By the time I realized I’d walked into the wrong lecture hall, the lights went out.
Perfect. Of course Intro to Securities Regulation had to be in the one building whose motion sensors had the survival instincts of a Victorian fainting couch.
“Great,” I muttered to the dark, hugging my thrift-store tote closer. “Very on-brand for my life.”
Rows of seats were just vague shadows, the projector a dead eye on the wall. Somewhere to my left, someone cleared their throat; to my right, a phone glowed for a second and vanished, like a firefly getting snuffed.
I checked the time on my own cracked screen. 6:59 p.m. Night lecture. Hart had promised extra credit for attendance, and extra credit meant a slightly less terrifying scholarship review next term.
I turned toward the door, planning to cut my losses and sprint two halls over, when it happened—
The door banged open behind me, letting in a flash of corridor light, and a knot of people spilled in. Laughter, the faint clink of something metallic, the rustle of expensive fabric. Not the usual broke-law-student symphony of zippers and energy drink cans.
Then I heard his voice.
“Let’s make this quick,” a low male baritone said, smooth and bored in the way only someone who’d never worried about rent could sound. “I have an actual class to get to, unlike half the donor board.”
Adrian Vale.
I’d never spoken to him. I’d seen him everywhere.
On the glossy brochure they’d sent with my scholarship acceptance letter, standing next to his father in a perfectly tailored suit. On the wall outside the dean’s office, where a plaque listed the Vale Family Atrium as if they were a minor god and his demigod progeny. On campus, occasionally, moving through the crowd like he was the only person who knew the script.
“Just smile when they tell you,” a woman’s clipped voice answered from the doorway. I didn’t need light to picture her: pearls, sharp cheekbones, colder eyes. Evelyn Vale, if the donor-gossip threads were to be believed. “You don’t have to like it.”
“Never said I did,” he replied.
The door swung shut, killing the light again. I froze halfway down the aisle, torn between sinking into a seat and melting into the floor.
“Lights?” Evelyn’s voice cut across the room.
Someone laughed nervously. The switches clicked. Nothing.
“Motion sensors,” another voice, amused. “The building’s ancient.”
“Of course it is,” Adrian said. “If we’d given the renovation last year instead of Mercer, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
A little stab of recognition went through me. Mercer. Another dynasty. Another name threaded through my mother’s muttered nightmares.
“Fine,” Evelyn sighed. “We’ll improvise. Everyone, seats. The photographer just needs a silhouette.”
Photographer.
My heart did a weird stop-and-stumble. I put it together a second too late: wrong lecture hall, donor event, some kind of pre-gala photo op. And me in my faded jeans and scholarship anxiety, smack in the middle of their dark, expensive tableau.
If I could’ve dissolved, I would’ve.
I slid toward the side aisle, shuffling past knees and whispered apologies in the dark. A shoulder bumped mine, then another. Perfume and cologne layered thick in the air, expensive and cloying.
“Can we get one centered, Adrian?” Another man, older, authoritative. Victor Vale. I’d never heard him in person, but I knew that tone.
