The hum starts the second we walk through the door.

Not the usual morning drone of kids scrolling their phones or whining about tests, but a buzz pitched higher, sharp with nerves. Heads swivel. Conversations trip over themselves. A girl near the window elbows her friend and whispers, not nearly as quietly as she thinks: “That’s her. That’s the princess.”

The air feels thicker for it, the faint tang of chalk dust mixing with the sterile hum of the overhead lights. Even my scent turns restless, marshmallow warmth thinned by too much ocean-rain edge. I slump into my chair anyway, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste iron.

Cassie sits beside me like she was born for this — spine straight, blazer perfect, crystalline eyes cool as glass. Every motion precise. If I’m trying to fade, she’s making herself impossible to ignore. Her citrus-bright scent sharpens, vanilla undercurrent steadying, grounding me whether I want it or not.

Behind us, Roran and Kael take the back row. They don’t have to do anything — just sit, molten-amber eyes sweeping the room — and already no one dares breathe too loud. Two more guards are stationed outside the door, glamoured so every other student sees nothing more threatening than school staff, but I feel their presence like static against my skin.

Mr. Halloway enters with a burst of energy, brown hair already mussed from running a hand through it on his way down the hall. He sets his leather satchel on the desk, pulls out a fountain pen, and then turns with a grin so wide it borders on manic.

“Class,” he announces, voice carrying with that peculiar mixture of enthusiasm and absolute certainty that only history teachers possess, “we are in the presence of living history.”

I sink lower in my seat. Cassie’s lips twitch.

“Princess Mira of Eversea,” Halloway continues, gesturing toward me with a flourish that makes my stomach pitch, “and her Princess Consort Cassandra.”

The room tilts. I feel thirty pairs of eyes swing to me, some wide, some skeptical, some already lifting phones like they’re catching rare footage. My chest tightens. The sweetness in my scent sours at the edges; the rain in it swells.

Cassie inclines her head gracefully, accepting the title like it’s just another role she intends to conquer. I resist the urge to disappear under the desk.

“Therefore,” Halloway beams, chalk already squeaking across the board, “it’s only appropriate that our curriculum reflect this extraordinary opportunity. Today, we begin our unit on the Kingdom of Eversea.”

Whispers flood the room.

“Isn’t that, like, her country?”

“Wait, so she’s… like… a real princess?”

“Her mom rules it. It’s in the news.”

The words crawl over my skin like ants. I twist the edge of my cuff between my fingers, rolling fabric again and again until the friction numbs.

Halloway writes EVERSÉA in bold strokes, underlining it twice. “Now. To understand the kingdom, we must begin with the extraordinary reign of Queen Firebrand. Records indicate she has ruled for nearly one thousand years.”

I want to bury my face in the desk.

“Historians, of course, have developed several theories to explain such longevity.” He flips the slide projector on, revealing a bulleted list. “Some propose advanced longevity medicine. Others suggest experimental cryonics. And there is, naturally, the cloned succession theory — that a carefully curated bloodline has been maintained through precise genetic replication.”

I bite my cheek harder. Cassie’s crystalline eyes cut sideways to me, glittering with mischief. She tears a scrap from her notebook and scribbles fast before sliding it onto my desk.

Seara’s skincare routine: 1500 years young.

My laugh is a snort I barely strangle, my scent betraying me with a sudden puff of heat. A few kids glance over, whispering louder now.

Halloway, oblivious, moves on. “Now, consider Princess Selene. Publicly documented for over sixty years, yet she still appears to be in her early twenties. Explanations range from superior genetics to advanced rejuvenation treatments, even the use of political doubles.”

Another note lands on my desk.

Selene = world’s longest undergrad.

I choke back a laugh that comes out strangled. Cassie kicks my ankle under the desk, eyes flashing warning, but she’s biting her lip to keep her own smirk in check.

I scribble back furiously.

Cryogenics?? Seriously??

Her reply is quick, sharp script:

Better hope they don’t ask about palace vampires.

I groan, audibly this time, and slam my hand over my face. A ripple of laughter passes through the row behind us.

Halloway changes the slide to a glossy map of Dominveil with bold red borders. “Eversea functions as what we call an enclave monarchy,” he explains, tapping the map with his pointer. “It maintains limited but highly strategic trade deals, thrives on symbolic mystique, and ensures survival through careful secrecy.”

His tone is confident. Academic. As if these wild guesses are gospel. As if my family is just a puzzle for human scholars to solve over coffee.

My pencil taps staccato against the desk. Tap—tap—tap. Three beats, always three, like a secret rhythm only I know. I roll my cuff hem with my thumb until the fabric goes shiny and thin, anything to keep from clawing at my own skin.

Cassie presses her knee against mine under the desk, a steady pressure that says stay here, stay now. Her scent — bright citrus with that undercurrent of vanilla — slips into my lungs, sharp and grounding. I hang onto it like rope.

