"Two-fifty," Mr. Alvarez hissed. "Riley Hart, what is the point of breathing?" The room laughed like a single body. Laughter that smells of luxury and permission. Francesca Bender's smile was a practiced thing—teeth, shoulder tilt, eyes that said please savior me while also stabbing. She leaned forward, hands clasped, acting concern for the camera of the classroom's social life. Riley sat very still. Her notebook was open. A neat line of calculations stared back at her like a dare. She had known the score would be bad; she had known Alvarez would perform his cruelty this way. She had learned, in this life, how to predict cruelty the way other people predict rain. "Explain," Alvarez said. "You scored a forty-eight. On a test with five bonus points available. Forty-eight. You are in Langford Academy, Ms. Hart. We aim for excellence." "Maybe she aimed for something else," someone muttered. A ripple of more laughter. The smart kids laughed—the ones who could afford private tutors and the careless arrogance of being born into greater luck. Riley stared at her hands. They were small, callused where she'd carried groceries and held broken things. No tremor. No appeal. That had been the old Riley's first instinct—plead, explain, crawl. The old Riley had hoped people would be gentle. The old Riley had been wrong, multiple times. She felt the new version settle into her ribs. It was quiet. It smelled faintly of damp paper and