The morning whispers were different this time. They weren't about Thorn, or even about Xavier.
This time, the talk lingered through the halls like smoke, carried on nervous voices that begged for attention.
"The Furnace was dead quiet last night."
"It was the full moon. There should've been howls for hours."
"My roommate and I didn't hear a single thing. Not even a scratch on the walls."
Usually, on a full moon, the Furnace was impossible to ignore. Growls echo through stone, fights break out, and windows rattle with restless howling at the moon in a symphony of chaos.
But last night, there was nothing.
Not even a single sound.
Xavier sat at his desk, trying to take notes, but his pen had drifted. In the margin of his notebook, a wolf's silhouette hunched beneath a crescent moon. He shaded the lines darker, harder, until the paper nearly tore under his hand. Thorn, a few seats down, had her attention focused on a hangnail she tried her best to chew off, even with her fangs getting in the way.
Mr. Hale's voice carried evenly over the scratch of pens and pencils over paper. He paced between the long rows of laboratory tables, his hands clasped behind his back.
"An infusion," he began, "is not a potion. Do not confuse the two. A potion is brewed, stirred, and coaxed into stability. An infusion is persuaded." He tapped a finger against the side of a glass beaker filled with a dark liquid. The contents rippled as if they were alive.
"Elements resist capture. Fire burns. Water slips away. Air disperses. Earth refuses to move. Each must be convinced to linger long enough for the vessel to hold it."
The words rolled on, calm and steady, until a low groan split the silence.
Danny Cruso, a werewolf seated two rows over, stiffened. His eyes went wide, his back bowing until his chair crashed to the floor. His elbow knocked a vial of air infusion from the laboratory table; it hissed across the flagstones, dissipating in a sharp gust.
"Danny!" Pippa's voice cracked across the room before anyone else moved.
Danny hit the ground, seizing hard. Blood painted across his sleeve as he coughed, scarlet flecking the stone. Gasps and shrieks filled the room as Danny's body shook violently against the stone.
"Get back!" Mr. Hale ordered, his robes flaring as he rushed forward.
But panic already tore through the room. Students stumbled over benches, voices rising in fear. Hushed whispers and careful voices, filled with concern, danced through the atmosphere.
Xavier froze, torn between obeying the professor's command and stepping in. His hand whitened on the edge of his sketchbook as he gripped tightly.
Thorn didn't hesitate. She dropped to her knees beside Danny, gripping his shoulders to stop him from thrashing. Heat laced up her arms; searing, burning, as though she'd caught a silver brand. She hissed between her teeth but held on tighter.
Silver-like scars bloomed across his skin, racing up his arms in jagged veins.
"It's not silver," Thorn gasped, her teeth gritting. "It's not—"
Mr. Hale shoved chairs and lab tables back with a magical sweep of his arm, shouting for space. He snatched the classroom phone from the wall and called the infirmary. While he tried to keep his composure, it was clear that even he didn't know what was going on or how to stop it.
Thorn's palms were raw by the time she yanked them free. She flung her arms outward, calling the shadows clustered behind the cupboards and tables. Dark tendrils spilled forth at her command, curving around Danny's limbs. They pinned him still just long enough for the nurses, rushing in with a stretcher, to stop beside him. Thorn's shadows lifted him with practiced ease and carefully placed him against the cool fabric of the guerny.
Danny sagged against the canvas, bloodied and still, a ragged groan escaping his lips as they wheeled him away.
The shadows slipped back into the corners, leaving Thorn standing pale and shaken, the smell of smoke clinging to her skin. She looked back, catching Xavier's gaze for a moment before looking back to the rest of the class. The whispers from fellow students faded into the background as Thorn's heartbeat roared in her ears.
Xavier hadn't moved. He watched in silence, eyes fixed on the scars. They were too clean, too precise. Not random.
But, they also weren't burns.
His pencil scratched furiously at the corner of his page, tracing the shapes from memory, lines, curls, jagged angles.
Not wounds.
Sigils.
Twisted and wrong. But deliberate.
The whispers didn't stop.
By the time the stretcher disappeared down the hall, the story had already scattered like ash through the wind.
"Did you see his arms? They looked like silver burns."
"I heard he was spitting blood all over the floor."
"And Thorn, did you see her hands? She pulled shadows out of the walls."
"Creepy."
Pippa sat frozen at her table, fingers still gripping Danny's fallen pen. A streak of his blood stained her sleeve.
Thorn walked over quietly, crouching down beside her. "He's in good hands," she said, voice low but steady. "You know how stubborn he is. He'll chew through the IV before he lets them keep him there."
