Chapter 3

Magical athletics are, as far as I can tell, just a highly institutionalized method of committing legal manslaughter under the guise of school spirit.

By Friday afternoon, the entire academy quad had been converted into a volatile carnival of team rivalries for the upcoming Autumn Broom Polo Tournament. If you thought regular high school football fans were intense, you hadn't seen a faction of third-year fire-witches actively trying to enchant the stadium banners to project literal, roaring pyrotechnics every time their team scored.

"Move it, human!" a voice barked from above.

I ducked instinctively as a shadow streaked past, missing my head by a matter of inches. It was Jessalyra, the undisputed star of the Obsidian Spire Broom Polo team. She was a fierce, sylph-blooded fourth-year who could pull off a flawless vertical spiral dive without losing a single hairpin. Right now, she was hovering upside down on a sleek, silver-trimmed racing broom, effortlessly juggling three of the heavy, weaponized iron balls used in the game.

"Sorry, Hunt!" Jessalyra called down, though she didn’t sound remotely sorry as she flipped right-side up and shot across the quad like a kinetic missile. Half the student body was hopelessly in love with her; the other half was just terrified she’d accidentally decapitate them with a backhand swing of her iron mallet during a match.

"If she takes off my head, I'm haunting her broom," I muttered, straightening my jacket.

"She won't," Logan said, stepping up beside me. He had a heavy wool blanket slung over one arm and a flask of hot cider in his hand. He looked down at me, a soft, crinkling warmth in his eyes that instantly made the freezing Pacific wind feel a little less brutal. "But just in case, I’ll stand to your left. My reflexes are faster."

"Flattering, Logan, but I don't need an elven shield for every minor athletic hazard," I said, though my heart did a stupid, rhythmic dance anyway.

"Hey! Are we watching the scrimmage or are you two just going to make eyes at each other until the tide comes in?" Kiana shouted from a few yards ahead, where she was aggressively cheering for a group of lower-classmen trying to paint the grass with glowing green tracking runes.

For the next two hours, the academy felt exactly like what it claimed to be on the shiny recruitment brochures: a vibrant, bustling haven of elite magical youth. There were laughs, terrible teenage poetry being whispered under the shadow of the cloisters, and the comforting, mundane stress of upcoming midterms. It was peaceful. It was normal.

But peace in the Spire never lasted past sundown.

As twilight bled into a deep, ink-colored evening, the crowds finally dispersed back to the great halls for dinner. The temperature dropped instantly, the ocean air turning sharp and biting. Instead of heading straight home, I took a detour across the edge of the training field, wanting to clear my head of the endless Arithmancy equations currently spinning in my brain.

That was when I saw her.

Sitting alone on a wooden bench at the very edge of the cliffside, completely detached from the pre-game hype, was Clementine Thorne. The werewolf freshman was bundled up in an oversized flannel shirt, a small, vintage brass telescope resting on her knee.

"You're going to catch hypothermia out here, Clementine," I said, my boots crunching softly on the leaf-covered grass as I approached. "And honestly, I don't think the infirmary stocks standard human cough syrup."

Clementine didn't flinch. She slowly lowered the telescope, turning her wide, grey eyes up to meet mine. The quirky, bright smile she’d given me in the courtyard on Tuesday wasn't there. She looked uncharacteristically subdued, her small fingers twisting the brass focus ring of the telescope.

"The stars are crowded, Layla," she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the distant crash of the waves against the cliffs.

I frowned, stepping closer. "Crowded? It looks like a standard clear night to me. Plenty of room up there."

"No," Clementine insisted, shaking her head fiercely. She pointed a trembling finger toward the northern horizon, where the silver cluster of the Pleiades usually sat. "The spatial coordinates are wrong. The distance between the alignment points is shrinking. It’s like... it’s like the sky is holding its breath. Like something is pulling the edges of the curtain tightly inward."

I looked up at the vast expanse of the night sky. To my completely non-magical eyes, the stars looked exactly the same as they always did—cold, distant, and entirely indifferent to the drama of a magical boarding school. But remembering Jessa’s weird comment in the library about the undercurrents draining from the lower wards, a faint, unpleasant chill settled right at the base of my spine.

"Are you sure it's not just standard astrology anxiety?" I asked gently, trying to inject some of my usual sarcasm to break the tension. "I hear Saturn in retrograde makes everyone think the sky is falling."

Clementine looked at me for a long, heavy moment. Then, she let out a sharp, sudden little laugh, the eerie intensity vanishing as quickly as it had arrived. She shoved the telescope back into her pocket and stood up, brushing dirt off her jeans. "You're right. It’s probably just werewolf paranoia. My pack back home always said I had an overactive nose for disaster." She gave me a quick wave. "Goodnight, Layla! Don't forget to check your Thursday schedule for that doom!"

I watched her scurry off toward the freshman dorms, her small frame swallowed up by the shadows of the stone archways. The lingering chill didn't leave me.

Ten minutes later, I was making the lonely trek back across the low-tide sandbar toward my home.

I paused halfway across the wet strip of sand, looking back at the Obsidian Spire Academy. From a distance, the castle looked magnificent. Its towering gothic spires cut sharply into the moonlit sky, its stained-glass windows glowing with warm, amber magical light. It looked expensive, ancient, and deeply, unbreakably secure. It was a fortress designed to withstand centuries of sieges, dark lords, and elemental storms.

When I pushed open the heavy oak door to our apartment, the suffocating atmosphere of the outside world instantly evaporated.

The hearth was roaring with a cheerful, warm fire. The air smelled heavenly—a rich, comforting symphony of melted butter, cinnamon, and toasted sugar. My father, Lunario, was standing at the kitchen counter, hum-singing a ridiculous sea shanty while using a flick of his wooden spatula to make a batch of miniature crepes perfectly flip themselves in mid-air.

"Layla! Just in time," he beamed, looking up with his usual, chaotic parental warmth. His robes were perfectly clean, free of any mysterious magical smudges, and his face was entirely bright and relaxed. "I decided we needed a midnight snack. The domestic charms were cooperating beautifully tonight."

"Smells amazing, Dad," I said, dropping my satchel onto the chair and letting the domestic peace wash over me.

I sat at the mahogany table, watching the flying crepes land neatly on a ceramic plate. Everything was safe. Everything was normal. My dad was happy, my friends were safe in their beds, and the academy walls were solid.

It was a beautiful, perfect illusion of peace. And it was the last night I would ever see it.