Islington wasn’t like most high schools. Actually, that’s sort of an understatement. I’m pretty certain the original founders had a meeting and said, “Let’s take everything they do at public schools and reverse it.” Like most boarding schools, we had things like evening sign-in and curfews and ridiculous lights-out rules that no one actually followed. Boys and girls were only allowed to mingle in public spaces or—if you got permission and kept the door open—in dorm rooms during specific hours. Unlike most boarding schools, we didn’t have a uniform or a dress code beyond “try not to expose too much skin because, after all, most of the school year is covered in snow.” We also didn’t have any sports teams steeped in glory, unless you counted ultimate Frisbee. And no one really did. Not even the team members.

Islington was an entity unto itself—a bastion of learning and creativity. Or so the admissions guide proclaimed. Four hundred teenage artists from every discipline, gathered in one place in the middle of nowhere, each aspiring to be the Next Big Thing. No parents. Extreme workloads and stress. Raging hormones. Endless days of isolation and dark winter skies.

As one could expect, it was a reality TV show waiting to happen.

After leaving the cafeteria, I headed toward Myth and Folklore. Being a lit course, it was one of the few academic classes I had to take to graduate, though unlike the other options—like Russian Literature and Postmodern Poetry—I was actually interested in the subject. Not that it prevented me from spending the majority of class doodling in the edges of my notebook and passing witty notes back and forth with Elisa. I had to be careful and look like I was paying attention, though—the instructor was Mr. Almblad (aka Jonathan), my faculty adviser. Screwing up with him could screw up the rest of my year.

Elisa passed me a tightly folded note while Jonathan scribbled the names of Norse gods and their associations on the whiteboard.

“Wild party tonight?” the note read.

I grinned and nodded. Elisa and I had been roommates from the get-go, and we had our own little code. In nerdy art-school land, “wild party” translated to “soda and bad movies night.”

Like me, she was in her senior year. And, like me, she’d sent herself here her junior year, much to her parents’ dismay. That’s pretty much where the similarities ended.

Elisa was a figure painter’s wet dream. She was a theatre student, which meant that, unlike most of the kids in my own department, she cared about her looks. Her long brown hair was always perfectly wavy, even today when it flowed from under her knit hat like a waterfall. Delicate, almost Nordic-elf features, bright blue eyes, dimples. She did yoga and modern dance and could hold a modeling pose for hours. And, since she was my roommate, she often got roped into being my subject.

“Out with Ethan. After sign-in? What are we going to watch?” I wrote on the other side of the note. I folded it into a crane and tossed it to Elisa when Jonathan was turned around.

Last year, people were positive she and I were a lesbian couple. After all, we walked hand-in-hand to and from dinner, and spent most of our free time (well, the time I wasn’t with Ethan, which wasn’t too often) working together. Neither of us refuted the rumors, mostly because we didn’t care—Elisa was bi, and I was definitely not dating. We probably wouldn’t have ever clarified anything, but our hall counselor asked outright because having couples room together was against school policy.

Now she was dating a dance major named Kyle who, we were both pretty certain, also played both sides of the field. And I, as planned, was still resolutely single. I preferred the term “off-limits.” Ethan preferred the term “future crazy cat lady.”

I watched Elisa bite the tip of her pen in consideration of what movie to stream, but before she could write it down, Jonathan turned back around and addressed the class.

“As we’ve read time and time again,” he said, standing behind his desk, “the worshipers of pagan gods didn’t see their deities as untouchable creatures. The gods were living, breathing things, able to interact with mere mortals and disrupt their affairs. From the Celts to the Greeks to the Egyptians, the old pantheons were notoriously interactive with their mortal subjects. The Norse were no different in that worship—to them, Loki and Thor and Freyja were as real as their own kin. The gods were allies, albeit feared ones. It was the gods who blessed you with good crops, and it was the gods who took the innocent away.”

Jonathan had been my adviser for only a few months—my old adviser left to do a photo residency in Brazil after fall term—but we’d gotten on immediately. Like my drawing instructor, Jonathan had a penchant for wearing jeans and blazers. Unlike Andy, Jonathan actually pulled them off. He had curly brown hair and a short beard and wire-rim glasses. His blazers were often tweed with leather elbow patches. Some even had pocket squares. And he was maybe in his early thirties.

