The academy debate hall buzzed with the kind of electric tension that only came with academic blood sport. Annual Academic Duel day was Ashwick’s version of gladiator combat—intellectuals in designer uniforms tearing each other apart with words instead of swords. The mahogany-paneled amphitheater was packed with students who’d come to watch their classmates destroy each other’s arguments and, occasionally, their entire academic reputations.
I sat in the competitor’s section, trying to ignore the way conversations died when people noticed me. Three days after Julian’s gala announcement, I was still adjusting to being Isabella Virelli, pharmaceutical heiress, instead of Isabella Virelli, scholarship student. The shift in how people looked at me—with calculation instead of dismissal—was unse
