The air of the new semester in Beacon Hills had that cold, damp smell of forced normalcy.
Two weeks.
Two weeks since the night Kate Argent was arrested, Peter Hale died, and my mana nearly ran dry.
I parked the Charger in my usual spot, grabbed my backpack, and shut the door.
The school courtyard was packed. Teenagers laughing, complaining about tests, living in their bubble of blessed ignorance.
I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and started walking toward the double doors.
I just wanted to get to Chemistry and sleep with my eyes open.
"Nathan! Hey, wait up!"
The sound of hurried footsteps echoed on the asphalt behind me.
I recognized the voice instantly, but I didn't slow down.
I kept walking, eyes fixed on the school entrance.
Jackson Whittemore caught up with me. He was out of breath, his usually perfect hair slightly disheveled.
He wasn't wearing his lacrosse jacket today.
"What is it, Jackson?" I asked, my voice flat, without even looking at him. "If it's about the History project, I'm not doing your part."
"It's not that," he said, swallowing hard, struggling to keep pace without looking like he was chasing me. "It's about... that night. In the woods."
I gave a tired sigh, finally turning my face to glance at him for a second.
The dark circles under his eyes showed he hadn't been sleeping much.
"I already said what I had to say that night."
"And you were right," Jackson blurted out, the words tumbling over each other as if they burned his tongue. "About everything. About me being a prick. About Lydia."
I kept walking.
He picked up the pace, placing himself almost in front of me, though not quite blocking my path.
"I've spent these last few weeks thinking," Jackson continued, his voice dropping, vulnerability showing through for the first time. "I wanted to be like McCall. I thought if I had that power, that strength... the insecurity would vanish. But I realized I'd just become a worse monster."
I climbed the front steps.
Jackson followed right behind.
"I don't want to be Scott," he confessed, his voice thick. "I want to be... me. Just a better me. I want to fix things. But I don't know how, Nathan. I've pushed everyone away. I need help."
I stopped in the middle of the hallway.
Students passed us, bumping into our shoulders, but Jackson kept his gaze locked on mine, desperate for a lifeline.
I looked at him.
I didn't see the arrogant captain.
I saw a broken boy who finally realized the mirror was cracked.
But a mage's empathy has its limits.
And mine was running short.
"Words are cheap, Whittemore," I said, cold and analytical. "Guilt hurts, I know. And now you want an emotional band-aid. You want me to say 'it's okay, Jackson, you're forgiven'."
"It's not that! I want to change for real!"
"Do you really?"
I tilted my head, measuring him.
"Then prove it."
"How? What do you want me to do?"
I smiled, but there was no humor in it.
"Go to Coach Finstock's office right now. Tell him you're stepping down as lacrosse captain. And that you're off the starting lineup."
Jackson's blue eyes widened.
Panic replaced vulnerability in a millisecond.
His breath hitched.
"What?" he stammered, taking a step back. "No... Nathan, you don't understand. Lacrosse... it's the only thing I'm actually good at. It's the only thing that makes me someone here. It's who I am!"
I stayed silent for three long seconds, letting the echo of his own desperation hit the locker walls.
"That is exactly the problem," I replied, my tone icy and final.
I adjusted my bag on my shoulder.
"If the only thing that defines you as a human being is a piece of fabric on your arm and the adoration of a bunch of high school idiots, then you don't want to change, Jackson. You just want the guilt to stop hurting without having to sacrifice a thing."
I turned my back, ready to leave him there, but I paused.
"Have you talked to Lydia?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. "Have you even visited her in the hospital these past few weeks?"
Jackson froze.
His defensive posture returned instantly, shoulders stiffening under his expensive shirt.
He looked away for a split second before facing me with a spark of his old arrogance mixed with jealousy.
"Not yet. Her mother restricted visitors..." he deflected, frowning, bothered. "But why the sudden interest in her, Salt? Since when do you care about Lydia?"
I gave a dry, cutting smile.
"Someone has to care, don't they?" I replied, my tone laced with venom. "Since the person who should've been holding her hand in the hospital was too busy feeling sorry for himself."
