But my brain refuses to file them under anything normal. And apparently no one else finds this weird.
I keep my face blank, but inside?
What the actual hell?
I came here expecting Hogwarts. Maybe a talking painting. A wand. Some dumb Latin spells. Not half-shifted predators lurking around a magical fight pit like it’s just another Friday night.
What kind of school is this?
Deep beneath it all, there’s a hum building in my chest—low, unfamiliar, but impossible to ignore.
I curl my fingers against the stone, forcing a steady breath. Whatever this is, it’s not in the fight. It’s in the room. It’s inme. And it’s getting stronger.
The hum inside me strengthens. No longer subtle. It coils low in my gut, an electric pulse beneath my skin. I shift again, trying to steady my breath, but the weight pressing down doesn’t ease.
Across the pit, students are starting to notice. Conversations stall entirely now. More heads turn; not toward the duel, but toward the outer edges of the chamber.
That’s when I feel it. Not just the pressure or the hum. A pull. Something in the shadows, beyond the torches. Moving.
The air gets colder. The rune pillars flicker, wards dimming for half a second. A ripple moves through the crowd, a nervous shuffle of bodies pressing tighter together.
Tamsin finally glances back, brows pulling together. “Something’s wrong,” she says under her breath.
I can’t answer. The hum inside me is stronger now, like my pulse is syncing with it. Shapes move beyond the circle of light. Low, sinuous, too fluid to be human.
One. Then another. Then more.
Figures cloaked in shadow, forms half-formed and flickering, like the space itself is struggling to contain them.
A strangled whisper cuts through the crowd. “Wraith hounds.”
I don’t know what they are. I don’t need to. Every instinct in me recognizes the threat. The room erupts in chaos as students run for the stairs, attempting to escape.
The pull intensifies. My breath locks. The hum beneath my skin spikes. Magic, not controlled, not shaped, just raw energy, swells inside of me, pushing higher with every heartbeat.
And the creatures turn. Not toward the duel. Not toward the fleeing Bloods or Fangs or Veil mages.
Toward me.
Eyes like smoldering coals blink open in the dark, locking on my position. The nearest one flows closer, tendrils of shadow trailing across the floor. It’s almost like the shadows in my apartment, the one that burned my ankle. My heart lodges itself in my throat as I back away.
Tamsin swears sharply and grabs my arm. “We need to?—”
But the words vanish as the first Wraith hound lunges. Shadow coils stretch toward me, cold and sharp as blades. My feet won’t move. My breath won’t come.
Then something shifts. A sudden rush of air. The faint scent of smoke and metal. And a figure steps between me and the creature in a fast, controlled, casual way that shouldn’t be possible.
A long black coat sweeps through the shadows. Gloved hand raised, runes flickering at his fingertips as he casts a spell.
I know that coat.
Recognition hits low in my gut.
It’s him. Kael.
The man from the portal. From my apartment. He moves like this is nothing. Like the threat barely registers.
A flick of his hand, and the Wraith hound’s strike scatters mid-air, the creature stumbling back with a shriek.
