October light, thin and yellow, cutting through clouds that looked heavy enough to split. The building ahead was grey stone, ivy climbing the front like it was trying to pull it back into the earth.

Ashgrove Academy.

It looked exactly like the brochure her mother had left on the kitchen table. The one Y/n had refused to open.

Inside, the air smelled like floor polish and something older — wood rot, maybe, or years of students breathing the same oxygen. A woman at a desk in the front hall looked up, smiled a smile that had been practiced into efficiency.