Jackson stepped back as if I had stabbed him in the gut.
I resumed my walk, heading away from him.
"The clock is ticking, Whittemore," I said over my shoulder, not bothering to look back. "If you want my help, you already know the price. The captain's jersey."
I left him paralyzed in the middle of the hallway, choking on his own ego, and walked into History class.
The teacher was already there, and the blackboard was covered from end to end with dates, names, and treaties from World War I. A white-chalk nightmare for any student starting the semester.
I went to my desk at the back of the room and sat down, dropping my bag with a dull thud.
The buzz of side conversations filled the air, but my mind was still in the hallway with Jackson.
And in the woods.
And in Peter Hale's claws.
The mundane reality of high school was almost offensive after everything we had been through.
I sighed and pulled out my notebook and a pencil.
I looked at the mountain of text on the board.
My right hand still tingled slightly, a ghost echo of the strain of holding that shield against the Alpha weeks ago.
I didn't have the patience to copy all that through sheer hatred and wrist power.
I leaned my elbow on the desk and positioned the pencil over the blank sheet.
I relaxed my fingers, keeping my grip intentionally loose.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second and injected a tiny drop of mana, the most basic application of the Flow, directly into the yellow wood of the pencil.
The object took on a life of its own between my fingers.
The graphite tip touched the paper and began to write.
It raced across the ruled lines with absurd speed and impeccable cursive handwriting, transcribing every word from the blackboard.
I wasn't putting in any effort.
My hand just followed the back-and-forth movement, being pulled gently by the telekinesis controlling the tool.
To anyone watching, like the girl sitting two rows ahead or the teacher sorting papers, I was just an extremely focused student, copying the material with exemplary speed.
In reality, my shoulders were slumped, eyes lost out the window, letting magic do the grunt work of a normal teenager.
Was it a lazy trick?
Absolutely.
But after surviving Dark Maestros and psychopathic werewolves, I felt the universe owed me at least the luxury of not getting a hand cramp during History.
I sat there, feeling the slight magical vibration against my knuckles, waiting for the bell to ring or the next supernatural headache to appear.
The pencil raced across the lines of the notebook in a perfect rhythm, a small miracle of magical laziness, until the sound of a chair scraping behind me broke my concentration.
Then, a whisper inches from my right ear.
"Basic telekinesis? Clever."
The pencil stopped abruptly, clicking onto the paper.
I cut the mana flow out of pure survival instinct, feeling a chill run down my spine.
My heart skipped a beat.
No ordinary person should be able to see the Flow, much less recognize the technique by name.
I turned my head slowly, looking over my shoulder, ready to invoke a shield if necessary.
I came face to face with a stranger.
She was sitting in the desk exactly behind mine, leaning forward with her chin on her hand and a smirk that said she knew she had startled me.
She had dark, slightly wavy hair falling over the shoulders of a burgundy leather jacket, her fair skin contrasting with eyes of a brown so light they almost looked golden against the window light.
(Author: to visualize her, she looks like Danielle Campbell.)
And most disturbing: her gaze didn't have the weight of a hunter like Kate, nor the animal instinct of a werewolf.
There was only a sharp, analytical curiosity.
"Most mages your age would use energy to impress girls in the cafeteria by bending spoons," she continued, her voice low enough so the teacher wouldn't hear, keeping that amused smile. "But using it to bypass World War I notes? I respect the priorities."
I narrowed my eyes, focusing my Level 1 Magic Vision to try and read her aura.
Nothing.
No explosive mana signature like Elias, no smell of wet dog or wolfsbane.
She was perfectly camouflaged, or her magic was too subtle for a quick read.
"And you are...?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral, my body angled slightly back, blocking the view of my notebook.
She extended a pale hand over my desk, silver rings glinting in the light.
"Rowan," she introduced herself. "Rowan Halloway. Just transferred. And before you ask how I saw your little parlor trick... let's just say I have a very good sensitivity for static in the air."
I looked at her hand, then her face, and finally shook it.
