The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 74: Evolutionary Advantage

The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 74: Evolutionary Advantage

The hallways were too loud.
Not in the magical way—no resonance, no Veil hum—just
human noise
. Lockers slammed like cheap thunder, perfume and deodorant fought in invisible clouds, and a thousand conversations tangled in the air until all of them blurred.
Muted senses didn’t mean peace; they just meant chaos without edges.
I kept rolling the seam of my sleeve between my fingers—three taps, always three. A rhythm to survive the static. Cassie walked beside me, hair gleaming like she’d bribed the sun, looking perfectly awake. Kael trailed a few steps behind, blending so well she might as well have been another senior with straight A’s and a fake smile.
Cassie’s voice slipped into the noise. “You realize this is the first time we’ve had a normal hallway in, what—months?”
“Define normal,” I muttered. Someone’s vape pen hissed sweet raspberry nearby; it mixed with the sour bite of cafeteria coffee and metallic locker hinges until everything smelled like nausea. “Normal doesn’t scream.”
Cassie bumped my shoulder. “You’re doing the sleeve thing again.”
“I’m surviving the sleeve thing again.”
She smirked but didn’t press. Her hand brushed mine once—just enough grounding to make the noise flatten into background.
The hallway opened up near the main intersection, the epicenter of Ravenrest’s ecosystem. Posters for Homecoming and Club Rush hung everywhere, glossy smiles and glitter pens announcing the year’s competitions. My name used to be on half of them. Now, it wasn’t.
That’s when I saw her.
Bree Halden, flanked by juniors who moved like trained courtiers, marching down the hall in what could only be described as
a performance
.
Her hair shimmered in the fluorescents, a chestnut that caught light like molten copper. Skin flawless, posture perfect—too perfect. Even her smile was balanced on that knife-edge between confidence and calculation.
Cassie leaned close. “She’s weaponized lip gloss.”
“She’s weaponized
something
,” I said under my breath. The air around Bree felt—off. I couldn’t smell anything properly in human form, but there was an absence I didn’t trust. Like static pretending to be perfume.
The group parted like she had a gravitational field. A freshman camera crew for the school newsfeed happened to be in the hall at that exact moment—because of course they were.
“Oh no,” Cassie groaned. “She planned this.”
Bree spotted the camera, did a quick, faux-modest smile, and glided right between me and the lens as if by accident. “Oh! I didn’t see you there. Just starting the new year off strong, you know? It’s such an honor to continue the legacy Princess Mira set for Ravenrest.”
Every head in the hallway turned.
My brain tripped over itself.
Legacy?
Bree continued sweetly, “Every era needs a little modern refresh, don’t you think?”
Laughter rippled—thin, bright, harmless on the surface. But it had the wrong current. People laughed
with
her, not
with
us.
Cassie stepped forward, posture smooth steel. “We’re thrilled someone’s volunteering,” she said, smiling with all her teeth. “Leadership’s exhausting.”
Bree matched it effortlessly. “You’d know best—
former
captain.”
That landed. Perfectly rehearsed, perfectly cruel.
The hallway sound twisted into something hotter. Phones lifted. Cassie’s jaw flexed, but her smile didn’t break.
Kael shifted behind me, subtle but ready. I caught her sleeve—a silent
don’t.
This wasn’t a fight worth throwing flame over. Not yet.
Bree gave a little wave to the camera. “Anyway, good luck this year, Princess. I’m sure you’ll do great… whatever you’re focusing on these days.”
Then she walked off, trailing laughter and followers. Her new court.
Cassie exhaled through her teeth. “Did we just get dethroned?”
“By a junior,” I said numbly. “A
junior
.”
Kael folded her arms, voice deadpan. “You’ve been out-schemed by a teenager. I’d start an investigation.”
The seam of my sleeve nearly tore between my fingers. “We will. After Biology.”
Cassie’s smile came slow and sharp. “Then we bring fire.”
The bell shrieked overhead—too high, too bright. The sound hit my skull like a tuning fork. Cassie’s hand pressed against my back, steady pressure, anchoring me back into my body.
“In for four, out for four,” she whispered.
I matched her rhythm until the bell ended. My pulse finally leveled.
We fell into step toward the Science Wing, Kael silent at our flank.
Behind us, Bree’s laughter floated through the corridor—light, perfect, wrong.
I didn’t need sharper senses to feel it. Whatever had changed in her, it wasn’t just attitude. Something deeper was humming beneath her skin.
Cassie caught my eye. “You’re thinking about her.”
“I’m thinking about what she’s becoming,” I said.
“Then maybe it’s time we evolve, too.”
“Maybe,” I said softly, “but I prefer natural selection.”
