It was dark, especially dark, even for the witching hours, when a large coach pulled into the passenger loading bay. Its windows were black, and its body glossy enough to shine even in the sparse moonlight that managed to break the thick cloud cover above.

It was grand and elegant, or it seemed to be, surrounded by meticulously inconspicuous cars, and minivans for whom a car would have been too small. And while it was large, Hazel Sinclair knew it certainly was not large enough; not for her, and not for the ten other Angels designated to board with her.

She knew, they all knew, these would be their last moments in the Night School, at least, their last moments in the Night School as mandated boarders. There were only two roads that would lead them back there, and for their sakes, each would have preferred it to be a long time from now; the quicker path back was one only the disgraced would take.

"Hazel, are you really sure you want to do this?" One desperate, worried voice pleaded upon deaf ears. Megan Sinclair had been the only creature bothered enough to see off the troop, and she had only come there to try one last time to pull her sister out of the Academy's tar pit before her chance to leave had elapsed. Megan could almost hear the seconds counting down in her head as she dropped the last of her sister's bags with the somewhat piteous driver- she thought he could have been a Vampire, but her mind was preoccupied.

"Go away, Megan," Hazel snapped, angling her chin and setting her jaw, though she was trying to keep her feathers from puffing. She felt sick and snappish, and Megan was only giving her a headache.

"I- Hazel, I'm worried about you," Megan managed to cough out. Her eyes were starting to water and her throat was getting tight and she could feel each one of the other Angels staring her down with their dull, lifeless eyes. She'd never liked the way they looked at her, or anyone, or anything.

Hazel was different; she was the first secondborn Angel to secure herself a place in the Academy. Usually, the brutality of the Academy was left to the apathetic thirdborns.

Megan was terrified that Hazel would become like the rest of the Academy's Angels, or worse, that she would be unable to stomach whatever was to come, and she would be sent back here to have her wings clipped. Hazel had always loved flying, in fact she was fairly well known to be the best flier of her class and generation, and Megan knew it would kill her to have that taken away.

Of course, it came as no surprise to Megan that Hazel merely clenched her jaw and stared her down unyieldingly. It was expected. Megan knew Hazel absolutely hated her, but she still couldn't bring herself to let go.

She, in a split second failure of her restraint, reached out to smooth down a couple of Hazel's feathers. Almost as soon as she moved, Hazel jerked back, splaying her wings to the sides to appear larger. They were sisters, triplets, and almost perfectly identical, but Megan felt minuscule under her glare. It, unlike all the others in her troop, had the creases and wrinkles and sharp curl of the lip that spelled an unmistakable loathing.

"Do not touch me."

The words were so cutting that Megan wondered what goodbye was meant to sound like.

"Ignore it."

Megan felt those words like a knife tracing down her spine.

Angels were somewhat special, out of all the Fae creatures, in that they were born in distinct sets of three. The firstborns were kindhearted empaths; the thirdborns, ruthless apaths; and the secondborns floated somewhere in the gray area between the two.

Alexa Sinclair was thirdborn of the Sinclair triplets, and no matter how hard Megan tried to overcome it, she'd never been able to feel anything but total and primal terror around her.

She held herself like a poised snake ready to lash out with wicked fangs, but for now, dormant.

Alexa's eyes were just as blue as her siblings', and her hair just as black, but her stare was empty in that way Hazel's never could be; Hazel, whose eyes, despite years upon years of effort, always had a glint of frustration that never seemed to settle.

By now, Megan's were swimming with tears, and when she screwed them shut to avoid watching the way Alexa grabbed Hazel's arm and branded her mouth, she couldn't help that they started to flow.

Hazel clenched her fists to avoid flinching when Alexa's tongue raked purposefully against the split in her lip she had earned herself earlier that day.

When Alexa moved back, Hazel could feel her cut starting to bleed again. She sucked it into her mouth and again had to strain herself to avoid flinching at the overwhelming taste of extracts of bitter almonds and clover. She knew it would give her a stomachache later on if she continued to lick at the cut, so she had to stop herself from that too. Her immunity had not been trained as well as Alexa's yet.

Having made her position clear, Alexa discarded Hazel and joined the nine other thirdborns as they began to board the bus. As Hazel turned to follow, Megan's resolve crumbled and she reached out to hold her sister back.

Hazel's wings opened explosively, and the force of it knocked Megan off her feet, landing on the concrete floor with a thud.

"Do not touch me!" Hazel snarled, and for some reason, neither had the faintest clue why, Hazel hesitated to leave just long enough for Megan to force out another garbled plea.

"Hazel please- you- you can't- I can't- Hazel, don't, please," Megan tried desperately to piece together some, any, reason to stop her sister, but Hazel was already leaving. Quietly, nearly under her breath, she sobbed out a weak bye, Zel, I love you that made Hazel bristle for just an instant. Megan thought she might come back and hurt her for it, but Hazel just clenched her fists and walked away. Megan could have sworn her wings were shaking, but she could hardly trust her sight when it was so clouded by tears.