“No...no, please, Liam, I need to make sure he’s safe, please-”
“I’m sorry, Harper.”
The spell bursts from his wand.
Cold swallows everything.
Darkness consumes me whole.
The stone flooris cold beneath my cheek when consciousness drags its claws through me. Every breath shudders like it has to claw its way out of my lungs. My vision swims, first a blur of dark shapes, then the familiarsilhouettes of desks, shelves, lanterns still flickering from the lesson I abandoned.
I’m still in the classroom.
The air is wrong. Like the moment before lightning forks the sky.
That awareness settles first, not sight, not sound, just the unmistakable feeling of being observed with a precision that strips me bare.
Those eyes.
Blue and bright as the strike of a spell, though the glow dims even as I stare back at him, as though he’s reeling it in, hiding it, disguising whatever he really is. He’s crouched low beside where I’ve fallen, body balanced, impossible to read, as though he simply stepped out of the memory still clawing its way through my skull.
I try to push myself upright, and the room tilts violently, but I force myself onto trembling elbows. He doesn’t move to help, as though cataloguing every flinch.
A breath catches tight in my throat before I manage a whisper.
“Stay away from me.”
It isn’t a command. Not really. More the last scrap of self-defense scraping out of me before everything else collapses. He tilts his head as if he’s listening to the tremor in my voice, not the words themselves.
“You’re seeing what your mind wants you to see,” he murmurs.
His voice is quiet, smooth, slipping through the dim classroom like smoke. “Not necessarily what’s real.”
Heat crawls up my spine, fear or fury, I can’t tell. “I know what I saw.”
His gaze drags over my face, not slow, but deliberate, lingering just long enough to make me feel exposed. Myheart thuds hard enough to make my ribs ache, and the edges of my vision pulse.
“You saw pieces.” He rises, unfolding to his full height with an unsettling calm. “Fragments stitched together by fear and magic.” He takes a single step closer, cloak whispering against the stone. “Not truth.”
A surge of anger rips through the fog. “Don’t pretend you understand any part of me.”
“I don’t have to pretend.” His voice lowers, steady and unhurried. “I was there.”
Something cold settles under my ribs. “In the classroom?”
His eyes flicker, just barely. “In more places than you think.”
The room feels smaller, tighter, like the walls are listening. I brace a hand against the nearest desk, forcing myself upright, though my knees wobble beneath me.
“What do you want from me?” My voice cracks on the question.
He steps close enough that the space between us seems to vibrate, the faint scent of steel and ash settling around me. The lantern light catches on the edge of his mask, turning him into something carved from shadow and threat.
“To wake you up,” he whispers.
Before I can recoil, his gloved hand hovers near my waist, not touching, not quite, but close enough that I flinch back.
The room seems to tilt.
