Seraphina’s POVI should’ve felt it earlier.The magic in the air had changed that morning—thicker, sharper. Like the scent before lightning. I’d assumed it was just another enchantment spike from the west wing, or maybe one of Thalia’s experiments had flared too wide again.But it wasn’t just any magic.It was the moon.And not just a full moon—a blood moon.Rare. Unscheduled. And absolutely not on the school’s astrological calendar.Even the gargoyles were restless.They shifted on their perches as I passed the upper walkways, their eyes glinting red in the late dusk light, as if they too sensed something was… off.I should’ve asked questions then.I didn’t.Because we had a practical exam that night.And I needed to focus.Professor Dryden didn’t say much about the change in sky.He simply told us we’d be conducting a live simulation in the southern ravine—one of the deeper forest-embedded arenas designed for advanced survival drills.No tutors. No magical assistance. Only what we
Seraphina’s POVThree weeks under Professor Dryden had taught me many things. Most of them painful.He didn’t believe in soft landings or warm-up rounds. His battle simulations were ruthless, his theory exams timed like siege drills, and his expectations steeped in the cold certainty of someone who’d seen failure up close.But the most important thing I’d learned?He didn’t care about excuses.He didn’t want sob stories. He didn’t chase after your emotions with a kind voice and an open desk drawer of tissues. He simply watched. Measured. Adjusted.And then expected more.Which, in its own way, was a relief.He didn’t want my trust.He just wanted results.Which meant—maybe—he wouldn’t be offended if I didn’t offer him everything.Maybe I could give him just enough.It started after a field exercise that should have been simple.Simulated forest terrain. Four cursed familiars hidden in the underbrush, each tethered to a collapsing containment rune. The goal: identify the creatures, dis
Seraphina’s POVI left Professor Dryden’s workshop with more than just my training scroll in hand.I left with a question I didn’t know how to answer.It chased me down the corridor like a shadow, slinking behind my steps, curling beneath my ribs.Could I trust him?He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t pried. But he’d seen too much, and I knew it. And worse—I knew he was right. I was racing time. I was fighting like someone afraid they wouldn’t survive the next turn. And that meant I couldn’t afford to be careless.But trust wasn’t a lesson they taught in theory class.So I didn’t go straight back to my dorm.I didn’t retreat into silence.I did something unexpected.I asked for advice.First came Evangeline.Technically, she was still my handmaid—Ambrosius’s second appointment after Linnea. But that title had always been misleading. Evangeline wasn’t just someone who carried my cloak or fetched me tea.She was a strategist in disguise. A support officer assigned under the veil of domestic serv
Seraphina’s POVHaving a dedicated mentor didn’t mean we were suddenly transformed into reclusive, specialized arcane scholars like the postgraduate students in the east wing. We didn’t spend our days holed up in enchanted laboratories, tuning wands or deciphering historical spell matrices until our hair grayed.We still had to attend foundational classes.Elemental Theory. Magical Ethics. Interdisciplinary Spell Design. Even Chrono-Rune Structure, which I had hoped I’d never see again.It was almost comforting, how unchanging some parts of Loisage remained. Even after everything that had happened, the classrooms still smelled faintly of chalk and phoenix ash. The ink still stained your hands for days, and the enchanted chalkboards still wiped themselves clean mid-argument, as if bored with our slowness.But of course, the theory wasn’t where Professor Dryden’s attention focused.He could recite hex law backward and dissect were-form mutation charts in his sleep. That wasn’t the point
Seraphina’s POVCorwin’s schemes had been disrupted—at least for now. With the worst of the chaos contained, and Loisage having completed its internal audits and managed to calm the surviving students, it was finally time for me to return to school.For once, I wasn’t running from danger.I was going back to something like normalcy.Or at least, the version of normal that existed for someone like me—Moonbane blood, Moonbane legacy, and Moonbane losses.But I didn’t leave the Riddle estate empty-handed.And no, I’m not talking about Ambrosius’s infuriating half-smile or the cloak he draped over my shoulders “because it looks better on you than in my closet.” He had a strange way of showing care—always with some kind of mockery wrapped around the edges.But beneath the teasing, there had been something else. Something real.And more than that—there was the Blood Mirror.I’d been thinking about the mirror long before the siege.The Blood Mirror wasn’t just a relic. It was Moonbane’s last
Seraphina’s POVAmbrosius updated me on the outcome of the meeting not long after it concluded. The sweep had been swift and surgical. Every traceable faction tied to Corwin had been neutralized—either scattered, silenced, or stripped of power.Still no sign of Corwin himself.Of course not.He was a coward. And cowards always knew how to slip away when the knives came out.“Be patient,” I told myself.Funny. That used to be his line—soft, clipped, infuriatingly calm.Now I said it to myself like a chant. A warning. A shield.But honestly?Even knowing that a hunter needed patience to snare their prey, it was difficult to accept. Every day spent waiting, strategizing, adjusting the board, was another day Corwin and Diantha got to waste the very wealth they’d stolen—resources that should’ve belonged to others. To the families they betrayed. To Moonbane.To me.