The last ferry of the night, and the rain comes at the west corridor of Ravenmoor Academy sideways, in sheets bright enough to read by whenever the lightning gets behind the stained glass. The arched window is the only light down here. You have been a student for eleven minutes.

Ravenmoor takes the ones the ordinary world will not hold: the mind-readers, the moon-turners, the ones who come back wrong. Your intake letter said matriculation is eighteen, and it said it three times, as if you might argue with a form.

There are four of them at the end of the corridor, and they are not waiting for a bus.

says the boy in the navy knit beanie, eyes shut, head back against the stone.

The blonde one on the bench beside him turns a whole smile on you at once, the pink and blue in her hair catching the window.

Behind her, the tall one unfolds to her feet, and the corridor gets smaller.

She says it the way a door is closed.

The fourth one has not moved. Black hair, blunt fringe, arms crossed, a braid down one shoulder, and a stare as flat as a shut door. She is watching the rain and you at the same time, and her hand is in her pocket around something.

the blonde one says, cheerful.

Ravenna takes her hand out of her pocket. There is red chalk on her fingers. She writes one word on her own palm, and the corridor lamps go out one by one from the far end toward you, unhurried, until only the stained glass is left, and the rain, and the four of them.

she says.

She steps aside half a step, not enough to pass, and holds the dormitory key out at arm's length.