Page 32

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Bloom

Hunt in the Mist

H eadmistress Stardust stopped the fight before the immortal professors tore apart the school.

No one seemed to remember what started their fight.

Yet I knew. I was the spark. The knowledge settled in my bones like frost. I wasn’t going to dwell further on the gravity of it.

If you don’t stare at darkness, it doesn’t stare back.

Classes were canceled for the day, but I refused to hide in my room. Not after they’d all seen me gasping, trembling, gripping my inhaler like a lifeline. Their disdain clung to me as I crossed campus, heavier than a drenched cloak.

Sindy caught up with me at the eastern edge of the Fae Copse.

“Hey, you’re not weak,” she said, bumping my shoulder. “The move you pulled at the end, even with your inhaler in your mouth like a baby’s bottle, was badass.”

I smiled despite myself. “Only you’d call choking elegantly ‘badass.’”

“Seriously though,” she pressed, “where’d you learn to fight like that? You fumbled the sword like a toddler at first.”

“It…came back to me.” I flexed my fingers, remembering the blade’s weight. “It’s like riding a bicycle.”

The lie tasted bitter. How could I explain the swordplay? The magic? These things lived in my flesh like they’d always been there.

Was I possessed? The thought slithered through my mind. I’d need to research exorcisms, but when I’d cut myself last night, watching blood bloom under my breast, the pain had felt entirely mine.

And how could I tell her about the women who wore my face, all of them dead?

Kingsley’s taunting words echoed in my head: weakest of them all . Had he been comparing me to those murdered redheads?

“Whoare you really?” Sindy’s question sliced through my thoughts.

“A homeschooled Frenchwoman with asthma and terrible luck?” I offered, yet the words rang hollow. “I’m nobody.”

She snorted. “Powerful beings don’t feud over nobodies. Ravencrux and Kingsley may hate each other, but you’re the fuse that lit them today.

I swallowed, my throat dry, then forced out the truth. “I’ve seen myself die over and over as one of many redheaded women.”

“Shit!” she called, her eyes flying wide. “We should do a divination.”

“Maybe later.” I hugged myself against a sudden chill. “Are you coming to the library?”

“Obviously.” She fell into step beside me. “After you pulled me from that flood…”

“That was Dante.”

“He’s hot.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Face it, everyone’s an asshole except us,” she said.

We trekked along the border of the Fae Copse woods, fallen leaves crunching beneath our dress shoes. Other students milled about, watching me and whispering to each other, their voices carrying just enough for me to catch fragments: freak, weakling, shouldn’t be among us…

Sindy tensed beside me, uncomfortable with the negative attention, but I kept my gaze forward, until Umbra Grimoire rose from the manicured grounds like a vast dark gem against the pale sky, ten stories of ornate Victorian grandeur.

No wards barred our way, but the towering oak doors groaned as they opened, as though reluctant to let us in.

Pale light filtered from the gray ceiling as the vast interior stretched before us , heavy with the scent of old books, ink, wood, and leather.

Sindy had raved about the collection, insisting it held the most accurate histories of the gods. I turned slowly, taking in the blackwood shelves that climbed every floor, their dimly lit spines glinting like secrets waiting to be uncovered.

This was the right place.

The first floor housed volumes on arcane arts—spells, rituals, the usual fare for witches and mages.

We climbed to the second floor, the plush carpet swallowing our footsteps.

The sheer number of choices was dizzying, but I had a purpose: myths of murdered redheaded women and the true history of the three old gods.

Fortunately, Sindy had befriended a witch librarian, Mabel, who felt it unfair that Sindy had been excluded from their coven. She granted us an hour to read in the restricted section, her eyes darting nervously as she led us through a hidden door.

The hidden door swung open with a soft creak, revealing a narrow staircase lined with flickering sconces. The air here was thicker, tinged with the scent of old parchment and something faintly metallic. Mabel lit a charmed lantern, its light shuddering against the stone walls.

“You have one hour,”she whispered.“If the coven finds out, it’ll be my head on the block.” She bit off the words, shaking her head. “Be quick.”

Sindy squeezed my arm in reassurance before stepping forward, her boots silent on the worn steps. I followed, pulse quickening as we crossed into the restricted section.

