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Then the dragon alert sounds. Three sharp pulses beneath the larger alarms. Everyone freezes. We know that one. Dragon anomaly. Not one sector. Again. Three. Again. Again. Everywhere.

Professor Halven swears.

"Stay." I tell Lena.

She grabs my wrist. "Where are you going?"

"Door."

Not outside. Not far. I open just enough to see the corridor. Smoke. People. Flashes. Then a shadow passes across the windows. Huge.

Something hits the courtyard outside. The impact throws me against the doorframe. Students scream.

Stone breaks.

Dragon.

I look through the cracked window. Grey-blue scales.

Large. Familiar. No. No.

She lifts her head. Her eyes are white.

Theryn.

For one impossible second, everything inside me stops. Theryn. Missing. Taken. Alive. No. Something wearing alive.

Her body is wrong. Not shape. Movement. Too stiff.

Wings twitching instead of settling. Blood along one side. Scales dull. White veins—no, not veins—something pale moving beneath them. Her mouth opens. A roar tears through the courtyard. Pain. Real pain. Someone outside screams: "THERYN!"

Oh gods. Eddy? No. Not here. He deployed?

No, Eddy was—where is he? I don't know. Doesn't matter.

Students run toward her. Not away. Because they recognize her. Because she's ours. Because she's missing. Because for one stupid, beautiful second everyone thinks she came home.

Theryn lowers her head. I see the tension in her jaw.

Tail. Wings. Body language. No.

"BACK!" Nobody hears me.

Her chest expands. Not normal. Magic gathers in her throat. Wrong. White.

"GET DOWN!" Some do. Not all.

The blast hits. Three students disappear inside it. Not vanish. Die. There is a difference. Bodies hit stone. One doesn't move.

My stomach turns. No time.

"THAT IS NOT HER ANYMORE!" My voice tears.

Again. Louder. "THAT IS NOT HER ANYMORE! MOVE!" That works. Because I said what none of them wanted to understand.

Theryn turns. Her white eyes find the corridor.

Find me? Fuck.