The first thing Wisteria noticed was the light.
Not bright in a way that hurt—no sharp glare, no sting behind her eyes—but steady. Soft. Too even to be natural. It pressed gently against her closed lids, patient, like it knew she would open them eventually.
She didn’t want to.
There was a weight in her limbs, a strange heaviness that made it easier to stay still, to pretend she was somewhere else—somewhere familiar, somewhere that made sense. For a few seconds, she let herself exist there, in that almost-sleep, where nothing had edges and nothing needed answers.
Then the quiet settled in.
Not the quiet of a bedroom at night, or the muffled stillness of early morning. This was different. Thicker. Like sound itself had been pulled out of the air and replaced with something heavier.
Wrong.
Her eyes opened.
White.
The ceiling stretched above her in a smooth, endless plane, glowing faintly as if lit from within. No fixtures. No seams. Just a soft, artificial brightness that didn’t flicker, didn’t hum, didn’t change.
Wisteria blinked, slow at first, then faster.
Her breath caught.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, the movement clumsy, like her body wasn’t quite hers yet. The floor beneath her palms was cool—too smooth, almost polished, with no texture to grip, no warmth to it. It didn’t feel like tile or concrete. It felt… placed. Manufactured.
Her head swam.
There was a faint ringing in her ears, dull and persistent, like the echo of something she couldn’t quite remember hearing.
She swallowed. Her throat was dry.
Where am I?
The thought came sharp and immediate.
The answer didn’t.
Wisteria pressed her fingers lightly to her temple, as if that might knock something loose—some last memory, some image of where she had been before this. A room. A street. A voice.
Nothing came.
Only the white ceiling. The empty air. The ringing.
Her pulse ticked faster.
She sat up fully this time, drawing her knees in slightly, grounding herself with the simple, familiar motion. The fabric of her clothes shifted against her skin—soft, loose, unfamiliar. Not what she remembered wearing. If she remembered anything at all.
Her gaze lowered.
Her wrist.
A thin band circled it—smooth, pale, fitted too perfectly to have been put on casually. Words glowed faintly across its surface.
WISTERIA VALE
PARTICIPANT 17
STATUS: UNBONDED
Her breath hitched.
Unbonded.
The word lingered in her mind longer than the others, heavier somehow, though she didn’t understand why. It sat there, quiet and insistent, like it expected her to know what it meant.
“I don’t—”
Her voice came out rough, barely more than air. She cleared her throat, the sound loud in the strange stillness.
“I don’t…”
The sentence never finished.
Because she wasn’t alone.
The realization came all at once.
Movement flickered at the edges of her vision—subtle shifts, the rustle of fabric, a soft inhale that wasn’t hers. Wisteria’s head turned slowly, almost cautiously, like moving too fast might make whatever was there disappear.
It didn’t.
People.
They were scattered across the room—no, not a room. Something larger. Wider. An open space that stretched farther than she’d realized at first glance. Dozens of figures lay across the same white floor, some still unmoving, others beginning to stir.
A girl a few feet away pushed herself up with a shaky breath, her hair falling forward as she blinked rapidly at the ceiling. A man farther back sat upright too quickly, swearing under his breath as he clutched his head.
A ripple of sound began to spread.
Confused voices. Low, uncertain. Someone asking where they were. Someone else laughing—short, sharp, disbelieving.
Wisteria’s chest tightened.
Too many people.
Too many strangers.
No doors.
Her eyes lifted again, scanning the space more carefully now. The walls—if there were walls—blended into the same seamless white as the floor and ceiling. No windows broke the surface. No shadows shifted with passing light.
Just that same soft, endless glow.
This isn’t real.
The thought came fast, desperate.
It didn’t stick.
Because everything felt too solid. Too present. The cool floor beneath her hands, the dryness in her throat, the sound of someone crying somewhere to her right—all of it pressed in, undeniable.
Real.
Wisteria’s fingers curled slightly against the floor as her breathing grew shallow.
Think.
But there was nothing to think with. No memory to anchor herself to, no explanation that made sense of any of it.
Only the word on her wrist.
Unbonded.
Her gaze dropped to it again, drawn without meaning to be. The faint glow of the letters reflected softly against her skin, steady and patient.
Waiting.
A sharp inhale cut through the air nearby.
“Okay.”
The voice was close. Too close.
