"Nora, come here," Mallory called from behind her study door.

Nora's blood pressure immediately skyrocketed. She'd barely stepped in through the front door, and Mallory somehow knew she was there.

Best not leave her hanging. Nora thought and turned on her heel. The door was open a crack, the light from within casting a slim triangle of light onto the hardwood of the hallway.

Nora peeked her head in, "Yes?"

Mallory glanced over her gold-framed reading glasses, "I said come here."

Her palms were sweaty as she entered Mallory's study and closed the door behind her. She hated this room and everything it stood for. She never wanted to spend more time than absolutely necessary in this room.

"What is it?" She pushed up on the bridge of her own glasses.

Mallory held out a sheet of paper. At first, Nora simply stared at it, knowing what Mallory wanted. Nausea curled in her stomach, both from the room itself and the thought of helping Mallory. Again.

Her stepmother stared at her, an order clear in her gaze, and lifted a single dark eyebrow.

Pressing her lips into a firm line, Nora snagged the paper and looked down at the words scribbled on it. She sat down in that same teal chair her mother used to love and read words that made her want to tear her heart from her chest. Not because of what they said, but rather, because of Mallory.

When a moment passed, and then another, without comment from Nora, Mallory leaned back in her chair. "Are you even reading it?"

"Yes."

"And?"

I don't want to do this. I don't want to be here. "I'm thinking."

Mallory slapped a hand on the desk, "Nora Leigh, you better focus. I need a finished product by tomorrow morning and what's there right now is not going to cut it."

Exasperated, Nora grumbled, "I can't just flip it on command. That's not how art works!"

"You find a way to make it work," Mallory demanded. "And you come up with something right now. Or you're not leaving this room. You hear me?" Mallory got up, rounded her desk, and made her way out, slamming the study door behind her.

Nora wasn't normally an emotional person, but as she sat in her mother's chair and stared down at the horrid piece in front of her, all she could think about was the two songs she had to complete before the end of next week. And the recording she had to do. And the profiles to maintain. And how, somehow, in the middle of all of that, she somehow had to find the time to create a demo for Daxton Cavenaugh's contest.

She had to. This contest, if she won, could skyrocket her in the songwriting world. Anyone who was anyone in Sarias knew Daxton Cavenaugh. He was one of the kingdom's most up-and-coming song producer. Having someone like him approving her skills not only validated her dreams, but it meant she was worth something.

After her father's suicide, she needed someone to tell her that. That she actually meant something.

She hadn't been enough to keep her father alive. Wasn't worth enough to him to keep living.

When the black ink on the page underneath her blurred, she took a breath and blinked at the ceiling. Get it together, Nora. She didn't want to live her life on the self-pity train. She needed to get up, get it together, and keep moving.

She kept thinking the world owed her something. A good set of parents, a happy life, a mate, a successful career.

But the world owed her nothing. It was past time she accepted that.

So Nora took a breath, snagged a red pen from Mallory's desk, and spent her first free afternoon in two weeks in her father's study.

❄❄❄

"You have three weeks to put your final project together," Professor Fields told the class as she passed out packets of paper. "And since I know all of you are dying to get started, I'll give you the remainder of the class to find your partner and start brainstorming."

Nora traced a curled edge of a flower on her packet next to her name and waited for everyone to break into pairs. She'd end up working with whoever was left—the only other unpartnered classmate—and waited it out. She didn't have any friends in Chemistry as it was a Senior-level class. Her only other Senior friend was Tessa and she wasn't in this class. Devon was here, but he'd be dead before people caught him working with Nora. Besides, that was part of the deal—Nora wrote and produced the songs and her artists got to pretend she didn't exist.

"Eli, where the hell are you going?"

"Eli, come work with me!"

"Dude, let's partner up."

Poor Eli Leonger. Couldn't catch a break. Nora almost felt bad for the guy. Except, he had the opposite problem. It must suck so bad to have everyone in the class want to be your partner.

Nora added another leaf to her wilty-looking rose.

Wilted Rose. Maybe she could add that to a song somehow. Or make it Bashful's album name. She scribbled it in the margin so she wouldn't lose it.

