For a moment the number simply sat there, refusing to resolve into anything my mind could use, four hundred thousand, a figure I had never in my life seen attached to my own name, a figure that belonged to a different category of person entirely.

Beside me, I heard a small strangled sound, and I realized it was Julian, who had been hovering nearby and had just read the check over my shoulder, and whose jaw had, quite literally, dropped.

But I hardly saw him.

I was looking at the number, and at my sister’s name printed beside mine, and I was thinking of Chloe at home, of the notebook budget, of every double shift and aching night and swallowed humiliation, of the envelope I guarded like it was the only thing between us and the dark.

“Your sister will never have to worry about tuition or rent again, Evelyn,” Arthur said gently, watching my face.