Wisteria turned, her movement quick this time.
A girl sat just a few feet away, half-curled on her side before pushing herself upright in one restless motion. Her hair—light brown, slightly tangled—fell around her face as she looked around, eyes wide and bright with something that looked a lot like panic trying very hard to disguise itself.
“Okay,” the girl said again, a little louder, like repetition might make it more true. She dragged a hand through her hair, then let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “This is—this is weird, right? This is definitely weird.”
Her gaze landed on Wisteria.
Locked there.
For a second, neither of them spoke.
Then the girl’s expression softened just slightly, like she’d decided something.
“Hi,” she said, a little breathless. “Sorry. Hi. I just—” she gestured vaguely at the white space, the people, the everything “—I don’t remember getting here, and I feel like that’s… not great.”
Wisteria stared at her for a moment, the words taking a second longer than they should have to settle into place.
“…I don’t either,” she admitted quietly.
The girl exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction in visible relief.
“Okay. Good. Not good, but—” she shook her head quickly, pushing herself a little closer, like distance itself was the problem “—I’m Juniper. Which feels like a weirdly cheerful name for… whatever this is.”
Juniper.
Wisteria nodded faintly, the motion automatic.
“Wisteria.”
Juniper blinked, then let out a small, incredulous huff.
“Of course it is,” she said. “You’ve got, like, a tragic main character name. This is already going badly for me.”
Despite everything—the room, the people, the nothing—something in Wisteria’s chest loosened just slightly.
Just enough to breathe.
Around them, the murmur of voices grew louder, confusion sharpening into something closer to fear. People were standing now, turning in slow circles, searching for exits that didn’t exist.
Wisteria’s eyes lifted again, drawn back to the endless white.
Still no doors.
Still no windows.
Still no answers.
Her wrist tingled faintly.
Unbonded.
Juniper shifted closer, her arm brushing lightly against Wisteria’s as she leaned in, lowering her voice like the quiet might break if they spoke too loudly.
“…Okay,” she whispered, glancing around as if expecting something to be watching them. “We’re not going to panic. That’s step one. We don’t panic alone, at least. That feels important.”
Wisteria swallowed, her gaze drifting once more across the unfamiliar faces, the too-bright space, the impossible stillness.
Something deep in her chest tightened.
Not panic.
Not yet.
But close.
“…Yeah,” she said softly.
Because whatever this was—
Whatever place they had been brought to—
It wasn’t an accident.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, quiet and insistent, a thought began to take shape.
This had been meant to happen.
She just didn’t know why.
Juniper didn’t let the silence settle for long.
“Okay,” she said again, softer this time, like she was trying to shrink the word into something manageable. “Step two… we figure out where we are. Or at least pretend we know what’s happening so we don’t completely lose it.”
Wisteria let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Around them, the room—no, the space—was waking up fully now.
People were sitting up, standing, moving in uneven circles. Voices overlapped, rising and falling in waves of confusion.
“Where are we?”
“Did anyone see anything?”
“This isn’t funny—who did this?”
Someone laughed—sharp, brittle, on the edge of breaking. Someone else started crying outright.
Wisteria’s gaze moved slowly, taking everything in.
There were more people than she’d thought at first. Dozens. Maybe more. All spread out across the same endless white floor, all wearing the same soft, neutral clothing—loose, pale, indistinct.
No one looked familiar.
Her chest tightened at that.
No one.
Juniper shifted closer to her side, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, like she’d silently decided they were staying together.
“Okay, so,” Juniper murmured, glancing around, lowering her voice just enough that it felt like they were sharing something private in a room that wasn’t private at all. “We’ve got… people. That’s something. People are good. People mean… witnesses? Collective panic? I don’t know. I’m trying to find a positive angle here.”
Wisteria almost smiled.
Almost.
“They’re all wearing the same thing,” she said quietly instead, her eyes catching on the repetition. Same color. Same cut. Same fabric.
Juniper looked down at herself, then around, then made a face.
“Oh. Great. We’re either in some kind of group experiment or the worst fashion show ever staged.”
“Juniper—”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, hands lifting slightly in surrender. “I talk when I’m nervous. And I’m very nervous right now.”
“That’s… okay.”
Juniper’s mouth curved faintly at that, like she appreciated the permission more than she expected to.
