2025-08-04 22:37:36The morning after move-in, Ivory Crest came alive in calculated chaos.
Suits and sweatpants mingled in the main dining hall like they’d always belonged together. Girls in designer boots rolled their eyes at boys with art-school tattoos. Freshmen clutched coffee cups like lifelines, trying to act like they weren’t afraid of looking lost. Eli wasn’t lost. He walked into the dining hall as if it were already his. The architecture was ridiculous, high ceilings, stained glass windows, gold chandeliers that looked like they belonged in Versailles. Everything was polished, exaggerated, intentional. That was the Ivy Crest way: make it grand, then make it rot underneath. He scanned the tables, found an empty booth near the back, and claimed it without a word. Zayn showed up five minutes later, tray stacked with waffles, eggs, and some kind of smoothie that looked radioactive. “You eat like you’ve never been fed before,” Eli muttered. “I’m a growing boy.” Zayn slid into the seat across from him. “Besides, breakfast here is bomb. Don’t ruin this for me.” Eli barely acknowledged him. He’d grabbed only a black coffee. It tasted like it was brewed out of guilt and expense. Zayn noticed the envelope sitting on the table, half-tucked under Eli’s phone. “Fan mail already?” Eli didn’t smile. “Hate mail.” Zayn leaned in. “You serious?” Eli pushed the note toward him wordlessly. Zayn read it twice, brows rising. “Creepy. But weirdly poetic.” “Nothing poetic about it.” “Think it’s some hazing thing? You know, rich kid jealousy, screw-the-legacy-type crap?” Eli sipped his coffee. “Maybe.” He didn’t believe that. There was something too specific in those lines. “Your family’s sins.” It sounded like whoever wrote it knew something. Not just that he was rich, not just that his name was powerful — but that the Kingston name carried baggage. He’d lived with that weight for nineteen years. Zayn tapped the note. “You want me to help you find out who sent this?” “No.” Eli grabbed the paper and folded it sharply. “I want you to forget it existed.” Zayn grinned. “So that’s a yes.” Eli didn’t respond. But Zayn had already seen too much. The first class of the day was Political History of Elite Institutions, taught by a Professor Harlow. Eli had heard of him before. Eccentric, unreadable, rumored to have taught three prime ministers, two royalty, adjacent billionaires, and at least one war criminal. Perfect. Eli entered the lecture hall early and claimed a seat in the third row. Not too eager. Not too removed. The room filled slowly, some students loud and bright, others quiet and calculating. Then she walked in. He didn’t know her name yet, but he noticed her instantly. She wasn’t flashy. No designer bag. No pretense. Just jeans, a black sweater, and a silver necklace shaped like a crescent moon. Her dark hair was pulled into a loose braid, and her eyes were the kind that didn’t just look, they searched. She scanned the room. Her gaze paused on Eli. A flicker of recognition? Disdain? Curiosity? Eli stared back, unflinching. She chose a seat one row behind him, slightly to the left. Zayn appeared just as Professor Harlow strode in, wearing a tan trench coat like he’d come from a spy film set. He dropped a stack of papers on the desk and looked around like he was already disappointed in everyone. “I won’t waste your time,” Harlow began, voice low and razor-sharp. “Ivory Crest is not about learning. It’s about becoming. Some of you will become legends. Most of you will become irrelevant. A few if you’re lucky, will survive.” The room went quiet. Zayn leaned toward Eli and whispered, “He seems fun.” Eli smirked. Professor Harlow continued. “This course will explore how institutions like this one shape power, how truth is weaponized, how history is curated by the winners, and how you are all participants in that machine, whether you like it or not.” Then his eyes met Eli’s. For a second too long. Eli held his gaze. Harlow didn’t blink. “Mr. Kingston. Since you come from a family so deeply embedded in Crest’s legacy, perhaps you can start us off. What do you believe is the most dangerous kind of history?” Eli didn’t flinch. “The kind written by people who think they’re untouchable.” A pause. Harlow smiled, thin and sharp. “Good. And how does one stay untouchable, Mr. Kingston?” Eli’s voice was steady. “By making sure the bodies stay buried.” A few students turned to look at him. Zayn let out a low whistle. Professor Harlow nodded, clearly amused. “Excellent. You may actually survive this course.” The girl behind Eli wrote something in her notebook, eyes still fixed on him. He leaned back in his chair, feeling the edge of the note still in his pocket like a second heartbeat. Later that night, campus grew quieter. The light took on that hazy, golden wash that made the red bricks glow like embers. Eli walked the east path behind the main library alone, needing air. There were statues along this path — old university founders with stern faces and hollow eyes. Someone had spray-painted one of them with the word liar in red. Eli stopped walking. There, taped to the statue’s base, was another envelope. Same style. Same clean type. This one said: “You’re being watched. The fall doesn’t happen all at once.” Eli ripped it open. Nothing else. No signature. No explanation. A faint sound made him turn — the crunch of footsteps on gravel. Quick. Purposeful. He caught a glimpse of a figure in a grey hoodie disappearing behind the trees bordering the old chapel. He took off after them. Down the path. Around the side of the chapel. Into the narrow archway that led to the courtyard behind it. Empty, Like they’d vanished into the bricks. His breath fogged in the cool air. His heart wasn’t racing, but his fists were clenched. Whoever was leaving these notes was doing it deliberately. They wanted to get under his skin — and they were succeeding. Eli wasn’t the paranoid type. But this… this wasn’t hazing. This wasn’t some bitter scholarship kid with a grudge. This was something older. Sharper. He turned to head back and nearly collided with the girl from class. “Whoa,” she said, stepping back. Eli didn’t move. “You following me?” She raised an eyebrow. “You ran past me back there. I was headed to the library.” “You always walk alone in the dark?” She crossed her arms. “Better than pretending you’re not scared.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not scared.” She tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle she already half-solved. “Maybe not. But you’re definitely being hunted.” He stiffened. “What did you just say?” She gave a faint smile. “See you in class, Kingston.” Then she turned and disappeared down the chapel path, leaving him with the night and the unanswered questions burning in his chest.
