Fractured Light
The critique began with the sound of Professor Whitaker’s pen tapping against her canvas. Tap. Tap. Tap. Each strike punctuated the humid silence of the studio classroom, the sound sharp as a scalpel slicing through Vivi’s ribs.
“Ms. Thibodeau,” the professor drawled, peering over his wire-rimmed glasses at her chiaroscuro study—a portrait rendered in charcoal and ash, a woman, her face half-submerged in shadow, one hazel eye catching a sliver of imagined light. “Your technique is… competent. But where’s the risk? The hunger?”
Vivi’s fingers tightened around the frayed hem of her cardigan, the wool scratchy against her palms. She counted the flecks of gold in the linoleum floor tiles—seven, eight, nine—to steady her breath. Her throat burned with the urge to explain: The light is in the broken parts… right there... Don’t you see? But words had always been treacherous things, collapsing in her mouth like sand.
“It’s… soft,” she whispered instead, gaze fixed on her scuffed ballet flats.
“Exactly! Art isn’t-!” Whitaker flung his arms wide, knocking over a jar of turpentine. The acrid scent flooded the air. He hissed, scowl deepening as he glared at the offending object before looking back up at her. “Art isn’t soft, Genevieve. It’s a knife to the gut. A scream in the dark.”
But what if my scream is quiet? she thought, her chest constricting. The studio walls seemed to lean closer, the fluorescent lights buzzing like wasps. She focused on the floor, her toes moving under the ballet flats, the professor’s continued critique coiled around her, intensifying under the glances from the other students.
No. She pressed her thumbnail into the scar on her wrist, hidden under lace. I am here. I am safe.
The Athenaeum Library welcomed her with the sigh of ancient hinges and the scent of old coffee stains slithering between dusty books. Vivi slipped through the oak doors, her skirt whispering against her calves—moss-green corduroy, worn soft at the knees. Late afternoon sun streamed through stained-glass windows, fracturing the air into jewel-toned light: sapphire, emerald, the deep amber of aged whiskey. She trailed her fingers along the mahogany shelves, their surfaces polished to a honeyed gleam, and breathed in the scent of dust and decay—vanishing ink, crumbling leather, the ghosts of a thousand stories.
Her alcove waited, as it always did, nestled between Philosophy and the forgotten 19th-century travelogues. A threadbare armchair, its velvet upholstery patched with floral handkerchiefs. A side table cluttered with her sketchbooks, a chipped jasmine teacup, and Rembrandt—the tabby, not the painter—curled in a sunbeam, his tail twitching at her approach. Mrs. Kim, with her judgmental glances and unpleasant sneer, was the last person Vivi expected to fall in love with Rem. But the head librarian’s approval was something she wouldn’t question for a second.
Convincing his presence had been… a task. One made easy with Luna’s unconventional skills and Raya’s icy glare that Vivi reckoned could freeze glass. Yet Mrs. Kim had glared, but the coil in her gut back then was nothing against this, this joy of knowing that something, was hers to care for.
“Sorry I’m late,” she murmured, scratching behind his ears. His purr vibrated against her palm as she settled into the chair, knees drawn to her chest. The library’s silence wrapped around her like a quilt, muffling the echo of Whitaker’s disdain.
Tap.
Her pencil met paper, tentative at first. Lines emerged: the curve of the philosophy professor’s spectacles as he dozed at his desk; the way the new intern, Mei-Ling, tucked her hair behind her ear three times before speaking. Safe, small truths. But her hands betrayed her, drifting to the back pages—to him.
Rhysand Alejandro de la Cruz.
She’d seen him the third time about two months ago, at Raya’s charity banquet. Luna had smuggled her in, swathing her in a pale cream dress that swayed at her ankles (“You look like a cupcake, ghostie. A bashful sweet.”). He’d stood across the ballroom, a monolith in a charcoal suit, his presence bending the room like gravity. Their eyes met—hazel clashing with glacial green—and for a heartbeat, she’d forgotten how to breathe. Then a waiter jostled her, champagne sloshing over his cuff, and his gaze turned to frost.
He hadn’t raised a hand or a voice. His face remained unfazed, as if he were looking past her.
