Chapter 12
Iwas dreaming.
At least, I thought I was.
But the thoughts in my head didn’t feel like mine. The images moved around me like memories I’d never lived—voices echoing in the distance, emotions that pressed against my chest like they belonged to someone else.
I was inside the dream… but it wasn’t my mind that had created it. It was memories….
The precinct was quiet—too quiet.
Stone sat at his desk, staring at the stack of paperwork he was supposed to be filing. Curfew violations. Unauthorized spellcasting. Public disturbance.
Usually, the order of it soothed him. The rules were clear. The lines were drawn.
But lately, the lines were blurring.
His comms buzzed. "Officer Stone. Report to the Dean's Holding Cells. Priority One."
Stone frowned. The Holding Cells were for serious offenders. Violent criminals. Rogue demons. Why was Marrow calling him down there?
He stood up, adjusting his belt. "On my way."
The elevator ride down to the sublevels was long and silent. When the doors opened, the air was cold enough to see his breath. The hallway smelled of antiseptic and ozone—the smell of strong magic being contained.
"Ah, Officer Stone." Dean Marrow was standing outside Cell 4, checking his watch. "Prompt as always. Good."
"Sir," Stone nodded stiffly. "You requested assistance?"
"Witness," Marrow corrected. "I require a witness for an... administrative correction."
He swiped his keycard, and the heavy steel door hissed open.
Inside, a student was huddled in the corner. Not a criminal. Not a demon.
It was Timmy. The freshman from the Coffee Shop. The one who always ordered hot chocolate and tipped with nervous smiles.
"Timothy grew bold," Marrow said, stepping into the cell. "He was caught attempting to mail a letter to his parents. Without Censor approval."
"A letter, sir?" Stone asked, his brow furrowing. " Is that... a Priority offense?"
"It is when the letter details 'unfounded rumors' about my administration," Marrow said smoothly. He walked over to the boy, who flinched. "We cannot have hysteria spreading to the outside world, can we?"
"No, sir," Stone said, but his stomach twisted.
"Stand guard, Stone," Marrow ordered. "Ensure we are not disturbed."
Stone took his post at the door, his hand resting on his baton. He watched as Marrow knelt in front of the trembling freshman.
"Now, Timothy," Marrow purred. "Let's remove those rebellious thoughts, shall we?"
Marrow didn't use a spell. He didn't use a potion.
He reached out and grabbed the boy's wrist.
The effect was instant. Timothy screamed—a high, thin sound of pure agony. His veins turned black where Marrow touched him.
And Marrow... Marrow took a deep breath, his eyes rolling back in his head.
He was feeding.
Stone watched, frozen, as the Dean drained the magic right out of the freshman. It wasn't just energy; it was vitality. Timothy's skin turned grey. His eyes went dull. He slumped against the wall, gasping for air, looking ten years older than he had a minute ago.
Marrow released him and stood up, looking energized. Vibrant. Younger.
"A simple suspension wouldn't have taught the lesson," Marrow said, adjusting his cuffs. "This... is permanent."
He turned to Stone, his eyes glowing with stolen power. "Escort him to the infirmary. Tell them he had a bad reaction to a potion mishap. And Stone?"
"Sir?" Stone's voice was hoarse.
"If you ever speak of this... I have a cell waiting for you, too."
Marrow swept out of the room, leaving the door open.
Stone stood there for a long moment. He looked at the Dean's retreating back. He looked at Timothy, who was curled in a ball, sobbing silently.
The Rules. The Order. The Law.
It was all a lie.
Stone walked into the cell. He knelt down, not to intimidate, but to help. He gently lifted the boy up.
"Come on, kid," Stone whispered. "Let's get you some help."
But not the infirmary. And not the Registry.
He knew where he had to go.
The "War Room"—formerly our cozy pillow fort—had been militarized.
The pillows were still there, but now they were covered in maps of the campus, blueprints of the steam tunnels, and sticky notes detailed with shifts of the Enforcer patrols.
The air smelled of pizza, tension, and a cocktail of incompatible magic.
"This is a terrible idea," Stone Stone said.
He was standing by the window, arms crossed, looking distinctly uncomfortable in our living room. He was still in uniform, which made him look like a narc at a house party. But his face... his face was pale. Shaken.
"It's a brilliant idea," Ivy countered. She was sitting on the back of the couch, dangling her legs. She was wearing a t-shirt that said REBEL SCUM and eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. "We're basically the Avengers. But hotter. And with more fur."
