The lecture hall buzzed with idle conversation, half-finished yawns, and the faint clicking of boots and chairs settling into place. I slipped into my usual seat three rows from the back—close enough to hear, far enough not to be noticed. My fingers fidgeted with the strap of my bag, adjusting, twisting, uncoiling. Always in motion.
Chrona stepped in right on the third chime. Impeccable as always. White slacks, lavender gloves, her pocketwatch ticking too loudly for something so small. Her presence was calm, timeless. Like an hourglass that always ran at the same pace—never spilling too fast or too slow.
"Today," she began, "we discuss temporal anchoring in chaotic flux environments. Can someone tell me why anchoring during a timestorm is a matter of survival?"
The answer came before I even processed the question. Three hands up. Mine not among them. I kept my gaze on my desk, tracing invisible lines across the wood. In my mind, I answered anyway. Anchoring preserves integrity, of the body, of the mind and of time.
Chrona's voice flowed over us like sand slipping through fingers. I took notes, eyes flicking occasionally to the side. Normal students. Normal day. Normal stillness.
But something felt... off.
A glimmer in the top corner of the room. A speck, a shimmer—barely there. Arcane weave? Surveillance spell? I followed it with my eyes, pretending to adjust my glasses. It pulsed faintly. Moved. Disappeared.
I wasn't the only one marked.
Two seats ahead, a student with blue streaks in his hair rubbed the back of his neck like something itched under the skin. Another, by the window, kept shifting uncomfortably. Their shadows weren't quite matching their bodies. Arcane misalignment. Very subtle. Very expensive.
They were being watched. Just like me.
But I said nothing. I kept my hands steady. I kept my heartbeat quiet. The show must go on.
After class, I didn't go straight to the cafeteria. That would've been obvious.
Instead, I wandered—hallways, library wing, one loop around the central garden where the hero statues all pointed triumphantly toward the sky. Then I made my way toward the dining hall. Head lowered. Eyes relaxed. Smile faint.
And there she was.
Rhea.
Waiting for me at the corridor bend like some misplaced punctuation mark in the middle of a sentence.
"Hey, Calla."
I nodded at her. Politely. Briefly. As one does to a passerby they have no intention of speaking to. I kept walking.
She followed.
"Can we talk?"
Silence.
"I just want to underst—"
I moved faster. Footsteps echoing against hers. Not running. Just... choosing not to engage.
Rhea trailed me like a shadow that had gotten too attached. I didn't look at her. Not even when we stepped into the cafeteria and I spotted them—my anchors, my audience, my safety net.
Juno and Ari.
They saw me first. Then they saw her.
"What is she doing with you?" Juno's voice cut through the din of clinking trays and shallow conversations.
Ari blinked. "Did she follow you here?"
I clutched my books to my chest and shook my head slightly, just enough to make it tremble. "She's been following me all over... saying things that don't make sense." My voice cracked. The words turned to glass in my throat. "I told her I didn't want to talk, but she wouldn't stop…"
My eyes welled up, perfectly on cue. Fragile, moist. Pathetic in the most believable way. I didn't even need to fake the shaking. It came naturally.
Juno's brow furrowed. "That's messed up."
"She's just messing with you," Ari growled, stepping in front of me like a shield. "Creepy."
"I just asked why she acts like she's weak when she's clearly got high battle IQ," Rhea said. Calm. Measured. Too honest.
Juno flinched at the comment. "Wait… what?"
"I mean… she panics easily, sure," Rhea added. "But in fights, she adapts fast. Like she's not thinking, just doing. That's rare."
I looked down, rubbing my eyes with the back of my sleeve. "You're wrong," I whispered. "I'm weak. My magic is weak. I got lucky, that's all."
"I don't know, Calla…" Juno crossed her arms. "You do have potential. And yeah, if you trained more, maybe you'd be solid. But I wouldn't say you've got high battle IQ. You get scared too easily."
The words hit me like a slap, and I flinched—visibly.
Then I broke.
I collapsed into Ari's arms, sobbing, face pressed against her jacket. "Juno's being mean!" I choked out, voice cracked like brittle porcelain. "She hates me now!"
Ari immediately wrapped her arms around me. "That's it. She's out of the friend group."