All of this paired quite well with the fact that he was covered in tattoos from the jaw down. I’d never seen most of them, just the bits that poked up from his collar and cuffs (birds up the neck, clouds and vines and figures on the forearms), but I’d asked him once what the grayscale tattoo was. He said it was a scene from Ragnarök.

Gotta love the hipster professors. I was pretty sure 90 percent of the male and female student body wanted to jump his sexy-intelligent bones. I just wanted to be him, tattoos and nonchalant air and all.

“Over the next three weeks we will be shifting focus from Celtic folklore to Scandinavian mythos. As you’ll quickly learn, there is a great amount of crossover between the two pantheons and modes of worship. And, as I’m sure you expected, that will be the topic for your next research project.”

There was a collective moan throughout the class, which just made him smile. I wasn’t one of the kids whining, however. This sort of shit was right up my alley. Besides, any excuse to look up mythology could only help my painting thesis.

“We’re going to start by examining how the Norse viewed the worlds of men and gods. If you’d open up to the chapter titled ‘Yggdrasil’ and follow along?”

The name was a shot of adrenaline to my chest as I turned to the chapter. The print of a tree, black and stretched between the realms of man and gods, stared back at me. A stain. Ink on paper, blood on concrete. . . . I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath.

Something landed on my desk, and I opened my eyes with a jolt. I glanced at Elisa, who had flung the note my way while Jonathan was rooting in his desk. I tried to grin as I spread open the paper over the chapter header, quickly covering up the woodblock print of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.

“Let’s watch something bloody,” the note said. “Also, give Ethan my love.”

•  •  •

The last few hours of my day were spent in silversmithing, my throwaway arts course. I spent so much time staring at canvas or paper that doing something that involved getting hands-on and dirty—and I mean really dirty, like wearing goggles and leather aprons and lighting things on fire dirty—was a nice switch. The studio was in the back of the arts building, near the loading dock. It was one of the few areas in the entire building that didn’t provide some stunning view of the grounds, mainly because the only window looked out on the outdoor welding and soldering area, which was only picturesque if you liked the industrial motif.

By the class’s end at five, my stomach was rumbling and the coffee from this morning had long since worn off. I put away my saw blades and sandpaper and put on the ring I just made for myself—a tiny silver band with little birds cut out. Technically speaking I should have been working on a collection of brooches for my final project, but the instructor, Ginny, didn’t mind. It was one of the few year-long classes at Islington, and by now she’d learned that I always got my shit done on time. Always. So long as I was working on new techniques in class, she wasn’t too bothered if it wasn’t strictly for the project.

After all, how would we learn our own style if we weren’t allowed to play?

“Nice work,” Chris said as I admired the ring.

I tried to hide my blush at the sound of his voice, hoping the extra five seconds it took me to put on my coat was enough to let the rouge fade.

“Thanks,” I replied. And then I did what I’d been training myself not to do this entire school year. I looked him in the eyes and smiled.

There were a few rules in my life that I followed to a T. One: Never ignore an omen. Two: Never pass up a new opportunity unless, you know, you’ll die from it. And three: Never fall in love.

They were all tried and true rules, but Rule Three was the most important. Love was for getting hurt. Badly. Or hurting someone else in the process. It wasn’t safe, in direct violation of Rule Two.

Chris made me want to ignore the rules in spite of all that. And that’s why I had to keep him at arm’s length.

Every time I saw him, I imagined him darting through the woods like an elf. His usual earthy, hand-accented attire only helped that image. He was a senior, like me, with a brown floppy undercut that was almost a mohawk and a goatee. His hazel eyes had that really unnerving habit of not looking away when you were talking to him.

Like they were doing just now.

“How’s your thesis going?” he asked. Again, he didn’t look away, and I know I said it was unnerving, but it wasn’t creepy. It was actually really charming. The unnerving part came from the gravity it created. The pull I’d been fighting from day one. Chris was gorgeous and talented, albeit a few inches shorter than me, and the first two points were definite reasons we couldn’t date. Never, ever trust the pretty ones with your heart. Unless, of course, they’re gay.

