Taehyung doesn’t say anything on the car ride home.

It would be better if he was shouting at me. I hate this tense, foreboding silence. But he has always been like this. Cold. Quiet. Vicious.

    I thought it would be better if he said something, anything.

    But when we get home and he finally starts talking, I am proven dead wrong.

    “So tell me,” he says, after he has dragged me upstairs to his room. “Have you forgotten your responsibilities here?”

    I cannot say anything.

    “Don’t you remember,” Taehyung continues, “that you are supposed to immediately answer my texts and do what I ask you to? If you can’t do that, then why do you think you deserve to stay here?”

    This type of pain is unlike anything I have ever felt before. I am on fire and drowning in water, parched with thirst and dying of disease. A crushing weight is pressing on my body and it takes all my willpower not to collapse onto the floor. I fearfully watch Taehyung as he fumes in front of me. I have felt anger and frustration at him, but never have I been scared of him.

    Until now.

    “Even if you didn’t want to talk to me, you could’ve at least responded to Andrews.” He sneers. “I know you must’ve been busy with your friend, but you are a liability to us. We’re responsible if you go missing.”

    I am silent. His smirk grows wider.

    “You don’t have anything to say? That’s a first. Cat got your tongue?”

    When I don’t say anything, he simply flashes me a look of contempt before turning to leave.

    And then I whisper, “It’s not fair.”

    Taehyung pauses. He his head towards me just the slightest.

    “You have no right to be mad at me,” I say quietly. “You’re the one who humiliated me in front of everyone last night. You’re the one who’s put me through hell. You almost-,” I am about to say got me murdered, but quickly swallow my words. “You’re a monster.”

    In two strides, Taehyung has stormed up to me and pinned me against the wall.

    “Who do you think you are?” he asks in a deathly soft voice.

    The coldness intensifies. The pain disappears, replaced with a strange exhaustion and dizziness. I place my hands on the wall to steady myself.

Taehyung lowers his face to mine. “Do you think you can talk to me like that?” he says.

He is too- too close. His chest is nearly flush against mine; my bare thighs are pressed up against his. The heat radiating off his body contrasts the now sub-zero temperature in the room. I am sure he can feel my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

A shudder passes through my body. This time, it is not because of the cold.

Taehyung’s eyes darken.

For several moments, we simply stand there, chest to chest, legs pressed up together and eyes burning holes in each other.

And then Taehyung abruptly jerks away from me. All the fatigue suddenly leaves my body; I straighten up, hurriedly composing myself, determinedly looking away from him.

“Clean up the house,” Taehyung utters before hurrying out the door. I am left standing alone in his room, utterly confused.

    What was that?

“I’m trying to figure out times when Taehyung won’t be here, but I have no idea what his schedule’s like,” I say after I enter the study room in the science wing. Dev looks up, his spoon halfway to his mouth.

“I could host a party this Friday to make him leave the house, and then you guys could find the magic and I could do shots off Mia Gantchev’s body and come to school the next Monday and everyone’s cheering me on as I walk in because I’m the coolest-,”

“Why would any of the popular seniors come to your party?” Lucy snaps. “Actually, scratch that. No one would come to your party.”

“Hey! That’s not true! The last time I threw a rager, we were so crazy the neighbors called the cops on us!”

“You’re a ,” I mutter.

“Besides, with my luck, my senior mentor will be some really popular, hot chick,” Dev grins, wiggling his eyebrows. I look at him in confusion.

“Senior mentor?”

“Yeah, all the juniors get senior mentors who talk to them about college and their dreams and stuff,” Tom explains. “They’re assigned in November, after the deadline for college apps.”

“Rumor has it they should be coming out sometime this week,” Dev says gleefully.

I furrow my eyebrows. “Wait, aren’t college apps due in, like, January?”

Lucy snorts. “Yeah, but Windsong mandates that all the seniors turn in their apps by the end of October, so the counselors can proofread their essays and apps.”

“Wha- that’s illegal! That’s totally not right!”

“There’s a reason half of the kids from this place go to the Ivyies,” Lucy tells me wryly. “The other half goes to Stanford or MIT. The counselors here are really good at making anyone sound well-rounded. Even if you’re Mackenzie Zales.”

I shake my head. This is ridiculously unfair. There are so many kids out there who’ve worked their asses off to get into a good school, and they’ll probably get rejected in favor of some Windsong moron who spent the last four years taking tequila shots in Cabo.

I spend the rest of the week researching magical properties with Lucy, Dev, and Tom, attempting to figure out how to enter the library again, and avoiding Taehyung. That last one has been pretty easy; ever since our strange... encounter a few days ago, he’s been making an effort to avoid me, too. Apparently he's been at his friends' houses.

Good. I do not want to see him.

Dev and I are sitting in homeroom Thursday afternoon, poring over a scientific article I found about computer simulations of baryons, when Mr. clears his throat.

“Okay, everyone,” Mr. Robertson says in his tired, weary voice. “It’s time for me to announce your senior mentors.”

As if on cue, a group of upperclassmen walk into the room. My lip curls as I pick out Hoseok Jung, Sofia Flores, Laila Zaroor, Evan Rothcliff, and Namjoon Kim from the group. Great. Five of the people who make my life hell. What’s the chance I’ll get one of them as my mentor?

“Laila, you’re all mine,” Dev says under his breath, rubbing his hands together. I elbow him in the side. “Ow!”

