Page 67 of Magical Mission

Not from outside.

From the ceiling.

Cracks raced across one of the upper beams, and dust rained down in fine, shimmering flakes like powdered ice.

Nova spun, looked at me, and said, “Get them out. I’ll trace it back.”

I nodded. “Don’t go alone.”

“I never do,” she said, and was gone, disappearing through the cracked corridor, cape flaring behind her like smoke.

Stella appeared next, breathless, eyes wide. “What in the heck is going on?!”

“Later,” I called. “Help me move them!”

The last of the students were ushered out now, a few clinging to each other, some crying softly. Frank herded stragglers with sharp barks and nips at heels, his bulk protective and unwavering. Ardetia took a position near the central staircase, anchoring something old and powerful with just her stillness.

Twobble and I remained near the center.

Then, for just a moment, everything stilled.

The chandelier stopped rattling.

The air evened.

The chill faded.

It was like the building had exhaled.

I turned to Twobble, kneeling slightly. “Tell me now. What did you find?”

He looked me dead in the eye.

“There’s a symbol,” he whispered. “Hidden on the ceiling of the corridor leading to the Butterfly Ward. It’s dark. And wrong. And it wasn’t there yesterday.”

My blood ran cold.

A symbol.

Insideourwalls.

A rune?

Planted. Hidden. Waiting.

I opened my mouth to ask what it looked like…

And that’s when the chandelier, with a noise like cracking bone,snappedfrom its mount and began to fall.

The chandelier cracked loose with a shriek of metal and old enchantment, and for one heart-shattering moment, it hovered above the foyer, suspended in time before it began to fall.

Everything slowed.

Not in the magical way. Not in the cinematic way. Just that real, awful slowness of something inevitable happening too fast to stop.

Students screamed from down the corridor. Twobble shouted something beside me. I didn’t think.

I moved.