“It’s going,” I replied. It took me a moment to realize him saying “thesis” didn’t cause the same violent reaction it usually did. Probably because I was already so focused on not looking into those eyes. “I should be ready though. How about you?”

He ran a hand through his hair and looked over to his shelf in the corner. Jesus, that boy’s jawline. His face was basically the embodiment of aquiline. My fingers itched to sketch him, but that was an alley I was not going down. Getting him alone to stare at him for a few hours? Danger, Will Robinson, danger.

“It’s going,” he repeated, and chuckled to himself. “Who’d have thought doing a dozen different surrealist landscapes would be tiresome?”

“I could have told you that one,” I said. “Though the idea is rockin’.”

He laughed again and slung his canvas messenger bag over his shoulder. “Did you really just use the word ‘rockin” ?”

“I did. Is there a problem?”

“Not at all. And thanks. I was worried it was pretentious.”

I shrugged and held open the door for him. The hall outside was mostly empty as the school filtered toward dinner, which I would be skipping to go fishing. My stomach rumbled again, and I mentally assured it there would be plenty of dolmas and hummus to keep it from mutiny.

“You heading to dinner?” he asked.

Okay, what was going on? Was I just overthinking things, or was it honestly unusual for him to have lingered after class to chat when we hadn’t exchanged more than a passing hello all year?

“Actually, no, I’m heading out with a friend.”

“Oooh, is it a date?”

My imagination, or did his smile slip just a little?

“Definitely,” I said. “Though his boyfriend will always have dibs on him.”

He raised an eyebrow and I realized where that mental train was going. Oh Islington, where sexuality was as fluid as the blood in our horny little veins.

“I mean, no. He’s gay. Like, really really gay. It was a joke.”

“Got it,” he said.

We walked in silence for a bit, passing the works of other students and pausing to stare on occasion. I pretended Chris was Oliver. Cool, confident, sexually uninterested Oliver. It made the whole interaction much easier.

“I can’t believe it’s in two weeks,” I muttered, staring at a student’s impeccable self-portrait. Two more weeks to finish my thesis and tie up my entire high school career in one neat little package.

“Lucky. You’re getting it over with. I’ve got another four.”

“More time to prepare?” Of course. His show was going up with Ethan’s—it would mean I couldn’t skip the opening.

“More time to panic, in all honesty.”

When we resumed walking, I couldn’t help but notice that he kept glancing over to me, like he wanted to ask me something. It just made me walk a little faster. Thankfully, Jane was coming down the stairs from the painting studio. She bounced over to us as she zipped up her downy aquamarine coat and grinned.

“Hey guys,” she said. “Mind if I walk with you?”

“Not at all,” I said. Maybe a little too quickly. I didn’t want to be alone with Chris, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I didn’t trust him or myself. Don’t be so nervous, you can trust me. I shoved down the voice before it could get louder, jabbing my finger with my room key to stay grounded.

“How’s it going?” Chris asked Jane. If he was upset by someone else joining in, he didn’t show it. Maybe he was just being cordial.

“Great,” she replied. “Just trying to get tomorrow’s homework finished up.” She nudged me. “Though Little Miss Amazing over here’s already done.”

I shrugged and tried to fight down my second blush in five minutes. My heart was racing from the words that had bubbled up from the depths. I clearly needed sleep. And out of this situation. Where was Ethan? I needed his snark to keep me in balance.

“It’s what happens when you don’t have a social life,” I said, looking everywhere but at Chris. “Work comes easier.”

It was only a partial lie. The truth was, I could spend days painting and not notice the time. I’d finished the assignment two days early not because I was trying to be efficient, but because I’d seriously lost myself to the process. I almost missed sign-in because of it. There were reasons I set alarms when I went in to paint on my own.

“So says the girl who’s ditching us for an off-campus fling,” Chris said.

“Let me guess—Ethan?”

“She gets me,” I said, gesturing to Jane.

We reached the end of the hall. Chris opened the door for us and bowed as we exited. Five o’clock and the sky was already dark as death. Most kids complained about it, but I actually really enjoyed the short days. It wasn’t an emo thing; I just wasn’t cut out for sun or heat. Another reason I sent myself to boarding school in the northern wilds.