Her touch was cold, but I felt a faint, almost imperceptible magical tingle against my skin.
A spark.
The surname hit my mind like a punch to the gut.
Halloway.
I let go of her hand immediately.
The tingling vanished, but the red alert in my head started blaring at maximum volume.
Elias Halloway.
The Dark Maestro.
The arrogant psychopath I had left alive, but without a magical core and without the nerves in his hands, only two weeks ago.
My posture shifted.
My shoulders stiffened, and the mana in my chest, previously idle, began to swirl, ready to invoke a shield if she made any sudden move.
"Did you come to avenge your relative?" I asked.
My voice came out low, sharp, and laden with restrained hostility.
If this was going to turn into a war zone, I wanted to know now, before the teacher finished writing the treaties on the board.
Rowan didn't flinch.
On the contrary, her smile widened slightly, revealing a nearly bored amusement.
She leaned back in her chair with the tranquility of someone watching a movie whose ending she already knows.
"Even though I'm a Halloway, he wasn't exactly considered a relative," she replied, waving her hand with disdain as if swatting a fly. "More like an acquaintance. An inconvenient and pathetically megalomaniacal acquaintance who was dragging our name through the mud with vulgar magic."
She leaned over the desk again, chin in hands, her light-brown eyes shining with clinical interest.
"I actually came to thank you."
I frowned, confusion opening a gap in my guard.
"Thank me?" I repeated, incredulous. "For turning your family's prodigy into a paperweight?"
"Exactly," Rowan nodded, without a trace of irony. "Elias was a ticking time bomb attracting the wrong kind of attention. You and your father did our lineage a favor by handling the problem."
She paused, her eyes scanning my face, analyzing the dried blood of past battles that had already vanished, but which reputation still kept alive.
"And, of course... I wanted to see the son of the famous Marcus Salt up close."
The school bell rang suddenly, an electric blast that made half the class groan with laziness, but Rowan didn't even blink.
She kept staring at me, unperturbed.
"I must admit..." she murmured, shifting her gaze to my pencil lying on the notebook. "I expected someone more intimidating. But your creative laziness is admirable."
Before I could snap back with something biting, the classroom door burst open.
Stiles and Scott rushed in, mid-heated argument about the jeep's monthly payment, totally oblivious to the magical cold war happening in the back row.
They ignored the teacher, ignored everyone else, and marched straight to the back, stopping at the side of my desk.
"Nathan. Man. We need your help. Now," Stiles fired off, leaning both hands on my desk, out of breath. "It's Lydia."
I didn't turn my face to him. I kept my eyes locked on Rowan's light-brown eyes, who watched the scene with a suppressed smile, as if she were in the front row of a theater.
"Lydia's missing." Scott completed, his voice low so the rest of the class wouldn't hear, but heavy with urgency. "She broke out of the hospital last night. The window was smashed. She just vanished into the woods."
"Naked, man! She vanished naked in this cold!" Stiles gestured frantically, nearly hitting my face. "The police are searching, my dad is out there, but we know they won't find anything if she's... you know. Changing. You need to do that tracking spell, or use that creepy pendulum, whatever!"
The red alert in my head regarding Rowan was still screaming. Having a Halloway sitting behind me was a catastrophic-level threat, and I wasn't going to turn my back on her.
"I'm busy, Stiles," I replied, my voice cold and monotonic, without breaking eye contact with the newly arrived witch.
Stiles blinked, stunned, looking from my rigid face to Rowan, and then back to me.
"Busy?" Stiles nearly yelled in a whisper. "Busy with what?! Class hasn't even started and you're playing staring contest with the new girl! Lydia could be bleeding to death or eating a deer's liver right now!"
"And what do you want me to do?" I shot back, my patience evaporating. I finally tore my gaze away from Rowan to glare at Stiles. "I'm not a werewolf babysitter, Stiles. I'm not your pack's private tracker, and I have no obligation to clean up the mess Peter left behind every time someone goes missing."
"Nathan, she's our friend..." Scott tried to intervene, his usual peacemaking voice.