Pippa huffed a shaky laugh that caught on her breath. "Yeah," she said softly, eyes still on the empty space where he'd fallen. "He would."
Thorn straightened, glancing once toward the door where the nurses had vanished. "Come on," she murmured, brushing a bit of glass from Pippa's skirt. "Let's get you out of here before the vultures start circling."
As they walked out together, the whispers followed. Softer now, but just as sharp.
By lunch time, it wasn't just Danny's collapse that people were whispering about.
It was Thorn.
"She didn't save him, she hexed him."
"It was the eeriest thing I've ever seen."
"It was like the shadows literally wanted to eat him."
In every classroom, passing through every corridor, the murmurs followed her. A hush would fall when she entered, then snap behind her back. First-years clutched their bags tighter.
Older students leaned towards each other, talking in sharp, hungry voices, like detectives who had just obtained their last piece of incriminating evidence.
Thorn sat across from Pippa on the patio, her gaze fixed on the foil blood pouch in her hand. Thorn tore the straw from its wrapper and stabbed it cleanly through the perforated seal.
"I can't believe Danny collapsed in the middle of class, and people are more focused on you and your powers," Pippa said around a mouthful of apple. "You literally saved his life, and now everyone's acting like you're gonna summon the devil between periods."
Thorn sipped through the straw, unbothered. The faint metallic tang rolled over her tongue, the warmth spreading through her chest. Half vampire or not, feeding once a day was still part of the rules.
She lowered the pouch, eyes flat. "Relax, Pippa. It'll fade when the next shiny disaster shows up."
Pippa snorted. "Yeah? You've been here three years, and they still talk about that time you shattered a scrying mirror in Divination."
Thorn's lips twitched into an almost smile. "That was one time."
"Once was clearly enough," Pippa said with a grin, taking another bite of her apple.
Thorn tilted her head. "You seem more worried about Danny than me anyway."
Pippa froze mid-bite, blinking. "Well. Yeah, of course I'm worried. He nearly died, Thorn."
"Sure," Thorn said casually, swirling the pouch between her fingers. "But you're worried in a very girlfriend kind of way."
Pippa choked on her apple, coughing into her hand. "He's not my boyfriend!"
Thorn raised a brow. "Didn't say he was. You did."
Pippa glared at her, cheeks pink. "You're insufferable."
Thorn smirked faintly, satisfied. "And you're transparent."
The silence that followed was easy, familiar. For a moment, the whispers felt far away.
Thorn's gaze drifted past her as her eyes locked onto something else.
Or, someone else.
Across the room, Xavier sat alone at the far edge of the table by the North wing exit, sketchbook open, lunch untouched. His head was bent low, one hand smudged with charcoal. He wasn't drawing anything new. He was still tracing the same lines, the same twisted patterns from Danny's arms. Over and over.
Each time his pencil circled back, the shapes grew darker, deeper, until the page was streaked with black.
Pippa followed Thorn's gaze and frowned. "He's been like that since it happened," she whispered. "It's kind of creeping me out."
Thorn snorted softly. "Yeah? The accused murderer is creeping you out?" she teased, one brow lifting. A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, just enough to show a hint of fang.
Pippa made a face. "Shut up, you know what I mean." She turned halfway in her seat, watching the slow, deliberate motion of Xavier's hand against the page. Worry flickered behind her glasses. "He's… intense. Like he's somewhere else entirely."
Thorn's smirk faded. "Yeah," she said quietly. "He looks like someone who never came back."
Pippa hesitated, then leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Do you think it was actually him? The murders, I mean. Maybe his father paid the cops off?"
Thorn's eyes snapped back to her, the air between them tightening.
"Don't," she said simply. No edge. No sarcasm. Just finality. Thorn knew what it was like when people made unbased claims, and wouldn't stand to hear any more than she had to.
Pippa blinked, taken aback by the sudden steel in her tone.
"I was just asking-"
"I know," Thorn cut in, but her gaze was still fixed on Xavier. "I just don't think he's the one everyone should be afraid of."
Pippa's expression softened, confusion and curiosity warring on her face. "Then who should they be afraid of?"
Thorn tilted her head, the faint hum of conversation around them fading into background noise. "Whoever made Danny collapse in the middle of class," she said calmly.
Across the room, Xavier's pencil finally stopped. His thumb brushed the edge of the page, smearing the charcoal lines slightly. He brought his hand up and waved it over the page. For a moment, it looked like the sigils shifted. Breathing, almost pulsing beneath the paper. Thorn's eyes narrowed in curiosity.
