The weekend was a testament to the school’s short memory. The tragedy on the moor was already being filed away as a ghost story told to frighten new arrivals. By Sunday evening, the halls were filled with the buoyant, light chatter of students returning from the library, their minds occupied by upcoming class projects rather than the spectre of death.
Gwen sat in the Vespertine common room, which felt like sitting inside a hollowed-out sapphire. While Aurelius was all ebony wood and oxblood leather, Dorm Vespertine was characterized by indigo velvet and walls of diamond-stone—a translucent, faceted granite that caught the flickering firelight and fractured it into a thousand cold, blue shards.
Sloan was leaning over a low, claw-footed table, her face illuminated by the glow of her digital tablet. Beside her sat Estelle, looking like the poster child for preppy academic perfection in a crisp, gold-buttoned cardigan and a pleated skirt that seemed immune to wrinkles. Estelle was currently nodding at Sloan’s Equinox Social mood boards with an intensity that bordered on performative, her golden-hued features radiant in the blue light.
“I’m thinking of enchanted amber glass for the centrepieces,” Sloan murmured, her eyes darting between the images. “Something that glows with the warmth of a hearth. And with a little leaf veining, it’s very autumnal.”
“It’s simply divine, Sloan,” Estelle breathed, her eyes darting to Gwen to ensure her approval was noted. “It says ‘legacy,’ but with a hint of… accessible warmth.”
“It says ‘I have taste,’ Estelle. Let’s not over-complicate it,” Charlotte drawled from the shadows of a high-backed indigo wing chair. Charlotte was a silhouette of layered black silks and sharp angles, her dark features pulled into a habitual expression of sour boredom. She looked like she had been born at a funeral and found the service lacking. “The tragedy on the moor was a damp mess, but at least it provided a temporary reprieve from the smell of the Vapours’ desperation. Now they’re all back to scurrying through the halls like rodents.”
“It’s a strong choice, Sloan,” Gwen said, ignoring Charlotte’s cynicism and Estelle’s fawning. She sipped a perfectly steeped cup of Earl Grey, feeling the familiar warmth of her social circle closing around her. “But ensure the glow of the amber is soft. You want elegance, not a light show.”
“Gwen is right, as always,” Estelle chirped, tucking a perfectly curled strand of honeyed-blonde behind her ear. “Soft glow is much more exclusive.”
Charlotte let out a dry, rattling cough that might have been a laugh. “Exclusive. Like the way Holloway thinks he’s an equal after that circus in the duelling hall? I’ve never seen an O’Dorchaidhe let a commoner get that close, Gwen. It was almost… scandalous.”
Gwen’s fingers tightened slightly on the silver rim of her teacup. The memory of Will—his proximity, the heat of his magic, the way he’d looked at her after the duel—flashed through her mind. He wasn’t a pariah anymore. He was a Chosen One who had proven he could stand his ground.
“It was a demonstration, Charlotte,” Gwen replied smoothly, her voice a cool blade. “A necessary one. He has potential, even if he lacks the breeding to know what to do with it. As a rival, he’s…useful. It’s much more stimulating than competing with people who are already defeated.”
As Sloan adjusted designs on her tablet, Gwen’s gaze drifted toward the far end of the hall. Catriona Sinclair, the Circle’s Fundraising Chair, was busy at a massive oak desk. She wasn’t alone; she was being assisted by a third-year Vespertine student, a boy whose name Gwen couldn’t quite recall but who seemed particularly eager to please.
They were cataloguing a mountain of items prepared for the Equinox auction—vintage vials, silver-plated inkwells, and heavy leather-bound journals. Gwen watched as Catriona handed the Vespertine student a master key-ring, pointing toward the storage vaults located deep within the castle.
Diligent, Gwen thought. It made sense that Catriona would enlist a Vespertine student to help with the logistics of moving items for safekeeping. It was exactly the kind of cross-dorm cooperation the Circle encouraged.
Gwen turned back to Sloan, feeling a wave of calm wash over her. The humiliating conversation with Alistair Thorne was finally receding into the back of her mind. Normalcy had returned. The curfew was gone. And Gwen had reestablished control.
