I slam the manor door so hard the stained-glass skylight shudders. My boots are still thick with Crage Hall mud, and I let it smear across the carpet; I hope it never comes out. I’m shaking—rage, exhaustion, something I refuse to call shame—and there’s a rip in my sleeve where one of them clawed me. My wrist is already bruising in the shape of fingers.
They chased me again. It started with ink “accidentally” flung across my notes, turned into a pack of laughter behind me in the corridor, and then became a hunt. Down the spiral stairs, over the canal bridge, through the apple orchards—shrieking, jeering, closer every second—until I vaulted the station wall and disappeared among strangers. The headmistress’s goat-gram said I should “regain my composure” at home for the weekend. Translation: stay gone until they find a new toy.
I catch my reflection in the hall mirror and almost don’t recognize myself: green skin blotched with fury, black hair escaping its braid like it wants to strangle someone, eyes too bright and too dark at once. Monster, they shouted. Abomination. Fine. Let them keep shouting.
My lungs burn, my side stabs, and every heartbeat feels like it’s on fire, but I force myself up the stairs to the bedroom I locked from the inside years ago. I will sit in the dark and read until the candles die, until the shaking stops, until I can breathe without tasting their laughter.
One day they’ll choke on it. One day they’ll beg, and I will look down at them—green, tall, unafraid—and I will not stop.