“Anyway,” I said, wrapping my burgundy scarf around my neck. Chris buttoned the last few buttons of his tan duster and Jane pulled on a knit hat. It felt like it was going to snow. We already had two feet on the ground, but I seriously hoped for another flurry. The woods felt most alive in the silence and snow. “This is where I must bid you adieu.”

Chris shook his head.

“Don’t say that. Adieu is sort of a permanent farewell. It pretty much means ‘to God.’ ”

How fitting, I thought, and shoved it back down with the rest of my past.

“Oh well then,” I said, struggling to keep my wit in check, “since I don’t plan on overdosing on tea, I shall say . . . catch you later, alligators?”

Jane laughed and gave me a quick hug. Chris just stood there awkwardly. “In a while, crocodile,” he fumbled.

“Nice try, champ. Better luck next time.” Then I slapped him on the shoulder (holy crap, what was I becoming, a bro?) and turned before that itchy gravity between us could connect. I didn’t look back to watch them head toward the cafeteria. I kept my eyes on the road, but I had no doubt that the murder of crows on the power lines weren’t the only ones watching me depart.

Get a hold of yourself, Kaira, I thought as I walked. You just need to sleep.

Yeah. Tell that to my dreams.

I shook my head and focused on the chill air, the way it made my nostrils freeze. This is what’s important. Where you are, not where you’ve been. Your past can’t hurt you unless you let it. I’d learned a lot in the last few years at Islington. The most important, though, was how to keep moving forward.

There was something about winter dusk that made Islington look like an entirely different beast. Color seemed to seep from the landscape, and everything sharpened in shades of steel and snow, save for the warm lights flooding from the practice rooms and dorms. Kids wandering around in parkas and gloves held hands and threw snowballs and sang show tunes (drama kids). It looked like the cover for an admissions packet. Every single place on campus was an invitation to come inside and get warm and have some hot cocoa. I glanced behind me to where the Writers’ House beckoned at the lane’s end, a great A-frame lodge created just for the writing classes, and one of the many buildings I wished I could convert into my personal living space. And ahead, the five dorms housing all of Islington’s four hundred students waited.

I trudged past the boys’ dorms and up the front steps into Graham. As expected, Ethan was already waiting at the front desk, perched on a stool with Oliver at his side, chatting with Maria. The rest of the waiting area was empty—no one checking their cubby mailboxes or watching TV in the lounge behind the front desk. Everyone was at dinner. My stomach growled again. One of the drawbacks of boarding school’s food schedule: It turned you into a geriatric in a week. Dinner by five? Please.

“Hey boys,” I called.

Maria—my hall’s RA, with red pin-up hair and a penchant for polka dots—looked past Ethan’s shoulder and raised one perfectly painted eyebrow.

“And bombshell babe,” I corrected. “How was the rest of the day?”

“Droll,” Ethan said lethargically. Oliver nudged him.

“Ignore him. He’s channeling angsty art student hardcore today.” Oliver walked over and gave me a hug while Ethan slouched deeper onto his stool. “Poor boy says he’s dying of cabin fever.”

“I can fix that,” I said. “You coming with?”

It was hard to keep my question smooth. Oliver had never, ever come to one of our tea dates. It’s not that he wasn’t allowed, it’s just that . . . it was kind of Ethan’s and my time.

“Nope,” he said. “I need to practice for the concert tomorrow. You coming?”

“Of course she is,” Ethan called from his seat. He sat up a little straighter. “She’s my date.”

“Speaking of, I’m starving.” I looked to Maria. “We all set?”

Normally I’d have to sign out to be off campus, but it was rare that I actually signed anything. Ethan had probably already told Maria we were heading out and filed the necessary paperwork even before I’d left class. They were tight like that.

“Yup,” she said. “Provided you bring me back a scone.”

“Done.” I kissed Ethan on the forehead. “You ready, hot stuff?”

“And eager.”

