The next morning came heavy with frost.
It clung to the iron railings of Green Walls Academy, dusted the stone pathways in pale white, and glazed the schoolyard with a brittle stillness that cracked beneath hurried footsteps. Students rushed past in clusters, breath blooming in the cold air, laughter sharp and careless—but none of it touched Nyx.
He moved through them like a shadow carved out of winter itself.
Inside the classroom, warmth battled the cold in vain. Mr. Gooslin's booming voice thundered through the room, chalk screeching against the board as arithmetic formulas stacked meaninglessly upon one another. Numbers. Logic. Order. All of it felt painfully small.
Nyx sat hunched over his desk, shoulders slightly curled, his sharp eyes fixed not on the blackboard but on the book hidden beneath his textbook.
The Book of Blood.
Its crimson leather cover gleamed faintly, catching the weak classroom light as if it breathed on its own. It looked ancient beside the crisp pages of school notebooks—alive, almost mocking, like a predator pretending to be still. Nyx's fingers brushed its edge with reverence and hunger, the way one might touch a blade before drawing it.
The pages whispered as he opened them.
Not with sound—but with meaning.
Lines burned themselves into his mind, etched deep enough to leave scars.
Witches do not belong to one world.
They carved portals between realms—between the human world and the Mirror World—slipping through seams invisible to mortal eyes. These gateways were rare, unstable, guarded by laws older than bloodlines.
Nyx read faster.
When witches reached the age of marriage, they were compelled to cross into the human realm. Not by desire alone—but by survival. They took human partners to bear children who could strengthen dying covens, half-blood heirs meant to preserve what magic was losing.
Nyx's breath caught.
Jane Cullen.
Her letters. Her desperation. Her endless waiting by the lake.
The puzzle snapped together so sharply it hurt.
Jane hadn't lingered in Eleus's life by coincidence. She hadn't loved him despite her nature.
She had loved him because of it.
Because the law demanded it. Because her existence demanded it.
And Eleus—Eleus had been standing at the edge of a world he didn't understand, refusing to cross, refusing to choose.
Nyx's jaw tightened.
So this was the truth buried beneath silence.
So this was what Eleus had been running from.
The realization consumed Nyx so completely that he failed to notice the gaze fixed upon him.
From the corner of the room, Jury Silla watched.
The boy's eyes flicked from Nyx's still form to the unnatural book half-hidden beneath his desk. A slow, vicious grin spread across Jury's face—not joy, but opportunity. Envy curdled into cruelty.
His hand shot up.
"Mr. Gooslin!" Jury's voice cut through the classroom. "He's not listening. He's hiding something under his book!"
The room turned.
Whispers rippled outward like cracks in ice.
Nyx looked up slowly.
Mr. Gooslin strode down the aisle, his heavy steps deliberate, shadow falling over Nyx's desk. Without hesitation, the teacher seized the Book of Blood and lifted it into the air.
"What is this?" he demanded.
Nyx did not answer.
He did not flinch.
His gaze locked onto Jury—cold, venomous, promising something far worse than words. Jury's smirk faltered. For a split second, fear flickered behind his eyes.
Joey, seated behind Nyx, stared in horror.
He recognized the book instantly.
Nyx had sworn it was gone. Promised he'd stopped reading it. Promised it no longer mattered.
And yet here it was.
Bleeding truth into daylight.
Mr. Gooslin tugged at the cover, trying to open it.
The book did not yield.
Its pages refused to part, sealed as though fused by an unseen force. Mr. Gooslin grunted, frustration creasing his face.
"Enough," he snapped. "This will be locked in the staffroom."
Nyx was suspended on the spot.
Banished to the hall.
An hour later, Diana Lory arrived.
Her heels struck the floor like gunshots. She grabbed Nyx by the arm and dragged him outside, her voice sharp with fury and mockery. In the car, she unloaded every bitter word she could find—about disgrace, about his father, about disappointment.
Nyx stared out the window.
"You don't have to worry about my father," he said quietly. Then, turning his head, eyes glinting, he added, "witch."
The word landed like a blade.
Before she could react, Nyx unlatched the door and jumped.
Cold air tore at him as he hit the ground and ran—fast, silent, furious—back toward the school.
At the Lory residence, death arrived in his absence.
Diana stormed through the gates, anger still burning, until the courtyard froze her in place. People stood clustered in pale horror.
Eleus lay shattered on the stone below the terrace.
Dead.
Her scream split the sky.
