Chapter 8 Lindsay
EIGHT
LINDSAY
The door opens again, soft and slow this time. Not like Raiden’s retreat—this entrance is practiced. Deliberate.
Headmaster Veyne steps into the room, a long coat trailing behind him like a shadow stitched in silk. His presence is… heavy. Not aggressive, but solid and measured. As though every breath he takes is weighed and counted as necessary before it's spent.
“Miss Blake,” he says with a shallow nod. “I'm glad you’re awake.”
I don't answer. My arms are still folded tightly around myself, fingers digging into bare skin, nails biting down like they're the only defense I have left. The glowing runes at the edge of the circle pulse faintly beneath me.
He glances down at them. “You will feel pressure and pain if you try to cross the boundary. It's only a precaution.”
I laugh, brittle and sharp. “Right. Because locking me in a glowing cage with no comfort is just soothing.”
He sighs softly. Not annoyed, but tired. The kind of tired that comes from carrying too many secrets.
“I know how this must feel.”
“I highly doubt that.” The words snap out of me before I can stop them. My magic follows, flaring to the surface like it's waiting for a reason. The air hums with sudden heat, light flickering across the runes like sparks leaping from a wire.
Headmaster Veyne doesn’t move. He doesn’t even flinch. The magic lashes at the boundary and stops just short of his feet, swallowed by the containment circle.
I feel it recoil, frustrated and restless, and it only makes the pressure in my chest worse.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says calmly. “Or to trick you. I’m here because the Council has made a decision. And I want to explain it before anyone else does.”
“Let me guess,” I hiss. “They’re afraid of me. So they’re going to cut out what they don’t understand.”
He steps a little closer to the edge of the circle, careful not to cross it. “They’re afraid of what might happen to you. And of what might happen if they don’t act. A simple magical evaluation will be done and, as long as you pass, you’ll be free. If you don’t, your magic will be bound.”
“Oh, so it’s for my own good?” I smile, all teeth. “Is that what they’re calling it now? Why did you even bring me to this school?”
His voice softens, but it doesn’t bend. “The Council has confirmed the next steps. The Veilbond will be severed, and the evaluation will begin after.”
A bitter laugh catches in my throat. “So Raiden wasn’t lying.”
Headmaster Veyne hesitates. “No.”
My pulse spikes. The magic inside me reacts, pressing outward like it wants to claw through the circle holding me still.
“Of course not. Why would he lie?” My voice goes cold, laced with something venomous and ugly. “He just dropped the information like a warning and walked out. As though I’m some mistake he doesn’t want to be tied to anymore.”
“You know that’s not true.” Veyne’s tone is calm and careful. As if he knows one wrong word will send me over the edge. “He’s following orders. As am I.”
“You keep saying that as if it means something.” My nails bite into my palms. “Like it makes any of this okay.”
He steps no closer, but I feel the weight of his presence shift—grounded, firm, annoyingly composed. “This isn’t about punishment, Miss Blake. It’s about protection.”
“For me, right?” I snarl. “Always for me. That’s what everyone keeps saying. But all I see is control. Leashes. Circles drawn in glowing lines to make sure I don’t lash out.”
“You’re afraid,” he says simply. “And so is the Council. But I’m not here to force compliance. I came to offer clarity.”
“I don’t need clarity,” I snap. “I need out. I need to feel like I’m not being peeled apart one layer at a time while everyone else pretends this is normal.”
His brow furrows with something close to…guilt.
“I argued for this room,” he says. “Not the holding cells. Not the sedation chamber. This was the best compromise I could get them to agree to. You’re not restrained. You’re protected from yourself until we can begin.”
I stare at him, breath shallow, magic still flaring beneath my skin. He thinks this room is a good thing? Maybe for them. Because if they thought I wasn’t in control of my magic before, telling me they are going to bind it sure has woken it up.
“And the bond?” I ask. My voice is quieter now, but not gentler. “You’ll just rip it out? Like it was never there?”
“We don’t know what will happen when it’s broken.” He doesn’t hide the weight of the truth. “That’s why Professor Selene Marris will guide the severing. It has to be careful. Deliberate. If the tether snaps back on either of you—”
“Spare me the lecture,” I cut in. “You already decided. You’re just here to make it sound palatable. Like I have a say.”
His jaw tightens slightly. “You do.”
