Amelia sighed, dropping a heavy tote bag onto the table. "I got them. Arthur distracted the night guard with a very long, very boring story about decimal points."
"It wasn't boring," Arthur defended, adjusting his glasses. "It was a riveting history of the Dewey system. He fell asleep from sheer intellectual exhaustion."
"He fell asleep because he was bored to death," Amelia corrected. She pulled a stack of folders from the bag. "Here. The Building Schematics. The Dean's Schedule. And... the list of 'High Value Targets'."
We all gathered around the table.
Lucien opened the file. "High Value Targets," he read. "Students with Class A magical potential. Potential feeding sources."
He scanned the list. "The Triad is at the top. followed by..."
"Me," Ivy whispered, pointing to her name. "Ivy Hollow. Classification: Chaotic/Unstable. Recommended Action: Drain."
Stone stiffened. His amber eyes fixed on Ivy's name, then on Ivy. His jaw clenched.
"He wants to drain you," Stone said, his voice low and dangerous.
"Well, I am delicious," Ivy tried to joke, but her voice wavered.
"He's not touching you," Stone said. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact.
"Aww," Jax smirked. "Fido cares."
"Focus," Rhett growled, stepping between them. "We have twenty-four hours before Lina has to give him an answer. We need a plan."
"We can't fight him," I said, looking at the map. "He absorbs direct magic. If we throw spells at him, he just gets stronger."
"So we don't use magic," Arthur said.
We all looked at the Human.
"What?" Arthur shrugged. "Lina said he eats magic. So... don't feed him. Starve him."
"How do we starve a Dean who runs a magical university?" Amelia asked. "Magic is everywhere."
"We disrupt the supply," Lucien said, his mind working fast. "We create a blackout. A blockage."
He looked at me. "Lina. You're a circuit breaker. You stopped the siphon in the Quad."
"I pulled it," I agreed.
"What if you didn't just pull one?" Lucien asked. "What if you pulled... everything?"
"You mean... drain the campus?" I asked, horrified.
"No," Lucien shook his head. "Shield it. If we can amplify your grounding ability... expand it to cover the whole school... we can cut him off. Put Northcrest in a Faraday cage."
"That would take immense power," Rook noted, catching a fireball. "More than she has."
"That's where the rest of us come in," Kai said. "We act as batteries. We pour everything we have into Lina. And she builds the wall."
"And while he's cut off?" Rhett asked. "While he's hungry?"
"We hit him with the physical stuff," Stone said, tapping his belt. "Iron. Lead. Old fashioned blunt force. If he has no magic to shield himself..."
"He's just a man in a nice suit," Ivy finished, grinning savagely.
"It's risky," Amelia said, looking at the schematics. "He'll notice the drop in ambient magic immediately. He'll send his Enforcers."
