The first Watcher rose fully out of the spiral, porcelain mask gleaming in the broken light. Its robes dripped with liquid fire, hissing where drops struck the stone. It didn’t walk. It glided, its long feet dragging just above the ground, its gaze locked on Eli.Behind it, more emerged. Six. Seven. Ten. Their whispers braided into one roar, a chorus of teeth grinding inside bone. Students broke at last, sprinting in every direction. Some bolted toward the dorms, others tried to force the chapel doors open, others simply screamed and stumbled through the rain.The professors fought to hold them back, but even Harrow’s bellow couldn’t match the terror. “Stay together! Don’t scatter—stay—” His words snapped into a grunt as one of the Watchers twisted its hand. Harrow clutched his chest, choking. His knees buckled before another professor dragged him aside, chanting frantic incantations Eli didn’t recognize.The air crackled with heat.Lena yanked Eli harder. “We can’t stay here—”But Ca

The rain chased them through the arches. It came in sheets that stung against skin and stone, washing their footprints as soon as they made them. Behind them, the quad roared with noise—shouts, curses, the clash of students breaking into factions. Eli didn’t look back. He couldn’t. Every step forward felt like survival, every breath stolen.Lena dragged him into a narrow corridor that branched off the cloisters. The torch lamps sputtered from the storm’s draft, shadows running wild along the walls. Her voice was raw. “You heard Harrow. He won’t stop. He’ll convince half the Crest to hunt you, and the other half to stay silent while they do it.”Eli leaned against the wall, drenched, his knuckles white around the cube. “Then let them come.”She turned on him, fury in her soaked eyes. “Don’t start with that again. This isn’t just you against them. They’ll come after anyone who’s with you. That means me. That means Callum, for however long he stays. That means every student who hesitated

The world cracked open beneath their feet.There was no warning, no creak of stone or hint of fracture. One moment they were standing in the ruined chapel, blood still wet on the altar, the Watchers chanting like a choir of wolves. The next, the spiral sigil beneath them blazed white-hot, and the floor dropped away as though it had never been stone at all.Eli felt the plunge in his stomach, sharp and endless. He grabbed for anything solid but found only air and Lena’s wrist, slick with sweat. They fell together, their bodies tumbling into blackness. The cube tore itself free from his jacket, spinning in the air like a comet, burning a path downward.The others fell with them. Dozens of robed students screamed as they plummeted, their voices swallowed by the cavernous throat that had opened. Their cries mingled with the Watchers’ chant, which didn’t stop, didn’t waver, even as the spiral consumed them all. The words echoed up the shaft, not in Latin or English but in something older,

Eli woke to bells.Not tolling, not the warped echoes that had haunted the Crest for weeks, but the clean, sharp chime of bronze ringing high and bright. It filled the chapel, poured through the shattered windows, and rolled across the grounds like thunder turned holy.For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming. The silence inside him was so complete it felt alien, like a missing limb. No whispers, no voices, no pull from the Eye. Just… emptiness.He sat up slowly, every muscle aching as though he had been wrung out and left to dry. Lena’s hand steadied him, firm against his shoulder. Her eyes were red, her lips pressed tight, but when he looked at her, she didn’t speak. She just nodded, relief radiating in the smallest curve of her mouth.Callum stood on the far side of the spiral, sword dangling at his side, his face pale beneath a sheen of sweat. He looked at Eli like he wasn’t sure if he should congratulate him or cut his head off.The chapel was quiet except for the bells. Th

The first crack split the chapel floor in two.It started as a thin seam, no wider than a strand of hair, running straight from the altar to the doors. Then it widened, stone grating against stone, until Lena had to leap back with a curse as the pew nearest her lurched sideways.The sound was unbearable. A grinding shriek, like teeth dragged across metal, echoed through the air. Then the light came.It poured upward in a slow pulse, white and searing, spilling from the crack like molten iron. Eli stumbled back, shielding his eyes. Even through his arm, the glow burned.From outside came a second sound: the toll of the bell. But this was no warped chime, no stretched groan. It was a clean strike, sharp and absolute, echoing across every tower, every courtyard, every hidden stair of the Crest.The silence inside Eli’s head shattered.Voices rushed in like floodwater. Not whispers, not commands—screams. Thousands layered over each other, not pleading this time but wailing, like souls dra