‘Blood calls to blood,’Noodle hissed in my mind, his sleek gray head poking out from the collar of my uniform shirt. ‘The earth here remembers your magic. It sings with it.’
“Right,” I breathed out, forcing myself to take a sip of the bitter coffee. “Pixies, ancient sacrificial grounds, sealed portals. Got it.”
Jamie let out a low chuckle, his scarred face shifting into a genuine, albeit brief, smile. “No pressure.”
“Don’t let it overwhelm you,” Lucas said. “You aren’t your ancestor. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for anyone. Not anymore.”
The words hit entirely too close to home, striking the injured, battered parts of my soul that still ached for the Nightfall Shield. I’d already sacrificed my dignity, my heart, and my sanity for four men who had thrown it all away. Lucas’s words were a blistering reminder of why I crossed an ocean.
“I won’t,” I promised, my resolve hardening. “I’m done bleeding for people.”
An unspoken agreement seemed to pass around the Stardust table. They didn’t push, didn’t pry into the obvious double meaning of my words. Instead, Rowan reached over and stole a piece of my toast.
“Good. Because we have Portal Theory with Professor Crespin in twenty minutes, and if you bleed in his classroom, he’ll probably dock you points for making a mess.”
I laughed. “Lead the way, then.”
The journey to the classroom took us deeper into the older sections of the main building. The corridors here were narrower, the stone walls damp and lined with framed paintings that looked like they would crumble to dust if touched.
When we entered the classroom, it was designed like a steep amphitheater, looking down into a circular pit in the center where Professor Crespin—a severe-looking man with stark white hair and pitch-black eyes—was already arranging strange metal contraptions.
I took a seat between Jamie and Theo near the middle rows. As the rest of the class filtered in, I immediately felt that familiar, icy prickle at the back of my neck. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
Eliza Reece took a seat two rows behind me. I could feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of my head.
Professor Crespin clapped his hands together, the sound echoing loudly through the amphitheater and instantly silencing the room.
“Portal Mechanics—” His eyes swept the room before landing squarely on me. “Is the study of the spaces between. Not outer space. The nothingness that holds the something together. For centuries, we have taught this class strictly as theoretical. Today, however, we have the unique opportunity to discuss practical applications.” He gestured in my direction. “Ms. Black. Tell me, when you open a portal, what is the exact mathematical frequency required to keep the dimensional tear from collapsing and crushing you into atomic dust?”
I blinked, completely taken aback. “Mathematical frequency? I... I don’t use math, sir. I just feel the axis points and pull them together and apart.”
A collective gasp echoed through the room, coming from a few of the more studious-looking Imperium students. Crespin simply stared at me, his expression unreadable.
“Youfeelit,” he repeated softly. “Fascinating. The sheer arrogance of instinct.” He turned back to the blackboard, picking up a piece of chalk. “Then today, Ms. Black, you will learn themath. Because instinct will only keep you alive until your luck runs out.”
As he began writing complex, swirling equations on the board, I let out a slow breath. Imperium was going to be a completely different battlefield. But as I glanced at the Stardust Shield members sitting around me, both of them diligently taking notes, I realized I was woefully out of my depth.
3
Percy
The glass shatteredagainst the stone wall, the amber liquid inside staining the rug below, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I stared at my trembling hands, chest heaving as I tried to draw a breath through the suffocating, agonizing pressure in my lungs.
It’d been eighty-six hours since Jupiter boarded that plane to London. Eighty-six fucking hours of feeling the axis bond stretch across thousands of miles of ocean, pulling my soul so taut I thought it might snap and leave me a hollow, mindless husk.
“Throwing another glass isn’t going to bring her back, Percy,” Draco’s voice came from the doorway of our ruined common room. He looked like a corpse. His pale skin was practically gray, dark purple bruises forming deep bags under his eyes. He hadn’t slept since the gala. None of us had.
“Shut the fuck up, Draco,” I snarled, my magic flaring red hot around my fists. “Just... shut up.”
“He’s right,” Aiden said, emerging from the hallway. His knuckles were split and bleeding from whatever he had beenpunching in the training rooms for the last six hours. “We’re tearing ourselves apart.”
“We deserve to be torn apart!” I roared, whirling on them. “We pushed her away! We believed a manipulative little bitch over our own bonded axis! We broke her, Aiden. Did you feel her when she left? Did you feel how completely empty she was?”
Aiden flinched. He sank onto the ruined sofa, burying his face in his bleeding hands. “I feel her every second. She’s blocking us, but the bond is stretched so far I can’t breathe. I literally can’t catch my breath.”
Eris walked in, carrying a fresh bottle of whiskey. He didn’t bother with a glass, just took a long, desperate pull from the neck. “I went to Waverly. I demanded a transfer to Imperium.”
My head snapped up. “And?”
