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Before she could question him further, the professor told her not to daydream during his lessons in the future and dismissed her from his classroom.

After dinner that night, Administrator Jarvis came looking for Alex to tell her that the headmaster wished to speak with her. She followed him obediently to the Tower building and up to the very top floor to Darrius’s office.

“Good luck,” Jarvis said as he opened the door for her.

Puzzling over his words, Alex tentatively entered the room. Sometimes when she visited Darrius he would take her to his private study above the clouds that was linked through the Tower into the Library. But this time Alex could see they would be chatting in his official headmaster’s office. The huge room held an impressive conference table, but her favourite part wasthe floor-to-ceiling glass wall that looked straight across the academy campus. Right now the waxing moon streamed light across the grounds, illuminating the beautiful landscape.

Darrius was pacing near the window-wall, and when she closed the door quietly behind her, he barely glanced up at her arrival. She took a seat near the end of the table, knowing he would speak when he was ready.

After a few tense seconds, he let out a frustrated breath and moved to sit next to her.

“Thank you for coming, Alex,” he said. “I apologise for the short notice.”

“What’s up, Darrius?”

He reached for a folder that was resting on the table and passed it to her. She opened it without a word, wondering what was going on. Inside were loose papers, each showing photographs of different people, along with their names and other various details.Bardie Hicks…Nicholas Reeves…Lena Morrow…Travis Flanagan… Vera Rosta…

Alex wasn’t sure what she was looking at until she did a double-take on a familiar face.

“Hey, I know her!” she cried. “Well, sort of.”

“Calista Maine,” Darrius said. “Was she the woman you saw in the forest with Aven a few weeks ago?”

Alex nodded. “That’s definitely her.”

Darrius massaged his temples. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“I don’t understand,” Alex said, leafing through more pages. “Why do you have her file? And who are all these other people?”

The headmaster stood and returned to his pacing, a worrying sign that Alex definitely didn’t like.

“Darrius?”

He turned to look at her, and his haggard expression filled her with foreboding.

“After you witnessed Aven kill the Hyroa, I began to do some research,” he said, reclaiming his seat. “Actually, I started when you first told me about the blood-bonding ritual he tried to use on you. Do you remember when I mentioned the possibility of him having Claimed more than one person over the years of his exile?”

Alex nodded again. Darrius had spoken to her months ago about Aven’s charisma and his ability to coerce others into doing his bidding—and how perhaps it wasn’t a natural occurrence, but a result of bonding them to him by blood.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“When you first mentioned seeing a woman named Calista with Aven in the forest, I thought nothing of it,” Darrius said. “But after you gave a more detailed description of her, I felt a sense of recognition. It turns out that the woman in that file was once a student here at Akarnae.”

Alex wondered why Darrius seemed to think that so significant.

“How many Calistas do you know?” she asked. “It’s not exactly a common name, is it? Why didn’t you know who I was talking about straight away?”

Darrius looked directly into her eyes when he answered. “Alex, Calista Maine graduated from Akarnae over seventy years ago.”

Alex jerked her head back in shock.

“It’s true,” Darrius said, reading the look on her face. “I studied her case file when I first became headmaster because her gift was so powerful and her disappearance was considered a tragedy.”

“Seventyyears?” Alex gasped. “That can’t be right. She didn’t look much older than me!”

“Calista was declared missing by her family when she was twenty-three,” Darrius said. “No one has seen or heard fromher since then, as far as I’m aware. I think we can now presume that, considering her apparent lack of physical aging, she must have been Claimed by Aven all those years ago.”

Alex bit her lip and pointed to the rest of the file. “What about all these other people?”