A sudden, sharp voice cut through the noise.
“This is illegal!”
Wisteria turned.
A tall guy had pushed his way into the center of the space, his movements quick, agitated. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched at his sides like he was holding himself back from hitting something.
“This—whatever this is—this is kidnapping,” he went on, louder now, turning in a slow circle like he expected someone to step forward and explain themselves. “You don’t just take people and—what, drop them in a room? Without explanation? Without—”
“Relax.”
The word landed lightly, almost lazily, and yet it cut clean through the tension.
Wisteria’s eyes shifted again.
He was leaning against nothing.
Or at least, that was what it looked like at first—until she realized there was a faint seam in the wall behind him, barely visible unless you were looking for it. He had one shoulder braced against it, one foot hooked loosely over the other, like this was all just… mildly inconvenient.
His hair caught the light—copper, almost, with hints of something brighter beneath it. His expression was easy, but not warm. His eyes moved across the room slowly, taking everything in without reacting to any of it.
“People usually get more creative when they’re actually trying to scare you,” he added, voice edged with something that might have been amusement. “This is just… minimal effort.”
A ripple moved through the group.
Some people stared at him like he’d said something insane. Others looked away, uncomfortable.
The angry guy stepped toward him, jaw tightening further.
“You think this is funny?”
The boy against the wall tipped his head slightly, considering.
“Not especially,” he said. “But I don’t think yelling at the walls is going to get us out either.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Pretty sure I do.”
There was something about the way he said it—too certain, too calm—that made the space feel smaller.
Wisteria felt it before she understood it.
Juniper leaned in slightly, voice dropping to a whisper.
“…I don’t like him.”
“Mm.”
“Like—not in a ‘he’s rude’ way. In a ‘he knows something he shouldn’t’ way.”
Wisteria didn’t answer.
Because she was thinking the same thing.
A different kind of movement caught her attention then—quieter, but somehow more noticeable.
Near the edge of the group, a girl had stood up and was smoothing her hair down with quick, practiced motions, her expression pinched with irritation rather than fear.
“Can someone explain,” she said, her voice sharp but controlled, “why I look like I’ve been dressed for a hospital sleepover?”
She tugged lightly at the sleeve of her shirt like it had personally offended her.
“And where are my things? My phone? My bag? Literally anything that belongs to me?”
No one answered.
She let out a small, disbelieving laugh, glancing around like she expected someone to step forward and apologize.
“Unbelievable.”
Juniper made a face.
“Oh, she’s going to be fun,” she muttered.
Wisteria’s gaze lingered on the girl for a moment longer before shifting again.
There—near the center.
Someone was crouched beside another person, one hand resting lightly against their arm, the other gesturing slowly, deliberately.
“Hey,” he was saying, voice low but steady, “look at me. Just breathe, okay? In, and out. You’re alright.”
The girl he was speaking to was shaking, her breaths coming too fast, too uneven. But as he spoke, they began to slow, just slightly, her shoulders easing a fraction with each inhale.
Wisteria found herself watching him without meaning to.
There was something… different about him.
Not just the calm.
It was the way people shifted around him without realizing it. The way the space seemed to settle, just a little, wherever he stood.
His hair was light—blond, almost—but softer than that. Warmer. His movements were careful, precise, like he was aware of everything he did.
Like nothing about him was accidental.
Juniper followed her gaze.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Okay. See, that’s the kind of person I want in a situation like this. Calm. Helpful. Not… whatever that guy is.”
She nodded subtly toward the one against the wall.
Wisteria didn’t look away from the first one.
“He doesn’t look scared,” she murmured.
Juniper paused.
“…yeah.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The noise of the room swelled again—voices rising, questions overlapping, fear starting to sharpen into something more chaotic.
Wisteria dragged her gaze away at last, forcing herself to take in the whole space again.
People.
Too many.
No exits.
No answers.
Juniper shifted beside her, bumping her shoulder lightly.
“Hey,” she said, quieter now. “We stick together, okay? Until we figure this out. That feels like a good plan.”
Wisteria hesitated only a second.
Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
Because right now—
In a place that made no sense, surrounded by people she didn’t know—
Having even one person felt like something.
Like a starting point.
Across the room, the boy against the wall—Riven, someone had muttered his name, though she hadn’t caught who—watched the group with a faint, unreadable smile.
