Morning came gray and wet. The storm settled into a steady whisper that soaked cloaks and scraped at windows.
Megan shut herself in the dorm washroom and turned the faucet until the pipes squealed. Cold water hammered the basin. She shoved her left hand under the stream and scrubbed until her skin burned.
The mark didn't fade.
Not ink. Not bruise. An eye beneath the skin, faint as frost, unblinking. When she blinked, she swore the lashes shifted.
She tried soap, then her nails. Red crescents bloomed where she scraped, but the eye stayed. Watching.
"Fine," she told it. "Stare."
She yanked her sleeve down and met her reflection. Pale face. Dark crescents under the eyes. The same quick, sharp smile she wore like armor.
The smile didn't convince the mirror. It didn't convince her.
The bell rang for first lecture.
Lena waited outside with two steaming mugs. "Tea," she said, thrusting one over. "You look like a ghost that failed its haunting exam."
"I prefer 'minimalist.'" Megan tucked her left hand into her pocket and took the mug with her right.
They walked beneath dripping eaves toward the Lecture Hall. Rain churned the courtyard into patches of mirrored stone. As they passed the main staircase, Megan's gaze snagged on the notice board.
Another MISSING sheet. Fresh ink. Same neat language. Same empty promise at the bottom: If seen, report to Prefects.
Lena followed her look and winced. "That makes six."
"People transfer," Megan said automatically.
"Not without transcripts." Lena's voice had a thin edge. "And not at midnight from the east wing."
Megan kept walking. "You've been talking to rumor again."
"Rumor talks to me. It's very chatty."
She wanted to laugh, but the mark pulsed once—a warm tap—and the sound caught in her throat.
Professor Verin's classroom smelled like wet wool and chalk. The professor swept in wearing bruised purple, silver thread glinting at the cuffs. He set out glass cups, silver spoons, and small piles of salt.
"The first lesson," he said, crisp as winter air, "is humility. The second—borrowing from the world."
He poured salt into water. The crystals vanished without sound. Ripples stirred.
"Sensation is the root of every Path. Feel before you wield. Listen before you speak." He gestured to the cups. "One at a time."
Students lined up. The boy with the green sash went first, smirking like the room owed him applause. He held his hand above the cup. The water trembled; a thin spark crackled between his fingers and the surface. A few murmurs. He preened and sauntered back to his seat.
Others followed. Some managed ripples. One girl coaxed a wisp of warmth that fogged her glass. Verin made notes, impassive.
Megan stepped up last.
Silence gathered as if the room wanted to hear her fail.
She extended her hand. The mark in her palm burned, not pain exactly, more like a small sun pressed under skin. She kept her face even and lowered her fingers toward the water.
"Do not force it," Verin murmured without looking up. "Let the world speak."
The air in the hall shifted, cool and thin. Megan tried to empty her head—erase F-tier, powerless—and simply notice.
Her fingertip brushed the surface.
Metal complained overhead.
For a heartbeat, everything slowed.
A chain above her stretched, one link drawn thin. A hairline crack in the chandelier's bracket blossomed. The heavy fixture tilted along a precise angle—an angle that ended directly above the green-sash boy's head.
Move him.
She didn't think. She slammed into his shoulder. His chair skidded; he yelped, tipping into the aisle with her.
The chandelier fell.
Glass burst across the row like a thrown handful of stars. Flames flared and sputtered; the smell of hot metal and wax filled the air. Students screamed, diving away as shards skittered over the floor.
Megan rolled to her knees, lungs burning. The boy stared at her, white-faced. "You—how did you—"
"You forgot to tie your laces," she said, breathless. "I saved everyone the embarrassment."
"You're lying." His voice shook, but his chin jerked up, pride reflexive. "You saw that."
Verin strode between rows, cloak dragging ash from the floor. With a flick of his sleeve, the remaining flames died. "Everyone out. Prefects will secure the hall." Then to the class at large: "Calmly."
He turned back to Megan. His gaze cut like wire. "You moved before it fell, Miss Cross. Not after."
"Lucky flinch," she said.
"Luck explains one outcome," he said. "Not timing." A fractional pause. "Stay away from the east wing tonight."
The words landed cold.
Megan felt the eye in her palm blink—a single pulse—as if it agreed.
The room emptied into the corridor's echo. Prefects arrived with buckets and warnings, their boots squeaking on wet stone. The green-sash boy avoided Megan's eyes, then looked at her anyway, torn between shame and suspicion.
"Thanks," he said finally, like a word he didn't want to spend.
"Consider it a loan," Megan said. "I charge interest. In shoelaces."
A sound escaped him that might have been a laugh if he weren't terrified someone would hear.
Lena slipped to Megan's side. "You pushed him before the chain snapped."
"I push lots of people before things happen," Megan said. "It's preventative."
Lena's eyebrows climbed. "Preventative like a prophecy."
Megan tugged her sleeve down. "Preventative like common sense."
"Show me your hand," Lena whispered.
"No."
"Megan—"
"No."
Verin's voice cut across the whispers. "Prefect Marcus."
A figure detached from the doorway. Marcus wore the Prefect sash like a verdict; even his posture felt like a rule. Water dripped from his coat hem, ticking onto the floor.
"Cross," he said, expression unreadable. "With me."
