Panic. The older students scrambled—knocking over the wooden loaves, tearing their shirts on a nail Malice had loosened earlier, leaving behind a button, a scarf, and one telltale shoe.
But —that was her name, though her parents had meant it as "sweetness" in an old tongue—was a living contradiction. She had ink-stained fingers, a question hidden behind every blink, and a smile that appeared whenever trouble was near. Solution malice le pensionnat
Headmistress Brume arrived with a lantern. She found no mouse. She found chaos. And at her feet, the shoe—monogrammed with the initials of the oldest, cruelest student. leaving behind a button