And near the center, the other one—the calm one—straightened slowly, his attention lifting from the girl he’d been helping.
For a brief moment, his gaze flicked across the room—
And landed on Wisteria.
It wasn’t intense.
Not lingering.
Just a glance.
The glance should have been nothing.
A stranger looking across a room full of frightened people. A brief accident of attention. The sort of thing Wisteria might have forgotten under any other circumstances.
But there was no other circumstance here. There was only the white room, the soft impossible light, the dull glow of the wristband against her skin, and the feeling that every small thing mattered because none of the large things made sense.
Lucien’s eyes moved away from her almost as quickly as they had found her. He turned back to the girl he had been helping, his hand still raised between them in a gentle, grounding gesture. Whatever he said next was too quiet for Wisteria to hear, but the girl nodded shakily and wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
Beside Wisteria, Juniper made a small sound in her throat.
“Okay,” she whispered. “So he’s either genuinely nice, or we’re all about to learn a terrible lesson about trusting pretty people in crisis.”
Wisteria blinked, startled into looking at her.
Juniper’s face was pale, but her mouth twitched like she was trying to force humor into the room by sheer stubbornness. It wasn’t working completely, but Wisteria appreciated the effort more than she wanted to admit.
“You think he’s pretty?” Wisteria asked, mostly because it was easier than saying, I noticed him too.
Juniper gave her a look that managed to be both frightened and deeply offended.
“I have eyes. We can be kidnapped and still be observant.”
A breath slipped out of Wisteria before she could stop it. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that Juniper’s expression brightened for half a second, like she had won some tiny impossible victory.
Then someone screamed.
The sound sliced through the room, sharp enough to snap every head in its direction. Wisteria turned with the rest of them, her whole body going still before she could think to move.
A young man near the far side of the atrium was clawing at the wall.
At first, Wisteria thought he had found something—a handle, a panel, a seam wide enough to pry open—but then she realized he was just scratching at the smooth surface with his fingernails. His shoulder hit the wall once, then again, each impact louder than the last. A woman tried to pull him back by the elbow, but he jerked away from her with a desperate sound.
“No,” he said, voice breaking. “No, there has to be a way out. There has to be—there has to be something. They can’t just—”
His hand slipped. One of his nails broke against the white surface, leaving the smallest smear of red.
Wisteria’s stomach turned.
The angry guy from before—Marcus, someone had called him, she thought—strode toward him, jaw locked tight. For half a second, Wisteria thought he meant to help.
Instead, he shoved his palm flat against the wall beside the panicking man’s head and shouted up toward the ceiling.
“Open the door!”
His voice bounced through the space, too loud, too human against all that clean emptiness.
“Do you hear me? Whoever you are, open the damn door!”
Nothing answered.
The silence after him was somehow worse than the shouting had been.
People began moving then, no longer scattered in sleepy confusion but clustering in uneasy groups. Some searched the walls, running hands along the seamless white with trembling fingers. Others checked their wristbands, tugging at them, twisting them around their wrists as if there might be a clasp hidden underneath. A few called out names—not to anyone in the room, Wisteria realized, but to whoever they had expected to wake up near. A sister. A boyfriend. A mother. No one answered those names.
Wisteria looked down at her own wrist again. The band hugged her skin without any visible lock. It didn’t hurt. That almost made it worse. It sat there with quiet confidence, like it belonged to her now.
Juniper was inspecting hers with the offended concentration of someone trying very hard not to panic.
“Mine says Juniper Quinn,” she said, lifting her wrist close to her face. “Participant 12. Status… unbonded.” Her voice stumbled slightly on the last word, and the joke she clearly wanted to make didn’t come. Instead she looked at Wisteria’s wrist. “Yours too?”
Wisteria nodded.
“Participant 17,” she said.
Juniper swallowed.
“Okay. So that’s weird. Not the name part. The name part is normal. Love a label. Big fan of knowing who I am while trapped in a glowing dentist office from hell.” She rubbed her thumb over the word unbonded, but it didn’t smear, didn’t fade, didn’t react. “It’s the other part I don’t like.”
“Unbonded,” Wisteria murmured.
“Yeah. That. That sounds very… cult-adjacent.”
