"What's going on?"
"Sitdown, Everly."
I sit on my bed. Herbert watches me from Brittany's shoulder, all eight legs tensed, and I swear even the spider looks nervous.
Brittany stops pacing. Stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed tight against her chest, and takes a breath.
"The fraternities are planning something."
My stomach drops. Not a surprise—Warrick's warning was barely an hour ago—but hearing it from Brittany makes it real in a way a professor's oblique hints didn't.
"What kind of something?"
"Some kind of demonstration. Public. Official." She's choosing her words carefully, which is how I know it's bad. Brittany doesn't choose words carefully. She throws them like knives and lets them land where they land. "I don't have details. The Sanguis students have been tight-lipped, which is unusual because blood mages are the worst gossips on campus. But people are talking. I've caught pieces—something about all four disciplines, something about capacity testing, something about the Administration being involved."
"The Administration. As in Catalina."
"As in the headmaster who has been monitoring your every magical incident since you got here. Yes."
I think about Callum in the dark classroom.She wants capacity. Limits. Data.He said he didn't know what she was planning. Maybe he didn't, then. Maybe he does now.
"When?" I ask.
"Soon. This week, maybe next. The way people are talking about it —" She stops. Uncrosses her arms, then crosses them again, like she can't figure out what to do with her hands. "It feels wrong, Everly. The energy of it. Like they're preparing for something they know is going to be ugly and they're doing it anyway."
"Do the presidents know?"
"They're organizing it. All four of them." She watches my face as that lands. "Whatever Callum told you in that classroom, whatever Atlas showed you on the hill—they're still part of this. All four of them are still doing what they're told."
The lightning in my chest gives a dull throb. Atlas's grief, pulsing with a heartbeat that isn't mine.
"What kind of demonstration needs all four disciplines?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. I've known it since my sphere cracked in Warrick's class and cycled through four colors and Callum's mask slipped for the first time. Since Catalina put me on probation instead of expelling me, since every president tested me with their own magic like they were running diagnostics on a machine.
"The kind that tests whether a grimoire can absorb all four at once," Brittany says quietly. "And the kind where someone gets hurt."
The room is very still. Outside, the afternoon light is fading, turning the walls grey, and Herbert's beady eyes are fixed on me like he's waiting for my response.
"What should I do?" I ask.
Brittany is quiet for a long moment. Then she walks to her desk, opens the top drawer, and takes out a set of car keys. She sets them on the surface between us—a plain keychain, black, with a tiny skull charm hanging from the ring. Of course.
"If things go bad," she says, "my keys are in my desk drawer. Take my car. Get out."
"I have my own car—"
"Your car is in the main lot. Twenty feet from the security booth, directly under a monitoring ward. Mine is in the east lot by the back gate—no cameras, one ward with a twelve-minute reset cycle." She says it like she's reading from a manual. Like shemapped this months ago. "If you need to run, you run east. Not south."
"Brittany—"
"I'm serious. Don't argue with me, don't wait for me, don't try to be brave. If whatever they're planning goes wrong—and it will, because nothing at this school ever goes right—you take those keys and you drive until you run out of gas. Call your family. Go home. Forget this place exists."
"I can't forget. You know that. The mundane block —"
"Then drive until you figure out a plan. Just—go. Get away from whatever Catalina's building." Her voice is steady but her hands aren't. She shoves them into her jacket pockets. "You're my roommate. You brought me snickerdoodles on your first day. I'm not going to sit here and watch them —"
She stops. Swallows.
"Watch them what?" I ask softly.