Everything was in its place.
“I’m sure you were magnificent, Gwen,” Sloan said with a soft smile.
“We could expect no less from Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe,” Estelle added, her voice dropping as she leaned in, seeking that proximity to power that sustained her. “The way you handled that…American. Everyone is saying he’s obsessed with you.”
“People say many things when they’re bored,” Gwen said, though a traitorous spark of satisfaction lit up in her chest.
Gwen let out a slow, contented breath. She had endured the Dullahan crises. She had her allies exactly where they needed to be. Will Holloway was no longer a shadow over her future; he was a target. A beautiful, stubborn, prophesied target.
Gwen let out a slow, contented breath. She had navigated the fallout. She had won.
*
Gwen bolted upright before the first scream hit its crescendo. Her sleep had been disturbed by the heavy thud-clack of iron-shod hooves on granite, accompanied by a high, whistling shriek that made her molars ache. It wasn’t in the Aurelius halls. It was coming from the North Wing’s sister dorm: Dorm Vespertine.
Sloan.
Gwen didn’t reach for a robe. No time. She grabbed her signet ring from the nightstand and sprinted. She was out the door in her silk slip and bare feet, the cold stone biting at her skin as she crossed through the antechamber connecting the two dorms.
The Vespertine common room was a nightmare rendered in indigo and shadow. The familiar floral perfumes were choked out by the charnel stench of a grave dirt and funeral pyre. In the centre of the room, the Dullahan’s stallion—a beast of midnight and muscle—reared back, its hooves striking the parquet floor with enough force to splinter the centuries-old wood into toothpicks.
As Gwen scanned the room for Sloan, her eyes snagged on the far wall, near the darkened hearth. For a split second, the chaos blurred. A shimmer of iridescent dragon scales—the signature of the castle’s concealed passages, known only to select members of the Aurelian Circle—faded like a dying ember, returning to the expected portrait of Lady Isolde, a long-deceased sorceress known for her mastery of clandestine arts. The painted figure no longer looked stoic; she looked down at the carnage with a very real, very modern expression of profound concern.
A girl’s shriek pulled her back to the slaughter. There was no time to track whoever had recently slipped through the passages while the room was screaming.
“Out! Everyone out!” the Vespertine Dorm Leader was shouting, his face pale and sweat-streaked. He was firing a stream of fire at the rider. It was a tactical disaster; the rider simply laughed, a hollow, rattling sound, while the nearby heavy silk drapes caught flame, forcing other students to scramble to douse the fire instead of the monster.
Charlotte and Estelle tried to run for the door, but Estelle tripped, skidding on the wood floor as she fell flat. A massive horse-hoof descending like a falling anvil.
“Aegis Bastion!” Gwen’s voice was a whip-crack.
The gold shield flared to life, a dome of shimmering geometric patterns inches above Estelle’s head. The impact of the hoof sent a jarring vibration up Gwen’s arm, threatening to crack her radius, but the shield held. “Move!” she commanded.
Estelle caught up with Charlotte at the door and they ran out.
She spotted Sloan huddled behind a marble statue of a muse. A hoof swung toward Sloan’s head, and Gwen didn’t even think—she lunged, her shoulder slamming into Sloan to knock her out of the way. “Run, Sloan! Don’t look back!”
Sloan, usually so poised, looked at Gwen with wide, glazed eyes before scrambling toward the exit. She wasn’t a fighter. Gwen would not let her be taken.
Gwen pivoted, her mind a cold, calculating machine. Disarming charms were useless against a creature that didn’t hold a weapon with hands. Kinetic strikes slid off its spectral hide like water.
“Stop firing!” Gwen shouted at the Dorm Leader. “You’re only burning the dorm down!”
“You got a better idea!?” the Dorm Leader shouted. “Nothing works!”
Gwen dropped to one knee, her ring engulfing her hand in a fierce, icy blue glow. She visualized the moisture in the air, the damp Highland fog clinging to the horse’s fetlocks. “Semitam glacialem cape!”
The floor beneath the stallion erupted in a flash of frost. The horse’s hooves froze instantly to the granite; the beast let out a shrill, frustrated scream as it found itself anchored.