The room was cramped compared to the grandeur below, but these books were different—bound in strange leathers, some etched with runes that seemed to shift under my gaze. A few even had chains wrapped around them, the metal dull but unbroken.

“Where do we start?” I murmured, scanning the shelves.

Sindy moved with purpose, pulling a heavy tome from the middle row.“The gods first. If the myths of the redheaded women’s deaths are real, their stories would be here.”

I nodded as I reached for a slender crimson volume tucked behind a row of grimoires. Gold letters burned across its spine: The Scarlet Thread: Blood and Betrayal in the Divine War .

My breath caught.This might be it.

As I opened it, dust sighed from the pages, and the ink deepened, as though stirred by my presence. I blinked as most pages turned out to be blank, but the surviving text sketched the feud between the three old gods.

When the time came to divide the cosmos, Zeus claimed Olympus, the golden city of the gods, through clever trickery. Poseidon seized his ocean without protest. Together they forced the Underworld upon Hades, crowning him King of the Dead with poisoned courtesy.

Hades accepted his domain with silence that festered into wrath. Then came Persephone, sunlight piercing his eternal night. Daughter of Demeter, destined for eternal maidenhood. Hades saw her, wanted her, took her. Made her queen of his sunless kingdom.

When Demeter discovered it, her fury unleashed a plague upon the earth. The gods rallied behind her, demanding Persephone’s return. But the girl had eaten the Underworld’s pomegranate seed, its magic now coiled through her veins. Six months of darkness claimed her each year.

The familiar myth. The usual villain.

Yet the version Sindy had smuggled into her collection, sparse as it was, rang truer in my marrow. Somewhere in these brittle pages hid the real story.

I combed through crumbling texts, each version contradicting the last. Yet between faded lines and careful omissions, a pattern emerged: Persephone hadn’t remained Hades’s captive.

She’d become his ally, his true queen by choice, standing by him when he challenged Olympus.

She’d hated him in the beginning, yes, but she’d eventually fallen in love with him.

Of course, the king of the city of gods would bury that truth.

History belongs to the tyrants who write it.

Yet the forgotten tale still rippled through time, reaching me, calling to me with uncomfortable intimacy.

Each parchment felt like remembering rather than learning, but the crucial missing piece remained just beyond reach, like a name forgotten upon waking.

You won’t find their truth within these walls. A whisper slid between shelves, pulling me out of my trance. I spun toward the sound just as a tendril of shadow vanished into the stacks. Look outside the box. Only true seekers and brave souls. The voice frayed into silence.

Brave soul? Hardly. My hands shook as I searched for illustrations of Hades and Persephone but found none. Then a passage leapt out: “…the Queen’s flame-colored hair…” My pulse stuttered.

Persephone’s gift mirrored my own. Where she walked, midnight blossoms unfurled from barren soil. Just as ivy twined up my bedroom walls when I dreamed.

Coincidence couldn’t explain this strange pull. Somewhere in my blood lived echoes of her power.

“Time’s up.” Mabel reappeared. “My shift ends soon. You need to go now. If they catch first-years in the restricted section, I’ll lose more than my position.”

I reluctantly thudded shut the book. Sindy and I retreated to our table by the bay window and looked out.

Beyond the gates, the world had vanished. Thick fog pressed against the academy walls like a hungry creature. It hadn’t been this dense yesterday. The fog hadn’t shrouded the spires as I arrived.

“It’s new,” Sindy murmured, tracing a pattern in the condensation on the glass. “The strange fog passed the wards three nights ago.”

The fog thinned for a second, driven by a sudden gust of wind. Were those dark shapes darting in the mist? I squinted, but they moved too fast to identify.

Then the wind died, and the screams and battle cries began.

Horses shrieking. Men roaring. Steel ringing against something that shouldn’t exist.

The sounds swelled from the valley below, climbing the hill toward us.

My ribs locked around my breath. What the hell was this school?

“Did you hear that?” My voice echoed in the library’s vastness.

Sindy and I exchanged fearful looks. Her face drained of color. The battle sounds grew louder. Tearing noises followed by guttural howls.

