The storm broke just as they reached the chapel.Rain fell in heavy sheets, slicing through the air like broken glass. Thunder cracked the sky open, and lightning painted the ruined face of the old chapel in stark, bone-white flashes. Ivy clung to the stone walls like veins, crawling over timeworn carvings of angels with blank eyes and broken wings.“This is it,” Eli said, brushing wet hair from his face. “The Kingston family chapel. It was sealed after the fire in '97.”Lena narrowed her eyes. “The fire your father survived. The one that supposedly destroyed all records of his student life.”Eli stepped forward. “Not all of them.”The iron doors groaned open like something exhaling its last breath.Inside, the air was stale and heavy, thick with mildew and silence. The pews had rotted to splinters, and shattered stained-glass windows scattered across the floor like jagged memories. But the altar remained.It was cracked, burnt, but not empty.Eli walked toward it with the slow revere

Eli didn’t move. Callum stood framed in the narrow aisle, his posture relaxed but calculated — the kind of ease a predator wore before striking. The stormlight through the tall library windows caught the faint silver chain at his throat, disappearing beneath his collar. “You’ve been following me,” Eli said. It wasn’t a question. Callum’s grin tilted. “Observing, big difference right.” Lena crossed her arms. “That sounds exactly like something a stalker would say.” “I’m not here to hurt him,” Callum replied, as if she weren’t even a threat. His gaze was fixed on Eli, weighing him like he was confirming a rumor. “Your father didn’t tell you, did he?” Eli’s patience thinned. “Tell me what?” “That we’re not the only ones marked for the Rite.” Eli’s brow furrowed. “You’re marked?” Callum stepped closer, unbuttoning his cuff. He rolled back the sleeve to reveal the skin of his forearm — pale, except for a dark, spiraling sigil burned just below the crook of his elbow. The lines wer

The key was still cold in Eli’s hand when they reached the library.Even through his jacket pocket, he could feel its edges pressing into his palm like it had grown heavier since he’d taken it.They didn’t speak until they were inside — past the silent marble foyer, up the grand staircase, into the dim stillness of the third floor. The rain outside pounded the stained-glass windows, casting fractured pools of red and green over the stacks.Only when they were hidden between the oldest shelves did Lena finally slam her palms on the table.“You know what that thing was, right?”Eli dropped into a chair, leaning back like he could force the adrenaline from his bloodstream by sheer will. “A Watcher.”“Not just any Watcher.” Lena’s voice dropped, her eyes scanning the shadows. “The broken mask. Callum told me about it — the one that’s not supposed to be here anymore. It’s… wrong. Even to the others. The rest don’t go near it.”Eli turned the key over in his hand. The serpent’s-eye engravin

The first toll rolled through the Crest like thunder trapped in glass.Eli froze mid-step, his breath clouding in the sudden drop of temperature. He’d heard the bell many times before, always measured, clear, and solemn but this wasn’t that. The sound was wrong. Drawn out. Warped. Like it was being rung underwater, the vibrations dragging behind the chime until they scraped against the inside of his skull.Beside him, Lena’s head snapped toward the bell tower. “That’s… not the hour.”The second toll hit, lower this time, deeper than anything the old bronze could produce. It vibrated through the stone floor beneath them, humming in his teeth.They weren’t alone in feeling it. Across the quad, students stopped mid-conversation. Some blinked in confusion; others just stood there, eyes glazed over, lips moving as if reciting something unheard. One boy near the fountain tilted his head back like he was scenting the air, then smiled at nothing.The third toll.Every light in the nearest bui