∆
Arthur did not wake that morning.
Auren did.
The boy's first inhale was not the shallow, half-distracted drag Arthur usually took before rolling over. No — Auren's breath was deep, deliberate, and ended with the faintest curl of a smirk tugging his lips.
Auren Reeves stretched like someone who owned every inch of the bed, then swung his legs over the side with casual arrogance. His reflection in the mirror confirmed it — still Arthur's face, but changed in ways that would make people tilt their heads.
The hair was lighter now, streaks of silver glinting in the morning light. Still long and sleek, yes, but untidier — as though he'd been caught in a breeze that left deliberate chaos in its wake. A few loose strands trailed over his left cheek, the rest swept just enough to obscure most of his right eye. The single visible iris, a stormy blue-grey, studied him back with the lazy patience of someone who had nowhere urgent to be, but was already calculating his next move.
Older. That was the strange part. At thirteen, Arthur looked like a young boy carrying the weight of too many problems. Auren? He looked like he was already fifteen, maybe sixteen — the sort who could sweet-talk you into lending him money and thanking him for the privilege.
He stepped out of the dorm, rolling his shoulders. "Let's make this interesting," he murmured under his breath.
He stepped into the hallway, the low chatter of early morning classes buzzing in the distance. And just like fate had a sense of humor, the cousins appeared from around the corner — Vivienne first, book in hand; Micah a few paces behind, muttering to himself; Dorian walking like the hallway belonged to him; Liam trailing silently, unreadable as always.
"Well," Auren said, spreading his arms like a showman, "look at this little reunion."
Vivienne stopped mid-step. "You…" Her eyes flicked over him quickly — hair, smirk, posture. "You look different."
"Different good or different bad?" Auren asked, leaning casually against the wall, a strand of hair falling just so over his lips.
"Different like… you might actually be fun to talk to." Her voice carried the faintest note of amusement.
Micah squinted at him. "Something's off. You're acting weird."
"You're sharp, Micah. I appreciate that in family." Auren pointed a finger-gun at him, grin easy and unbothered.
Micah didn't grin back.
Dorian crossed his arms. "What's with you this morning? Did you get into someone's potions stash?"
"Only if you count coffee," Auren replied smoothly. "Strong enough to make a banshee hum."
Vivienne chuckled. Micah's suspicion deepened. Liam said nothing — but his gaze stayed on Auren, long enough for Auren to feel the weight of it.
Auren met Liam's stare with a slow smile. Definitely another Arthur, he thought.
∆∆
The hallway during lunch was always chaos — voices bouncing off the stone walls, parchment fluttering, a few enchanted quills gone rogue. Normally, Arthur Reeves would've cut through like a shadow, unnoticed, ignored, or outright avoided.
But today wasn't Arthur. Today it was Auren.
He moved differently — shoulders loose, stride easy, eyes half-lidded but sharp. He caught stares and didn't look away. And when he smirked, it hit like a charm spell.
---
Leaning against the wall, Castor Wray was mid-argument with another Thunderbird boy, his voice quick and edged. He spotted Arthur approaching and his tone dipped, preparing for the usual awkward silence.
But instead—
"You argue like you're trying to win a duel with words, Wray. Bet you lose half the time."
Castor blinked, stunned. "What—did Reeves just talk to me?"
Auren tilted his head, grin tugging wider.
"Relax, you've got the jawline of a winner. The brain's still catching up, though."
Castor actually snorted — then quickly masked it with a scowl, but his ears went red.
Castor: "…You're weird, Reeves."
Auren just winked and moved on.
Further down, Liora Gwyn was tucked against the wall, arms full of books, braids swaying as she moved. Normally Arthur would've passed her without a word.
But Auren slowed, caught her gaze, and nodded politely.
"Liora Gwyn. Thanks, by the way."
She blinked. "For what?"
"The book. Nonverbal spells, remember? You handed it to me once. It… helped."
