The courtyard had emptied hours ago. After dinner, the students had scattered to their evening activities, leaving laughter and footsteps to fade into the far-off corridors until Reichenbach felt half-abandoned.
Xavier had even forced himself to go to archery practice, clinging to some fragile idea of normalcy. But every time an arrow sliced through the air and hit its target, all he saw were the burns on Danny's skin. The jagged, spiraling sigils seared into flesh that refused to leave his mind.
"Hey, Thorpe. You planning to stand there all day?"
Xavier blinked back into the present.
Marcellus, the archery captain, had a sharp grin that gleamed under the mid-evening light. He stood across from Xavier. His bowstring pulled taut, the arrow aimed straight at Xavier's head.
"Whoa." Xavier's voice came out sharper than he meant it to. He raised his hands slightly, a reflex more than a threat. "That's not exactly standard practice."
"Relax," Marcellus drawled, his smirk lazy and self-satisfied. "Wasn't actually gonna let it fly."
Xavier didn't move. The air between them stretched tight, humming with the tension of the drawn bowstring.
Marcellus tilted his head, eyes glinting. "Then again," he said, tone turning colder, "maybe I should. A murder suspect shows up at my school, and suddenly a werewolf collapses with some mysterious new disease? Kind of hard not to notice the timing."
Before Xavier could respond, the bowstring snapped forward.
The arrow whistled past his shoulder, close enough that he felt the rush of air, and buried itself dead-center in the target behind him.
Xavier exhaled hard, shaking his head as Marcellus strode past to retrieve his shot. The laughter that followed was the kind that got under your skin, half-joking, half-daring you to object.
Xavier exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening. "Nice shot," he said evenly. "You almost hit your point."
The smirk on Marcellus's face faltered just a little.
Xavier turned back toward the line of archers, trying to lose himself in routine. Draw, aim, release. Again and again. But his mind wouldn't shut up. He strained his hearing between shots, hoping to catch a whisper of Danny Cruso's name.
Nothing is known about his condition; only speculation and schoolyard rumors remain. Reichenbach's rumor mill was worse than Nevermore's, but clearly, it was the only way to know anything. There hadn't been any administrative announcements, nor had there been anything from teachers.
He caught snippets between shots:
"Burned alive, right there in class."
"What about that hybrid girl? I heard she used shadows on him."
"They say she bound him like a demon."
"Or tried to. She nearly killed Danny while doing it."
Xavier's jaw tightened.
He wanted to say something. To tell them that Thorn wasn't the cause of what happened to Danny. That she'd been the only one who moved fast enough to help. But Xavier had learned better by now.
He'd learned to keep his head down when the rumors started.
Same story. Different school.
Different monsters.
And somehow, it still felt like the same cell.
Hours passed. More arrows were loosed, laughter faded, equipment packed up, and one by one, the archery team drifted back toward their dorms. By the time Xavier finally slung his bow over his shoulder and headed for The Observatory, the campus had gone still, save for the whisper of wind sliding between the old stone walls.
The North Wing smelled faintly of turpentine and rain. Someone had left a window cracked open again, trying to mask the smell of oil paints.
His roommate was already sprawled on his bed when Xavier came in, a tall, lanky guy with an easy grin and honey brown eyes. Malrick, a gorgon from Norway. He was the kind of student who always looked like he'd just woken up, perpetually smelling faintly of incense and weed.
"Yo, Thorpe," Malrick greeted, a lazy drawl in his voice. "You miss the fireworks at the Furnace. Guess the wolves were too quiet for the full moon this time. Kinda creepy."
"Yeah," Xavier muttered, tossing his bag onto the foot of his bed. "I heard."
He peeled off his hoodie and grabbed his towel, retreating to the shared bathroom in the corner of their room. The light flickered above the sink for a moment before it settled. He twisted the shower knob until steam rolled out, fogging the mirror; the heat was a welcome distraction from the chill that had settled into his bones from this morning.
The water hit his shoulders first, washing away the smell of metal and chalk dust. For a moment, he let himself stop thinking. About Danny. About Thorn. About the way the sigils burned into his mind every time he blinked.
By the time he came back, hair damp and curling at the ends, Malrick was half-asleep, headphones around his neck.
"Don't stay up too late drawing ghosts again," Malrick mumbled without opening his eyes. "I like my sleep demon-free."
