I swing up onto my bed, legs dangling over the edge. “What kind?” Hesitation has me asking questions first, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned when it comes to thesestudentsit’s that they’re disappointing. Honestly. Send me back to Exile.
The clasp of her makeup case snaps closed as she meets my gaze in the mirror. “The kind where we can get messed up on Fae party favors and you can pretend you’re not going to fail. No offense.”
She meant offense.
I slide off the bed, bare feet hitting cold stone. “Where?”
“The Depths,” she says, like that means something to me.When I stare at her blankly, she sighs. “Underwater caverns beneath the campus. Magic keeps the air breathable, the pressure from crushing us, and all that fun stuff.” She waves her hand dismissively. “It’s where they hold all the good parties because the professors can’t hear us scream. Plus, after the explosion of the Dragon Lair just before the school closed last time, it’s one of the few places we’re left with.”
Yeah, that’s too much information for me. I focus on the important stuff.
Underwater. Magic. Screaming.
“Sold.”
I quickly change into one of the outfits I found in the trunk that appeared at the foot of my bed after my first set of classes. I lace up my boots and sit back, fingers brushing over the edges of my codex, still lying open on my bed. “Hey, you said this place is waterproof, right?” Not that I think water could ruin a magical book, but still.
“Yep,” she confirms, not looking back as she finishes putting her own shoes on.
Nodding, I stuff it in the back waistband of my leather pants, just in case.
An hour later, I’m following Roomie down a spiral staircase. The walls grow damper with each step, leaving the taste of salt in my mouth. Students brush past us, their laughter echoing off wet stone. I catch glimpses of scales that shimmer and disappear, gills that flutter shut, eyes that reflect light. Predatory, hungry, low-key playful.
“Don’t stare,” Roomie hisses. “Some of them get bitchy as fuck when they’re nervous.”
The staircase ends at a pool of black water that stretches into darkness. Students dive in like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Their bodies shift mid-dive—legs fusing into tails, lungs adapting, skin growing translucent. The magic hits me as soonas my toes touch the water, a rush of power that rewrites my biology in seconds.
I don’t wait. I dive.
The transformation tears through me like liquid lightning. My lungs seal and reopen, gills carving themselves along my neck. My legs stay legs, but my skin takes on a pearl-like sheen that makes the water feel like silk. I can breathe. I can see. I can move like I was born for this.
The party sprawls across the sea floor in a cavern that defies physics. Soundwaves thrum from bioluminescent coral. Students dance in three dimensions, some sprout fins while others grow tentacles. Some fully shift, but all of them strange and drunk on magic. This is the kind of weird party shit that happens in Rathe U? I mean, I ain’t mad at it.
The cavern pulses with more than just music. Sirens weave through the water graciously, their voices layering harmonies that make my bones vibrate. Some students wear plugs in their ears, but others let the songs wash over them, faces slack. The longer I listen, the more I feel my body relax to every tune, as if their singing itself is intoxicating me with every second. One siren drifts past me, scales shifting from silver to deep blue, her song pulling at something primal in my chest before she moves on to easier prey.
I’m floating near what might be a bar—carved from living coral that serves drinks in shells—when someone bumps into me.
“Shit, sorry—” He turns, and I’m looking at eyes the color of storm clouds, hair that floats like dark silk, and a mouth that screams trouble in all the right ways. “I’m not used to the currents down here yet.”
“Zeke,” he says, extending a hand. “You new here? I don’t recall seeing you around.”
“Haide,” I say, taking his hand and letting my fingers linger longer than necessary. His skin is warm despite the water, andwhen he smiles, something hungry unfurls in my stomach. Not love. Not even like. But he’s hot and he’ll do. “And I probably won’t be here long, since I’m pretty sure I’m failing already.”
He’s pretty enough to break. Probably soft under all that university polish. I like breaking pretty things. I’m suddenly very interested in petting him.
He laughs, and the sound makes me want to bite his throat. “Want to fail together? I was about to explore the outer caverns.” He hands me a drink. Or shell. Or both. Whatever. They complicate shit here. “Apparently, there are things down here that predate the university.”
A siren’s song crescendos nearby, and a group of students sway dangerously close to the cavern walls where jagged rocks wait like teeth. Zeke leans into me. “The sirens here aren’t students—they’re older, wilder things that the university keeps as controlled chaos. Their scales bear scars from centuries of hunting, and their smiles promise beautiful deaths.”
“They’re perfect.” I wasn’t just meaning the sirens, though they are. Zeke is the exact kind of distraction I need. Pretty, willing, and completely unaware that I’m already planning how to use him. “Lead the way.”
As soon as we enter the tombs, massive rib cages of fallen sirens arch overhead like cathedral bones. Ancient runes carve spirals down every surface. Dark. Unpowered, yet make the water taste like copper and ancient rage. Skulls larger than houses hide in alcoves, allowing privacy for those who seek it.
This place should terrify me. Instead, it feels like coming home.
Death has always been my most honest companion. These bones understand what I am—what I’ve done, what I’m still capable of doing—in ways the living world refuses to. Zeke babbles about how the university uses this place for “advanced studies in aquatic necromancy” while I trail my fingers along a spine that could double as a bridge. Something dark in my chestpurrs with satisfaction.
“You’re not afraid,” Zeke observes, swimming closer. There’s heat in his voice now, the kind that comes from magic and proximity to danger.
