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The barrier shuddered under the elemental assault.A crack appeared.Then another.

Evander lowered his brows.Almost there!

Movement caught his eyes.He cursed.

A vile darkness was seeping around the edges of the doors.

“What the devil?!”Rufus shouted.

“Those look like shadow creatures, your Grace!”Shaw warned.

Evander gritted his teeth.He didn’t have time to take down the barrierandfight those abominations.

Cecillia appeared next to him, her face set in determined lines.

White magic sparked in her pupils and glittered in the bands of water swirling around her fingertips.They merged and solidified into a dazzling ice spear.

She widened her stance, drew back her arm, and stabbed it into the barrier.

The magic she unleashed washed warmly over Evander as he continued pouring his powers into the barrier.

It collapsed under their dual attack with a sound like shattering glass.

The shadow creatures surged towards them.

“Together!”Evander barked.

Cecillia swallowed and nodded.

The pair of them blasted the monsters with their magic while Rufus and Shaw opened the doors to the lecture hall.

Evander’s heart stuttered at the scene that met their eyes.

Leon stood with his back to the rows of seats and desks rising around the classroom, his chest heaving and his elegant attire torn and bloodied where he stood inside a maelstrom of his elemental magic.He was facing off against three writhing masses of shadows coalescing and separating like living ink where they hovered in front of him, their wraithlike forms evading hisNullification Magicattacks.

But it was the figure beyond the shadows that froze Evander’s blood.

A man in a hooded cloak stood next to the lectern with his arms outstretched.Dark magic wreathed his hands as he directed the shadow creatures to attack the Frenchman.Though his face was obscured, there was something familiar about his stance.Something Evander recognised vaguely from the past few days.

“Professor Musgrave?!”Cecillia gasped.

The figure’s head whipped around, eyes narrowing behind his glasses and his expression that of a madman.A chill shot down Evander’s spine at the sight of the shadows crowning his head and moving sinuously around his body under the cape he wore.

It reminded him of how Renwick had looked in the warehouse.

“Bollocks,” Shaw mumbled.“He’s a proper dark mage!”

“Evander!”Leon’s shout ripped him from his unpleasant memories and snapped him back to the present.The Frenchman was barely holding the shadows at bay, a pale wall of wind and water magicflickering weakly between him and the creatures.He met Evander’s gaze wildly, his eyes dark with dread.“I could do with a little assistance!”

“Try and hold off Musgrave!”Evander commanded Rufus and Shaw as he strode purposefully towards the Frenchman.“Cecillia, guard the door so he doesn’t escape!”

Ice magic crystallised around him as the closest group of shadow creatures turned on him.

He hurled the barrage of glittering shards.The frozen missiles tore through the formless bodies.The monsters screeched, a sound that bypassed his ears and cut directly into his brain.They re-formed and bore down on him.

Heat flooded Evander’s veins.A circular wall of flames whooshed into life around him.

The shadow creatures recoiled with sibilant hisses.