And he’s their god.
I should be focused on the plan, the timing, the risks—but I find myself watching him instead. The way he leans over the desk, one hand braced on the building blueprint, the other tracing invisible lines over it with shadow. A book about rune warding sits next to it. The lamplight spills across his profile, gilding the edges of his jaw, catching on a faint scar at his temple, one I’ve never noticed before. His focus is absolute; a kind of stillness that makes the world feel narrowed down to breath and pulse.
He senses my stare before I can look away.
Of course he does.
“You’d make a great spy,” I tease.
He smirks—that damned dimple flickering. “Well, if I ever decide to disappear into the world of espionage…” His gaze flicks to mine, lingering just long enough for my stomach to tighten. “I know exactly who I’d want as my partner.”
I roll my eyes, but the warmth in my chest betrays me. “Right, because that time we took your dad’s car for an unauthorized spin went so well for us?”
He shrugs. “At least life would never be boring,” he counters.
I open my mouth to say something—but the sound doesn’t make it out.
His gaze lingers a beat longer, unreadable, before he turns back to the table, shadows folding close around him like they belong there.
And maybe they do.
That afternoon, he moves alone across the top floor, slipping through the building’s edges like a shadow with purpose. He studies the headmaster’s door as a locksmith studies a vault—its pins, its tension, wards, magickal barriers. He returns with a small glint in his eye, the kind that says a problem is only a series of smaller problems waiting for a hand willing to solve them.
Confident, not cocky. Certain, not careless. A look that tells me that the lock-picking days of his youth, the same skills he taught me, will be more than adequate. And not far from us, a door sits silent and inert, my past sealed behind it—holding truths to be torn open and secrets drenched in blood.
CHAPTER 49
In every age of tyranny, a veil is woven. In every age of rebellion, it is torn.
—A History of Elemental Conflict: The Magickal Wars and Rebellions of the Last Millennium
When Wednesday arrives, we’re ready. Noa doesn’t come—he paces the Spanish Steps like a caged flame, giving us a few hours of distance and an alibi should we need it.
Night folds over the campus, cloaking it in shadow. Above, only the thinnest sliver of moon cuts through the dark, like the last remnants of the Cheshire Cat, smirking at us from above.
Gavrail’s shadows blind the camera and swipe the keycard while ushering us inside the building under their silken dark cover. It’s easy. Almost too easy.
We tiptoe to the third floor. The office door stands like a sentinel—iron-reinforced oak carved with runes so old they’venearly worn away. Layers of mundane security conceal deeper ones.
Somewhere below us, a floorboard sighs, like the building is shifting its weight. We pause, listening hard enough to hear our own breath. But no sounds follow.
Gavrail crouches beside the door, his hands moving like clockwork, elegant and spare. “Start with the top,” he murmurs. His voice is so low it feels like thought more than sound.
I raise a brow. “You wantmeto do it?”
A flicker of his mouth—half amusement, half challenge. Shadows curl at his coat like they want to answer for him, but he tips his chin toward the lock.
I focus. A narrow thread of water coils from my fingertips, slipping into the keyhole. The pins tremble, yielding one by one. The click is soft but certain. I glance back at him, proud despite myself.
He doesn’t praise. He just watches—silver eyes bright, as though he’s cataloging the way I move, the way I listen. Like he’s storing me in memory the way he stores weaknesses in an enemy. But I see the corners of his lips tip up despite himself.
The second lock resists more fiercely. My water stalls. This one’s not just mechanical. Gavrail’s hand covers mine as he whispers some words in old Umbric, a dead language I didn’t even know he could speak. Shadows begin pouring like smoke into the seams. Not fusing—pressing. Their force slides over mine until it feels inevitable, like his magick is teaching mine how to finish the job. Pushing.
Another click.
“Rune warded,” he says without looking at me, his hand still on mine. “The third is a pressure enchantment,” he mutters. No hesitation, just certainty. He moves his palm and presses it flat to the wooden door, right over a symbol that looks like three concentric rings. Darkness ripples outward, mimicking a handin various sizes and with different pressure points until something clicks.
The ward shudders, then releases with a metallic sigh.
