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Raven nudged me, her expression gleeful.See?she mouthed.

At the front of the room, Cyrus made a low sound—almost a scoff, but not quite. His arms were crossed, Ember preening irritably on his shoulder. “If instability like that happened again, it would be handled,” he said, his voice level.

“Handled?” Lucas asked, raising an eyebrow. “By who?”

Cyrus’s jaw tensed. “By those who understand how to maintain balance.”

He wasn’t as sharp about it as he usually would have been. I noticed the way his fingers tapped absently against his knee. He was doubting something.

Keane, beside him, finally spoke, though his voice was quieter than usual. “You’re assuming we’d notice the instability in time to stop it.”

The shift in the room was nearly imperceptible, but I caught it. The heirs were usually forceful about defending the Council. Today, they weren’t arguing outright. They were choosing their words carefully.

Professor Halloway cleared her throat. “The important takeaway is that magical systems, even those maintained by the most powerful institutions, are not infallible. History has proven that time and time again.”

My pulse picked up. That was the closest thing to a warning I’d heard from any professor here.

Lucas leaned toward me. “This fits with what we found yesterday,” he murmured. “And if the wellspring is reacting now—”

“We don’t know that,” I whispered back, but the words felt hollow even as I said them.

I thought of my father’s journal appearing in my room, untouched by dust. Thought of the way the wellspring’s energy had surged during the trials. Thought of the feeling I’d had since stepping onto Wickem’s grounds—that something unseen was watching. Waiting.

Cyrus shifted again, exhaling sharply. “Speculation isn’t useful. The Council has safeguards in place for a reason.”

For once, no one challenged him.

“This period of instability,” Halloway continued, “coincided with the first major vampire wars. As wellsprings weakened, vampires grew bolder, attacking regions where ley line disruption had compromised magical defenses.”

I felt Cyrus tense at the mention of vampires. Everyone knew about his mother’s death, but now I wondered—had she been investigating these same patterns?

“The correlation between wellspring corruption and vampire aggression remains a subject of debate,” Halloway said carefully. “Though historical records show vampires consistently target areas where magical energy has been… altered.”

“You mean where they can break through the wards more easily,” Cyrus said, his voice tight. Ember’s feathers flickered with barely contained flame.

“That’s one interpretation.” Halloway’s measured tone suggested there was more she wasn’t saying. “What’s clear is that wellspring stability and vampire containment have always been… intimately connected.”

Professor Halloway let the silence sit for a moment before moving on to ley line theory. But I barely heard her. My mind was spinning.

If the wellspring wasn’t just responding to corruption—but actively choosing new protectors—then everything I thought I understood about magic, about my father’s place in this, was even more tangled than I’d feared.

And worse, I wasn’t the only one starting to ask questions.

37

Elio

Echo’s scales shiftedfrom deep purple to an unsettled gray as another of Keane’s portals bled shadow across the library’s evening quiet. My chameleon familiar had been increasingly agitated lately, especially around portal magic that should have been clean.

I kept my usual pose of disinterest, pretending to read while watching Marigold from the corner of my eye. She sat by her usual window, bathed in the soft glow of moonlight, utterly absorbed in whatever magical theory nonsense Keane was whispering to her.

She fascinated me. She always had, though I hadn’t wanted to admit it. Not when it was easier to mock her, to push her, to play my role as the charming, untouchable Lightford heir.

But things were different now.

Cyrus had been the first to say it outright—that something was going on between Marigold and Keane. I’d known before that, of course. I was good at noticing what people tried to hide. The way Keane looked at her when he thought no one was watching, the way her magic wove with his too easily, too naturally. It wasn’t just compatibility. It was something deeper.

And that made it dangerous.