He slid off the seat and took Oliver’s and my hands, then led us out the front door. The three of us walked together toward the parking lot behind the cafeteria. Somehow it had gotten even darker in the half second we were inside. The streetlamps along the lane came on, casting their fierce white light over everything. A crow, startled by the sudden light, took off with an angry caw down the lane and into the woods by the lake.

“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” Oliver asked. “We still on the hunt for the man who’ll melt Kaira’s icy heart? Or woman, I guess.”

I nearly skidded on a patch of ice. “Um, homo say what?”

“Smooth,” Ethan said, and I wasn’t certain if he was talking about my horrible comeback or Oliver’s question. They both knew that dating wasn’t in the cards for me. But Oliver seemed to forget that at times. “And no, tonight we’re going to escape the meaningless cycle of art and academic industry.”

“By working on homework,” Oliver said.

Ethan pointed to his boyfriend. “That . . . is accurate. But we’re working off campus, so it doesn’t count.”

“What’s gotten into you today?” I asked, eager to turn the conversation back to him and away from talk of potential boyfriends. “You’re more broody than usual. Did you watch The Breakfast Club again?”

Oliver snorted and flashed me a grin. Ethan’s lack of a laugh told me I’d hit somewhere close to home. Woops.

“I got a C on my American Civ paper,” he muttered.

In Ethan’s world, that was pretty much the equivalent of being shot in the kneecap. It had taken me a few months to understand that his perfectionism wasn’t just a facade—he really did need to be the best at everything he tried. Otherwise, he took it as a personal failure.

“I’ll take some credit for that,” Oliver said, letting go of Ethan’s hand to wrap an arm over his shoulder. Ethan, being a good eight inches shorter than Oliver, leaned in to the embrace. “I feel like I’ve been distracting you too much, now that college apps are over.”

Ethan just shrugged. “I don’t mind the distraction. Just need to get better at time management.”

Oliver gave him a squeeze. And I knew, then, that Ethan wasn’t just upset about the grade. He was upset about why he’d gotten the grade. In a few weeks we’d be hearing back from colleges, and once that happened, the happy little dream of the three of us living in this Eden together would shatter. I knew Ethan was trying to make the most of the time he had with Oliver. And I knew it killed him that he couldn’t have the boyfriend and the best friend and still keep his grades up.

Priorities, man. For some reason, art school fucked with them.

We parted ways at the steps leading to the cafeteria. Oliver gave Ethan another quick kiss and pecked me on the forehead. Then, with a backward glance and wave and “Make sure you get her at least one number!” he bounced up the stairs and into the bustling dining room. From the smell that wafted out, it was Chinese night. Definitely a good reason to eat off campus. Islington couldn’t do fried rice to save its life, and the smell of soy sauce and General Tso’s stuck to you for days.

“Sorry about that,” Ethan muttered as we walked down the drive to the parking lot.

“What?” I asked, looking away from the crow perched above the cafeteria door.

“Being grumpy. Oliver being . . . Oliver.”

“It’s why I love him,” I said. Chris’s face flashed through my mind. Someone to melt my heart? No way in hell; my heart was perfectly fine on its own, thanks. I stuffed the thought down into the shadows. “And it’s why I love you. Tea will make everything better.”

“You’re so British it hurts,” he said, and opened the passenger door of his old Lincoln town car for me. “But thankfully not with the teeth.”

He was the only person I knew under sixty who had those beaded seat covers. The rest of the interior was, like him, a study in presented chaos: Papers and art supplies were strewn over the backseat, though there wasn’t any rubbish in the footwells or wrappers on the cushions. I’d spent so much time in this car that it felt like a second home, to the point where I kept a chunk of my art materials in here, just for occasions such as this. He sank into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on, cranking up the frozen heat. Some whiny indie band came on, a “local favorite” as he liked to say, which just meant they played banjo and hadn’t had a tour outside of the state.

“Shall we?” he asked.

I nodded, and we pulled out of the lot and onto the narrow road leading into town. The birds in the branches watched us the entire way, and I couldn’t fight down the shadowy mantra in my mind, no matter how loud he blared his music.

A murder of crows. A murder of crows. And the dream, like a stain in the night air—the face of my ex watching me through the bleeding boughs.

Never ignore an omen.