For the first time in a while, Liora faltered in her neat composure. She held his gaze, searching, then gave a small, genuine smile.
Liora: "…You actually read it?"
"I read you better."
Her cheeks colored, and she ducked away into the current of students, muttering something about class. Auren kept walking, pleased with himself.
At the bend in the hall, Tobias Rolys and his loyal shadows, Nerys Vale and Jonan Pell, blocked the way like they owned it. Arthur Reeves usually got muttered jabs here — "Ice prince," "family freak," "don't catch the Reeves curse."
And sure enough—
Tobias smirked: "Well, if it isn't Reeves the Hollow. Lose your shadow, or just your spine?"
Nerys laughed. Jonan crossed his arms, waiting for the usual silence.
Instead—
Auren barked a laugh.
"That was good. Hollow? I'll use that. Thanks, Rolys."
The three froze. Tobias blinked. "…Wait, what?"
Auren clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Seriously, keep feeding me lines. You'd make a great sidekick."
Jonan snorted despite himself. Nerys bit her lip to stop from grinning. Tobias, thrown off balance, scoffed. "You're… different today, Reeves. I think it's the hair."
Auren leaned close, voice low but playful.
"Or maybe you're just noticing me for the first time."
And then he strode past, leaving them staring after him, their "we hate Reeves" pact quietly splintering under the weight of a laugh they weren't supposed to share.
By the time Auren reached the library doors, the corridor behind him buzzed with murmurs. Was that Arthur Reeves?
But no one could deny it.
This wasn't Arthur.
This was someone far more dangerous — and magnetic.
∆∆∆
The library smelled of aged paper, candle wax, and something faintly metallic. Rows of shelves stretched like endless shadows, whispering secrets to anyone daring enough to listen.
Auren walked in with the confidence of someone who owned the corridors, ignoring the usual tension he'd feel as Arthur. He spotted the librarian: a young woman, early twenties, with sharply tied hair, bright amber eyes, and an aura of impatient authority. Her nameplate read Mara Ellwood.
"Good afternoon," Auren began smoothly, leaning against the counter. "I hear the rare books are… slightly less rare if you let me peek."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "Slightly less rare isn't part of the rules, Reeves. And you know it."
"Oh, rules," Auren replied, fingers tapping the counter. "Ugly things. But flattery works wonders. Don't you want to see me in action?"
"Action? You're thirteen," she said, tone sharp. "I'm twenty-four. And I have work to do."
Auren smirked. "Are you… single?"
Her cheeks colored, a mix of irritation and disbelief. "Again, you're thirteen, Reeves. I don't think you should be asking that."
"Merely curious," he said with mock innocence, shrugging. "Nothing wrong with curiosity, right?"
Mara's lips twitched; she tried to maintain authority. "Curiosity doesn't get you past me."
"But charm does," Auren countered with a wink. "How about a deal? I'll make you smile at least once, and you let me browse."
She folded her arms. "One smile, one glance, one slip, and you're gone."
"Deal." Auren grinned, bowing slightly in exaggerated theatrics. Mara huffed, trying not to break. The smallest twitch of her lips betrayed her.
"I saw that," Auren said smugly.
"You didn't," Mara shot back quickly. "That was a professional exhale."
"Professional exhales don't crinkle the corners of your eyes, Miss Ellwood," Auren said, tilting his head. "I've studied these things."
"You've studied being a nuisance, clearly."
"And excelling at it," he quipped, tapping the counter once more. "So… what's the catch? What does a humble thirteen-year-old rogue have to do to earn five minutes with dusty old books?"
"Five minutes?" Mara arched a brow. "You'd get yourself hexed in two."
"Then give me three. I'll be quick. Like a whisper."
Mara sighed, clearly torn between amusement and duty. "Reeves, you are… exhausting."
"And yet… somehow refreshing?" Auren asked, leaning in with a mischievous grin.
"Infuriating," she corrected, though the smile she'd tried to hide was now fully showing.