“Everyone out! Now!” the Dorm Leader roared, finally sensing the opening. “Retreat to the Aurelius wards!”
Gwen stood her ground, her breath coming in shallow, icy plumes. “I’ll lock it in!” she shouted over the chaos. “Go!”
But the Dullahan wasn’t a beast of biology; it was a curse. With a sickening, splintering crack, the horse wrenched its legs free, shattering the ice and the floor beneath it. In one fluid, terrifying motion, the rider leaned down and snagged a fleeing first-year by the arm.
“No!” Gwen lunged, but the distance was an impossible chasm.
The Dorm Leader launched a desperate shard of ice that struck the rider’s shoulder. The girl was dropped, tumbling to the floor, but the damage was done. A black, oily mass bubbled beneath the skin of her forearm, spreading upward with a visible, necrotic hunger. The girl’s scream was a raw peeling of the soul.
Gwen saw the rot reaching the elbow. In five, it would hit the heart. In three seconds, it would creep above the elbow. In two seconds, Gwen could sever it.
Gwen didn’t hesitate. She didn’t have time for a prayer or a protest. She stepped forward, her palm facing not the rider, but the girl. She visualized a surgical line—clean, absolute, and final.
“Secare!”
A blade of pure, concentrated white light flashed. The girl’s arm was severed just above the elbow before the rot could claim further. It was a gruesome, horrific necessity. The girl went limp, the screaming silenced by the sheer shock of the trauma.
The Dorm Leader gasped, horrified, but he didn’t stop. He slammed a cauterization spell into the wound, the smell of burnt copper filling the air, and dragged the unconscious student toward the antechamber.
The heavy doors to the Vespertine wing burst open. Professor Prospero strode in, his black robes billowing like the wings of a vengeful raven. Beside him, Professor Astra moved with a lethal, quiet grace.
“Out!” Prospero barked, his eyes landing on Gwen, then the severed limb on the floor, then the rider. His expression was unreadable—a mix of fury and something that looked dangerously like pride. “All students to the Aurelius common room! Now!”
Gwen didn’t wait to be told twice. She backed away, her palm still raised, her blood pounding in her ears, her throat. As the professors stepped into the room, Prospero slammed the massive oak doors shut, the boom echoing through the North Wing like a funeral bell.
Gwen stood in the Aurelius hall, her bare feet numb. She looked down at her hands. They weren’t shaking. She had been perfect. She had been precise. And she had never felt more like a monster.
*
Gwen dressed at sunrise. She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t tried. Professors Prospero and Astra had banished the headless rider from Cairn-Gait, but that didn’t erase what had happened. What she’d done.
Gwen had rallied the on-call patrols to re-check all the protection wards. Again. Nothing had changed. The wards were still strong. The only result of their investigation was that one of the secret passages had been opened last night—but that was a coincidence more than a clue. Any Circle member who’d held a Council position would have that knowledge.
She’d arrived at the infirmary wing the very minute visiting hours started. In her hand, she clutched a bouquet of white anemones. They were stupid. They were a fragile, useless gesture for a girl who had lost something she could never grow back.
The infirmary smelled of sterile lavender, crushed rosemary, and the metallic tang of blood that no amount of scouring charms could truly erase. Gwen stood in the doorway, her spine so straight it ached. She had spent an hour on her appearance—her silver-blonde hair pulled into a tight knot that tugged at her scalp, charcoal blazer buttoned high over a chalk-white lace mock-neck. She looked like a leader. She felt like a hollowed-out shell.
Gwen approached the bed in the corner. The girl—a first-year Vapour named Maya—was pale, her frame swallowed by the hospital linens. Her left sleeve was pinned back, ending in a blunt, bandaged stump.
A young nurse approached Gwen first. Gwen noticed the nurse put herself between Gwen and the girl—blocking her view of the person sitting next to the bed.
“How is she?” Gwen whispered the question.
“She’s recovering well,” the nurse assured her, gently patting her arm. “Fortunately, you cut off the rot completely. She won’t be affected by the death curse.”