She’d fled, but not before glimpsing the tattoos peeking from his collar—ink like scars, like secrets. That night, she’d dreamt of wolves with emerald eyes.
Now, her sketchbook bloomed with him: the ruthless line of his jaw, the silver streaking his hair like tarnished moonlight, the way his hands—broad, scarred, a killer’s hands—had flexed as he’d glared through her.
“Creepin’ on mob bosses, ghostie?”
Vivi yelped, nearly upending her teacup. Luna loomed over her, a neon-haired eclipse in a leather jacket that reeked of motor oil and rebellion. Behind her, Raya glided into the alcove, heels silent on the Persian rug, her crimson pantsuit sharp enough to draw blood.
“We knocked,” Luna said, plopping onto the armrest. “Like, six times. You’re lucky we’re not axe murderers.”
“You are axe murderers,” Vivi mumbled, hastily shutting her sketchbook.
Raya’s lips quirked. “Only on weekends.” She claimed the chair’s opposite arm, her perfume—night-blooming jasmine and something darker, smokier—mixing with Luna’s bergamot-and-chilli scent.
The two were a study in contrasts: Luna, all tangled limbs and chaos, her afro defying gravity (today streaked with bioluminescent blue), her boots propped insolently on Vivi’s table. Raya, carved from ice and elegance, her bob a blade of platinum, her nails painted the same crimson as her lips.
“You’re coming to the gala,” Luna announced, snatching a scone from Vivi’s forgotten plate.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Raya plucked the scone from Luna’s hand and returned it to the plate. “You’ll enjoy it. Quiet corners. Free champagne. Art.”
“Art funded by my brother’s blood money,” Luna muttered, lowering her pitch to mimic Raya, then yelped as she pinched her thigh.
Vivi stiffened. Brother. Rhys. Her fingers trembled against the sketchbook’s spine.
“He won’t bite,” Luna said, softer now. “Unless you’re into that. No kink-shaming here.”
“Luna.” Raya’s warning voice.
“What? Ghostie’s a big girl. Aren’t you, Viv?”
Vivi curled tighter into the chair. Rembrandt leapt onto her lap, a rumbling, protective weight. “I… I have work.”
“Bullshit.” Luna leaned down, her breath warm against Vivi’s ear. “C’mon. I’ll let you hide in the library alcove and punch anyone who looks at you funny. Even Ice Queen here.”
Raya arched a brow. “Try it.”
Their bickering washed over Vivi, familiar as tides. Luna’s voice was a live wire, crackling with obscenities and inside jokes; Raya’s, a velvet-wrapped dagger, slicing through the noise with lethal precision. They’d found her two years ago, a shadow trembling in the library’s stacks, and adopted her like a stray kitten—Luna with loud proclamations (“You’re ours now, deal with it”), Raya with silent gifts: cashmere blankets, panic buttons disguised as jewellery, a key to their penthouse.
Now, Luna was mid-tirade about Raya’s “elitist” taste in wine when Vivi’s eyelids fluttered. Exhaustion clung to her bones, heavy as wet wool. The scent of jasmine and leather blurred.
“—swear to God, Raya, if you serve that pretentious Bordeaux again—”
“It’s a gala, not a frat party.”
“Exactly! Let’s spike the punch with LSD—”
Vivi’s head lolled against Raya’s shoulder. The world faded at the edges, Raya’s arm slipping around her waist, Luna’s jacket draping over her like a shield.
“...needs sleep,” Raya murmured, her voice distant.
“Kid’s running on fumes and anxiety.” Luna’s fingers brushed Vivi’s braid, gentler than anyone would expect. “Think the professor’s been shredding her again?”
A hum. “I’ll handle it.”
Vivi wanted to protest, but the darkness pulled her under. In the haze, she heard Raya’s next words, low and lethal:
“Remind Whitaker who funds his department.”
Then, softer:
“Rhys will be there. Keep her close.”
The name jolted through her, even half-asleep. Rhys. Her sketchbook phantom. The wolf in the shadows. Somewhere, in the labyrinth of her mind, a door creaked open—and the emerald eyes waiting there made her shiver.