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Chapter 161
The light tore through the chamber like a living thing, spilling upward in great coils that twisted into the shape of the Eye. Eli’s skin burned where the fragments of the cubes still clung to him, glowing faintly as if they refused to let go. The air was no longer air—it was heat and vibration, a storm of sound and pressure that made his bones feel hollow. Lena clutched him tighter, her arms anchoring him even as the ground beneath them split wider, stones shearing off into the abyss below.The Watchers writhed where they knelt, their masks cracking and shattering. From beneath the porcelain shards came not faces but shadow, their forms unraveling into streams of black smoke that the Eye drank hungrily. Their chanting devolved into screams that echoed into the fissure. The broken mask, the last one standing, staggered toward Eli with movements that were almost human and yet all wrong—his limbs jerking too fast, his spine arched unnaturally. His voice came distorted, layered with a hu
Chapter 160
The hall groaned under the weight of centuries, every stone shuddering as if the very foundation of Crest was remembering its own buried sins. Dust fell like ash from the vaulted ceiling. Eli stood in the center, the two cubes heavy in his hands, their carved spirals twisting in ways his eyes couldn’t quite follow. Every breath he took came ragged, uneven, like he was pulling not air but something darker, heavier, into his lungs. The whispers were relentless now, no longer murmurs at the edge of hearing but a tide of voices clamoring inside his skull, pressing against his thoughts until his own mind felt like it might splinter.“Eli,” Lena hissed. Her face was pale, her eyes bright with fear, her hands trembling though she fought to keep them steady on his arm. “Don’t listen to it. Put them down. We’ll find another way.”Her voice cut through, thin but real, a thread in the storm. Eli wanted to answer her, wanted to ground himself in her presence the way he always had, but the cubes p
Chapter 159
The Crest had gone quiet after the Watcher’s defeat, but it was not a silence of peace. It was the kind of hush that settles before a storm breaks, when the air grows heavy and every breath feels borrowed. Eli could not shake the weight of what had happened in the refectory. The look on the students’ faces haunted him, their awe cut through with fear. They hadn’t just seen him resist a monster—they had seen him command it, even if only for a moment. That truth was spreading faster than fire through dry grass.He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that the whispers were just noise, but he could feel the shift everywhere he went. Doors stayed open for him a second longer. Conversations cut off as he walked by. Students who had once mocked him with sneers and behind-the-back laughter now stepped aside, eyes lowered, as though unsure if he was a savior or the next curse. And somewhere inside, that attention stirred something dangerous, something old and cold, like a crown lo
Chapter 158
The Crest no longer pretended to be a school. By the next evening, the façade of classrooms and lecture halls was a hollow mask over something older and rawer. Eli felt it in the air as soon as he stepped from his dormitory—every breath was heavy, tinged with smoke though no fire burned. The corridors stretched further than they should have, ceilings groaned, and portraits whispered behind their gilt frames. Students huddled in corners with wide, restless eyes, whispering rumors about the tolling bell and the ground that had shifted beneath their feet. Professors, once so composed, moved like hollow men, clutching books to their chests, their voices cracking when they tried to enforce order. The Crest was unraveling, and everyone inside could feel it.Eli walked with Lena and Callum, the three of them moving like a unit though every step was shadowed with unspoken tension. The cube weighed in his pocket like a stone, inert since the Eye’s hall collapsed, but it wasn’t dead. He felt it
Chapter 157
The Crest had always loomed like a monument—timeless, impervious, a citadel that stood outside the rules of ordinary decay. But on that night, as the bell’s unnatural tolling faded into silence, Eli felt it breathe. The stone itself shifted, walls groaning as if the foundations were no longer sure of themselves. The corridors no longer obeyed their maps. Arches sagged, staircases bent where they had once stood straight, and new shadows moved where there should have been none. The Crest was alive, and its pulse matched the rhythm hammering in Eli’s chest. He ran down the corridor, Lena at his side, Callum a step behind. Their footsteps echoed too loudly, as though the stone was eager to swallow their sounds. Every hallway they turned down bent into shapes Eli swore hadn’t existed yesterday. Murals bled onto the walls—figures painted centuries ago now moving as if freed from their confinement. Eyes followed them, whole frescoes leaning forward as if hungry for the trespassers running be
Chapter 156
The night stretched on like it would never end. Eli didn’t know how long they had been walking through the shifting halls of the Crest, but time had slipped away from him in the way it did inside dreams, measured not by minutes but by how heavy the silence grew, by how tightly his chest clenched. Every corridor looked the same now, and yet different—walls bending in angles that defied logic, arches that curved downward like jaws ready to snap shut.They had left the library behind, but the weight of that great Eye on the wall still lingered. Eli could feel its stare in the back of his skull, like a nail pressed into bone. Each time he blinked, he half expected to see the spiral when he opened his eyes again.“We can’t keep wandering like this,” Lena whispered, breaking the silence. Her voice echoed in strange ways, bouncing down the hall ahead of them before coming back warped, like someone else was speaking with her mouth. “The Crest isn’t letting us go. It’s folding us back inside i
