Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
KAEL
The forest is quiet. Too quiet. Even the wind feels like it’s waiting, holding its breath as I move through the tree line beyond the academy wards.
I shouldn’t be here.
But rules don’t matter. Only she does.
I waited until she was surrounded—until Nolan and Raiden flanked her like twin shields, until her pulse steadied and her magic settled enough that she wouldn’t question me slipping away. They ground her better than anything else at the moment. Better than me, even.
Because after our shared dream, another came.
One she didn’t see. One the Veil pushed into my mind the moment she fell back to sleep beside me.
Shadows walking the academy halls. Students dissolving into nothing between one heartbeat and the next. A cold pull thinning the air like someone was drawing breath from the other side.
And Lindsay—her silhouette fracturing into silver shards, a whisper curling around her:
She will be next, Shadow-born.
I haven’t told her. I won’t, not until I know what I’m fighting. So I’m here. Hunting answers. Hunting the thing that whispered her name.
I stop at an old boundary marker, stone cracked, half-swallowed by roots. The sigil carved into its face flickers, dimming and brightening like a failing pulse.
I touch it. The rune trembles under my fingers. That’s new. And very, very bad.
I reach deeper with my senses, letting my magic skim the Veil’s surface. It hits me in staggered waves—too cold, too aware. Like a beast disturbed in its sleep.
But beneath the cold, I feel something else: Absences. Holes in the weave. Missing threads of life where students should be. People don’t just vanish. Not unless something tears them away.
I pull the folded pages from my coat—notes I acquired from the headmaster’s office who thought his filing wards were strong enough to keep me out.
Three students are officially missing. Two more removed from record entirely.
A sixth whose name is half-erased from the parchment like someone tried to scratch out the memory of them.
Every one of them disappeared alone. At night. And every one of them felt…familiar in the dream. Like echoes.
I move deeper into the forest, following the thin tug I’ve been feeling since I woke from that dream—a directionless pull, like a hook caught in my magic dragging me toward something inevitable.
When I reach a small clearing, the air changes. It's a heavier, almost hungry feeling.The trees around me lean inward as if listening.
At the center of the clearing, there’s a perfect circle of dead earth.
No scorch marks. No magical residue. No displacement of energy.
Which means one thing: A door opened here. A door that didn’t rip or tear the Veil—but slipped through it quietly. I crouch, brushing my fingers over the withered soil. The moment my magic touches it, something cold presses back.
A memory. The ground hums once, like an echo of something stepping through. Then nothing.
This isn’t some wild Veil-creature acting on instinct. This is purposeful. Old. A predator disguised as stillness.
I stand slowly. “What took them?”
The air shivers. A chill rolls over the clearing. My magic reacts instantly, rising from my feet and wrapping around me as my wings unfurl. Shadows on the forest floor tremble, stretch, and then—impossibly—lift.
A voice threads through them, layered and distant.
Child of Shadow…
My spine goes rigid.
“I’m listening,” I say quietly.
The shadows ripple, shifting in ways no natural shadow should—flowing against the sunlight.
The weave frays.
The border thins.
And those who slept wake hungry.
My grip tightens. “Why show me this?”
Because she stands where the threads cross.
Where the tear will open.
Lindsay.
The clearing seems to tilt beneath me.
“No,” I snap. “You’re lying.”
The shadow shivers like it’s laughing.
We do not lie.
We warn.
Images flood my vision—jagged, quick, stabbing pain behind my eyes.
The academy hallway. A flicker of lights. A student walking alone.
A long, narrow hand of living darkness reaching from the wall. Red eyes bleeding like open wounds. A pull—silent and absolute. The student collapses inward—disappearing into nothing.
Gone. Erased. Unmade. Forgotten.
I stagger, catching myself against a tree, breath ripping in and out of my lungs.
“That’s enough,” I hiss.
The vision snaps. The clearing dims. The voice remains, whisper-thin.
Run, little Shadow Weaver.
Or she will be next.
Magic erupts in my veins, burning white-hot, demanding release.
Lindsay—fragile, stubborn, powerful Lindsay—caught in the crosshairs of something ancient enough to speak in riddles and old enough to have forgotten fear. I steady my breathing, though every instinct I possess screams at me to tear through the Veil itself if I have to.
“I’m not running,” I say into the shadows. “And I’m not letting you touch her.”
The forest falls silent. But the Veil does not. A final pulse rolls through the clearing—slow, deliberate, like a creature stretching after centuries of sleep.
I turn back toward the academy, magic crackling under my skin and my own shadows growing at my feet. If the Veil thinks it can lay claim to her, then it has forgotten exactly what I am. And the lengths I will go to keep her breathing.