They reached the foot of the staircase. Aeris caught sight of the Orientation Hall doors ahead, thrown open now. Warm golden light spilled out, distorted by the shadows of students trickling in, each group dressed like a portrait from another century.
But before they could reach the threshold, a calm, melodic voice rang out.
"Miss Aeris."
Both Aeris and Cas turned.
A woman approached, gliding across the stone floor like she wasn't quite touching it. Her hair was pale as mist, coiled in braids laced with tiny silver leaves. The pointed tips of her ears were adorned with soft metal cuffs.
Fae. Of course she was.
"Headmaster Caligo requests your presence," the woman said. Her name was Elowen.
Aeris blinked. "Now?"
"Immediately."
Cas shot Elowen a sideways glance but said nothing. He only turned to Aeris and gave a soft whistle. "Well, you're in demand already. Must be a record."
Aeris looked at him, then the hall, then back at him again. "I thought I was supposed to..."
"Orientation will wait," he said, waving two fingers in a lazy mock-salute. "Try not to get recruited into a cult or anything." He walked off down the corridor, shoulders slouched like someone used to vanishing into crowds.
Aeris turned back to Elowen, whose expression hadn't shifted once. "…Right," she muttered under her breath. "Lead the way, leaf lady."
Elowen didn't comment, she only turned on her heel, and Aeris followed.
They walked through a quieter wing of the academy. The walls here weren't covered with portraits like the rest of the school. Instead, fragments of mirrors hung in asymmetrical clusters. They reflected Aeris at odd angles: a flash of her arm, the corner of her mouth, the flicker of her eyes.
They stopped before a heavy, rune-etched door. The fae placed a hand against it. The symbols flared, then faded, and the door creaked open.
"Inside," Elowen cued.
Stepping inside, Aeris felt like walking into a spell half-cast and half-watching. Cold seeped through the soles of her shoes.
The room was circular, hollow like a tower, lined with shelves that reached into darkness. Books. Scrolls. Vials of things that glowed. It didn't smell like an office — it smelled like a crypt where knowledge was buried alive.
At the center of the room, there was a massive desk, ancient and gnarled as if it had grown up from the earth itself rather than been built. Behind it, a high-backed chair faced away from her.
Aeris was about to speak when the chair slowly turned. The man who faced her did not look like a teacher or a man, really.
Tall, gaunt, with silver-streaked black hair pulled back at the nape and eyes like shattered amethyst — deep, dark, and faintly glowing. He wore a long coat, the high collar making his already severe features seem carved from old obsidian.
He was Magnus Caligo, the Headmaster of Noxmere Academy. A powerful sorcerer and possibly sleep paralysis demon in his former life.
Magnus looked at her. Not toward her. At her. As if he saw everything.
"Welcome, Aeris Vexley," he greeted, with an accent that didn't belong to any known country — it was older than that.
Magnus turned his gaze down to the thick folder on his desk and opened it with a flick of his hand. Pages rustled without touch, stopping on one in particular.
"Expelled from Saint Brionne's for spontaneous hallucinations during a school-wide assembly." he read aloud. "Expelled from Edevane for igniting a faculty wing with no ignition source and expelled from Marrow Hill after… a student body incident that no forensic pathologist could explain." His eyes lifted, tilting his head. "Impressive résumé."
Aeris arched a brow, humoring. "If you're handing out awards, I accept cash only."
But, it didn't sound like a joke to him. Magnus didn't smile. Instead, he closed the folder with a snap that felt louder than it should've. "Are you human?" he asked. Not unkindly. But not kindly, either.
Aeris lifted her chin. "That's what they keep telling me."
"Hmm," he murmured. "You look like a fragile, pitiable little human girl. But your file…" He tapped a long, ink-stained finger against the page. "says otherwise."
Aeris kept her stance. Chin up. Shoulders back. The posture of someone who had been cornered before and refused to cower again. She had heard too many variations of you're dangerous,you don't belong,you need to be controlled. So, Aeris had stopped believing any of them could touch her.
"You may have gotten away with tricks and tantrums in human institutions," Magnus said, standing now. "But Noxmere is not run by humans. You will not bring your chaos into my academy," he continued, stopping a mere feet away. "Your petty outbursts, your emotional magic, whatever tricks you played on humans—they end here. Test my patience, Miss Vexley, and I won't expel you."
