جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

CHAPTER 21The Spring Break WarTuesday, January 6 → Thursday, January 20, 2027The realization hits me somewhere between third-period trig and the moment I re-draw the same crooked-river-wolf symbol for the forty-seventh time.There isn’t thirty-seven lessons.There’s thousands.Vinča script has over two thousand known signs (and Dacia keeps pulling up ones that were ground to dust before the first pyramid was built).She lived through it.She watched the first blood-mage carve the first symbol into wet clay with a copper stylus while the Danube was still wild.Every night now I’m in mist-space until 4 a.m., copying tablets that don’t exist anywhere else on Earth.My healing erases the ink by morning, so I have to start over.It’s going to take years (maybe a decade) of nightly sessions before the symbols burn permanent into my soul.I’m fifteen.I’ll be in my mid-twenties before I’m fluent.That’s okay.I decided that on night three, when my hand cramped so bad I cried blood tears.

CHAPTER 23Holly the Gift of Spirit– March 22, 2027The funeral is small and wrong.Holly Rowan Holiday is laid out in the pack clearing under the cedar tree, wrapped in the same bomber jacket she wore the day she walked into first period like she owned the world.She’s seventeen.She should be opening presents, not lying on a stone slab with coins on her eyes and Elowene’s cedar shavings in her hair.Malik sits on the ground beside her, knees pulled to his chest, trumpet case clutched like it’s the only thing keeping him breathing.Vera stands behind him, arms crossed so tight her knuckles are white, staring at nothing.The pack circles in silence: fifty-three coyotes minus eight.Mom and Dad stand with me.Seras’s flames are gone; she hasn’t lit a single spark since the ridge.I step forward because someone has to.Celeste (voice cracking):“Holly came here looking for a place that still fought back.She found it.She gave everything to keep it standing.”I place the copper coin sh

CHAPTER 25Sisters and Trouble From HanamakiSame night, March 25, 2027 (later)The fairy lights are dimmed to almost nothing.We’re lying on Seras’s floor, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars we stuck up there last year.The room is quiet except for the soft crackle of the mason-jar flame and the occasional creak of her house settling.I roll onto my side so I’m looking at her.Celeste (voice small):“You’re the sister I never had, you know that, right?”Seras turns her head.Her eyes are glowing ember-orange in the dark.Celeste:“I’ve known you since we were six.Hanamaki summers, Tokyo winters, that stupid bullet train back and forth every school break.You taught me how to swear in Japanese before I could spell my own last name.You were there when I first accidentally called lightning and cried for three hours because I thought I was a monster.”Seras’s lip wobbles (just once).Celeste (quieter):“I’ve known you longer than anyone except Mom, Dad, and Ana

CHAPTER 27The Weight of QuestionsTuesday, August 17, 2027 – After schoolI wait until the halls are empty and the janitor’s keys are the only sound.Rowan Vale’s classroom door is cracked open.The silver travel mug is still steaming.I step inside and shut the door behind me.He doesn’t look up from the stack of fake quizzes.Rowan (dry):“Took you twenty-four hours. I expected nineteen.”I drop my backpack but keep both hands in my hoodie pocket (no blood symbols today).Celeste (quiet, careful):“I have eleven pieces.The Forty-Eighth is already moving.You knew the shard would act as a key.You’re four hundred years old and you’re stuck pretending to teach juniors about the Louisiana Purchase.”I meet his eyes.Celeste:“I’m not here to hand you anything.I’m here to ask what someone like you (someone who isn’t the heir) can actually do for me that I can’t do myself.How can someone who isn’t the heir, who isn’t even Dacian, help me stop what’s coming?Because I’m not stupid. Yo

CHAPTER 29First TestMonday, September 13, 2027 – 3:17 p.m.First period after lunch is supposed to be study hall in the library.Instead, the lights go out valley-wide.Every bulb, every screen, every phone dies at once.Then the mirrors come back.Not the ones we broke or painted over.New ones.Hundreds of them.They bleed out of the walls like black water, forming perfect standing sheets of glass all over the school.Time stands completely still for the mortals and non-magical people.Teachers and students frozen in time. The entire school is full of fog and mirrors.I’m already moving.Remy is at my left, claws half-out.Seras is at my right, palms blazing orange.Kayo’s tails are fully visible for the first time in public, nine golden whips crackling with fox-fire.Aki and Riku flank us, horns glowing crimson.We reach the library.A single mirror stands in the middle of the floor.Inside it: the Forty-Eighth.Full crown.My face.My body.My voice, but colder.Not-Celeste (smi