Nyx did not hear it.
He was already inside the empty staffroom, breath sharp, eyes scanning, fingers aching as he searched for the locked cabinet. Answers mattered more than grief now.
A hand grabbed his wrist.
Nyx spun—ready to strike.
Joey.
"I took it," Joey whispered, pressing the Book of Blood into his hands. "But why did you lie to me?"
Nyx hesitated.
"I'll tell you everything," he said finally. "But not now. I need to find the portal."
That night, the lake waited.
Frozen ground crunched beneath Nyx's boots as the air grew heavier—charged, unnatural. Then he saw it.
The portal.
Liquid glass suspended in air.
And standing before it—
Eleus's soul.
The moon dimmed.
The portal flickered.
And vanished.
Nyx screamed into the silence as the world closed itself off.
Nyx did not return to the Lory residence.
He could not.
The idea of stepping into a house drowned in mourning—of facing faces twisted by grief, voices heavy with questions he could not answer—felt unbearable. Whatever he had felt for Eleus was tangled, complicated, buried beneath resentment and longing, but it was real. And right now, reality was sharper than any blade.
So he went home.
Snow creaked beneath his boots as he crossed the silent fields, the night swallowing his figure inch by inch. The wind whispered through bare trees, carrying with it the distant echo of lamentation drifting from the Lory mansion. Even from afar, the grief was visible—flickering lights, clustered shadows, the weight of loss pressing against the dark sky.
Nyx shut the door behind him and leaned against it, his chest rising and falling unevenly.
The Book of Blood rested in his hands.
He moved to his room without turning on the lights, the familiar darkness wrapping around him like a second skin. He dropped onto the bed, the book settling against his chest, its weight far heavier than paper and leather ever should be.
"Why?" he whispered into the silence.
No answer came.
He opened the book again.
The pages no longer burned.
They were still. Silent. As though the knowledge he craved had been deliberately withheld. He flipped through them faster, frustration building, fingers tightening until his knuckles paled.
Nothing.
No mention of the portal's collapse.
No warning about ghosts.
No explanation for Eleus's soul standing guard like a sentry between Nyx and his destiny.
The book had given him just enough truth to ruin him—and then closed its mouth.
Nyx slammed it shut.
The sound echoed too loudly in the quiet room.
He rose and went to the window.
Beyond the frost-glazed glass, the Lory mansion glimmered faintly in the distance. Lights burned in nearly every room. People moved like restless spirits within its walls, their grief too loud to be contained. Even from here, Nyx could imagine the scene—Diana's shattered composure, the relatives whispering in disbelief, the body laid out cold and unmoving.
Eleus was gone.
The truth settled not like sorrow, but like a knot tightening around Nyx's ribs.
He had not been there.
And yet Eleus had found him.
At the lake.
Guarding the portal.
Nyx pressed his palm against the glass.
"That wasn't an accident," he muttered. "You were trying to stop me."
Or warn me.
Sleep came slowly, dragging him down in uneven waves.
And when it came, it did not bring rest.
The dream began without transition.
Nyx stood in a place that felt wrong—too quiet, too still. The air shimmered faintly, like light reflected off warped glass. Then he saw her.
Jane Cullen.
She sat at a wooden table beneath a flickering lantern, her face pale, luminous, eyes dark with exhaustion and resolve. Ink stained her fingers as she wrote feverishly on parchment, her hand trembling as though time itself pressed against her spine.
Nyx moved closer.
The words lifted from the page and floated toward him.
If you are reading this…
Her voice wasn't sound. It was memory. Regret.
She wrote of portals—of how they were not merely doors, but contracts. Of rituals forbidden even among witches, performed only when desperation outweighed law.
Nyx watched as she listed the ingredients.
Blood of a human.
Skin of an animal.
Feathers of a bird.
Then—
The final line blurred.
Smudged.
Unreadable.
Nyx reached for it.
The parchment burned.
Jane looked up suddenly, her eyes locking onto his, sharp and knowing.
"Don't follow me," she whispered.
The lantern went out.
Nyx jolted awake.
His heart slammed violently against his ribs, sweat slicking his skin despite the cold. The Book of Blood lay open beside him—its pages fluttering on their own, as though stirred by an unseen wind.
One page glowed faintly.
A new symbol had appeared.
Nyx stared at it, breath hitching.
Whatever Jane had left behind…
Whatever ritual she had begun…
It was calling him now.
And this time, the Mirror World was no longer waiting.