Chapter 25
The Quad was packed.
It wasn't a battlefield. It was a stage.
The snow from yesterday had melted into a slushy gray mess, but no one seemed to care. Students were everywhere. They were perched on the stone walls, hanging from the ancient oak trees like oversized fruit, and sitting cross-legged on the roof of the library.
Everyone—literally everyone—was holding a phone.
The air buzzed with the collective hum of a thousand livestreams. The mesh network Ivy had set up was working overtime, broadcasting this moment to every pack, coven, and enclave in the state.
Dean Marrow stood on the steps of the Administration Building.
He looked... rough.
He was still wearing his white suit from yesterday, but it was no longer pristine. It was stained with mud, wrinkled from sleeping in his office, and—most damning of all—still dusted with persistent, un-removable pink glitter.
He looked exhausted. He looked manic. He looked like a man who had spent forty-eight hours fighting a war against ducks and yodeling, and lost.
"This ends now!" he shouted.
His voice was amplified by a hasty spell, booming across the quad. But it lacked the smooth, oily confidence of his early speeches. It sounded thin. Desperate.
"I am the Dean! I am the authority! I demand order! I demand silence! I demand respect!"
"You demand a lot of things," a deep voice rumbled across the grass.
The crowd parted. It wasn't a fearful retreat; it was a respectful opening of the path.
We walked in.
Rhett was on my left. He wasn't in a suit. He wasn't in armor. He was wearing faded jeans and a leather jacket that strained across his shoulders. He looked like the Alpha of Northcrest, not because of a title, but because he vibrated with power.
Kai was on my right. He was barefoot, despite the slush. Where his feet touched the ground, tiny snowdrops bloomed in the gray mud.
Lucien was behind me, my shadow made manifest. He was wearing sunglasses (at 10 AM on a cloudy day) and looking effortlessly, insultingly bored.
And me. I was wearing my favorite hoodie—the one I had worn on my first day here. The one that said I'd Rather Be Reading.
"Get off my campus," Marrow snarled, pointing a shaking finger at us. "Expelled! All of you! Expelled!"
"On what grounds?" Lucien asked. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried perfectly in the silence. He took off his sunglasses, revealing violet eyes that gleamed with amusement. "We haven't broken any rules, Dean. We've just... followed them too enthusiastically."
"You incited a riot!" Marrow screamed. Spittle flew from his mouth. "You turned the cafeteria into a garden! You glitter-bombed the exams! You turned my security detail into waterfowl!"
"Allegedly," Ivy called out from the crowd. She was sitting on the shoulders of the Minotaur from the football team, eating a bag of popcorn. "That glitter could have come from anywhere. It's mating season for pixies. They get very enthusiastic."
Laughter rippled through the students. It was a dark, bubbling sound. The sound of a crowd that had realized the emperor wasn't just naked; he was ridiculous.
Marrow's face turned a shade of purple that clashed horribly with the pink glitter.
"I am a Null!" he screamed. "I can strip the magic from your bones! I can leave you empty! I can leave you hollow!"
He raised his hands.
The air grew cold. I felt the tug—the familiar, sucking sensation of the void. He was trying to pull the static, trying to feed on the fear.
But he was empty. He had burned through his reserves trying to clean up the glitter (which was magic-resistant, thanks to Ivy).
Taking a step forward, I didn't flinch. I didn't raise a shield.
"Go ahead," I said.
"Lina," Rhett warned, a low growl building in his throat.
"No," I said, looking Marrow in the eye. "Let him try. Because here's the thing about being a Null, Dean. You're only scary when we're afraid to lose our magic."
I looked at the crowd. At the wolves, the vamps, the fae, the humans.
"But we figured something out," I said, my voice rising. "We don't need magic to beat you."
I signaled to the crowd.
"Yeah!" a voice shouted. It was a freshman—the one who had yodeled in the library. "You dress like a disco ball!"
Marrow blinked. "What?"
"And you smell like old cheese!" another student shouted. "Like unwashed gym socks and despair!"
"Your 'Purity' speech is boring!" a vampire yelled. "It's repetitive! Get a new writer!"
The roast began.
It wasn't organized. It wasn't planned. It was organic. It was hundreds of stressed, tired college students realizing that the monster in the suit was just... a guy. A sad, pathetic guy who had tried to ruin their semester.
"You audited the Knitting Club!" a witch screamed, shaking a half-finished scarf. "Who audits knitting? It's yarn!"
"You banned spicy food!" a dragon shifter roared, blowing a puff of smoke. "That is a hate crime against my people!"
"Your hair is a toupee!" someone shouted from the back.
"It is not!" Marrow shrieked, clutching his hairline. "It is natural volume!"
"Take it off! Take it off!" the crowd began to chant.
Marrow faltered. He took a step back. The "Void" around him flickered and died. He couldn't focus. He couldn't draw power.
A Null feeds on strong emotions. Fear. Anger. Despair.
But he couldn't eat ridicule. Mockery was too sharp, too erratic. It didn't feed him; it cut him.
"Stop it!" he wailed. "I am your superior! I am the Dean!"
"You're a bureaucrat," Arthur said.
The crowd quieted as the Librarian stepped out from behind a statue of the Founder. Arthur looked immaculate. He was holding a clipboard. He walked up the steps until he was standing eye-to-level with Marrow.
"And according to the Board of Directors bylaws, Section 8, Paragraph 2," Arthur recited, pushing his glasses up his nose. "'A Dean may be removed immediately if they lose the confidence of the student body.'"
Arthur gestured to the jeering, laughing, glitter-covered crowd.
"I think the confidence is gone, Dean."
Marrow looked around. He looked at the phones recording his humiliation. He looked at the laughing faces. He looked at the Enforcers, who were currently hiding behind the bushes, refusing to engage.
He looked at me.
"You ruin everything," he whispered. "You chaotic, messy, broken little mistake."
"I know," I smiled. It was a sharp smile. A wolf's smile. "I'm the Circuit Breaker. I break things that need breaking."
"This isn't over," he hissed. "The Board won't fire me. I make them too much money. I keep the peace."
"It is over," I said, stepping closer until I was right in his face. "Because we're not just a pack anymore, Marrow. We're a Union. And we just voted you out."
Rhett stepped up beside me, crossing his arms. "Pack your bags, Dean. You're evicted."
Marrow looked at Rhett. Then at Kai, who was casually growing poison ivy over the Dean's shoes. Then at Lucien, who was checking his watch.
He realized, finally, that he wasn't fighting a war.
He was losing a popularity contest.
And for a narcissist like Dean Marrow, that was a fate worse than death.
He didn't explode. He didn't vanish in a puff of smoke.
He just... deflated. His shoulders slumped. The manic energy drained out of him, leaving a sad, glittery man in a ruined suit.
"Fine," he spat. "Enjoy your chaos. Enjoy your mess. When the real world comes for you... don't say I didn't warn you."
He turned and walked into the building.
Silence held the Quad for a heartbeat.
Then, Arthur checked his watch. "10:15," he noted. "He has forty-five minutes to vacate the premises."
"Does that mean..." a student asked.
"School's out for summer!" Ivy screamed.
The roar that followed shook the leaves off the trees.