Whispers Between The Walls

The Name Beneath the Violet

A week passed.

On the surface, everything resumed its rhythm: bells rang, teachers lectured, uniforms snapped crisply against thighs in the wind.

But beneath it all—beneath me—something shifted.

The mirror had seen me. And I had seen her. And now every step I took felt watched, as if the Order had marked me for something more than trial.

Julian barely spoke. Not because he didn't want to—but because every word between us now had weight. Even Petra noticed.

"You two are acting like people who've buried something between them," she muttered at lunch.

I looked up from my untouched soup. "Maybe we have."

Petra's brows lifted, but she didn't push.

Theo, on the other hand, had started leaving sketches for me in odd places. Under my dorm pillow. Slipped into my literature book. Folded into my coat pocket like forgotten letters.

They weren't just drawings. They were memories.

A girl's silhouette standing before the library window. My hand reaching toward fire. A cracked mirror with a name etched beneath the surface.

Anastasia.

He never signed them. But I always knew they were from him.

---

On Thursday, Petra cornered me on the third-floor landing between classes.

"You need to see something."

"Now?"

"Now."

She led me through a side corridor I hadn't used before, into a narrow stairwell that spiraled down instead of up. We passed cold stones, candle sconces, and a locked door with a strange brass keyhole shaped like a four-pointed star.

Then we stopped in front of a tapestry I'd never noticed.

It was old, faded in places, but still vivid in others. A woven garden. A girl in white. And behind her, two wolves—one gold, one gray—snarling at a shadow with a silver crown.

"That's not decorative," Petra whispered. "It's history."

She touched the edge of the tapestry.

And it swung inward.

A door.

Behind it: a room.

And inside the room—

Shelves. Books. Candles.

And a dozen leather journals with pressed violets on the covers.

---

I reached for the nearest one.

It opened stiffly, like it hadn't been touched in years.

Inside: names. Dates. Sketches.

And all of them from girls who'd once stood where I now stood.

Initiates. Marked. Erased.

Their stories had been hidden here.

Anastasia wasn't the first.

She was one of many.

"I don't understand," I whispered.

Petra lit a candle.

"The Mirror Trial isn't about testing loyalty," she said. "It's about marking those who remember."

I turned to her.

"You knew?"

She nodded. "My sister was one of them."

Silence.

"What happened to her?"

"She passed the mirror," Petra said, voice cracking. "Two weeks later, she disappeared. No one even remembered her name. Not even our parents."

My heart thudded.

"I only remember because I found her book."

She stepped closer to the shelf and pulled out a faded volume with a cracked spine.

"Evelyn Vale."

Vale.

Anastasia's surname.

My knees weakened.

"She was Anastasia's cousin," Petra said softly. "They came here together. And they were both marked."

I sank onto the bench, the journal open in my lap.

Names blurred before me. Evelyn. Anastasia. Dozens of others

I didn't sleep.

Theo's sketch sat folded on my desk, a quiet reminder of what I had survived. But the silence didn't soothe. It rang in my ears, sharp and hollow.

I had kissed Julian. I had held Theo's hand. And I had walked through a mirror that remembered everything.

I didn't know what that made me. Only that I wasn't the same girl I'd been before the trial.

The matchbook was gone. Burned.

But the memory still flickered.

---

Petra didn't ask where I'd been. She just handed me a cup of tea the next morning and muttered something about the snow coming in too early. Her eyes lingered on my wrists though—on the faint bruises from the ritual—and she didn't press.

The academy had grown quieter since the Mirror Trial. More watchful. The Order didn't parade its power—they never had—but there was a weight now in every corridor, as if the walls were listening more closely.

I caught Julian watching me twice that day.

Once during Latin, when I dropped my pen and caught him staring with something raw in his eyes. Once again at lunch, when he walked straight past me without a word, his expression unreadable.

Theo was nowhere to be seen.

By nightfall, the unease in me had settled into something heavier. Something colder.

Then came the knock.

Not on my door.

On the window.

I moved slowly, careful not to wake Petra, and eased the curtain aside.

Theo stood in the snow, coat unbuttoned, eyes like ink in the moonlight.

I pulled the sash and whispered, "Are you insane?"

"I needed to see you."

"You're freezing."

"I'm not here for warmth."

---

I met him in the chapel garden. It was locked after curfew, but he knew a way through the old greenhouse. The snow muffled our steps.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

Theo looked away. "I was summoned."

"The Order?"

He nodded.

"They wanted to know what I remembered. About her."

"Anastasia."

"They think you're like her. They think you're worse."

"Because I survived?"

"Because you remember. She didn't, not all the way. Not until it was too late."

I swallowed. "And you?"

He looked at me then.

"I told them I would forget you if they asked. I lied."

Something twisted in my chest.

"The mirror cracked," I whispered.

"I know."

"You saw?"

He nodded.

"They were furious. But not surprised."

"Why?"

"Because it only cracks for one reason."

I stared at him.

"You're not the heir," he said. "You're the catalyst."

---

Back in my dorm, I barely made it to my bed before my knees gave out.

Catalyst.

Not a vessel. Not a pawn.

A spark.

I didn't know what that meant yet. But I knew what came next wouldn't be safe.

And I knew I wouldn't survive it alone.

---

Two days later, the velvet envelope arrived.

Slipped beneath my pillow. Heavy with wax.

Inside, a single card:

> You are invited.

> Midwinter Gathering.

> Formal attire. No masks. No lies.

Petra read it over my shoulder.

"You're not going, are you?"

"I don't have a choice."

She hesitated. "Then wear the red dress."

"What?"

"You'll need every edge you can get."

---

Julian found me on the east terrace before the sun rose.

"I told them I would stand beside you," he said.

"And?"

"I meant it."

He stepped closer.

"I don't know what you are anymore, Elena. But I know what I feel."

I met his eyes.

"And what's that?"

"That if they try to break you…"

His voice cracked.

"I'll burn down every mirror in this place."

---