Before Wisteria could answer, the girl who had complained about her clothes swept past them, still smoothing her hair as if the room might be judging her from every angle. Up close, she was prettier than Wisteria had realized at first—glossy blonde hair, sharp eyes, a face arranged into practiced irritation. She looked terrified only in the smallest places: the tension near her mouth, the too-fast movement of her fingers, the way she kept glancing toward the walls when she thought no one was watching.
She caught Wisteria looking and immediately narrowed her eyes.
“What?”
Wisteria blinked.
“Nothing.”
The girl’s gaze flicked over her, then to Juniper, taking in their closeness with a faint curl of her mouth.
“Great. People are already forming little trauma friendships. That’s healthy.”
Juniper’s brows lifted.
“And you’re already being unpleasant, so I guess everyone copes differently.”
For one glorious second, the girl looked like she hadn’t expected anyone to answer her. Then her lips pressed together in a thin, pretty line.
“I’m Dahlia,” she said, as if the name itself was supposed to explain something.
Juniper glanced at Wisteria, then back at her.
“Congratulations?”
Dahlia’s eyes sharpened.
Wisteria stepped in before the silence could turn into something worse.
“I’m Wisteria,” she said quietly. “This is Juniper.”
Dahlia’s gaze returned to Wisteria, lingering on her face for a beat too long. Not quite cruel. Measuring. That was the word that came to Wisteria’s mind. Dahlia looked at people the way someone might look at clothes on a rack, deciding what was worth trying on and what could be ignored.
“Wisteria,” Dahlia repeated. “Of course.”
Juniper made a tiny, indignant noise beside her.
Dahlia’s attention had already moved on. Her eyes swept across the room and stopped near the center, where Lucien was rising from his crouch. The girl he had helped was calmer now, though she still clung to his sleeve for a second before letting go. Lucien didn’t pull away sharply or seem impatient. He smiled faintly, said something that made her nod, then stood with the same composed ease that had drawn Wisteria’s attention before.
Dahlia straightened slightly.
“Oh,” she said, her voice softening into something more deliberate. “Well. At least there’s one useful person here.”
Juniper muttered, “Please don’t make eye contact with the emotionally available-looking blond. I feel like that’s how horror stories start.”
Dahlia either didn’t hear or chose not to. She smoothed the front of her shirt, adjusted her posture, and started toward Lucien with a confidence that looked too polished to be real.
Wisteria watched her go, then hated that she watched.
Juniper leaned closer again.
“I know we just met, but I feel very strongly that she and I are not going to thrive as roommates.”
“We don’t know if there are roommates,” Wisteria said.
“Please do not introduce new fears. I am already at capacity.”
Wisteria’s mouth softened despite herself, but the moment didn’t last. Across the room, Marcus had stopped shouting at the ceiling and had turned his anger on Riven.
“You,” Marcus snapped. “You’ve been standing there like this is funny since we woke up.”
Riven’s eyebrows rose faintly. He hadn’t moved from his spot near the wall. If anything, he looked more comfortable now that someone had decided to hate him openly.
“I’ve been sitting, actually.”
“You know something.”
“I know a lot of things.” Riven’s smile thinned. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
A few people shifted away from them. Fear made space around conflict; Wisteria noticed that immediately. No one wanted to be too near the first fight, but no one wanted to look away either.
Marcus stepped closer. He was broader than Riven, taller too, built with the kind of solid strength that made his anger feel physical. Riven, by contrast, seemed all sharp edges and lazy movement, like a match waiting to be struck.
“You’re not scared,” Marcus said.
Riven tilted his head.
“That bothers you?”
“It makes you suspicious.”
“No,” Riven said, pushing away from the wall at last. The movement was slow, almost bored, but something about it made Wisteria’s shoulders tighten. “It makes me better at hiding it.”
The words landed strangely.
For the first time, his expression changed—not much, just enough for the amusement to slip. Underneath it was something colder. Not fear exactly. Not calm either. Something practiced.
Marcus didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and didn’t care.
“You think this is a game?”
Riven stepped closer too, and the faint smile returned.
“I think if someone wanted us dead, we wouldn’t have woken up.”
Someone behind Wisteria whimpered softly. Juniper’s arm brushed hers again, not quite taking her hand but close.
Riven’s gaze moved across the room, catching faces, reactions, weaknesses. When it passed over Wisteria, it paused just long enough for her skin to prickle.
