Page 47

Marigold

Keane appeared in my doorway just before midnight, his magic feeling wrong in a way that made my skin crawl.

The sight of him tugged painfully at my heart.

Beneath the mechanical coldness of his movements, I saw a flicker of someone I still recognized.

The boy who had kissed me under the stars.

The one who had traced magic through the air like it was a story waiting to be written. The boy who had loved me.

But something was off. Scout hissed. The dead things wailed.

“Please,” Keane whispered, his voice brittle but almost familiar. “I need your help in town. I think… I think I can fight it. But not alone.”

I wanted to believe him. Stars above, I wanted to believe him. But his magic felt wrong, distorted somehow. Like it wasn’t quite his anymore.

I reached for him anyway, my fingers trembling. Maybe if I touched him, I could pull him back.

He flinched away from me. “Meet me at the old mining warehouse. Quickly,” he said, then turned and walked stiffly down the stairs.

The wrongness in his magic lingered long after he’d gone.

I moved through Wickem’s grounds quickly, wrapping my jacket around me over my pajamas. The dead things whispered urgently as I slipped past the wards and into town, their voices sharp with warning. I ignored them. How could I refuse Keane? How could I not try to save him?

But the warehouse district felt wrong.

The usual background hum of protective wards was missing, leaving an eerie silence that made my skin crawl. Scout pressed against my neck, trembling. I could sense the disturbance before I even saw them—

Vampires.

Not many, maybe six or seven, but they moved with lethal precision, herding me toward the center of the square.

A child’s scream pierced the night.

Two vampires had cornered a family, their eyes still fixed on me. A trap. This was all a trap.

“Not happening.”

Elio materialized beside me, his illusions fracturing into mirrored versions of himself, confusing the vampires’ supernatural senses.

“We saw him pass the common room,” he said quickly, Echo’s scales flashing warning colors. “Something was wrong. When you followed him…”

“Behind you!” Cyrus’s voice cracked like a whip. Blue flames exploded between me and the vampire lunging for my throat. The creature screamed, reeling back, but recovered unnaturally fast.

“The wards aren’t working,” I said, reaching for the buried dead as more vampires emerged from the shadows. “How is that possible?”

His flames sparked dangerously. “Only Council members can affect the ward matrix—”

Cyrus swore under his breath, his flames flickering erratically. Elio went still beside me. Something had changed.

Then I felt it. A shift in the air, a weight pressing down on the battlefield, like the magic itself had pulled tighter around us.

Lord Alstone was here.

But what made my heart stop was who stood beside his uncle—Keane. His eyes empty, his posture rigid. Like a puppet on strings.

The pain that surged through me felt sharper than any blade. This wasn’t just a trap.

“Get the civilians out!” I ordered, drawing power from the old cemetery. Skeletal hands erupted from the earth, forming a barrier between the vampires and the fleeing family.

Cyrus hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded. His flames herded the townspeople to safety, while Elio’s illusions fractured into solid forms that shielded their escape. We moved together instinctively, like we had during trials.

A vampire blurred toward me, faster than any human should have been. But Cyrus was faster.

His flames wrapped around me, burning with that impossible blue color they’d shown during trials. The vampire screamed.

“They’re already dead,” I realized suddenly. “That’s why they recover so quickly. But it also means…”

I didn’t have to fight them.

I had to undo them.

I reached deep into my necromancy. Didn’t fight it. Didn’t hold back.

The dead things surged forward, and the vampires hesitated—confused by my control over the very force animating them.

“Together,” Elio said quietly. But not like a plan. Like a realization.

Cyrus hesitated. Just for a second. I saw the moment it hit him, the moment his instincts fought back against years of training.

But his flames wove through my necromancy anyway. Elio’s illusions bent around it, giving my power form. And for the first time, I knew exactly how it was supposed to work.

We moved in perfect synchronization.

The vampires fell back, overwhelmed. Their coordinated movements faltered as my power disrupted their unnatural existence.

A portal appeared behind Lord Alstone and Keane, and Alstone disappeared into it.

For a split second, Keane’s magic hesitated. Just a breath of resistance before the portal pulled him in after his uncle.

That wasn’t nothing.

“What was Lord Alstone doing here?” Cyrus’s flames still burned that pure blue, responding to my nearness. “Why would he—”

Shouts from the direction of Wickem interrupted him. Professor Rivera led a group of faculty through the streets, responding to emergency calls.

Too late. Lord Alstone and Keane were gone.

“Are you alright?” Cyrus asked roughly. He wasn’t looking at me, but his flames still curled protectively nearby.

“They thought I’d be alone,” I said, watching the faculty secure the area. Scout pressed close, still trembling. “They didn’t expect…”

“Us?” Elio’s voice held none of its usual polish. Just raw, shaken honesty. “Neither did we.”

We stood together in the silence that followed—our magic still humming, frayed and tangled from what we’d just done. Something had shifted between us. Not trust, not yet. But something close.

“We’ll get him back,” Cyrus said, his voice low, ragged with guilt he wasn’t ready to name.

“And figure out what’s happening to his magic,” Elio added. His perfect mask had slipped, and this time, he didn’t bother fixing it.

We had more questions than answers, but one thing had changed—tonight, we’d fought as one. Not rivals. Just witches. And that meant something.

Cyrus exhaled sharply, then turned away, his fire flaring brighter. “I’m going to talk to my father.”

The sudden steel in his voice snapped me out of the haze. He moved like a storm gathering speed, magic burning hotter than I’d ever felt it—his flames licked blue at the edges, tainted by something deeper, older.

“Vampires this close to campus?” he growled. “After what they did to my mother? Lord Alstone has to answer for this.”

“Cyrus—” I started, reaching for him.

But he spun, eyes blazing. “Don’t.”

The word cracked through the air like a whip. With one last glance at the horizon, he stalked into the darkness, flames trailing behind him like the tail of a comet.

Elio stepped closer, his hand a steady weight on my arm. “Let him go,” he said quietly, all traces of mockery gone. “Some demons need facing alone.”

I watched Cyrus vanish into the night, my chest tightening with the weight of everything we still didn’t understand. The adrenaline faded, leaving only the echoes—fangs glinting in the dark, Keane’s corrupted portals writhing like serpents, his uncle’s cruel smile as they vanished below.