And the shadow goesin.
Cold.
Cold like I've never felt before, cold that burns, cold that reaches into my chest and wraps around my lungs and squeezes. I can't breathe. Can't see — my vision goes dark at the edges, then darker, then nothing but black and the sensation of something pouring into me like ice water through a crack in a dam.
It hurts. God, it hurts, a deep bone-ache that spreads from my fingers up my arms and into my chest, settling behind my ribs like a stone. I feel it moving inside me, finding space, making room for itself in places I didn't know were empty.
And then—just as suddenly—it stops.
The cold is still there, but it's quiet now. Settled. Like a fire that's burned down to embers, banked but not gone.
I open my eyes.
Shadows are curling around my fingers. Thin wisps of darkness, twining between my knuckles, spiraling up my wrists. They move when I move, responding to some instinct I don't understand, and when I flex my hands they dissipate into nothing — smoke in sunlight, gone like they were never there.
The room is completely silent.
I look up. Every face is turned toward me—the observers frozen in their seats, the Mors students pale and staring, Thorne with his wand raised and his mouth open like he's forgotten what he was going to say. The student who lost control looks like he might faint. Someone's knocked over the bucket by the door.
And Callum.
Callum is already moving, crossing the room in long strides that eat up the distance between us like he's been waiting for this moment, like he knew it was coming. His mask is cracked, I can see it in the tension around his jaw, the tightness of his shoulders, the way his hands are clenched at his sides. For one brief, disorienting second, I see something underneath the ice.
Fear. Pure, undiluted fear.
Then it's gone. The mask slides back into place, smooth and cold as marble, and when he reaches me his voice is perfectly controlled.
"That was dangerous." He takes my elbow—not gently, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise—and pulls me to my feet. "You're coming with me."
"I didn't—" My voice comes out hoarse, scraped raw. "I didn't do anything. It just—"
"Now, Miss Grey."
He's already walking, half-dragging me toward the door, and I'm too shaken to resist. The cold is still in my bones. There's something new sitting behind my ribs, something that wasn't there before, and I can feel shadows now really feel them, the way I felt the storm gathering before Atlas tried to fry me. Every dark corner of this room is whispering to me in a language I don't understand.
We pass Thorne on the way out. He doesn't try to stop us. He just watches, face grey, and I hear him say to someone behind us: "Clear the room. Get the dean.Now."
The walk across campus is a blur.
Callum doesn't let go of my arm. Doesn't speak. Doesn't look at me. His grip is tight enough that I'll have fingerprint bruises tomorrow, and his pace is fast enough that I have to half-jog to keep up with his ridiculously long legs.
I try to say something — anything, some kind of protest or question or demand for an explanation — but the words won't come. I'm too cold. Too hollow. The thing inside me is heavy and quiet andthere, a presence I can't ignore, and every shadow we pass seems to lean toward me like a plant toward sunlight.
Halfway to Bellamy Hall, Callum pulls out his phone. Types something one-handed, fast, still not breaking stride.
I catch a glimpse of the screen before he angles it away. Two words.
Mother.
And below that, in the message he's typing:Confirmed. She pulled it in. The whole thing. Keeping her here for now.
My stomach drops.
"Who are you texting?"
"No one you need to concern yourself with."
"That's bullshit and we both know it." The anger cuts through the cold, warming me enough to find my voice. "What the hell is going on? What just happened to me?"