A pause. A glint of something older than fury in his eyes. "I'll transfer you to the lowest of our sister academies where students don't return unless summoned by necromancers."
Aeris blinked once. "Is that your version of a student wellness plan?"
Magnus didn't so much as twitch. He leaned in, enough for the pressure of his presence to settle over her like invisible chains. "Creatures here do not ask twice before devouring the weak. And I will not protect you from them."
Aeris wanted to snap back that she didn't need anyone's protection, especially not from overgrown gargoyles dressed in silk robes. She wanted to say You think this is the first time someone's tried to scare me into obedience? But instead..
Aeris swallowed it down--the heat, the venom, the pride. Like ice sliding into her bloodstream, she locked it away.
He was trying to rattle her like the rest. She wasn't seventeen years old and stupid anymore.
Magnus straightened, watching her with the kind of scrutiny normally reserved for cursed objects. Then, suddenly, his expression softened or rather, returned to a neutral mask. "Nevertheless," he said, walking back behind the desk, "you are here."
With a snap of his fingers, the file shut close. "The first human student in five years to survive the transfer process. Not the first, mind you." A small smile tugged at his mouth, and it was unclear whether it was amusement or warning.
Magnus slid a thin envelope across the desk toward her. Her name was written on it in charcoal-gray ink. "Your House will be assigned to you at moonrise," he said, tone leveling up. "Until then, you'll attend the orientation with the others. I will see you there."
Aeris made no move to take the envelope yet.
"Is there a reason you're still standing like a statue, Miss Vexley?" the Headmaster asked coolly.
Aeris drew in a breath and stepped forward, picking up the envelope with careful fingers. She nodded. "Thank you, Headmaster," The words tasted like sand. Bitter. Forced. But she said them anyway.
Magnus Caligo's gaze flicked to the door behind her. "You're dismissed."
Aeris turned on her heel and walked back toward the door. Just like that, she was back in the hallway. Her fingers curled tighter around the envelope, and a single, cool thought wound through her head:
He thinks I'm afraid.
Good. Let him believe that.
******
Aeris had walked the same corridor twice or maybe three times. The sconces burned cold, the portraits whispered, and her pulse ticked louder than her footsteps.
"Brilliant," Aeris muttered, hugging herself. "I can't even make it to orientation without getting cursed or kidnapped."
The hallways of Noxmere twisted like the inside of a cathedral. Casimir had warned her not to get lost. He'd also said to keep her shoes on — a weird detail she now suspected had very real consequences.
A distant voice jerked Aeris from her thoughts when she found herself in an unfamiliar place. Her muscles tensed with her head snapping to the end of the hall. The sound had come from around the corner, and it came again.
A voice, she realized after a moment to be of a woman. Perhaps a cry from pain?
Her heart skipped a beat.
Despite the blaring alarm in her head warning her to run away, Aeris drew closer creeping down the hall and around the corner where cool lantern light spilled from an open door at the end of the corridor.
The sounds grew louder, closer.
A few steps away from the door, Aeris realized that what she was hearing were not cries of pain. Very much the opposite actually.
The door was wide open. Aeris peered around the frame. Who could blame her for looking?
A dark-haired, limp-limbed girl was pinned to the stone wall. Her blazer had slipped from one shoulder, exposing the delicate curve of her neck, which was tilted to the side like someone had adjusted her for easy access.
A man's body was pressed against hers. His back, bare and sculpted, his muscles flexed as he leaned in, as a beast claiming its prey. One arm caged the girl in place, the other held her by the waist with a grip too tender for the damage it was doing.
The man looked majestically beautiful. His movements growing faster, harder, flesh slapping against flesh, leaning against her. He drove inside her viciously, with every thrust.
Clutching her fingers around the doorframe, Aeris watched shamelessly. A flush rose to her cheek. He made a sound, a rough exhale that made the hair rise on her arms. She could feel the heat spreading from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.
The girl's lashes fluttered weakly. Her eyes, wide, glassy, staring directly at Aeris. "Help." Her mouth parted, a gurgled sound escaping.
Then, Aeris realized that his face was buried in the crook of her neck.
And he wasn't kissing her. He was feeding on her.
?????