"Ari—"
"Nope!" Ari interrupted, flashing a wicked grin at Juno. "We only keep nice people here. If you make my little Calla cry, you're disqualified."
Calla. My little Calla.
I kept crying. Beautifully. Helplessly. My glasses slipped down the bridge of my nose, eyes red and puffy. I probably looked a mess.
To Ari, I looked perfect.
"If you keep being this cute," she whispered, brushing a tear off my cheek, "I might fall for you by accident."
My eyes widened. I tried to pull away, but Ari tightened her grip.
"Calla…" she said sweetly, lips too close to mine, "did you want to seduce me? 'Cause it's totally working."
"N-no, I—Juno! Rhea—help!"
Rhea tilted her head. "Didn't you say you didn't want anything to do with me?"
Juno shrugged. "Didn't you say I was bullying you? Deal with it yourself, drama queen."
Both of them were smiling.
I panicked. Tried to escape. Ari cackled and chased after me like it was a game.
It was a game.
Everything is.
Especially me.
And I'm winning.
—
I'm not gonna lie—I live for days like this.
The sun was out, my eyeliner was sharp enough to slice through steel, and Calla looked like she'd just stumbled out of a tragic romance novel: flushed cheeks, crooked glasses, teary eyes. Utterly adorable. Utterly mine.
Or—well—not mine. Yet.
Yet is the keyword.
She still had Ari-shaped bruises on her arms from where I hugged her too tightly at lunch. Sue me. Her whole body radiated soft-girl energy, and I'm nothing if not a predator for that exact flavour of chaos.
Juno was being her usual sharp-tongued buzzkill self, but even she couldn't resist a smirk when Calla clung to me like I was her emotional life raft. Rhea, meanwhile, looked like a kicked puppy on the fringes. I should've cared but I didn't.
Not then.
Because back then, all I could think was:
If she keeps looking at me like that—I'm going to fall.
And that scared me more than I let on.
* * *
Weird thing #1 happened around fourth period.
Spell Theory 302. Chrona was droning on about spell decay curves, her voice like sandpaper and sadness. I was doodling little hearts in the margin of my notes, most of them labelled C + A in dramatic swirls. Occasionally C + A + ??, because even I didn't know where this was going.
Then I noticed it.
A shimmer in the corner of the ceiling—right where the wall met the stone beam.
Not visible to normal eyes. Not even to most enhanced ones. But the thing about me is, I'm not most people. I'm a Weaver. I see threads. Residual magic patterns. Especially when someone's trying to hide them.
And that shimmer? That was surveillance.
Not standard academy stuff either. Something independent. Narrow-focus, designed to track body heat and mana bursts. Expensive tech. Black budget levels of forbidden.
I didn't react. Just tilted my head, tapped my pen like I was bored.
Because you don't flinch when you're being hunted. You blink, and the predator smiles.
* * *
Weird thing #2 happened in the hallway.
Calla was heading toward the library with Juno. I was trailing behind like I always did—half puppy, half wolf—when I noticed a residue stain across the stone tiles.
It looked like spilled oil at first, but the pattern was wrong. Fractal. Arcane. Someone had used a masking spell here recently. A strong one. Enough to wipe out presence, noise, and mana signature for maybe fifteen seconds.
A kill box.
Someone had wanted a student to vanish here, and then changed their mind.
I bit my lip, pretending to smile at Juno's usual complaints about "underachieving flirt energy" and "Calla's spine being made of marshmallows."
All true.
None of it mattered.
By the time I made it to my room that night, I had a list.
In my head. Not on paper. Never on paper.
The Red List.
My private roster of anomalies.
Things That Don't Add Up™.
1. Hidden surveillance in non-critical classrooms
2. Residual masking spells outside security zones
3. Mana drift patterns near Calla's dorm windows
4. Rhea's sudden obsession with Calla's potential
5. And—this one hurt—Calla's eyes when she cried
Not pain. Not fear.
But calculation.
No one else had seen it. But I did.
Because I was watching her.
And maybe—just maybe—someone else was watching her too.
I stretched on my bed, let my fingers drift lazily across my own stomach like I was tired, bored and ready to nap.
But my mind was wide awake.
Something is coming. And I think I'm in love with the person it's coming for.
Which makes this a problem.
A big one.