But it doesn’t change the fact that every sentence Halloway pours across the room cuts me open. Cryonics. Cloned succession. Experimental treatments. Words neat as bullet points, absurd as fairy tales, scrawled across the board in tidy white chalk. The squeak of it makes my teeth ache.

And the room isn’t just listening — it’s watching.

The girl two rows ahead has her phone tilted just enough that the lens could catch me. The boy by the window isn’t even pretending to take notes; he’s mouthing every word like he wants to recite it at lunch. Even the air feels different, too thick with pencil shavings, too dry from the vents overhead. My marshmallow baseline shrinks, salt-threaded rain rising instead, like a storm pressed against glass.

I chew the inside of my cheek until I taste iron. The urge to sink lower in my chair wrestles with the urge to stand up and scream that they’re all idiots. I do neither. I just sit there, history’s specimen pinned to a board.

And then Halloway looks at me.

It isn’t casual. It isn’t accidental. His eyes catch mine with all the weight of a teacher who’s found the struggling student in the back row and decided today is the day to drag them into the spotlight. Except I’m not just a student. I’m the footnote that walked into his syllabus and sat down in a plaid skirt.

His grin spreads wider, chalk still in his hand like a conductor’s baton.

“And history, class,” he says, voice rich with delight, “is not only what’s written — it’s what unfolds before us. Princess Mira, considering your remarkable press conference last night, perhaps you’d share your perspective with us?”

The words land like a gavel, and the room shifts.

Chairs creak. Pens stop scratching. Heads swivel all at once, necks craning. Phones dip low, red record lights glowing faint. The hum of the overhead lights grows loud enough to feel like it’s inside my skull. My pulse roars louder still.

Thirty pairs of eyes bore into me. Curious. Hungry. Some awed, some skeptical. All of them waiting.

I freeze, cuff hem still caught between my fingers. The storm in my scent swells, saltwater heavy, stargazer bloom pressed sharp and too bold. My ribs ache with each shallow breath.

And in that silence — before I can even think about what to say — I know the lesson’s shifted. I’m not just learning history today. I am the history.

My throat is dry, but when I stand, my body remembers what my heart doesn’t want to. Shoulders square. Chin lifted just enough to look steady, not arrogant. Hands folded lightly at my waist so they don’t fidget. It’s instinct — years of training, drills whispered by Mom, posture corrected by Selene, speeches rewritten until I could recite them in my sleep.

Every inch of me aches to vanish, but I don’t vanish. I shine.

“The press conference,” I begin, and the hush is instant. My voice carries smoother, stronger than I feel, like it was forged for marble halls instead of a fluorescent classroom. “Was about balance. About acknowledging who I am without losing the life I’ve built here.”

I let my gaze sweep the room — slow, measured, catching eyes in every row the way Selene taught me. It pins them in place, makes them feel seen. Not one of them looks away.

“History,” I continue, warmth lacing each syllable, “isn’t just about crowns or bloodlines. It’s about what we choose to do with them. That’s all I wanted people to see.”

Silence. Heavy, awed.

Even the kids who live to snicker — Jace, Nate — are quiet. Phones forgotten for once. A girl in the front row blinks like she’s about to cry. Someone else scribbles furiously, not notes but testimony, like they’ve just witnessed a revelation.

Cassie leans back in her chair, crystalline eyes bright with something like pride. The citrus in her scent sharpens, vanilla sweetening, and it wraps me in invisible applause.

Halloway beams, hands clasped together like he’s just been handed the jewel of his career. “Excellent,” he declares, voice practically trembling with satisfaction. “A model of civic responsibility. Thank you, Princess Mira.”

The words make my stomach twist, but the class nods. They nod like disciples. Like I’ve given them something worth carrying.

And maybe — for one fragile moment — I almost believe it myself.

There’s a second before I speak where the whole room holds its breath like it’s waiting for a punchline. I feel it in the hollow of my ribs — a quick, foolish, human hope that maybe if I stay quiet the room will fold back into its normal smallness and the chalk dust and whiteboard bullets will pretend none of this ever happened.

I don’t stay quiet.

I lean forward, fingers stilling. The three-beat tap stops; the rhythm goes silent because silence itself is a thing I can use. Cassie’s hand slides into mine, a pressure — pinky hook without fanfare — and whatever I’m about to do I do with her in it.

“But,” I say, my voice lowered so only the front rows catch it, “that’s not the whole truth.”

The room blinks. Halloway, bless him, blinks like a man watching a film he forgot had a twist. The hush presses in, thick enough to taste — metallic tang of pens uncapped, the dry rustle of notebook pages, someone’s gum wrapper crinkling.

Cassie’s breath hits the inside of my wrist in a warm cartoon of bravery. She doesn’t stop me. She never does.

I don’t let it be a stammer or a confession. I make it the sort of line people repeat later. I let the training under Mom, the polishing from Selene, the long, ugly practice of standing where others want you to kneel do the work my hands can’t.

“You saw me at Gloamhearts,” I say, and I watch the slow unspooling of recognition cross faces. “That wasn’t a trick.”

