Page 27 of A Fate Everlasting

I didn’t want to. It felt like every class was designed to enmesh me deeper here, when all I wanted was the opposite. I hardly cared why my parents wanted me to attend at all, anymore. I just wanted everything to go back to the way it was.

My thumb hovered over the scores. I glanced sideways. Ruby had gone pale. Dante was unreadable. Dorian was watching me like he already knew I’d come up short.

I cleared my throat. “Present…seventy-four. Future…recalculating.” The second number wasn’t missing. It was fighting to exist, numbers rolling forward and back. It settled on unknown. “What does that mean, unknown?”

A low hum started behind my ears, like static interference. I wasn’t sure if it came from the slate or my spiraling thoughts. Unknown. This was all really happening. This was a school that claimed to turn humans into Angels and Daemons, and the way our lives were being tallied, tracked, and measured had something to do with it.

Ruby looked down. My fingers curled tight around the slate’s edge as I tried to swallow the weight of what I was seeing.Unknown.Not having a future was worse than being told it was terrible, I guessed. It meant no one knew what I was, even the system clearly designed to categorize me.

Dorian let out a low whistle as whispers circled the room. “Brutal.”

“Most curious,” Godwin said, forehead creasing. He shiftedhis focus, just for a moment, toward Dante. “Most curious indeed. Most of our students have a concrete score this late into term. Given the circumstance of your late arrival, though, I suppose it makes sense. You have work to do, Miss Davenant.”

“Right,” I nodded. I turned to Ruby, my voice a strained whisper.“What the hell is ether?”

She gripped her own slate too tightly. “Ether is an energy,” she whispered. “It’s the essence of our score. It’s what the Crucible uses to track everything. Too much in the red and—” She dragged a thumb across her throat. My heartbeat slammed against my chest.

“Mr. Darkblood,” Godwin interjected. “Would you care to interpret Miss Davenant’s numbers?”

Dante leaned close enough for his breath to brush my neck. I stilled.

“It’s deeply unimpressive, Professor. The ether threshold for Fates alone is two-hundred, seven-hundred for Angels and over a thousand for the Nephilim. Of course, if she is aiming to Fall, that order would reverse.”

I think I understood, now, but it sounded insane. Our scores here dictated which pathwe chose, or what webecame. Angel or Daemon. I clicked the slate shut. I glanced at Dante’s, the numbers on his screen glowing faintly.

Present – 2,443. Future – Unknown.

Unknown too? He looked bored, like none of this applied to him. Mine was only Seventy-four. That didn’t rank for anything, Angel or Daemon.

Dorian reclined, completely at ease. His smirk sharpened. “Don’t worry, there’s still time.” His violet eyes gleamed. “Just.”

I tried to pretend his voice didn’t rattle me, but it did. All Icould think about was how easy this was for him. He’d grown up in this world. I’d been thrown in blind, and I still didn’t understand how the scores made this a competition.

“Remember that fate is a hand that is always guiding you,” Godwin’s voice cracked as he spoke, trying desperately to make it sound better than it was. “And can anyone tell mewhyEvermore uses this scoring system?”

No one spoke, and Godwin folded his arms tight across his chest. “Dorian.” His tone was clipped, and in the way he looked at his son I could tell that Dorian was his mother’s child through and through.

“Evermore was built as a preparatory college, a place to prepare humans with viable blood,Luminari,for a place in the afterlives.” Dorian reclined, monotone, as though he’d been forced to recite this many times before. “At the end of every year, the Rift marks the Lower Sixth for a path, Angel or Daemon loosely speaking, and weeds out the unexceptional.” He gave me a pointed look. “When we graduate, we claim our place and the Rift takes more of us.”

“Sorry,” I interrupted. “What do you mean ‘takes more of us?’”

“Students with poor rankings die,” Dorian replied plainly. “That’s why we compete. Only those worthy Ascend and claim one of the coveted places in the After, those with negative scores Fall to Elsewhere. The rest…vanish. Eternal death, lost to us, and lost to memory.”

I felt my throat closing. The concept of this place being a school for Angels and Daemons had begun to thaw in my mind, but this was too much. The Rift, the thing I’d thought was an assessment, would kill me if I didn’t raise my score and knock another student from the rankings.

“The ether system keeps score,” Dorian continued. “Itmeasures you, your impact. It’s everything. Good deeds, bad intentions, veneration, betrayal. Doesn’t matter. It all feeds the Crucible. The more ether you carry, the closer you are to Ascension. The lower…”

Ascend or Fall.I stopped listening. I thought of the mural. The steps sweeping upward, then crawling downward. Upward to the After, I assumed. Downward to Elsewhere. I didn’t know what my parents had been thinking, sending me here. Maybe they hadn’t known. Maybe they had.

“Professor, my father works for the council in the After. He’s away of course, but no matter,” a girl piped up. Lilibeth. “He said?—”

“Of course,” Godwin interjected. “Archangel Raphael. I am aware.”

“He said there are only six spots this year.” Lilibeth’s tone was frantic. “Double that,twelvein Elsewhere. If that’s right, that’s lower than ever.”

Six.Of the fifty-odd students that made up the Upper Sixth, only six would graduate to the After. Twelve to Elsewhere, if that was somewhere you even wanted to go. The walls seemed to close in. Was Dorian joking? He had to be.

Godwin loosened his tie. His cheeks were ruddy, his forehead damp. “The competition is ever-worsening. The soul economy is very real. But as a Nephilim Angel myself, I want to reassure you that fate is guiding you, whichever way your path winds.”

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