Chapter 64: False Sense of Protection
{CAROLINE}
What is she doing? I wondered.
I lay on my side, facing the wall, eyes closed, breathing slow and even—pretending to sleep.
Iris was moving around the room.
Soft footsteps. The faint scrape of something being placed down. The rustle of cloth. I didn’t turn. I didn’t speak.
I watched her only through the sliver of shadow reflected on the stone wall ahead of me.
Sleep refused to come.
How could it, when only hours ago my own kind had turned their backs on me?
Cowards!
My jaw tightened as I clenched my teeth, staring at the wall as if I could bore a hole through it with sheer resentment.
We were all students here. No one was supposed to be superior. No noble blood. No hierarchy. No predator and prey.
That was the lie they sold us.
Guilt seeped in, unwelcome and heavy, when my thoughts drifted back to Iris.
Hadn’t I done the same to her?
When the others began distancing themselves from her, whispering, watching, I had followed along. I hadn’t spoken up. I hadn’t defended her. I had told myself it was safer that way. For the both of us.
She was a wolf, wasn’t she?
And yet she wasn’t close to her kin at all. If anything, the werewolves in our class seemed to dislike her—avoid her—for reasons no one would explain.
It made everyone else wary. Curious. Careful.
I’ve done the same too. And I had been a hypocrite.
In the end, wasn’t Iris the only one who stood beside me today?
When my so-called friends watched from the sidelines. When no one intervened. When humiliation burned hot and sharp beneath my skin.
I drew in slow, steady breaths, trying to calm the tight knot in my chest.
I was a noble’s daughter.
Something as trivial as being ostracized—or earning the ire of a noble vampire—shouldn’t have shaken me. I had been raised to endure worse. To smile through sharper threats.
But this place was different.
Here, I couldn’t use my arcane abilities. I couldn’t defend myself properly. I was stripped down to flesh and bone, fear and restraint.
If they were going to ban abilities, then they should ban the unnatural strength and speed of the creatures of the night too.
A faint sound pulled me from my thoughts.
Iris was approaching my side of the room.
I held my breath.
I heard her place something near my bedside table. Only then did the scent reach me—sharp, unmistakable.
Garlic?
What was she doing?
When the room finally went still again, curiosity got the better of me. Slowly, I turned my head.
Garlic cloves.
Salt.
They were scattered carefully around the room—along the windows, near the door, even close to my bed.
Understanding dawned, followed by something dangerously close to laughter.
She was taking precautions. Against Morgana. Against the vampires.
She had even placed garlic near my table.
Despite everything—the fear, the tension, the looming threat—I almost laughed when I noticed the absurd amount surrounding her own bed. Garlic near the pillow. Near the legs. Near the floor, like a desperate barrier.
I reached out and picked up one of the cloves, turning it between my fingers.
I smiled.
It was foolish. Probably ineffective. Possibly offensive to half the academy.
Because what could a garlic do against their abilities?
And yet... I was touched.
She had thought of me.
She had tried to protect me.
Guilt settled heavily in my chest.
Because of me, she was now implicated in this mess. Because she stood beside me, she had earned the attention of those far more dangerous than either of us.
I sighed and stared up at the ceiling.
My academy life was going to be hell. I knew it.
But then again... it had always been hell. Even outside these walls.
Humans were the weakest kind in existence. A fragile species surviving between monsters and myths. Only a rare few of us were gifted with arcane abilities—and those few were gathered here, trained not for glory, but for survival.
In the end, everything I was fighting for—everything I would fight for—was humanity’s continued existence.
This academy was merely training.
That was what I told myself.
That belief carried me through the night.
By morning, I learned just how wrong I was.
Iris and I walked toward class together for the first time.
It had taken nearly an hour of relentless insistence on her part—an hour of arguing in hushed voices, of her blocking the door with crossed arms and an expression that brooked no refusal—before I finally gave in and shoved a clumsy mixture of crushed garlic, ginger, and salt into my pocket.
I hated it.
It was ridiculous. Humiliating. And the smell clung to my fingers no matter how many times I wiped them against my hanky.
The sharp bite of ginger burned my nose, while the garlic lingered thick and unmistakable, like an accusation.
But given what had happened recently, Iris was right. Walking toward the classroom had never felt this intense before.
Every step echoed too loudly against the stone floors. Every breath felt watched. Students parted as we passed, drifting away from us as if we carried some invisible contagion, as if merely standing too close would doom them too.
Their eyes followed us.
Not openly—never that—but in the way creatures glance at something dangerous while pretending indifference. Shoulders stiffened. Conversations faltered. Laughter died mid-breath.
And then there were the murmurs.
Soft at first. Then careless. Then cruel.
"A human would be the first victim again this year."
"What’s new, anyway?"
"Is she really that stupid to pick a fight with a vampire?"
"I heard she came from a noble house."
"That explains the foolish pride."
"Who’s that with her?"
"It’s the girl who got dragged by that mermaid."
"What? She’s the one who threw ginger soup at Morgana?"
"She’s dead."
"Is she human? I don’t smell anything from her."
"Apparently she’s a werewolf."
"Don’t they usually stink?"
"She’s an oddity."
"Even werewolves seem angry at her."
"I heard she’s a rogue."
"That explains it."
"If she’s a rogue, nevermind the vampires, her own kind would be the first to kill her."
My fingers curled into fists.