I lift my gaze to his. “Do I? Because it feels like all my choices have already been made.”
He doesn’t argue. And that’s worse than if he had.
“I’ll send in Professor Marris shortly,” he says at last. “Tomorrow, you’ll begin controlled stabilization training.
Guided casting. Barrier containment. The Council wants a full assessment within seventy-two hours.
That’s the time you’ve been given. I’ll make sure they bring in items that will make your stay here more comfortable. ”
My hands are shaking now. Everything is closing in on me, and if I ever felt stable before, I feel the opposite of that now. I’m two seconds from proving them all right, that they do need to fear me.
“You should leave,” I whisper.
He holds my gaze a second longer. Then nods. When the door closes behind him, the silence isn’t peaceful. It’s suffocating.
The runes flicker faintly beneath me, thrumming with containment.
And I swear I can still feel Raiden’s mark—frayed, faint—but present. Trying to calm me. Trying to hold the pieces of me together. Not for long.
The runes hum beneath me, dull and constant like a second heartbeat. My fingers curl into the fabric of the dress Kael gave me, now wrinkled and cold against my skin. I can’t tell how long I sit there—seconds, minutes, hours—before the door opens again.
Professor Marris steps inside.
Her heels click against the stone before she stops just outside the edge of the glowing circle. Her eyes catch on the sigils etched into the floor, and I watch the way her mouth tightens, the way her fingers flex around the stack of books and notes she’s holding.
She doesn’t approve of this.
Good.
“Lindsay,” Professor Marris says softly, voice rough with something that might be exhaustion. Or anger.
I don’t answer.
She lifts her hand, murmuring a quiet spell under her breath. A shimmer of light weaves into shape beside the wall—runes flickering as a narrow table forms out of nothing, just outside the ring of the warded space.
She sets the books down gently, her eyes never fully leaving me.
“You weren’t awake when they brought you here.
You were unconscious and still recovering.
They had no right to treat you like a threat.
” I can hear the anger in her voice, and it soothes me slightly, like I’m a black cat hissing and back arched, and she knows how to calm me.
She lifts her hand and whispers another spell under her breath, and a comfortable looking chair with blankets and pillows appears next to me.
“Sit.” She nods at the chair she’s spelled for me, and my heart squeezes.
Empathy. Who knew it was so powerful. I swallow, unsure whether to thank her or cry.
“I’m not dangerous,” I manage as I sink into the plush chair and tug a soft blanket over my chilled legs.
“I know,” Professor Marris says, and this time it’s immediate. Unflinching. “They’re afraid. That doesn’t make them right.”
Something cracks inside me at that. Just a little, enough to allow me to breathe.
She steps closer, still outside the containment ring. “I wanted to be there when you woke, but they—” Her jaw tightens. “The Council insisted you needed space.”
“To be locked in a glowing cage?” I bite back. “Very generous.”
Professor Marris doesn’t flinch at the venom in my voice. “This isn’t what I wanted for you. You need guidance, not confinement. What happened that night—it wasn’t caused by you alone. Maybe your presence is waking something up, but that isn’t your fault.”
Her eyes flick to the runes again, and I can see how much she hates this—how much she wants to undo it. But she’s here anyway, shoulders straight, spine taut with the quiet strength I used to admire in class.
She exhales, the sound barely audible, but it feels like it came from her soul.
“Before we begin,” Professor Marris says, her voice steady, “I need to assess the current state of the bond.”
She doesn’t ask me to do anything. Just lifts her hand and murmurs another spell—this one older, slower, the kind meant to reveal rather than restrain. A ripple passes through the air, brushing across my skin like a soft caress.
The runes beneath me flare once—then fracture into branching light, gold, black, and silver threads spooling outward in every direction.
Not just one.
Three.
Professor Marris gasps softly.
I stare down at the strands, at the distinct tethers of magic webbing out from me, each humming with a different frequency. One pulses steady and warm—Raiden. Another flickers like unstable sunlight—Nolan. And the third coils like shadowed glass—Kael.
She crouches, not touching the threads, but studying them with a scholar’s eyes and a protector’s worry.
“This… this isn’t just a Veilbond,” she murmurs, more to herself than to me. “This is something else entirely.”
I want to explain. I want to tell her about the dreams, the echo of Kael’s touch, the way Nolan’s magic calms me. But I can’t form the words. I’m afraid if I speak, it’ll make it real.
