unloaded monogrammed trunks from town cars. I was the only one with a duffel bag held together by desperation and duct tape.
My name was on a list. My tuition paid by a scholarship I still half-believed was a mistake. I was here because someone somewhere thought I was "exceptional." But staring at the stone towers above me, I felt about as exceptional as a moth on a window.
I stepped out into the cold.
---
Ravencroft was colder than I'd expected. Not just in temperature, but in tone. The hallways were stone, lined with portraits that looked like they whispered when you passed. A maid in gray led me through a side entrance and up two flights of narrow stairs.
"The South Wing," she said. "Third-floor girls. This used to be the servant quarters."
"Fitting," I muttered, earning a smirk from her before she turned and left.
I dropped my bag on the small twin bed in the corner of my room. The window overlooked the forest beyond the cliffs. Rain drizzled against the glass like fingers tapping to be let in.
There were already whispers about me before the day ended.
"She's the scholarship girl."
"American."
"Did you hear she got expelled from her last school?"
That last one wasn't true. But at Ravencroft, the truth was just the opening line of a better story.
---
That night, during the Welcome Dinner, I met him.
Julian Alden.
The dining hall fell silent the moment he entered. Like gravity bowed to him.
He walked with the ease of someone who'd never been told "no" in his life-broad-shouldered, polished, tailored down to the cufflinks engraved with the Alden family crest. When he smiled, it was slow, like a secret.
He passed my table, glanced at me-and paused.
Just for a moment. Long enough to make my heart stutter in its chest.
"New," he said, voice velvet-soft. Not a question. A statement.
I nodded, suddenly self-conscious of the school-issued uniform and the way it hung wrong on my frame.
"You'll want to avoid the East Wing after midnight," he added, voice lower now. "That's when the walls start to whisper back."
Then he was gone.
---
Later that night, I wandered into the old art wing-trying to escape the pressure in the air, the expectation baked into every tile. That's when I saw him:
Theo Moreau.
Sketchbook on his knee, hair messy, sleeves rolled up. A sharp jawline. Dark eyes that didn't just look at you-they read you.
He didn't smile.
"You're the girl Julian looked at," he said.
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"He doesn't look at people like that. Not unless he's already decided to ruin them."
I raised an eyebrow. "Do you always greet people with prophecies of doom?"
He returned to his sketchbook. "Only the ones I don't want to watch fall."
And just like that, I was pulled in.
Chapter 1 The Edge Of The World
03/07/2025
Chapter 2 The House Of Masks
03/07/2025
Chapter 3 The Watchers
03/07/2025
Chapter 4 After Lights Out
03/07/2025
Chapter 5 The Greenhouse
03/07/2025
Chapter 6 A Name Like Glass
03/07/2025
Chapter 7 Things That Listen
03/07/2025
Chapter 8 The Dust Remembers
03/07/2025
Chapter 9 Smokes And Strings
03/07/2025
Chapter 10 The Invitation
03/07/2025
Chapter 11 The Mirror Of Names
03/07/2025
Chapter 12 How Quiet Things Burn
03/07/2025
Chapter 13 Rooms That Remembers
05/07/2025
Chapter 14 The Matchbook And The Name
08/07/2025
Chapter 15 Between Breaths And Mirrors
09/07/2025
Chapter 16 The Name Beneath The Violet
09/07/2025
Chapter 17 Beneath Velvet Skies
09/07/2025
Chapter 18 The Ashes We Wake In
09/07/2025
Chapter 19 The Silence After The Fire
09/07/2025
Chapter 20 Keeper Of What Remains
11/07/2025
Chapter 21 A Room Full Of Secrets
13/07/2025
Chapter 22 The Red Thread That Binds
13/07/2025
Chapter 23 The Door Beneath The Ballroom
13/07/2025
Chapter 24 Things We Do In The Dark
14/07/2025
Chapter 25 Fire Between The Names
14/07/2025
Chapter 26 The Flamebound Truth
17/07/2025
Chapter 27 The Hollow Thread
17/07/2025
Chapter 28 The Boy Beneath the Ink
17/07/2025
Chapter 29 The One Who Burns
17/07/2025
Chapter 30 The Silence
17/07/2025
Chapter 31 The Ones Who Watch
17/07/2025
Chapter 32 The Reflection War
18/07/2025
Chapter 33 A Room Full Of Smoke
18/07/2025
Chapter 34 The Room Of Shadows
18/07/2025
Chapter 35 Threads of Fire
18/07/2025
Chapter 36 Beneath the Blood Moon
18/07/2025
Chapter 37 The Circle of Thirteen
18/07/2025
Chapter 38 The Edge of the Mirror
18/07/2025
Chapter 39 Letters in Ash
18/07/2025
Chapter 40 The Forbidden Gate
18/07/2025
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