Gwen felt a little of the weight lifted. It was a little easier to breathe. “Good. Has she—”
Maya’s eyes snapped open. When they landed on Gwen, the fear in them curdled instantly into a searing, white-hot hatred.
“Get out,” Maya whispered, her voice rasping.
Gwen didn’t flinch, though her stomach performed a nauseating somersault. “Maya, I came to—I wanted to explain. If I hadn’t acted, it would have reached your heart in seconds. It was the only—”
“Look what you did to me!” Maya shrieked, her voice cracking as she tried to sit up. The friend seated beside the bed, a boy with red-rimmed eyes, moved to block Gwen, his expression twisted in a scowl. “You’re a monster! You just wanted to show off! Get her out of here!”
The older head nurse hurried over, her face a mask of professional pity. “Miss O’Dorchaidhe, I think it’s best if you leave. The patient is…distressed.”
Gwen didn’t argue. She turned on her heel and walked out, her chin high, though the air in her lungs felt like liquid lead. She made it to the hallway before the weight of it truly hit her. She looked down at the anemones. They were a mockery.
“Gwen.”
The voice was low, gravelly, and far too close. Will Holloway was leaning against the stone wall, his green eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her want to scream. He looked like he hadn’t slept either—his flannel was rumpled, his hair a chaotic mess of dark waves.
“The girl isn’t up for visitors, Holloway,” Gwen snapped, her voice trembling despite her best efforts. She gripped the flowers tighter. “And I doubt she wants to bond over your shared experience of being a target.”
“I…wasn’t looking for her,” Will said, stepping into her path. “I was looking for you. I heard what happened. What you had to do.”
Gwen let out a sharp, hysterical laugh. “Oh, did you? Did you hear about the heroic Ink who maimed a student? I’m sure the Vapours are writing songs about it as we speak.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Will said, ignoring her bite. His concern was genuine. It was a thorn taunting Gwen for her vulnerability.
“I’m not the one in the infirmary, Holloway!” Gwen shouted, her composure finally beginning to fray at the edges. Panic made her heartbeat race. She forced her tone to lower. She couldn’t cause a scene outside the infirmary. “I’m fine,” she said. She smiled painfully. A pathetic attempt to be numb. “I’m an O’Dorchaidhe. I’m the Community Service Chair. I did my duty.”
“F**k, Gwen, can we just talk for a second?” Will reached out, his hand brushing her arm.
Gwen shoved him back, her heart hammering against her ribs. “If you want a conversation, go talk to your friends. I’m busy.”
She looked up at him, ready to hurl another insult, but the words died in her throat. Will’s expression shifted from frustration to a sudden, jarring softness. He wasn’t looking at the fractured mask she designed to keep everyone at a distance. He was looking at the tears that had finally, traitorously, welled up in her grey eyes.
Gwen felt the first hot drop spill over. She was mortified. She was gutted.
“Here,” she choked out, thrusting the stupid bouquet at his chest. Will instinctively caught them, looking bewildered. “Go be a hero. Give these to her. She’ll probably like them better coming from you.”
Gwen stormed off, her vision blurred by the salt and the shame. She didn’t head for the common room or the library. She ran for the first empty, dust-choked classroom in the West Tower.
She slammed the door and threw a silencing charm at the walls with a desperate flick of her wrist.
The moment the spell took hold, Gwen collapsed. Her back hit the cold stone, and she slid to the floor, her knees pulled to her chest. The first sob was a violent, racking thing that tore through her throat. She cried until her ribs ached, her forehead pressed against her knees.
“People with your kind of power don’t get to make mistakes.”
She had told Will those exact words. She had preached perfection like a gospel, and now she was drowning in it. She couldn’t breathe. She had saved Maya’s life—she knew that. The logic was sound. A small sacrifice for a chance to live. But she had failed to be the protector she had trained to be. A perfect protector would have stopped the rider before he ever touched the girl. A perfect Ink wouldn’t have had to wound to save.
She wasn’t perfect. She was just a girl with a ring and a bloodline she was failing to live up to. And the worst part—the part that made her sob harder into the dusty floor—was that Will Holloway had been the one to see the cracks in the porcelain.