Auren straightened, victorious. "Infuriating and successful, apparently."
Mara tapped her fingers on the counter, pretending to think. "Fine. But there's a condition."
Auren leaned in, eyes gleaming. "Name it."
"You'll fetch me a book from the top shelf in there. Third row, left side, green binding with silver lettering." She smirked now, enjoying herself. "If you can even reach it."
Auren blinked, then straightened with a grin. "Oh, that's it? Easy."
"Without magic," she added quickly, narrowing her eyes.
Auren froze for half a beat. The cuffs on his wrists pressed cold against his skin — his reminder that he couldn't use magic even if he wanted to. Still, he plastered on his cockiest grin.
"Please. I've scaled trickier things than bookshelves."
"Then prove it," Mara said, stepping aside just enough for the doorway to beckon.
Auren swaggered in, waiting until she couldn't see the small hesitation in his stride. He eyed the shelves. They towered like a wall — the top shelf a good three feet above his reach.
"Alright," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Cat burglar mode."
He grabbed the lower shelf, testing the wood. It creaked. He put a foot on the second rung and tried to haul himself up. The shelf wobbled, threatening to topple. He froze, glancing back.
Mara had leaned casually on the doorframe, arms crossed, one brow raised. She was enjoying every second.
"Do you need a ladder?" she asked sweetly.
"No, no," Auren grunted, scrambling higher. "This is strategy. A thinking man's climb."
He nearly slipped, catching himself at the last second. Books rattled ominously. His hair fell into his eyes, but he smirked anyway. "See? Graceful as a swan."
"More like a flobberworm," Mara muttered under her breath.
Finally, with a dramatic stretch, Auren snagged the green book. He wobbled dangerously, then dropped back to the floor with a thud that echoed through the section.
Holding the book aloft like a trophy, he announced, "Victory. Told you I could do it."
Mara snorted, shaking her head as she took the book from him. "You're insufferable."
"But successful," Auren corrected, flashing his grin. "Now… about that three minutes?"
Mara hesitated, then sighed, muttering under her breath, "I'm going to regret this."
And with a wave of her wand, the gate to the restricted section clicked open.
Auren strutted through like he owned the place.
____
He moved deeper into the restricted section, the iron gate clicking shut behind him like a lock on a vault. The shelves loomed taller here, warped with age, their wood darkened by centuries of candle smoke. The air was thick, almost heavy, as if knowledge itself weighed it down.
Each book radiated a pulse, faint but undeniable — whispers of old enchantments, lingering protections that prickled against his skin. The smell of aged parchment mixed with something sharper, like iron and smoke, filling his lungs.
As soon as he reached the magical creatures section, he dragged his fingers lazily across the spines, reading titles as if strolling through a market:
Chimera Lineage Compendiums
Basilisks: Breeding and Control
Draconid Cross-Species Studies
Lycanthrope Genetics: A Restricted Inquiry
Winged Serpent Hybrid Archives
The names themselves felt like incantations, humming with suppressed power. Redacted runes glowed faintly on the covers — wards meant to warn, to repel. To Arthur, they might have screamed danger. But to Auren? They were practically invitations.
He grinned, leaning closer, letting the thrum of ancient magic crawl across his fingertips. "You're all just dying to be read, aren't you?" he whispered.
Finally, his hand stilled. A book unlike the others sat wedged tightly between two bulky tomes — slim, black leather, so dark it seemed to swallow the candlelight. No title. No gilded markings. Only a faintly embossed sigil on the cover: a triangle enclosing a spiral, shifting subtly as though alive.
The moment he touched it, the wards prickled sharper, testing him. He didn't flinch. "Oh, you like me already," he murmured.
The pages whispered as he cracked it open. Words slithered across the parchment, flickering like fireflies. Sentences appeared, dissolved, reformed. It was like reading a dragon's breath turned into ink — alive, restless, refusing to be still.
