A soundless pressure rips through my chest, twisting deep beneath my ribs. My mark flares under my skin, and Kael’s hand tightens on my waist, grounding me as the world tips sideways.
A jagged line of purple light splinters through the sky above us—thin, gleaming, and wrong. A crack in the very air. Like reality is peeling.
“Veil breach,” Kael says.
Around us, students start to panic. Some freeze. Others back away, whispering spells or clutching charms. Professors rush forward from the edges of the Revel, casting shielding wards that ripple blue and gold.
My heart is pounding now for a whole new reason. Kael moves, shifting us slightly so I’m behind him, while keeping the tear in the sky in front of him.
I grip his arm. “No. I’m not hiding.”
He glances back, eyes flicking down to where my mark glows faintly along my arm. His mouth hardens.
“Then stay close.”
TWENTY-NINE
LINDSAY
The sky cracks again.
This time it's louder. Almost booming like thunder rolling though the courtyard. A second breach slices across the air. Veins of silver-pale light spider webs out from the purple lighting, frozen in place. And then…it shatters.
Students scream, chaos erupts, and there are people running in every direction.
My knees hit the ground, my chest clenching tight. Power surges through me, turning my vision white.
Raiden’s at my side in a second. Nolan’s not far behind. Both kneel beside me. While Kael stands over us.
“Get her up,” he demands, his attention on the bleeding sky.
Wait, no, it's not bleeding. Those are monsters, like the ones that showed up at the dueling pits.
Wraith hounds, half-formed and drooling shadow, drag their twisted bodies out first, crawling over the edge and falling from the sky like the breach is a mouth and they’re the hunger behind it. Long-limbed. Eyes too white. Teeth too many.
Then come the others.
Shadows that move wrong. Creatures that flicker in and out like they’re not fully here—like the Veil didn’t finish makingthem. Horned things. Winged things. Things I can’t name but recognize in my bones.
I scrabble to my feet with the help of Nolan and Raiden.
Tamsin grabs my arm as soon as I'm standing. “Lindsay?—”
“I see them,” I say, pushing her toward the doors of the library. “Get inside. Lock the doors.”
She hesitates.
“Now.”
Kael is already moving toward the danger, shadows exploding around him like a living cloak. Nolan mutters something under his breath, fingers flicking in practiced patterns, and a barrier blooms around the closest group of first-years.
Raiden slides in next to me, teeth bared, fangs already growing, magic flicking over his skin as he undoes his tie and sheds his jacket, before stripping out of his slacks and kicking off his shoes.
“Well,” he says, “guess it’s a good thing I didn’t wear heels.”
I almost laugh. But then the first wraith hound lunges.
Kael intercepts it, blade slicing through its neck in one fluid motion. The body hits the stone and melts—black smoke curling where it lands. A sort of fog filling the space.
