Riven POV
Something was off.
Not "a little bit off," like when the head cook swaps the salt and sugar as a prank, or when Aria accidentally turns your hair blue and blames the weather. No, this was a big off the kind that prickled at the back of your neck and made you double-check that your socks matched before leaving your room in the morning. (For the record: they didn't.)
It started last week, maybe earlier, when Velka began acting… well, "weird" doesn't even cover it. Sure, she was always weird she was a vampire, after all, and vampires were contractually obligated to be mysterious. But this was new. Her sarcasm had gone soft, her glares were half-hearted, and she'd said "please" twice in a row, which frankly felt like an omen of the apocalypse.
