LOGINGIDEON'S POVThe High Witch Council witness was a woman named Aldira.She was already waiting in the east library reading room when we got there. The same room where Seraphine had first talked to Tanya about the arrangement. Same faint golden haze in the air from Seraphine’s old ward, still hanging around weeks later. Aldira was older than I expected, with that quiet way of carrying herself like she’d seen enough heavy stuff that she didn’t need to hold it in her shoulders anymore. She stood up when we walked in and looked at each of us one by one, slow and careful, but not judging. Just seeing.She saved Ginna for last. Something passed between them. Not friendly exactly. More like two people who’d been circling the same mess from opposite sides for a long time and finally ended up in the same room.“You’re older than your file,” Aldira said.“Eight years will do that,” Ginna answered.Aldira gave a small nod and turned to Seraphine. “You have the filing confirmation from Alpha Adler
TANYA'S POVGideon got there four minutes after I called him.He came through the side entrance moving fast without quite running, Max right behind him and Liam bringing up the rear. He stopped at the corridor junction, took in Ginna against the far wall, the extinguisher still in my hand, and the empty building around us. His face did that quick flip through a bunch of emotions before it settled into something steady and alert.Ginna looked at him. Whatever she was feeling after eight years of planning and getting shut out, she kept it locked down. She didn’t step toward him. Just stayed where she was with her hands visible and her eyes on his.“You dropped the projection,” Gideon said.“It wasn’t working,” she answered. “She saw through it in under a minute.”“Three seconds,” I corrected. “The scent was off.”A flicker crossed Ginna’s face. Not hurt exactly, more like someone hearing the last piece of bad news they’d been bracing for. “The scent is the hardest part to fake,” she sai
TANYA'S POVThe binding finished sometime before dawn.I knew because Max woke me at 3 AM when both his hands lit up like emergency flares. Not the soft glow they usually had around the suite. This was sharp and angry, bright enough that the light leaked under my door while I sat in the corridor with my back against the wall and my biology notes open on my lap, pretending I might actually read them. I hadn’t slept.He texted the group at 3:07. It’s done. I felt it lock. She’s bound to work.Six days.I went to my first class anyway. Advanced Pack History with Professor Halloway, same room where I’d blanked on the 1842 Border Treaty question weeks ago because I’d been too busy scanning the back rows for someone who wasn’t even there. The desks still had the same scratches. The projector still hummed too loudly. Everything looked exactly the same, but I felt like a completely different person sitting in it.I took actual notes. Legible ones, margins neat, dates underlined. Whatever happ
GIDEON'S POVLiam took it better than I thought he would.We ended up in the back corner of the athletic complex equipment room because he suggested it, and that told me he already knew this wasn’t the kind of talk you have where people might walk by. I laid the whole thing out for him, no careful buildup as I’d done with Max. Just everything, all at once. He’d been carrying the edges of this mess for two weeks without the middle, and he deserved the middle.He didn’t interrupt once. When I finished, he sat there quietly for maybe thirty seconds, which for Liam is basically a speech. Then he said, “Kenneth is involved.”I blinked. “What?”“The rogue attack patterns,” he said. “The old pack military formations. I’ve been going over the site reports since the second one because the angles kept bugging me.” He leaned forward on the bench. “Those setups are in the Hemisphere estate archives, sure. But they’re also in the Moonstone hockey program’s old strategy files. Coach keeps a copy. U
GIDEON'S POVThe rogue alert came through at 6:15 AM on a Thursday.I’d been awake since five, staring at the ceiling in the suite with that faint golden haze from the ward pressing in from the walls. My brain wouldn’t shut off. It kept turning over the next seven days, like it was looking for an exit that wasn’t there. I had the security board open on my phone when the notification popped up, so I saw it before Liam’s text, before the campus bulletin, before anyone else even knew.Rogue incident confirmed. Research Wing east perimeter, 06:03 AM. No victim. Security patrol intercepted the approach. One rogue sighted, retreated before contact. The site shows evidence of preparation activity. Materials consistent with magical working found. Area cordoned.Research Wing east perimeter. The wall right behind the corridor, Tanya walked every single session. Forty meters from the lab where she worked. I could picture myself standing at the end of that corridor, hand flat on the fire exit do
GIDEON'S POVThe next morning, Seraphine showed up at the suite right at 7 AM. She had her materials, her notebook, and that wired look people get when they’ve stayed up half the night turning a plan over in their head until it finally feels solid enough to start.She set up in the middle of the room like she’d done this a hundred times. Max was already on the couch, hands palm-up on his knees, the way he did now during his sessions. The light in them was low and even, almost calm.Tanya and I hung back near the edges like Seraphine had told us to. We had to be in the space so the ward could read our bond, but not too close or we’d mess with the frequency. So we just stood there and watched.The whole thing took about ninety minutes. I couldn’t follow most of it. Seraphine moved around the room in these deliberate patterns, touching certain spots on the walls and floor. The air slowly turned that same soft golden color it got in the reading room, only thicker this time. Like it was si
TANYA’S POVThe silence of the dorm room was heavier than any textbook I’d ever lugged across campus. I had spent the last four hours staring at the cracks in the ceiling, trying to force my brain to shut down, but sleep was a ghost I couldn't catch. Every time I closed my eyes, the darkness didn't
Tanya’s POVSunlight slipped through the gaps in my old curtains, but that wasn’t what pulled me awake. I opened my eyes and stared straight up at the ceiling. There they were, the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets I stuck up when I was eight. The edges were curling now, the glow barely there any
GIDEON’S POVThe heavy oak doors of the lecture hall creaked as I shoved them open, the sound echoing through the tiered room. Every head snapped in my direction. The air was thick with the scent of old paper, floor wax, and the nervous sweat of fifty different wolves. I didn't slow down. I didn't
Tanya’s POVEverything just… tilted.I stared at Gideon as my brain had short-circuited. This was my woods. My hiding spot. The place I came when everything else got too loud. Not Moonstone. Not some downtown bar. Home. And there he was, Gideon Hemisphere, hockey captain, fated-bloodline golden boy