Mabel appeared behind us, her nonchalant manner gone. “I heard that they’ve been trying to breach the wards all week.”

“What’s out there?” My voice cracked. “Could it be demons?”

Mabel shook her head, the trio of feathers in her pointed hat quivering. “Nothing that belongs in this world, but demons don’t come to the surface anymore. Not for centuries.”

I bit my tongue, not wanting to mention that I’d seen a demon chasing me on my first day. An ugly, vicious thing with glowing crimson eyes. I had enough shit going on in my life already.

I nodded to encourage the witch librarian to tell more.

“They’re…” She darted her hazel gaze around, and I followed her line of sight, nodding again to confirm that no one was within earshot. “Monsters from other realms.” Her voice dipped lower. “Interdimensional bounty hunters.”

Sindy’s chair scraped as she leaned in. “Huntingwho?”

“I only caught fragments. Headmistress Stardust was arguing near the restricted alcove yesterday.” Mabel gave us a warning look. “Don’t repeat this.”

Sindy and I made sealing-our-lips gestures.

My heart raced, my pulse hammering against my wrists like a trapped bird.

I prayed that I was wrong, but coincidences didn’t cluster like this. The redhead murders. Angelina’s death. The professors’ erratic behavior. The sudden arrival of bounty hunters. All sinceI’d arrived.

Sindy shook her auburn curls, worry in her eyes. “Is the academy compromised?”

“The wards should hold, right?” I asked, equally anxious.

But Angelina had died within the walls, and as far as I knew, the school hadn’t properly investigated or caught her killer.

“We’re safe.” Mabel adjusted her hat with forced calm. “Professor Ravencrux mobilized the defense corps. They’re containing the breach before those monsters reach the perimeter.”

Beyond the windows, steel clashed against something harder. Now I understood the distant clamor. Ravencrux and his team were out there right now, fighting monsters in the dark.

My stomach churned as worry for him twisted into a knot. Sweat beaded on my nose. I hadn’t expected to care about Ravencrux’s survival, yet my lungs constricted, and my breath came ragged at the thought of him being wounded.

“What if they’re outnumbered?” I asked, fighting for calm. “Shouldn’t Professor Kingsley be out there too? Is he helping?”

Mabel shook her head, her eyes distant as she peered out the window at the roiling fog. “They’d rather watch each other bleed. Kingsley’s probably drinking mulled wine by his fireplace right now.”

The thought of Nero, Orren, and the others fighting alone sent a sliver of ice through my veins. “We should go to the gate. See if they need?—”

“They’ll have our heads,” Sindy interrupted, though her fingers twitched toward her wand pocket.

Before I could argue, Headmistress Stardust’s voice thrummed through the library, boosted by magic that made the air vibrate: “Curfew commences in five minutes. All students to their towers immediately. Those who disregard this warning will find the night’s terrors most educational.”

“There’s your answer,” Mabel said. “I’ll be in Stardust Tower with Shield of Sparrows and a pot of chamomile.”

I nearly forgot the monsters as my eyes lit up with interest. “Is it a gothic romance?”

Sindy yanked my arm hard enough to pop a button. “Run now, fangirl later.”

My nose pressed against the freezing glass as crimson light split the fog. Three monstrous riders circled a lone combatant—Nero, his obsidian sword trailing shadow and hellfire.

He leapt to an unbelievable height, swinging his longsword, hellfire bursting from its ebony surface. It struck true, and the head of one giant figure separated from his neck, blue blood shooting upward in the mist. A second rider darted to Nero’s blind spot.

Before I could cry out a warning—useless even if I wasn’t shouting from behind the library window—the rider had flung his ax toward Nero’s head. The three-headed hellhound I’d encountered in the study slammed into Nero’s attacker.

Everything happened in a second before the impenetrable fog rolled in again and shrouded the battle. My heart thumped in my throat. The acrid taste of burning worry fell on my tongue.

“Bloom!” Sindy called from the stairs. “We have to run.”

I peeled away from the icy glass. A plan formed: see Sindy safe, then slip through the wards.

I couldn’t just watch Nero and his team battle those things alone.

I was more than a wind-wielding novice, and it was time to test what else slept in my blood.