Most of it was unreadable, redactions writhing across the lines, twisting into knots that blocked the text. But one line refused to vanish:
"Subject Λ-7: Success. Name: Varnhound."
Auren's eyes narrowed, grin spreading slow and sharp. "Now we're talking."
The book pulsed faintly in his hands, like a heart. He leaned closer, hungry, as more entries revealed themselves in jagged bursts of ink:
"Subject Σ-4: Partial Success. Name: Chimera-Hound Hybrid."
"Subject Ξ-2: Failed. Name: Draconid Foxling."
"Subject Π-8: Success. Name: Basilisk-Weasel."
"Subject Λ-7: Success. Name: Varnhound."
The last line seemed to hum with power, darker than the rest. The name itself carried weight — sharp, guttural, dangerous.
He whispered it under his breath, tasting the word. "Varnhound…" The syllables curled like smoke, foreign yet familiar, as if the name wanted to be remembered.
The thrill in his chest surged. This wasn't just a curiosity; this was a lead, a secret no one wanted him to see. And he loved it.
From behind, Mara cleared her throat. The sound cracked the tension like a whip.
Auren snapped the book half-shut but kept his finger on the page, masking the rush of discovery with his trademark grin.
"Everything alright in there?" Mara's voice floated through the shelves, firm but curious.
"Perfectly fine, Miss Ellwood," Auren called back smoothly. "Just… reading."
Her silhouette appeared at the edge of the aisle, arms crossed, amber eyes sharp. She adjusted her glasses. "Careful. Those books don't forgive mistakes."
"Neither do I," Auren replied, sliding the black tome under his arm with casual ease, as if it belonged to him. He flashed her a grin. "But it seems we both enjoy a little danger."
The book throbbed faintly against his ribs as he tucked it tighter under his arm, hidden beneath his sleeve. Smooth. Easy. He'd pulled tricks harder than this before.
"Planning to check that out, are we?" Mara's voice rang sharp.
Auren froze, masking the twitch of panic with a lazy smile. "Why yes. Didn't you hear? New policy — students can take out as many cursed tomes as they like. Encourages independent study."
Mara arched a brow. "Cute. Hand it over."
"Over? Oh, Miss Ellwood, I'd never dream of it," Auren said, spreading his hands innocently. The cuffs on his wrists glinted in the candlelight as he leaned casually against the nearest shelf. He made sure her gaze stayed on his smirk, not on the faint bulge of leather tucked at his side.
"You're a terrible liar," Mara muttered, stepping closer. Her eyes narrowed, scanning him up and down.
Auren straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his jacket. "And yet, you're still staring."
That earned him a scoff. "Out. Now. Before I change my mind about even letting you in."
"Harsh," Auren sighed, already moving toward the door with exaggerated disappointment. "I thought we were having a moment."
Mara rolled her eyes, stepping aside to let him pass. The weight of her glare pressed on the back of his neck as he strolled through the gate, every step a careful act of nonchalance.
He didn't breathe until the heavy library doors swung shut behind him. Only then did he press a hand against his side, feeling the unmistakable curve of the black tome still hidden under his sleeve.
A grin spread across his face. "Unscathed and uncaught."
He leaned against the corridor wall, finally exhaling a long sigh of relief.
∆∆∆∆
Just as Auren was still basking in his successful "borrowing without paperwork," the voice cut through the corridor like a pebble thrown at glass.
"Hiya, Arthur."
He stiffened, whipping around.
"…Or maybe not Arthur."
Leah. Crooked glasses sliding down her nose, hair in a lopsided bun like she'd wrestled it five minutes ago and lost. Her shirt was tucked properly, sleeves rolled, tie hanging loose. Quirky, unbothered, infuriatingly observant.
Arthur called her urchin. Auren, taking one look, decided she was danger with dimples.
"Um… hello," Auren said, dragging Arthur's monotone voice across his tongue like a bad accent.