"For what?" Megan asked lightly. "Community service? I'm great with brooms."
"Headmaster Halloway has questions."
"Does he also have biscuits?"
Marcus didn't blink. "Now."
Lena squeezed her sleeve. "I'll wait."
"Don't," Megan said. "I might be a while."
She followed Marcus down the corridor, past the board with the new face, past students who parted like the tide and then closed again, whispering.
They didn't go toward the administrative wing.
Marcus turned left at the statue of the torch-bearer and led her down a colder hall, where the lamps were further apart and the stone smelled older. Her mark prickled, a warning under the skin.
"This is not the way to Halloway," Megan said.
"The Headmaster is inspecting the east wing," Marcus answered.
"Of course he is," she muttered. "Nothing says 'leadership' like personally visiting the place all the rumors live."
Marcus's steps stayed steady. "You will answer his questions."
"I don't have answers," Megan said. "Only excellent quips."
"You pushed a student seconds before a chandelier fell."
"Lucky flinch," she repeated.
His eyes slid to her sleeve. "And your hand?"
"Attached."
"Miss Cross."
"Cold." She lifted her shoulders. "The weather. Very atmospheric."
He let the silence stretch. Megan counted twelve steps, then three more. The mark warmed again, as if something below them exhaled.
At a landing, they passed a maintenance closet. The door was ajar. A dusting of salt traced a pale line across the threshold, as if someone had spilled it and then tried to smear it away.
Megan's mouth tasted of iron. "What are you not telling me?"
"That is not how this works," Marcus said.
"How does it work?"
"I ask. You answer."
"Then ask a better question."
He didn't smile. "Did you know the chain would break?"
"No."
"But you moved before it did."
"I'm an optimist."
He glanced at her. "You are the opposite of an optimist."
"Then I'm efficient."
Something like frustration tightened his jaw. But he didn't push. He led her on.
The east wing began as a change in temperature. The air turned thin and cold enough to wake teeth. The lamps hummed, low and steady, as if trying not to draw attention.
They passed a rope barrier and a handwritten sign: MAINTENANCE—DO NOT ENTER.
Marcus ignored it. He slid the rope aside and kept walking. Megan followed because not following would mean staying alone with the sign.
At the first turn, she saw it: faint streaks of salt along the baseboards, placed in three straight lines that converged on a point ahead. The pattern tugged at her memory—three lines, triangle, grate.
"What do you know about this wing?" Marcus asked without looking back.
"That it's full of bad decisions and worse lighting."
"Rumors say students meet here after curfew."
"Rumors say a lot of things. Rumors should get a hobby."
"Headmaster Halloway believes there is an unsanctioned group encouraging dangerous behavior."
"Like studying."
"Like breaking restrictions."
"Because studying is restricted?"
He stopped so suddenly she almost ran into him. "Because students are missing."
The words hung in the hall like frost.
The mark in her palm heated, and a sensation unrolled behind her eyes: a corridor just like this one, a grate in the floor, breathing rising from below—steady, patient.
Her voice came out thin. "How many?"
Marcus's gaze slid away. "Enough."
They rounded another corner. A metal door crouched at the end of the hall, barred with a newer lock than anything around it. The floor in front of it was clean—too clean, as if someone had washed away footprints. Even so, a thread of damp climbed from beneath, carrying the faint smell of stone-cold water.
Marcus rapped on the door. The sound went down instead of out.
No response.
He turned to Megan. "You will tell the Headmaster exactly what you did in Verin's class."
"I touched water and annoyed a chandelier."
"Miss Cross."
"I pushed someone out of the way. Because it looked like it would fall."
"Looked like?"
She met his eyes. "Because it was going to."
He studied her for a breath, as if weighing something that had nothing to do with her height or her status. "If you know anything about gatherings in this wing—"
"I don't belong to any clubs," she said. "Except the 'Unwanted Observations Society.' Very exclusive. One member."
That almost cracked his expression. Almost. "Stay away from here at night."
"Then stop bringing me here."
He ignored that. "Halloway is in the side chamber. He will see you now."
Megan glanced at the door again. The warm tick of her mark had become a slow throb, like a countdown. Under the bar, a hairline seam of darkness seemed to breathe.
"Marcus," she said before she could decide not to. "If students are meeting down there, they're not the only ones."
He followed her look to the door's base, to that patient seam of dark. For the first time, uncertainty touched his voice. "I am aware."
They stood for a beat, the storm whispering through the old windows above and something else breathing below.
The side chamber door opened. A thin man with a clipboard poked out his head. "Prefect. Headmaster Halloway will see the student."
Marcus nodded. "Go."
Megan adjusted her sleeve over her palm. The eye there warmed, unblinking. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity—F-tier walking into a meeting with the Headmaster because she'd been fast on her feet.
"Any advice?" she asked Marcus.
"Tell the truth," he said.
"That's terrible advice."
"It is the advice you need."
She stepped toward the door. The hall felt narrower, the air thinner, as if the building were holding its breath.
Behind her, the metal door stayed shut.
Behind it, something counted—not numbers she could hear, but the rhythm was there all the same, patient and exacting.
One.Another.Another.
Names, not coins.
Megan squared her shoulders and went in to meet the man who ran a school that pretended not to hear the counting.