“Stop being a face,” I grumble.

“Let me live.”

“Alright, so let’s start with Penelope,” Mr. Robertson says, peering at his list. “You have Laila Zaroor.”

“Dammit!” Dev groans, burying his head in his hands. Apparently, this is a sentiment shared by many other boys in our class- I hear quite a few sighs and “!”s. Laila smirks as she sashays over to a very-eager-looking Penelope’s side.

“Dev, you have Gregory Paulson.”

Dev’s face becomes even more forlorn. “Great,” he says. “My mentor-mentee love story dream is dead.”

“Good,” I flash him an evil grin. “You’re a menace.”

Mr. Robertson continues listing off names. I stifle my laughs as Dev glumly introduces himself to Gregory Paulson, who is probably the most proper, uptight person I have ever seen. He’s all slicked back hair and perfectly creased shirt and “My father can get us into the executive meeting rooms at the Colinas Country Club.” Dev looks like he wants to cry.

“So you’re Jooyeon Jung,” Gregory says, looking down his nose at me. “It’s a real pleasure. Nice to see the good work Windsong is doing by helping the underprivileged.”

“Oh, definitely,” I say, struggling to smother my smile. “Back in my town, we didn’t even have clean water. We had to stand outside on stormy days and catch rainwater.”

Gregory clucks his tongue as Dev silently cackles behind him. “You poor, poor thing.”

“Jooyeon!” Mr. Robertson calls from the front of the room. I turn. Everyone is staring at me expectantly.

“Sorry, what?” I say.

“Your mentor will be Sofia Flores,” he says. “Pay attention next time.”

The smile drops off my face. I look at Dev in alarm, and then look at Sofia, who is strutting over to me with a sneer.

“Jin, you have Cloe.” Mr. Robertson furrows his eyebrows. “Where’s Cloe?”

“She hasn’t been at school for the past week,” one of the seniors pipes up. Mr. Robertson frowns.

“Okay, then, Jin, you can just be in Jooyeon and Sofia’s group.”

I whip my head back around to Dev in absolute horror. Not only do I have to deal with Sofia, but Jin will be in my group, too? My eyes widen slightly as I realize that Jin is probably a sorcerer as well- hell, Joo, there are probably a ton of monsters in this place, why are you surprised?  

Sofia sighs in relief as Jin makes his way over to us from the other side of the room. “Thank god there’s someone normal,” she mutters. I shoot her a resentful look.

Jin silently takes a seat next to Sofia, giving her a small smile when she effusively greets him. Meanwhile, Dev and I are exchanging panicked looks with each other.

“Alright, so all of you take the next ten minutes to get to know each other and exchange numbers,” Mr. Robertson says.

The class dissolves into conversation. I uncomfortably focus my eyes on the book on my desk, refusing to make eye contact with neither Sofia nor Jin.

“I’m so excited for the game next week, Jin,” Sofia grins, flipping her long caramel brown hair over her shoulder. “The girls and I have been working on these new cheers and it’s been so great. We’ll blow Westwood’s socks off!”

“Mmmm,” Jin noncommittally grunts. I stare at him out of the corner of my eye as he absentmindedly plays with his pen. Is this guy some sort of soulless, emotionless, personality-less robot? He doesn’t seem to care about any of this at all.

I spend the next 10 minutes poring over my book in silence as Sofia blabbers away to an unreceptive Jin. My phone buzzes with a text.

Dev: ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!

Joo: i know.

Joo: this lmao

Dev: it’s okay senior mentors aren’t super important it’s fine

Dev: we can share gregory ;))))

Joo: sorry bud but you can keep him

Joo: wouldnt wanna intrude on you two in the colinas country club executive rooms ;)

Dev: shut up

“Hey.” Sofia snaps her fingers right under my nose in the most condescending way possible. I look up at her in annoyance.

“What?” I snap.

She narrows her eyes. “What’s your number? We’re required to meet once a week.”

. I reluctantly enter my contact information into her Kate Spade-cased iPhone. As soon as I’m done, she snatches it away from me.

“Okay, well, I’ll text y’all!” she chirps. “Ooh, Jin, are you going to Yoongi’s this weekend?”

When the bell rings, I leap out of my seat and sprint out of the classroom so quickly I nearly knock over Mr. Robertson. “Hey, watch out!” he yells behind me.

 “What the hell, Joo?” Dev calls, running behind me. “Slow down!”

    “I’m going to puke,” I growl. “This is the worst. Mentors to help us with our future? The only thing I want for my future is to survive this school. Jin and Sofia are magical creatures, and are going to kill me.”

    “Actually, I don’t know if Sofia’s a magical creature,” Dev muses as we head to the study room in the science wing. “She’s actually a scholarship student. But then again, I’m sure there are scholarship students who’re monsters.”

    I freeze in my tracks. “Sofia? A scholarship student?”

    “Yeah. We were in seminar together two years ago.” He furrows his eyebrows. “She was a really good artist. Not sure how that helped the sorcerers, but... yeah.”

    “Wow. How did a scholarship student get so popular?”

    “I don’t know. After...,” Dev clenches his jaw. “After that year, she joined the cheerleading team and stuff. Pulled a total 180.”

    I peer at Dev. There’s something about the tense, angry way he talks about that seminar that makes me wonder if there’s something more to the story of their freshman year at Windsong.