"Yeah, yeah."
Xavier tugged on a dark T-shirt and sweatpants, then dropped into the chair by his desk. His sketchbook lay open where he'd left it hours ago.
The candle he'd burned down to the glass had drowned in its own wax, so he reached into the drawer, struck a match, and lit a new one. The small flame steadied, casting a soft light across the graphite and paper.
A buzz from the desk made him jump slightly. His phone.
Ajax.
A simple text, checking in.
How's Switzerland, man? You surviving?
For the first time in weeks, Xavier actually smiled. It tugged at the corners of his mouth, unfamiliar but real. He typed out a quick reply, something about the cold, the altitude, the weirdly serious teachers. Then set the phone aside, still smiling faintly. At least someone had remembered him.
He reached for his pencil. He'd meant to draw something simple, maybe the mountains that bordered the academy, or the outline of a wolf's paw against the snow. But his hand had other ideas.
It moved on its own rhythm, retracing those sigils.
Those twisting, spiraling lines. Each time Xavier told himself he'd stop, the shapes only multiplied, crawling across the page like vines.
Suddenly, he froze.
At first, he thought it was the wind. But the wind didn't sound like that.
A melody, faint and slow, wound through the air. It wasn't coming from the window or the halls; it was inside the walls. Carefully threading through the stones themselves. It was haunting, almost human, but not quite.
Xavier looked up from his desk, heart thudding once, sharp and hard. The candle guttered. The sigils on the page shimmer faintly, beating in time with the sound.
He stood.
Whatever it was, it was calling.
He moved quickly but silently to avoid waking his roommate. One hand grabbed the handle of his lantern, the other wrapped around the spine of his sketchbook, and he followed the sound until he reached the patio.
Only candlelight and the distant hum of Reichenbach's wards lingered in the air. Low, vibrating, almost like breathing if he let himself listen too closely.
Somewhere beyond the open archway, music drifted through the halls. Faint, haunting, impossibly thin, a tune that barely sounded like a song at all. The notes scraped against his skull, pulling him back to nights at Nevermore when he'd wake to the sound of the Hyde howling in the woods.
Different noise. Same feeling.
The kind that told him something was about to break.
He should've just gone to bed. He'd promised himself he wouldn't get pulled into Reichenbach's chaos. Not again, not like at Nevermore. But he sat down at the end of one of the patio tables. The candlelight kept burning, the shadows kept moving on the paper like they were alive, and his hand refused to stop.
"You know, for someone who claims he's not interested in Reichenbach mysteries, you look pretty obsessed," a voice said from behind him.
He turned, startled. Thorn stood in the archway, half-shadowed by the flicker of his candle. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the gold of her jewelry glinting faintly as she toyed with her blood vial chain between her fingers.
Xavier swallowed hard and looked back at his sketchbook. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that."
"You shouldn't sit alone in the patio after curfew," she shot back, stepping closer. "Looks suspicious."
"Story of my life," he muttered.
She came to stand beside him, her gaze falling to the open page. The candle's flame caught the graphite, making the lines look wet, like the sigils were still bleeding onto the page.
"It's the music, isn't it?" she asked quietly.
Xavier's hand stilled above the paper. "You hear it too," he said softly, barely above a whisper, as his gaze slowly turned up to look at her.
"I've been hearing it all night," Thorn admitted. "It's like it's coming from the walls."
He nodded slowly. "That's what I thought. But then…" He hesitated, glancing down at the page again. "I started sketching, and it started to look like this."
"Like what?"
"Like something that shouldn't exist."
The words came out rougher than he had intended. He leaned back, running a hand through his hair, leaving a streak of charcoal at his temple.
At Nevermore, he thought he understood monsters. The Hyde, the way it hid under the surface until something set it off… but this... felt different.
He gestured toward the page. "This feels older. Smarter. Like it's watching."
Thorn crouched beside the bench, her eyes flicking over the spiraling marks. "So you think it's connected? The silence in The Furnace? Danny? The music?"
"I don't know," Xavier admitted. "But if I keep drawing, maybe I'll find the pattern."
She tilted her head, studying him. "You realize that sounds insane, right?"
He huffed a quiet laugh, the first real sound of humor she'd heard from him. "Wouldn't be the first time."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The night air was cool, carrying the faintest echo of that impossible melody through the arches above them. The candle flickered, and the shadows of the sigils seemed to twist again, reaching outward.
