Lydia Martin stood with one manicured hand on her hip, the other scrolling through her phone with practiced disdain. She was a queen holding court, and the stream of students parting around their little group was her tribute.

He collided gently with the edge of a locker, fumbled his books, and kept moving, a blur of nervous energy and untied shoelaces.

Stiles’s sentence died as his eyes landed on Y/n and Lydia. He straightened his shirt, which did nothing to help. His gaze flickered, a familiar dance of awe and social terror.

Across the hall, a new girl with dark, sleek hair and an uncertain smile was examining her schedule. Allison Argent. She looked up, met Y/n’s gaze for a half-second, and quickly looked down again.

The warning bell rang, sharp and final. The crowd surged toward classrooms. Lydia tucked her phone away.

She linked her arm through Y/n’s, a statement of alliance as much as direction. Stiles watched them go, looking like he’d just been left on the shore of a very deep lake.

But as the hallway began to empty, a cold draft snaked through from the open double doors at the far end. It carried the faint, damp scent of pine and something else—something metallic, like old pennies and wet earth. From the tree line beyond the parking lot, half-hidden in the morning shadows, a pair of amber eyes watched the school. They blinked once, slowly, and were gone.