Her grin broke through the tension for half a heartbeat. “You would.”
We pushed through the Science Hall doors, the smell of ethanol and whiteboard cleaner rising around us. For once, I was glad for sterile air.
The lab smelled like ethanol and old coffee—sterile, human, safe.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
Rows of tables gleamed under LED lights, microscopes lined up like soldiers. The hum of the vents filled the room’s corners until it turned into background pressure behind my eyes. In my fae skin, I would have separated every sound—the drip of the faucet, the scratch of graphite—but in human form it all flattened into one steady buzz that made focus harder, not easier.
I rolled my sleeve seam again. One, two, three. The fabric’s edge rasped against the pad of my thumb; tiny friction, familiar rhythm, brain re-aligning.
Dr. Hannah Belsar stood at the front of the room like she owned the concept of authority. Mid-forties, lab coat pristine, voice low but unshakably firm. When she spoke, the noise dimmed by instinct.
“Welcome to AP Biology,” she began. “I’m Dr. Belsar.
Doctor
—because women fought too long to have titles ignored.”
She glanced straight at me and Cassie. “Which means I’ll use yours, too. Princess Mira. Princess Cassandra. Fair?”
Cassie grinned. “Fair.”
I grimaced. “Uncomfortable, but fair.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Belsar said dryly. “We’ll live with mild discomfort and mutual respect. That’s science.”
A ripple of laughter. Then she clicked the projector to life—first slide: a mimic octopus frozen mid-gesture, half lionfish, half nightmare.
“Today,” she said, “we begin with mimicry and adaptation. Nature rewards the adaptable. Imitation often outlives authenticity.”
My pencil hovered.
Adaptable. Outlives authenticity.
Bree’s face flashed behind my eyelids, too symmetrical to be real.
Cassie nudged my notebook and wrote,
Bree Halden?
I wrote back,
If she starts photosynthesizing, I’m transferring.
Cassie nearly choked on her laugh.
Dr. Belsar advanced the slides—monarch butterflies, anglerfish lures, camouflage frogs. “Survival,” she said, “isn’t kindness. It’s competence.”
I tried to focus on the data, the beauty of patterns repeating through time, but my thoughts kept fractaling. Bree in that hallway. The way her reflection hadn’t quite matched her movements. Mimicry—imitation as power. It made my skin crawl, and not entirely from envy.
The pen in my fingers clicked twice before I noticed. Cassie’s knee bumped mine under the lab table—gentle, grounding.
Here,
the pressure said.
Now.
Jace raised his hand from two rows up, voice smug. “So, Dr. Belsar, would royal genetics count as an evolutionary advantage?”
Without missing a beat, she said, “Only if they help with the lab , Mr. Withers.”
The room burst into laughter. Cassie hid her smile behind her notebook; Kael, two seats back, looked like she might actually approve of the teacher.
I sketched a double helix in the corner of my page, then another, until they tangled into the shape of a crown. I wondered—not for the first time—what would happen if I stopped pretending to be less than what I was. If I stopped keeping my magic on mute. Would the air sharpen? Would Bree’s borrowed glow crumble the way cheap imitations do in sunlight?
The idea pulsed behind my ribs like a heartbeat I wasn’t supposed to feel.
Cassie slid another scrap of paper toward me.
You’re thinking about her again.
I scribbled back.
I’m thinking about killing time until lunch.
The paper didn’t make it. A long hand snagged it mid-air.
Kael unfolded the note, wrote in perfect block letters,
You’re both thinking too loudly,
and passed it back without looking up from her book.
Cassie leaned sideways, whispering, “Treason.”
Kael, without missing a line, murmured, “Detention.”
I bit down a laugh hard enough to ache. The sound escaped anyway—tiny, real, mine.
Dr. Belsar kept lecturing, pointer tapping the slide of an orchid mantis. “Some species evolve to look like predators; others, like prey. Both strategies work. Both can be fatal.”
Fatal. The word lingered. My pulse jumped.
If she’s mimicking something, what is it?
The bell cut her sentence clean in half. Chairs scraped, notebooks snapped shut, the smell of pencil shavings rose as if the air itself exhaled.
“Princesses,” Dr. Belsar called as we reached the door. “Your essays on adaptation are due Friday. You might find inspiration closer than you think.”
Her tone was mild, but her eyes flicked to Cassie, then to me, just a little too knowingly.
Cassie muttered, “She knows.”
“Everyone knows,” I said.
Cassie’s smirk curved, sharp and soft all at once. “Then let’s remind them why that’s terrifying.”
Kael held the door. I caught one last look at the slide still glowing on the wall—the mimic octopus, arms shifting, pretending, surviving.
Adaptation.
I could do that.

Chapter 74: Evolutionary Advantage