Xavier nodded faintly. "You didn't hesitate back there. When Danny went down."
Thorn's gaze flicked up, guarded. "Somebody had to move."
"That thing you did," he said slowly, eyes narrowing. "The shadows… they moved like they were alive. I've never seen anything like that."
She hesitated, as if weighing how much to say. "Most people haven't," she said at last. "It's called a shadow-weld. Comes from my psychic side."
"You're a psychic?"
"Yeah," Thorn said, tone dry, defensive. "Half. "
"So you… pull the dark out of things?"
"More like... it listens when I call." She glanced at the candle on the table.
The flame bent slightly, its shadow stretching across the surface as if it had heard her name. "It's not as dramatic as it looks. Mostly, it just scares people."
"I can see why," Xavier murmured, but his voice carried more awe than fear.
Thorn's lips twitched. "You think it's unnatural."
"I think it's dangerous," he said quietly.
"Danger is the only thing that answers."
A flicker of silence passed between them. Xavier's gaze drifted to his sketchbook, the drawing still faintly pulsing under the weight of his hand.
The candle guttered between them, its flame bending again, half toward her shadows, half toward his page, as if even the light couldn't decide which one of them it belonged to.
Thorn leaned closer, voice softer now. "You said you weren't interested in mysteries," she repeated.
"I'm not," he said. But his eyes stayed on the page, and his voice sounded more like a confession than a denial.
"Then why are you still here?"
He didn't have an answer. Not one he could say out loud. Because he missed his friends. Because he missed feeling useful. Because every time he tried to stop caring, something like this dragged him back in.
Instead, he said quietly, "Because I can't sleep when something's wrong."
Thorn's lips curved, a knowing smile flickering there and gone. "Guess we have that in common."
The music faded slowly into silence. The candle sputtered out, leaving only the two of them and the faint shimmer of graphite sigils still pulsing softly in the dark.
"I know you're not a murderer," Thorn said softly. She didn't look at him when she said it, like the words slipped out before she could catch them. Her jaw tightened, like she wanted to pull them back.
Xavier's brow arched. He looked up at her, the faintest crease forming between his brows. "What?"
She finally met his eyes. "You don't have it in you," she said simply. "You're too much of the tortured artist type. The only thing you'd kill is a tube of Holbein Vernét."
A short, rough laugh escaped him before he could stop it. He shook his head, closing his sketchbook with a soft thud. "You think you have me all figured out, don't you?"
Thorn tilted her head, a crooked smile tugging at her mouth. "I don't think I know you," she said. "But I think I understand you."
For a moment, neither spoke. The night air hummed faintly between them, the echo of the music still lingering somewhere neither could name.
Xavier studied her face in the dark. He wanted to say something. To deny it, maybe, or admit that she was closer than she realized, but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, he just said quietly, "That might be worse."
Thorn's smile deepened. "Maybe."
For a moment, all Xavier could hear was the faint hum of the night, and that strange, faraway melody winding through the stone again, almost like it was waiting for them to notice.
Thorn broke the silence first. "You're still going to chase this, aren't you?"
He exhaled through his nose, a humorless sound. "You're still going to follow me, aren't you?"
She tilted her head, her blood vial glinting in the moonlight that had crept through the archway.
"Maybe I just don't like mysteries that try to kill my classmates."
He met her gaze, and for the first time since Nevermore, he didn't feel entirely alone in the madness.
Thorn straightened, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets. "You sketch," she said, turning toward the darkened halls. "And I'll be there."
She paused at the archway, half-lit by the moon. "Let's find out who's trying to hum us to death."
Then she was gone, swallowed by shadow and the echo of her boots against the stone.
Xavier pressed a hand to the sketchbook, feeling the faint pulse beneath the cover, whether from the sigils or his own heartbeat, he couldn't tell.
Thorn reminded him of her.
The same sharp wit. The same stubbornness that pulled trouble close instead of running from it. Wednesday had looked at monsters like puzzles to be solved; Thorn looked at them like rivals to outwit. But both had that same gravity. That same quiet defiance made his chest ache with a mix of nostalgia and regret.
He'd told himself he wouldn't get dragged in again. That he'd stay out of it this time.
But as the last trace of the song faded into silence, Xavier already knew he wouldn't.
He never did.