The tenth toll still vibrated in the air when Eli stepped forward.The cube burned his palm, branding its spirals into his flesh. He could smell his skin singeing, but he didn’t let go. Lena’s grip tightened on his arm, her nails digging through his sleeve, but she didn’t pull him back. She was anchoring him, bracing herself against whatever choice he was about to make.The crack yawned wider. The chapel split with it, the altar tumbling into the abyss below. From the gap came not only light but heat, searing and relentless, as if the earth itself were hollow and filled with fire. The voices roared up from the pit, louder than ever, all screaming for the same thing.Release.Eli held the cube out over the abyss.Callum swore, shoving forward. “Think, Kingston! If you give it to the Eye, none of us walk out of here!”Ashcroft’s answering laugh was unhinged. He was still kneeling in the glow, his arms raised high. “Walk out? There is no walking out. There is only rebirth!”The walls sho

The archives did not quiet once the words sank into the stone.The iron gates kept creaking open, one after another, as though the air itself was pulling them wide. Every chained tome rattled, every scroll jar rattled against its shelf. The sound built into a sickening chorus until Lena clamped her hands over her ears.“Make it stop,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the noise.Eli wanted to tell her he could, but he knew he couldn’t. The spirals under his skin were burning hotter than they ever had, the heat seeping outward, coiling around his ribs like molten rope. Every heartbeat was a hammer-strike, every breath an effort not to collapse.And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the noise ceased.The silence that followed was worse.From one of the newly opened alcoves, a single book slipped its chains as if the locks had been illusions all along. It floated, pages fluttering, then dropped neatly onto the obsidian table with a slam that sent dust spiraling into the air.No t

The corridors leading toward the assembly hall were alive with echoes. Students moved in groups, their steps synchronized as though rehearsed, their voices low and reverent. The golden spirals glowing faintly along the walls cast enough light to show their faces — blank, entranced, every pair of eyes reflecting the same faint shimmer.Eli kept his head down, moving with Lena and Callum in the middle of a crowd. He could feel the pull in his chest tighten with every step closer to the hall. The spirals beneath his skin throbbed like a second pulse, answering the cadence of the others. He was terrified at how natural it felt to march like them.Lena clutched his arm so tightly her nails dug through his sleeve. Her touch anchored him, but her whisper was sharp with fear. “This is insane. They’re not themselves anymore. This isn’t—this isn’t school, Eli. This is a cult.”“Lower your voice,” Callum murmured. His posture was perfect, head slightly bowed, shoulders relaxed, his expression sl

The silence was heavier than the chanting had been.Bodies lay scattered across the chapel floor, students sprawled in twisted heaps, their uniforms torn, their lips still trembling faintly as if mouthing words in their sleep. The candles guttered one by one, thin lines of smoke curling into the rafters. Only the sigil carved into the dais still glowed faintly, pulsing in time with a heart that didn’t belong to anyone in the room.Eli stood among them, breath ragged, the cube still hot in his palm. Lena crouched beside a girl whose eyelids fluttered like she was trapped in a nightmare. Callum paced the aisle, blade still bared, every step sharp and restless.“They’ll wake,” Callum muttered, his voice carrying in the echoing chamber. “But not the same.”Lena shot him a look. “Meaning what?”“Meaning they’re marked now,” he said, not stopping his pacing. “You don’t survive that kind of channeling untouched. They’ll carry it. In their bones, in their blood. The Watcher doesn’t waste its

The library had become a battlefield.Light and shadow warred across the vaulted ceiling, tearing through the stained-glass windows, raining fractured colors onto splintered wood and scattered books. Professors huddled behind upturned tables, some whispering prayers, others frozen in terror. Pages spun through the air like broken wings, caught in a wind that came from nowhere.At the center of it all stood Dean Ashcroft, his hands burning with gold fire, and Professor Greaves, her staff rooted in the floor like an anchor against the storm.And then Eli stepped forward.The spirals on his skin blazed through his shirt, crawling across his chest, his throat, his arms like molten brands. The cube’s pulse surged with his heartbeat, each thrum sending vibrations through the stone floor, rattling shelves. The whispers that had haunted him for weeks grew louder, no longer confined to his skull. Everyone heard them now. The words coiled in the air, a chorus of many voices speaking through one