"Come on, Gossip Girl." Thorn stood up, foil pouch still in her hand, as she crossed the patio over to Xavier's table. Pippa didn't even have the chance to argue before Thorn was already sitting across from him.
"Goddamit, Thorn," she muttered, taking a deep breath before she followed, trying to keep her head down.
Pippa slid into the seat beside Thorn, clutching her apple like a shield. "I can't believe we're doing this," she hissed under her breath.
Xavier looked up slowly, the movement cautious, almost reluctant. His eyes flicked between the two of them, expression unreadable. "Can I help you?"
"Maybe," Thorn said, leaning forward and nodding toward his sketchbook. "You planning to explain why your drawing just moved?"
His brow furrowed. "What?"
She tapped her finger against the page. "Don't play dumb with me, Thorpe. It shifted. I saw it. Like it wanted to crawl off the page."
Pippa's gaze darted between them, wide-eyed. "Wait, what? The drawing shifted? Like, it actually moved?"
Xavier exhaled slowly, setting his pencil down with care, as if choosing every word before he spoke. "It's… part of what I can do," he said quietly. "My drawings, I can make them... come to life.
Pippa blinked. "To life?"
His jaw tightened. "Yeah, something like that."
The wind stirred across the courtyard, fluttering the corners of the sketchbook. The lines on the page seemed to shift again, but barely; like the memory of motion, but enough to make Pippa's breath catch.
Thorn leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "You realize those marks aren't random, right? You're drawing something real. Something... potentially dangerous."
Xavier didn't look up. "I know," he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
Pippa cleared her throat, her voice an octave too high. "Okay, haha, just so I understand what's happening here, the creepy drawing is breathing, the hybrid thinks it's real, and the murder suspect makes his art come alive. Total normal lunch conversation. Absolutely love that for us."
Thorn didn't even glance at her. Her gaze stayed locked on the sketchbook. "It's more than that," she said quietly. The page seemed to shimmer under the midday light, shadows clinging to the edges of the sigils like smoke.
Before she could think better of it, she reached across the table, her fingers brushing the margin of the paper.
"Hey-" Xavier snapped, his grip tightened around his pencil. "Don't."
The word came out sharper than he meant it to. He yanked the sketchbook back, nearly knocking over his lunch tray in the process. The sound cracked through the courtyard, loud enough that a few students at nearby tables turned to look.
Thorn froze, hand still half-outstretched. The air between them tightened.
"I wasn't going to ruin it," she said evenly, though there was a flicker of hurt beneath the calm.
"You don't know what it is," he shot back. His fingers stayed white-knuckled on the edge of the page, smudging the charcoal. "You shouldn't touch things you don't understand."
Pippa blinked, trying to laugh it off, though her voice wavered. "Wow. Okay. So much for team bonding."
Neither of them looked at her.
Thorn's gaze lingered on him for a long moment, studying the tension in his shoulders, the haunted edge in his eyes. Then she leaned back, expression unreadable.
"You're right," she said at last, tone dry but quiet. "I don't understand."
Her fingers tapped once against the table. "So," she added, leaning forward just enough to catch Xavier's eyes, "make me understand."
Xavier froze, the faintest muscle ticking in his jaw. "No," he said, voice low. "The last time I got involved with something like this, it landed me in handcuffs in a dark cell."
He slid his sketchbook into his bag with deliberate care, each motion like rebuilding a wall. "So whatever you think you saw or whatever you wanted to see. You didn't."
Thorn arched a brow. "You really expect that to work here? At a school where everyone's hiding something?"
"I'm not interested in being part of some Reichenbach mystery," he cut in, standing before she could push further. "Not again."
Then Xavier stood up from the table and walked away without another word, leaving the air behind him colder than before. Like, even the warmth of the courtyard had followed him out.
"Well," Pippa murmured, watching his retreating figure, "that went better than I expected."
Thorn let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding and ran a hand through her hair, pushing back a few loose strands. The gesture looked casual, but her fingers lingered for a beat too long at the roots.
"Yeah," she muttered. "Xavier Thorpe is a real people person."
Pippa huffed a small laugh, though it came out more uncertain than amused. "You think he's always been like that? Or did we just win the trauma lottery?"
Thorn's lips curved, not quite a smile, but close. "With our luck?" She crumpled the empty foil pouch in her hand. "Probably both."
She rose from her chair, the last echo of Xavier's presence still hanging in the quiet.
"Probably both," she muttered again to herself, and for once, she couldn't help but wonder what his story actually was.