A fire hound had already been summoned for a red-haired girl at the side of the hall. She wasn't even a first-year. She was a second-year student named Kaida Voss, who had been sent to help with the ceremony. Ethan knew her by sight. Everyone did.Kaida was short and sharp, with copper hair cut close to her head and amber eyes that never stopped moving. Her hound stood beside her with smoke curling from its nostrils, and she kept one hand on its back as if she was proud to be seen with it.She caught Ethan staring and smirked. "You," she called across the aisle. "First-year. Your uniform is wrinkled."Ethan looked down. It was secondhand, and it had been wrinkled since the day he got it. "Sorry," he said."Don't apologize to me. Apologize to your beast. It has to stand next to you." Some students snickered.Darius stepped half a pace in front of Ethan. "Leave him alone, Voss." Kaida's smirk grew. "Oh, he has a bodyguard. How sweet." "I'm not a bodyguard. I'm his friend." "Then you can

The Venom Stalker came out of the trees without a sound.Ethan didn't see it first. He saw Darius's face change. It happened fast. The easy smile Darius had worn all morning dropped off his face like a plate slipping from wet hands. His mouth stayed half open. His eyes went wide and fixed on something behind Ethan's left shoulder."Darius?" Ethan said. No answer. "Darius, what is it?"The two other teammates had already stopped walking. One of them dropped her water bottle. It bounced twice on the mossy ground and rolled away, and nobody picked it up.Ethan turned around. The creature was long and low, with a spotted green hide that matched the leaves so well he had looked straight at it and seen only a bush. Its tail curled over its back like a hook. Yellow drops fell from its fangs and hissed where they hit the dirt. It was looking at him. Not at Darius. Not at the others. At him. "Nobody moves," Darius said. His voice came out thin and strange, higher than normal.Ethan realized hi

The figure in the gray coat was gone before Dean Okoye reached the window. "Lights," she snapped. "Now."The Great Hall flooded with white light. Outside, the courtyard sat empty under the moon. No footprints. No shadow. Only a single dead leaf turning slowly on the stone."I saw two of them," Sera said. "So did I," said the Dean."Then why does it look like nobody was ever there?"The Dean didn't answer. Her knuckles were pale around her staff.Behind them, Ethan was still kneeling by the stone, one hand pressed to his chest. Wick had crawled into his collar and gone dark, like a candle someone had pinched out."Professor Brandt," the Dean said quietly. "Take Mr. Cole back to the infirmary. Say nothing to anyone. Not the staff, not the proctors.""And Miss Linden?" The Dean looked at Sera for a long, tired moment. "Miss Linden and I need to talk." The Dean's office smelled like black tea and old paper. Sera stood in front of the desk with her arms folded. Rime, her Frost Wolf, sat be

Ethan opened his mouth to answer, and found that he did not have the words yet. He was about to find out. He went to the kennels that night, because he could not sleep and because the Remedial Wing was the only place on campus where nobody watched him.The long hall was dim and quiet. A few lamps buzzed at the far end. Somewhere a sleeping dog huffed and rolled over. Gravel, the gray dog with the missing ear, lifted his head when Ethan walked past and thumped his tail twice against the straw."Hey, you," Ethan whispered. "Go back to sleep." He was heading for the water barrels when he heard it. A thin, dry scratching, like a fingernail on stone. It came from the last kennel, the one nobody used. Ethan crouched by the gate. Inside, in a corner of cracked cement, lay a small gray lump the size of a loaf of bread. It had a hard, ridged shell, six stubby legs, and a crooked horn on its head. One leg was bent the wrong way. Its shell was split down the middle by a long, ugly crack.A Stone