I tilt my chin. I let a sliver of the quiet in me step forward and do what the rest of me refuses to do all the time: be honest.

“My Mom has been alive for more than a thousand years.” I see a flinch ripple through the classroom at the word thousand, like a bell someone struck in their chest. “My sister has held the title of princess for decades — she will look twenty-two for as long as she chooses.” The sentences are small, factual, as if I’m reciting a line from a textbook, but the room knows the weight under the words. “The fae are real.”

I hold that last word out and don’t rush. It lands differently in every ear. Some faces slacken in wonder; some crease into skeptical lines; one kid goes bright red, either from excitement or embarrassment, I can’t tell. Phones tilt; a dozen pens begin racing as if handwriting could catch the moment before it fades.

Then, because I refuse to be a rumor that everyone else explains for me, I fold the truth into proof.

I choose to flare — just a breath-long shift. For the space of a heartbeat my hair catches a warmer light, molten beneath the classroom fluorescents; my eyes tighten, the green sharpening like glass into starlit brown. A hint of fang glints at the edge of my smile, new and unapologetic. The air carries a note of toasted marshmallow — my baseline — bold and bright; the stargazer bloom swells, fragrant enough that someone in the front row inhales audibly.

It’s a blink. A flash. Enough.

I hold it a fraction longer than necessary because I want them to know I chose this: what they saw at Gloamhearts was no stage trick. It was me, and it was true.

Then I let the human face close back around it — rounded ears, autumn-ginger hair softened, emerald steady. I taste adrenaline and relief both; there’s a small, private laugh at the back of my throat that I swallow.

“Just… don’t tell my parents I showed you this,” I say, letting a grin twist. “Or Cassie and I will be locked in the palace forever.” The joke lands light; a few nervous chuckles ripple. “But you deserve the truth.”

Silence shudders into noise: the rustle of students standing, the immediate whispering that knots into gossip. A hand halfway up in the middle row lowers. Someone scribbles so fast the pages almost tear. Halloway looks as if someone handed him a relic and then asked him to explain it in five minutes.

“…class dismissed,” he manages, voice raw with things he did not expect to teach that morning.

The bell rings like a release. Chairs scrape in a dozen different tempos. People spill out, some laughing, some white-faced, some already replaying the moment on glowing screens. The courtyard outside swallows the noise, and I can hear the echoing ripples — the rumors will be seeds by lunch.

Back in the room, my shadows shift.

Roran and Kael have been everything they always are: still, watchful. They do not move like startled men. Their faces are unreadable in the way trained faces are unreadable — only eyes and the tilt of a jaw giving away anything at all.

My voice finds itself, steady and formal. I speak to them as much as to the room, because this is also a lesson for them.

“You listen to orders,” I say, clear enough that the two figures at the back can’t pretend not to hear. “You keep my person safe. Loyalty is not an abstract word — it has teeth. I am Princess Mira of Eversea and Queen of the Small Folk. You will have to choose who you serve first. I entrust you with our safety. If you cannot be loyal to us first and foremost — how can I trust you to ensure our safety? Decide now: who do you report to?”

The classroom becomes a held breath again, the world watching the watchers.

Roran’s head dips. For the fraction of a second I see the war in him — the old chain that knotted him to orders higher than me versus the slow, stubborn thing that’s been shifting him toward choosing. When he lifts his gaze, the molten steadiness in his eyes is sharpened into something like decision.

“To you, Your Majesty,” he says, voice low and iron, the words carrying the weight of oath and consequence.

Kael’s expression is a fraction more complicated. Her loyalty has been measured by duty and by the chain that bound her to Mom. I read that in the tight set of her mouth and the percussion of her fingers against her knee. She meets my eyes and there is a pause long enough to hold pressure and meaning.

“I’ll withhold this breach from Queen Seara — for today,” she says, clipped, careful. “Consider it a courtesy, not a precedent. Don’t make it one.”

It’s not full allegiance. It’s not the clean, unambiguous vow Roran gave. It is, however, a line drawn in the dust. A promise that with time, perhaps, might become bone.

Cassie squeezes my hand, hard and hot; the grounding gesture that says you’re not alone. I bend and press my lips to her knuckle, the tiny action shrill with relief.

Outside, the corridor roils with noise. Halloway stands with peculiarly reverent confusion on his face, the kind that means whatever happened here this morning has changed the rest of his lecture plans forever.

Roran murmurs close enough that only I hear: “We will keep you safe. I report to you first.” It’s quiet, but it’s a promise.

Kael’s voice follows, even softer: “We will protect you and your consort.” There’s a guardedness to it, the shape of someone submitting one small mercy and waiting to see if it sticks.

I let it rest there between us — two shadowed oaths and a room full of witnesses. I don’t know the consequences waiting at Emberhall, or the calls that will be made, or whether Mom will choke on the news and business will be bruised and orders will be barked. I only know the immediate fact: in this classroom, on this floor, with Cassie’s palm in mine, I chose who stood at my side.