The bell rang, but no one moved.
The smoke still hadn't cleared completely. The hallway smelled like scorched copper and ozone. The lights buzzed overhead, flickering with a rhythm that didn't feel electrical—it felt deliberate. Pulsed, almost.
Malik sat on the edge of a broken bench outside the principal's office, hair singed at the tips, hoodie dusted with ash. No burns. No injuries. Just questions. Dozens of them.
He could hear the whispers now, sliding down the hall like gossip that had grown teeth.
Did you see the explosion?
Was it a gas line?
Someone said it was an attack—like a terrorist thing.
He was standing in it.
Didn't even flinch.
Malik closed his eyes.
He could still feel the remnants of Obsidian's call, echoing in his chest like an aftershock. Whatever that… thing was, it hadn't belonged here. And it had recognized him.
That scared him more than the summoning.
Naomi sat beside him, arms crossed. Her phone buzzed every five seconds—texts from Trek, half the school, her cousin at Guild Prep East.
"You're not going to talk to the investigators, are you?" she asked quietly.
"They'll just try to sedate me," Malik replied. "Or worse—recruit me."
"You're not wrong."
The door across from them creaked open. A woman stepped out. Tall. Pale. Immaculate suit. No badge. No ID.
Not school staff.
Not police.
Definitely not normal.
Naomi tensed. Malik stood slowly.
The woman smiled. "Malik Graves?"
He nodded.
"My name is Dr. Ilara Voss. I'd like to ask you a few questions… about what you summoned."
They followed her down a hall no one else seemed to see.
Every door she passed shimmered. The lights stopped flickering. The silence that followed her was too perfect, as if reality itself was holding its breath.
She led them into a room that shouldn't have existed—polished floor, mirrored walls, single table.
No windows.
Malik and Naomi exchanged a glance.
"You're not from the school board," Malik said.
Dr. Voss smiled again. "No. I'm from a branch of the Consortium that studies anomalous Echo events."
"Never heard of it."
"That's the point."
She slid a small device across the table. It pulsed with soft violet light.
"Place your hand here," she said.
Malik didn't move. "What does it do?"
"It reads your Echo frequency. Like a fingerprint for your soul."
"I didn't sign up for that."
"You didn't need to. You broadcasted across the entire quadrant. You're lucky we got here first."
"First?"
"There are other… less subtle factions. Ones that would rather dissect than understand."
Naomi stepped forward. "You're not laying a finger on him."
Dr. Voss didn't flinch. "You misunderstand. I'm here to offer context. Not containment."
Malik eyed the device. Then, slowly, he placed his palm on the surface.
The light flared.
Once.
Twice.
Then shattered.
The device cracked down the middle. Smoke curled upward.
Dr. Voss stared. Her expression finally shifted.
"…well."
"Guess that's bad?" Malik said.
She turned slowly. "Your Echo profile is… fragmented. Layered. Like someone stitched an old soul onto a new body."
Malik didn't react.
Naomi stepped between them. "What does that mean?"
Dr. Voss tapped her fingers against the table. "It means he's not Echo-active by normal standards. He's operating on something… older. Pre-Guild."
Malik raised an eyebrow. "You mean Obeah."
She blinked. "Where did you hear that term?"
"I didn't hear it. I remembered it."
For the first time, Dr. Voss looked genuinely uneasy.
They were released an hour later with strict instructions not to leave the city and a warning not to discuss what happened with anyone else.
They ignored both.
Naomi drove them to a small bookstore in the Old Fourth Ward, tucked between an abandoned jazz club and a church that had burned down a decade ago.
"This place still exists?" Malik asked.
"Only because no one bothers it. And because my uncle used to keep restricted texts here."
The inside smelled like incense and old paper. The owner, an old man with pale green eyes and a beard like moss, nodded at Naomi without speaking.
She led Malik to a back corner where the books had no titles—just symbols etched into the spine.
"I need to know if I'm going crazy," Malik said.
"You're not," Naomi replied. "You're awakening."
He ran his fingers along the edges of the tomes. Some whispered. One hissed. Another pulsed like it had a heartbeat.
He stopped on a thin black book wrapped in twine.
The moment he touched it, it opened.
Pages flipped of their own accord until they stopped on a sigil.
Malik stared.
It was the exact symbol he had drawn in his notebook two nights ago.
He didn't speak.
Didn't breathe.
Just felt.
Naomi leaned over his shoulder. Her eyes widened.
"That's a death-binder's mark," she whispered. "A soul-seal."
Malik traced the edges.
Below the symbol, in faint script, was a name.
Ashen Sovereign of the Ninth Gate.
He whispered it.
And the world around him changed.
The bookstore faded.
No—folded.
He stood in a shadow version of the room, grayscale and silent. Floating words drifted like fog. The books hovered midair, whispering truths in a dozen tongues.
And in the center…
A mirror.
It didn't show his reflection.
It showed a battlefield.
Thousands knelt in ash, and at the center stood a black-robed figure with fire in his eyes and an army at his back.
Malik knew that figure.
He had been him.
A voice filled the air—not sound, but weight.
Remember what you broke.
Remember what you became.
But most of all… remember why you left it behind.
He gasped.
The bookstore returned.
Naomi gripped his shoulders. "Malik! You were gone—like, gone. For five minutes!"
He looked down.
The book was gone.
But his hands were glowing—faint traces of light forming the sigil from the page.
And in his chest, something shifted.
He could feel the Echo now.
Not raw. Not loose.
Structured.
Waiting.
That night, Malik sat in the middle of his bedroom floor with candles around him.
Naomi watched from the doorway, arms crossed.
"You sure about this?"
"No," he admitted. "But it's time I stopped reacting and started asking."
He drew the sigil on the floor in chalk.
Each stroke came easy, as if his fingers remembered what his mind did not.
He closed his eyes.
Reached inward.
And whispered: "I am the Waker. The Bound One. The Key."
The air grew thick.
The candles flared.
And the world… twitched.
A figure appeared before him—misty, feminine, draped in spectral blue.
She knelt.
"I am Anacaona," she said. "Queen of Spears. You called. I answer."