Gavrail doesn’t move. He just stands there, an immovable force. Vihar won’t meet his eyes—neither will anyone else.
The whispers continue. Students around the grove watch the scene unfold with wide eyes. Some are pale. Some look thrilled. One girl from Vikhrostrum mutters something in a different tongue before backing slowly toward the archway.
“Celeste Farris.” Thorne’s voice rings out. Clear. Authoritative. “My office. Thirty minutes.”
I turn, slowly. The water is already evaporating from my arms, but the mark it leaves is unmistakable.
The Garden Grove, once vibrant with the new life of spring, now stands bruised and broken—flower beds overturned, trellises cracked, petals scattered like ashes.
And in the center of it all—me.
Thorne is standing there, arms at his sides, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and something else, something darker—and there it is, just behind his eyes: a flicker of something that almost looks like… satisfaction. Like I’ve just proven a point I didn’t know he wanted me to make.
Wet footprints follow me as I walk away, the whispers still rising like wind in my wake.
CHAPTER 47
Not all serpents strike. Some simply wait for prey to step close enough before swallowing it whole.
—“The Coil Beneath the Rock,” fromTales from the Breath of Stone
Ihead to the ancient Administration building, nestled between the infirmary and the gymnasium. The building stands like a sentinel—quiet, watchful, and out of place among the newer architecture.
Built in the early 1700s, it’s one of the oldest—and most quietly beautiful—structures on campus. Its exterior is carved from weather-darkened stone. Shimmers of light from the arched stained-glass windows color the fortress-like facade. Three stories tall and narrow with a slightly crooked silhouette, the building leans with age, but never falls. It has been said—never officially confirmed—that beneath it lie the stone dungeons, sealed off generations ago—a remnant from an era when punishment was law and mercy was still learning tospeak. The building predates the school’s more enlightened governance, back when Magick Councils ruled with iron fists and dissent was chained, not debated.
The lower levels no longer appear on architectural schematics, and no faculty member will acknowledge their existence out loud. But the signs remain: a bricked-over stairwell behind the eastern records room. Doors that lead nowhere. Some say the dungeons weren’t just cells, but places of magickal nullification, where a specific type of stone was built into the bones of the building itself to suppress elemental magick. Once used to hold people too dangerous to kill, but too powerful to release. There are even rumors of a door in Thorne’s office, hidden behind centuries-old tapestries, that leads straight down into the past.
I take the polished stone steps to the top floor. The marble hallway outside the headmaster’s study is unusually quiet, the stained glass overhead casting fractured light patterns across the floor. The air feels dense—like the corridor is holding its breath. A place of judgment, not passage.
The headmaster’s door looms at the far end—taller than any of the others along the hall, made of heavy, dark-stained ironwood, veined with shadowy grain that catches the light. Carved into its surface are curling glyphs in an old dialect of elemental magick—they seem to pulse faintly when I get too close.
The lock on the door involves no simple turn of a key; it’s a layered mechanism of shifting metal rings nested within each other, each one etched with impossibly fine runes. It looks more like a puzzle box than a lock, designed to rebuff intrusion, not just mechanically. A subtle hum rises from it—faint, like wind trapped behind stone. The silver handle is wrought in the shape of a serpent devouring its own tail, and looks cool to the touch.
The door opens before I reach for it. And my ring burns cold.
“Miss Farris,” Thorne says. His voice is calm, smooth. Almost disinterested. “Come in.”
I freeze. “It’s—Celeste, sir. I’m not?—”
“Of course.” A faint smile touches his lips, but it doesn’t fully reach his eyes. “Celeste. You’ve become quite the topic around campus lately, the show you just put on only furthering that.”
He steps aside, a silent invitation.
I hesitate, then step inside reluctantly. The water in my veins is immediately on edge.
His study is lined with tall shelves full of Service medals and old globes, maps with curling edges and tomes bound in cracked leather. The windows are slightly ajar, a breeze curling through the room despite the chill outside. It smells like aged paper and fresh ink, but underneath, a cold metallic tang rides the air, laced with ozone.
He leads me toward the desk—a broad, time-darkened slab of walnut worn smooth at the edges, cluttered with parchment stacks, a heavy glass paperweight, and an open scheduler lined with neat, slanted handwriting.
To the left stand three tall file cabinets. The first two are metal and stand out in this room of ancient books and gleaming wood—deliberately modern. The last one is carved of some ancient wood, its paint scuffed and dull with age. I note that its drawers have locks.
Behind the desk, a wide window overlooks the quad. From this height, I can just make out students crossing the lawn below, blurred by the glass, their voices faint.
He rounds the desk, folding his hands behind his back. “Your professors tell me you are on track to be ranked first in your year. A remarkable feat for one with such a late start in magick.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He nods, almost to himself, before looking at me again. “I knew your father. Did you know that?”