The chair in front of her desk screeched against the tile floor as someone turned it and plopped down. She glanced up—

—and froze. Eli Leonger settled in front of her, a strange, satisfied grin on his face. "Hey, partner."

What? "What?"

He flipped open his yellow notebook and started writing. "I'm thinking we can do a 3D model of a molecule," he said, as if they paired up all the time, "and then do the essay after we learn more about its structure..."

Nora stared at him as if he were a wild creature. What the hell was he doing?

"Eli!"

"What are you doing, man?"

"Eli, stop messing around!"

Instead of answering their fellow classmates, Eli waved them off and leaned forward in his chair. "I want to work with you on this project, Nora."

"You—"

"With you," he clarified, "an even split of the workload. No cheating. No skirting around the hard stuff."

She gaped at him like a fish straight out of a pond.

When she didn't answer right away, he flicked his gaze to a group of students in the corner and then back to her. "They're not real," he said, soft, "but you are. Work with me? Just this once?"

She had absolutely no idea what to say. And, if he was telling the truth and he really was going to put in the work fair and square, then did she have any reason to tell him no?

"If I say no," she finally said, "will your brother put me in jail?"

He grinned, "He might think about it."

Her head said absolutely not, no way, do not work with Eli Leonger on anything. She needed to stay under the radar, and that meant having nothing to do with the Leongers. And yet...the songwriter in her had this driving curiosity about who he really was and what made him tick.

And who knew? Maybe working with Eli Leonger would help her write an angsty song for Sneezy's next piece.

"Then I guess we'll work together," she said. "Together. This won't be Nora's Chem Project featuring back up vocals by Eli Leonger."

Eli raised a playful brow. "That sounds like a hit." At her look, he raised his palms in surrender, "Joking. I promise."

After narrowing her eyes, the two of them got to brainstorming.

Surprisingly, Nora found Eli a very easy partner. He never gave her noncommittal answers or murmurs as Grumpy would, and didn't shirk from any type of duty for the project. Instead, he addressed all the project's parts head-on and even offered to start doing research on her own.

Nora couldn't ever remember working with someone (other than Tessa) who was ready and willing to actually help with a project. It was refreshing. She wouldn't have to endure the project by herself. Or make all the decisions. Or write up the entire paper.

Eli would help her—and that thought alone had her smiling a little too big when he cracked a joke.

"Alright," he closed his notebook. "Your place or mine?"

"Half and half?" She offered—if they were doing the project together then they could work on it at both their houses and share the burden of hosting.

Eli stared at her for a moment, his gaze a little lost. She tilted her head in confusion, "Eli?"

"Sorry, I—" he coughed to clear his throat, "I'd expected you to want to come to my place to work on it."

"Then why ask the question?"

"It's not that, it's..." she could feel his gaze featherlight against her skin as he searched for something she wasn't sure he'd find. "Want to start at your place? This weekend?"

"Sure," she said, still a tad confused. Why wouldn't he stop looking at her like that? Like...he'd found a unicorn in the woods or something.

"Are you sure?"

She laughed to herself. Did he want her to say his house? "What, do you want me to go to your house?"

"Well, yes, but that's not what I mean. I mean, do you want to go to my house?"

A little exasperated, Nora touched the tips of her fingertips to his forearm. "My house. This Saturday at three. After that, we can decide if there's still more work to be done and if we need to meet again."

❄❄❄

On his way to his next class, History of Aces, Eli put a warm palm over where Nora had touched him. He could still feel the ghost of her fingertips on his forearm as if she'd somehow left a piece of her behind.

She didn't want to go to the palace. She even offered her own home first for this project. The feeling was...novel.

He would never forget the look on her face when he sat down and told her they were going to be partners. After the initial surprise she seemed...grateful? Despite the words that came out of her mouth, he'd seen the way her frame relaxed.

The reaction was subtle, yet it built him up immediately. And the way she interacted after that—maybe it was because they'd had a short conversation or two, but he liked the way she joked with him.

Nora may be quiet but she wasn't a skittish little creature.

She had a spark in her.

Spark. His brain immediately picked up the word and ran with it. Like a wildfire.

His shoes squeaked against the tile flooring as he whirled toward Jostlin Academy's studio room—the opposite direction of his class.