Chaos shattered the evening.

Students screamed as they rushed for the exits, bodies colliding at the double doorway, food and chairs flung across the floor. At the eye of the maelstrom, a purple mist thickened, lunging toward two boys lying unconscious on the polished wood.

The temperature dropped. Theo thrust out his hand and summoned a wall of ice that shielded the fallen boys. The mist recoiled but refused to retreat. It slid across the floor and circled him, closing every escape.

Voices, born from the vapor itself, echoed: a grandmother's gravelly chuckle, a man's broken howl, a child's lilting giggle. They layered over one another until they became indistinguishable.

They whispered. They taunted. They dug into Theo's mind.

Grinding his teeth, he forced the noise into the background, and raised a glacial dome around himself just as the mist solidified into a storm of shadowy spears. He conjured a blue-white blade and slashed, ice shards ripping through the vapor. But beyond his frozen shield, the two boys still lay unprotected.

"Billie! Get them out, now!" Theo barked.

"Move! Go!" Billie scooped the boys over his shoulders and sprinted toward the doors where Ms. May stood. She flung out her arms, forging an earthy barrier that shielded the doors as the students rushed past. The instant Billie crossed the threshold, she sealed the doorway.

Except, not everyone had made it out.

Theo was still inside. And so was Eydis.

"Eydis, back up!" Ms. May called. Her warning drowned beneath another boom. A tendril of mist lashed a chandelier from its chain. Glass exploded before plunging the hall into darkness.

A dead silence followed. The air hung still, the stillness unnatural. It was as if the very darkness itself was thinking, calculating. It had already learned Theo's weakness. His magic made him visible in the dark, while the creature vanished from sight.

A chill ran down his spine. Instinct spun him just in time, his shield catching a hidden strike, though cracks spider-webbed across the icy surface.

The entire hall shook as ice and mist collided. Windows rattled, plates clattered to the floor. His barrier shattered, shards erupting outward and slicing into his arms and face.

He forged another shield, blood already trickling down his sleeve. He could hear the whimpering sounds beyond Ms. May's barricade.

Theo tightened his grip. He had to hold on. "Just a little more."

Abandoning defense, his blade pulsed, edges glowing sapphire, and he carved through the mist again and again.

One. Two. Three. Each blow drained his magic but the mist just kept coming.

"Why won't they stop?!"

Was he losing?

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His senses dulled until a surge of cold energy jolted through him, like frostbite.

Like Astra.

She slipped through the gap as Ms. May lowered the barricade for her.

"What's the situation?" she asked. Then, almost too softly to catch, "Why are you still here, Eydis?"

Eydis?

Theo finally spotted her at the doorway. "Theo's got it," she answered.

"Leave." Astra threw out a hand. A pinprick of white light blossomed into a diamond blade. Its spectral brilliance exposed the violet mist coiling ominously around Theo.

It struck him relentlessly, and he parried, his movements growing slower.

Astra's gaze sharpened. "This is pointless!"

Another tendril whipped in. Theo battered it aside, gasping. "Why?"

"You're not hitting it. It liquefies before your blade can land, and you're bleeding yourself dry."

Not... hitting it? Had every swing been empty, exactly what the creature wanted? But what if some of the tendrils were real, just enough to keep Theo guessing?

He glanced at Astra. She had stationed herself squarely between Eydis and the roiling vapor, as much shield as sword.

"Then what do we do?" he breathed.

Astra studied the vapor. "Mist is water…"

"And it keeps shifting." He frowned.

"Then we stop it." Her face lit with certainty. "Freeze it."

Her blade sliced through a shadowy vine with a sizzle. The strike was so swift and precise that it caught the creature completely off guard.

It shrieked and recoiled instantly.

"Back up!" Theo called. Cold gathered around him.

The mist quivered, regrouping. Astra hacked through another strand, but it flowed together again. It was learning.

Theo clenched his jaw and let the frost surge. Blue light burst out. The floor filmed with ice and his breath crystallised.

At last the fog thickened, its edges sluggish. Crystals raced through its body. Theo pushed further, further, until the mist froze solid.

Before them hung a spray of violet shards, tiny amethysts glimmering like a pocketful of stars, chiming faintly.

"Astra, now!"

She shoved him aside and leapt. Celestial fire poured down her blade. Every strike detonated with blinding light and fragmented the frozen mist. Shards burst and hovered for a few seconds before fading into nothing.

Once it was all over, the only sound in the dining hall was the slow drip of thawing ice and Theo's ragged breathing.

The mist was gone, completely vanquished.

His vision blurred. Eydis stepped from the shadows, amber eyes unreadable—anger, regret, he couldn't tell.

It didn't matter.

For now, victory was enough.

Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Alchymia City shimmered in deep reds and golds below. Jazz played softly in the background, its melody doing little to ease the tight line of Adrian's brow as he absently cut into his ribeye.

"Lost in thought again?" Athena asked, dabbing her lips with a napkin.

"Can you see what's troubling me?"

"Not this again, brother." She took a sip of wine. "Keep the conversation PG-13, will you?"

Adrian chuckled. "Thena, your imagination runs wild."

Athena's eyes glinted with amusement. "I've seen things, Adrian. Once was enough to scar me for life."

He smiled, took a sip and turned serious. "This isn't about me. It's about Thomas Blackwood."

"What about him?"

"Doesn't it seem strange?" Adrian asked. "He comes out of nowhere, and suddenly he's a major player in the senate race?"

"You're right. Campaigns like his don't materialise overnight," she said.

"And the timing. Tiffany's downfall makes the perfect campaign speech. And with her ties to the purple smoke… what if Thomas is part of it?"

Athena nodded. "His upcoming Fundraising Gala might be our chance to dig deeper and see what he's hiding."

Adrian gave her a long look. "And you'd attend… as Athena Van Nassau?"

"Van Nassau is my birthright."

"A name you haven't used in public for years," Adrian pointed out. "Just Athena. Why now?"

"Silence in the face of cruelty is the same as becoming its accomplice," Athena said. "Don't you feel that weight, Brother? Dean Saito apparently did. He even wrote it down."

"Dean Saito said that?"

"Eydis."

"First Astra, now you? I really need to meet her." He frowned. "But using your power on Thomas without permission? That's—"

"—Your Council will look the other way. It is for the investigation, after all."

"Thena, rebellion? Who are you, and what have you done with my little sister?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but the buzz of her phone cut her off. Her expression turned serious as she glanced at the screen.

"Excuse me." She stood take the call. "Food poisoning? No, magical contamination? Understood."

The crackling voice on the other end carried barely contained panic.

"Locking down the Dining Hall is a good first step," she instructed. "Pull the food immediately. We need to contain this… and figure out how the purple smoke got into St. Kevin's."

After the call ended, Athena turned back to Adrian. "So... Staying a few extra weeks?"

Adrian set his knife down. "Looks like things just got a whole lot more complicated… back at St. Kevin's."

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