Leah squinted at him. "Nope. Wrong. Too much effort." She leaned closer, big brown eyes narrowing behind her crooked spectacles. "Arthur doesn't try. He just… broods. You're not brooding. You're—what is this? Smirking? Ugh. Suspicious."
Auren tried to brush past her, muttering, "What do you want… Urchin?"
She gasped, clutching her chest like he'd stabbed her. "Wow. Urchin? Again? I told you, it's Leah. Lee-ah. One of the shortest names in the universe. Four letters. That's just hurtful."
"Names are overrated."
"And yet here you are with one of the most dramatic surnames in the school. Reeves." She grinned, relentless. "So what are you hiding under that sleeve, Reeves? Forbidden snacks? Love letters? Your tragic poetry?"
Auren shifted the black tome tighter to his side, keeping his face neutral. "Private."
"Ooooh." She leaned in conspiratorially, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. "So it's interesting."
He shot her a glare sharp enough to freeze. She beamed back, undeterred.
"You're terrible at this," she said cheerfully. "Arthur ignores me. You? You're fidgeting, your eye twitches every time I say 'interesting,' and now you're glaring at me like a villain in training. Adorable."
Auren inhaled slowly through his nose. "You're nosy."
"And you're not as scary as you think." She suddenly shoved something into his hand - A textbook.
Auren blinked down at it. "What—?"
"Homework," she said. "For Arthur. Or maybe you. Whoever you are today. You missed a class."
Auren stared at her, momentarily speechless.
Leah smiled crookedly, tilted her head, and added with infuriating sweetness: "See you around, Urchin-boy."
Before he could form a comeback, she spun on her heel and walked off, humming to herself.
Auren glanced down at the book, then back at the empty corridor where she'd vanished. For once, his trademark smirk faltered.
"…I barely managed that one," he muttered. Sliding the "borrowed book" into his pocket, he forced the grin back onto his face.
Arthur's enemies made sense. But Leah? She was chaos with brown eyes. And Auren hated that some part of him wanted to crack her diary open immediately.
∆∆∆∆∆
Auren sat at Arthur's desk, the nib of the quill scratching across the page in brisk, deliberate strokes. His handwriting was not as sharp as Arthur's, a touch impatient, but elegant in its precision.
....
"Do you feel it too? The itch under your skin when something is hidden? The weight of eyes you can't see? That's the world waiting for us. For me.
So here's my promise: I'll leave you trails, breadcrumbs, riddles — whatever you want to call them. Not to help you. No. To keep you awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering just how far I went.
Two days. That's all I have. That's all I need. When I'm done, you'll have more questions than you can handle. And... well, you'll either thank me or hate me. Probably both.
And Arthur? Don't bother trying to stop me. You never could.
— A.
....
He paused, tapping the end of the quill against his lip as if considering whether to add more. A grin curved his mouth — sly, satisfied. No, that was enough. Questions were better than answers. Questions lingered.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he shut the journal and set it neatly on the edge of Arthur's bed, square to the blanket, as though daring his other half to find it.
He leaned back in the chair, eyes drifting to the lamp across the desk. The flame inside fluttered. Auren stared at it — and the flame obeyed. It guttered, trembled, then snuffed out entirely. A soft hiss of ice crept over the bronze casing as frost feathered outward, crystallizing the glass in perfect symmetry. The lamp stood dead, frozen solid.
He glanced at the containment cuffs locked around his wrists. Thin cracks of frost had spidered through the etched sigils, betraying him. He smirked. So much for containment.
The dorm room fell into shadow, but Auren didn't mind the dark. He turned his gaze to the window. The moon hung low, half-veiled by restless clouds. Then —
A sound cut through the silence.
Low. Drawn-out. A howl.
It wasn't wolf. Not dog. Something caught between. Something older.
Auren stilled, eyes narrowing, as the echo rolled across the school grounds. His grin returned, slow and dangerous.
"Looks like I'm not the only one awake tonight."
He reached down, fingers brushing both the book on the table. His smirk deepened.
"Anyways… let's get reading."