"We are not the Avengers," Stone grunted. "We are a collection of felons and students plotting treason against the Dean."
"To be fair," Jax drawled from the shadows in the corner, "treason is my middle name. Actually, it's Vladimir, but 'Treason' has a better ring to it."
The vampire stepped into the light. He looked effortlessly cool, sipping a mug of something red that I hoped was tomato juice (but knew wasn't).
"The girl is right, Stone," Jax said. "Marrow is bad for business. He eats magic. Do you know what happens to the economy when the customers get eaten? It crashes. I have a vested interest in keeping the student body alive."
"And you?" Stone turned to the third recruit.
Professor Rook was floating—literally floating—cross-legged three feet above the coffee table. He was juggling three balls of blue fire.
"Oh, I'm just here for the drama," Rook smiled, his teal eyes sparkling. "And because Marrow called my syllabus 'frivolous'. Do you know what I saw today, Officer Stone? In the sublevels?"
Stone stiffened. "What did you see?"
Rook caught the fireballs, extinguishing them in his fist. "I saw a freshman named Timothy being carried out on a stretcher. Drained dry. By something... hungry."
Stone flinched. He looked away, staring out the window at the dark campus.
"I carried him," Stone admitted quietly. "I took him to the clinic. But they couldn't fix him. Because it wasn't an accident."
He turned back to us, and the conflict in his eyes was gone. Replaced by a cold, hard resolve.
"Marrow didn't just punish him," Stone said. "He fed on him. Like a leech."
"He's a Siphon," I whispered, the realization hitting me. "A Dark Siphon. He doesn't just channel magic. He consumes it."
"That's why I'm here," Stone said. He looked at Ivy, then at the rest of us. "The law is supposed to protect people. Marrow... he's a predator. And I take predators down."
I looked around the room.
This was it. The Resistance.
We had the Triad (The Power).
We had Ivy (The Chaos).
We had Jax (The Underworld).
We had Stone (The Law—reluctantly).
We had Rook (The Wild Card).
And, arriving late but making an entrance, we had our Intel.
The door opened, and Amelia Vance walked in. Followed closely by Arthur.
Amelia looked around the room, her nose wrinkling at the pizza boxes and the eclectic mix of people.
"You live like animals," she announced.
"Nice to see you too, Amelia," I said. "Did you bring the files?"
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."
"That's why we need a distraction," Jax said. "Something loud. Something messy."
"I can do loud," Ivy volunteered.
"I can do messy," Rook added.
"And I can lead the distraction team," Jax said, flashing his fangs. "The Night District owes me a favor. I can bring a vampire riot to the front gates."
"And I," Stone sighed, "will coordinate the Enforcer response to ensure they are... delayed. Traffic jams. Paperwork errors. The usual bureaucracy."
"You'd do that?" Ivy looked at him, surprised. "You'd break the rules?"
Stone looked at her. Really looked at her. "There are rules," he said gruffly. "And there is right. I know the difference."
"Okay," I said, feeling the adrenaline spike. "So that's the plan. We build the shield. We starve the beast. We riot."
"Operation Starvation," Kai said. "I like it."
"One problem," Arthur said, raising his hand. "To cover the whole campus, Lina needs a central focal point. Somewhere that connects to all the ley lines."
"The Bell Tower," Amelia said instantly. "It's the highest point. And it sits directly on the convergence."
"The Bell Tower is in the Dean's office," Rhett pointed out. "We have to break into his lair."
"He invited me," I reminded them. "Five PM tomorrow. I'm supposed to give him my answer."
"So you go in," Lucien said. "Trojan Horse style. You distract him. And we sneak in through the maintenance hatch."
"I can get you the codes," Amelia said tapping the file. "And Arthur knows the ventilation system."
"I spend a lot of time in the ducts," Arthur admitted. "It's quiet."
I looked around the room. The disparate, chaotic, wonderful group of misfits.
A Wolf Triad.
A Chaos Witch.
A Vampire Barista.
A Rogue Enforcer.
A Fae Professor.
A Fallen Princess.
And a Human Archivist.
"We have twenty-four hours," I said. "Let's get to work."
Ivy grabbed a slice of pizza and raised it in a toast.
"To the Resistance," she cheered.
"To the Resistance," we echoed.
And for the first time, I actually believed we might win.