Villainous Instructor at the Academy

I heard her before I saw her.

The faintest rustle of sheets. A sharp inhale, as if someone had just remembered how to breathe after drowning.

I turned from my desk.

Cassandra was sitting up.

Awake.

But not blinking.

Her eyes—those unnerving, mist-glass irises—glowed faintly in the moonlight streaming through the infirmary window.

I rose slowly.

"Cassandra," I said, carefully. "You’re awake."

She turned her head toward me. Moved like a doll whose strings had just been pulled for the first time.

Then she spoke.