Chadwick sat perched on the edge of a study table, a dusty rag in his hands as he half-heartedly wiped down a stack of lexicons.  The silence of the library was almost soothing, making him realize why Clovis spent so much time here. But then that solitary broke when the doors came open and Clovis walked in. “Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence. Where have you been? It’s a surprise you actually left your nest to visit the real world for once.” Chadwick chirped the moment he saw the librarian walk in, a smirk breaking through his exhaustion.  Clovis paused, giving the boy an unimpressed stare from his single good eye. “You finally got your tongue back, I see. I thought the ritual yesterday had permanently silenced you.” Chadwick shrugged, dropping the rag onto the table and crossing his arms. “Well, it's a miracle indee

Lexi sat cross-legged on her mattress, her back pressed against the wall as she watched her new roommate set up her desk. The silence in the room wasn't angry like it had been with Belle, but it was incredibly awkward.Trying to break the ice, Lexi cleared her throat. “So... did the dorm Magister force you to move in here?”Rya paused and shook her head slowly, then turned around, offering Lexi a small, genuine smile. “No. I actually wanted to.”Her voice was very tiny, Lexi tilted her head, slightly surprised. “Why? Why leave the lower district?”Rya’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She placed the book on the desk and sighed. “I didn't exactly like my roommate down there. I'm just glad they finally moved me.”“What did she do?” Lexi pressed on forcing Rya to freeze.Rya paused for a long while, then gave a casual shrug, avoiding Lexi's eyes. “I don't really want to talk about it.” She quickly changed the subject, looking around the room.“Since all upper-division classes

Later that day, Chadwick, Lexi, and Rya made their way back, parting ways as they headed to their respective blocks.Chadwick walked into the boys' dormitory wing, the doors closing out the damp evening air. The common area was crowded with students lounging on sofas, tossing practice runes, and loud-mouthing about the cancelled drills.As Chadwick started walking through the pack of boys to get to his quarters, one of the students turned around, spotting him as a mocking grin spread across the boy's face.“Blimey, look who it is! Aye, Chad!” the boy shouted across the room, nudging his mate. “Hear you’ve been proper busy, mate! Didn’t think you ’ad it in you to bag a bird like that, let alone go forcing yourself about. Quite the dark horse, aren't ya?”Confused, Chadwick let out a nervous chuckle, waving a hand to brush it off as he kept walking. “Yeah, right. Good one.”But as he moved further into the room, the jeers and whistles only kept getting worse. Boys were snickering from th

Ross was plunged into a vivid, waking nightmare.He was on his knees, the cold floor biting into his shins as he wept and standing over him were three powerful entities—a man radiating a terrifying dark aura, a cold-eyed woman, and a much younger girl whose expression was completely devoid of mercy.Ross was shaking violently, tears pouring from his eyes as he begged, his voice cracking with pure desperation. “Please... please, I'm begging you, don't hurt my mother!”The girl didn't look at him as she pressed the edge of the blade directly against his mother's throat, drawing a thin line of blood.“I'll go!” Ross blurted out, a panicked scream ripping from his chest. “I'm going tonight! I'll do exactly as you ask, I'll get it! Just please... I'm pleading with you, do not hurt her!”The man looked down at him, “Very well. Do not fail us again.”With a violent gasp, Ross was snapped back to reality.He bolted upright in his dorm bed, drenched in sweat, his face soaking wet with real tear

Clovis had closed the boy's eyes four times, and four times they had come open again.He stood over the slab with his hand still raised and made himself understand why, because he had never in twenty years allowed himself the cheaper of two options.There was mana in the body. His own. He had put it there through five fingers and it had nowhere left to go, so it moved the dead muscle the way wind moves a door, patiently, without meaning anything at all.The killing was not finished. It had simply slowed down.He could have ended it. Two fingers to the sternum, one syllable, and the residue would have gone out of Ross the way heat goes out of a stone.Clovis put both hands behind his back instead and stood still.He was not going to touch the boy again.So he waited, and the vault was cold, and above him the whole weight of the library pressed down through nine hundred tons of iron and paper, and the eyes came open a fifth time.He counted the Archive's pulse to have something to do.It