Then his mouth curved.
“Unless, of course,” he added, “waking up is the point.”
The words sank into the room like ink in water.
Even Marcus didn’t answer right away.
Then a new sound cut through the building tension.
Not a voice.
A chime.
Soft, delicate, almost pleasant. It rang once through the atrium, clear and bell-like, so out of place that the room seemed to inhale around it. Conversations faltered. Marcus turned away from Riven. Dahlia stopped mid-step near Lucien. The crying quieted, not because anyone had been comforted, but because every frightened body in the room understood at once that something was about to happen.
The light shifted.
It was subtle at first. The white glow overhead dimmed by a fraction, then warmed, then drew itself into lines along the walls Wisteria hadn’t even realized were there. Thin seams appeared in the smooth surfaces, glowing faintly like veins beneath skin. The floor beneath them gave a low, almost inaudible hum.
Juniper’s hand found Wisteria’s wrist.
Not tightly. Just enough.
“Tell me you hear that too,” she whispered.
Wisteria nodded, unable to look away from the walls.
The seams brightened.
Then a voice spoke.
“Welcome, participants.”
It was not loud. That was what made it terrifying. It didn’t boom through the atrium or crackle like a speaker system. It emerged cleanly from everywhere at once—soft, calm, genderless, and perfectly even.
No static. No breath. No hesitation.
A sound made for obedience.
Someone cursed. Someone else began to pray under their breath. Marcus shouted, “Who are you?” but the voice continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
“You have been selected for a compatibility-based bonding process.”
Wisteria felt Juniper’s fingers tighten around her wrist.
“All participants have been placed within this facility according to emotional, psychological, and biological compatibility profiles. Within this group is your designated match.”
The room seemed to go still in a new way.
Not quiet. Not exactly.
Suspended.
The voice went on, gentle as a lullaby read from a medical chart.
“Common terminology for this designation is soulmate.”
For a second, nobody moved.
Then the room erupted.
“What?” someone shouted.
“No way,” another voice snapped. “No. Absolutely not.”
Dahlia laughed once, high and disbelieving. “This is disgusting.”
Marcus took a step toward the nearest glowing seam in the wall like he might tear the voice out with his hands. Riven, standing a few feet away from him now, looked up at the ceiling with a slow, thoughtful expression.
Lucien did not speak.
That was what Wisteria noticed.
Not first. Not consciously. But once she saw it, she couldn’t stop seeing it. Everyone else reacted—anger, fear, disbelief, a dozen different versions of panic—but Lucien stood very still near the center of the room, his gaze lifted toward the light, his face calm in a way that made her stomach tighten.
Not blank.
Not smug.
Just calm.
As if he was listening carefully.
As if the words mattered more to him than the fear around them.
Juniper’s voice shook when she whispered, “Did it just say soulmate?”
Wisteria couldn’t answer.
Her wristband tingled again. The word unbonded glowed with sudden, quiet clarity, brighter than before.
The facility voice continued.
“To complete the process and qualify for release, participants must identify, confirm, and formally unite with their designated match. Mutual bonding is required. One-sided attachment will not be accepted.”
“Formally unite?” Dahlia said sharply, turning in a slow circle. “What does that mean? Like—marry? Is that what you mean?”
The voice did not pause.
“Unpaired participants may experience emotional destabilization over time. Isolation is discouraged. Resistance to the process may increase risk.”
The crying started again, but softer now. Worse somehow. Like the sound had been pressed inward.
Wisteria stared at her wrist until the letters blurred.
Unbonded.
Unpaired.
At risk.
The words stacked themselves in her mind, one on top of the other, building something she didn’t want to look at directly.
Marcus shouted again, louder this time. “You can’t force people to fall in love!”
The voice answered for the first time, smooth and immediate.
“Love is not required for initial progression.”
A chill passed over Wisteria’s skin.
Beside her, Juniper went very still.
Across the room, Riven laughed under his breath. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even amused, not really. But Wisteria heard it anyway.
Lucien’s eyes lowered from the ceiling.
For a moment, through the chaos, Wisteria thought he looked directly at her again.
And this time, she didn’t look away quickly enough.
The voice spoke one final time.
“Orientation will begin shortly. Please remain calm. Panic interferes with emotional compatibility.”
The light pulsed once.
Then the wall behind Riven opened.