Professor Marris straightens slowly, her face pale.
“I’ve seen many bindings, Lindsay. Temporary tethers. Life-saving rituals. But I’ve never seen this. Not three. Not like this.”
“They’re not all…” I swallow. “It wasn’t intentional.”
She gives a tiny shake of her head. “Magic doesn’t care about intention. It responds to instinct. Emotion. Survival.” Her gaze sharpens. “You pulled from all of them during the Harvest Moon.”
“They helped me,” I say, weakly.
“No,” she says quietly. “You used their power with yours to seal that rift. It created a link between the four of you. That’s powerful and unbreakable.”
The runes dim slightly, like they’ve said all they’re willing to for now. But the impression of the threads lingers in the air, faint and unmistakable.
“I don’t think the Council understands what they’re dealing with,” Professor Marris says, finally meeting my gaze again. “They think this is still about control. But what’s happening inside you…” Her jaw tightens. “Trying to bind you could be like chaining a storm. Or worse—adding fuel to it.”
A silence stretches between us.
“You’re here to break the bond with Raiden,” I say, and my voice sounds hollow.
She hesitates. “Yes. But now… I’m not sure severing just one will change anything, if it is even possible at this point.”
My stomach twists. “So what happens if you try?”
“I don’t know.” She doesn’t soften her words. “But if they force this through without understanding it, I’m afraid it won’t just hurt you.” Her eyes dart again to the faint threads in the air. “It could destroy all of you.”
My breath catches in my throat. Destroy all of us.
The words echo loud in the tiny chamber. Louder than the Veil does when it rips open. Louder than my guilt at trapping all three of them to me. I press the heel of my hand against my chest like I can quiet it somehow, and I can will the threads to stop glowing in my memory.
“If I could’ve prevented the bonds, I would have,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“No,” I snap, louder now. “You don’t. I used to wish magic was real. I read Harry Potter like it was gospel. I waited for my letter. I sorted myself into a different House every year depending on my mood.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “But none of that prepares you for the part where you might have too much magic inside of you and accidentally bond yourself to three guys you barely understand and then get locked in a glowing containment ring because you’re suddenly a liability to the people who’re supposed to protect you. ”
Professor Marris is quiet, but not dismissive. She lets me speak. Lets me spiral.
“They don’t do this at Hogwarts,” I mutter. “There’s no chapter where Dumbledore and the Ministry decide Harry’s too unstable, so they shove him in a cell and start discussing magical castration like it’s for the greater good.”
My voice breaks on good.
I turn away from her, unable to look at her face—kind, steady, and not the enemy—but not enough.
Nothing feels enough.
“I didn’t choose them,” I say, softer now.
“I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t know I could—would—pull from them like that.
I was only trying to help. But now Raiden’s already pulling away.
And Kael… Kael acts like he’d burn the world to protect me, but I can feel him holding something back.
Nolan looks at me like I hang the fucking moon. I don’t want to hurt any of them.”
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold.
“And now the Council wants to tear out the only threads that feel real inside me. And if that doesn’t work? What, they cage me forever? Put me in a box like I’m some magical bomb with a countdown clock?”
Professor Marris takes a cautious step closer, still outside the ring. “You are not a weapon, Lindsay.”
“No?” I meet her eyes. “Then why am I surrounded by runes designed to hold things in? At least I’ve learned that from your classes.”
The silence between us is enough, because the council thinks I’m dangerous.
“I don’t want to be someone they fear,” I whisper, voice cracking. “I wanted to matter. I wanted to belong. And now I’m the girl with broken magic and an accidental harem of magical men tethered to her soul.”
My laugh is dry and humorless. “This was never the fantasy I signed up for.”
She doesn’t try to comfort me. Doesn’t feed me platitudes or offer weak reassurances. Instead, Professor Marris simply says, “Then let’s rewrite the ending.”
Something in my chest flinches.
“I can’t promise it’ll be easy. But you’re not alone in this—even if the council wants to pretend otherwise. Let me help.”
And for the first time since waking up in this sterile, cold circle, I consider it. Not because I trust the Council. Not because I believe in whatever broken system led me here.
But because I don’t want to become the thing they already see when they look at me. Because I want to learn how to hold this power without breaking. Because maybe, if I can survive this…I’ll finally stop waiting for someone else to save me.