"And I almost died two weeks ago trying to keep you alive!" I cut him off, slamming my hand on the desk hard enough to make the pencil jump. A few students looked back, but I ignored them. I lowered my voice again, gritting my teeth. "I have my own problems to solve right now. Problems much bigger and much more lethal than a teenager running in the woods. Search for her yourselves. You have noses, don't you? Use them."
Stiles looked at me with a mix of betrayal and anger. He opened his mouth to snap some heavy insult, but a soft, almost musical voice cut through the tension.
"Why don't you go help them?" Rowan chimed in, tilting her head with fake innocence and a smirk. "A tracking spell is so easy. Even a novice can do it."
I closed my eyes for a second, feeling a pang of a headache forming. She was testing me. Dishing out bait to see how I'd react, and worst of all: using my friends' desperation to do it.
I opened my eyes and glared at Rowan before turning back to the duo of idiots in front of me.
"Bring me something of hers." I sighed, rubbing my temples. Defeat tasted bitter. "Something with emotional weight. Don't bring me a random hair tie or a lip gloss. I need an object she loves or wears all the time. The resonance has to be strong."
Stiles blinked, relief washing the anger from his face in an instant.
"Okay! Great. We'll break into her locker or... I don't know, her house. Where do we meet you?"
"In the cafeteria." I replied, already pushing my chair back and throwing my bag over my shoulder.
History teacher cleared his throat loudly at the front, about to demand I sit down, but I ignored him completely and strode out the door. I needed space, coffee, and silence to process things.
My footsteps echoed on the linoleum floor of the empty hallway, but it didn't last long. I soon realized I wasn't alone. There was no sound of heels or heavy boots hitting the ground, but the subtle shift in air pressure gave her away. Rowan was walking a few steps behind me, in a near-feline silence.
I stopped suddenly, just before reaching the double doors of the cafeteria, and turned around.
"Why are you following me?" I asked, my voice low and cold.
Rowan stopped, crossing her arms. Her smile was restrained, but her light-brown eyes gleamed with amusement.
"Relax, genius," she said, her tone casual. "I already said I'm not your enemy. Your old man brought me here."
The sentence hit me like a cold punch. My father? Marcus brought a Halloway to Beacon Hills? The family of the guy who tried to use us as sacrifices?
I narrowed my eyes. I wasn't going to just take a mysterious witch's word without checking the facts.
I leaned against the doorframe of the cafeteria.
"Stay there," I murmured to her.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I channeled a very fine and absolutely imperceptible thread of mana. No glow, no aura leak. Just the surgical application of a Transmission Thread, fired through the ether directly to the dense and familiar magic signature of my father.
"Dad?" I called out mentally, the projection sharp and focused.
The silence on the other side lasted only two seconds before Marcus Salt's deep, gravelly voice echoed in my mind.
"What is it, kid?"
"There's a Halloway at my school," I reported, straight to the point. "Rowan. She said you brought her here."
A sound of scoffing vibrated in my skull.
"I didn't call her, Nathan," Marcus corrected, his tone laden with cynicism and authority. "I called Julian to come get that black grimoire the idiot Elias used so they could pay the debt for the headache they caused us. The Halloway family sent the girl instead. Likely to see how my son is faring."
The realization made my jaw clench. A spy disguised as an ally. But a second thing in his sentence set off a red alert.
"Wait a second," I shot back, indignation leaking into the thought. "You're just going to hand over such powerful magic to them? The whole grimoire?"
A low laugh, almost a growl of approval at my suspicion, echoed in my mind.
"Relax, kid," Marcus replied with the dark tranquility of a veteran trickster. "I've already copied the whole thing. What they're taking back is just old paper and leather. Bring the girl home once school is over. We're going to have a little talk with her."
The connection snapped with a slight static crackle in my mind.
I opened my eyes slowly. Rowan was still standing there, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, maintaining that smug smile of someone who thought she held all the cards.
"Satisfied, Salt?" she provoked, raising an eyebrow.
I let out a heavy sigh, pushing the cafeteria double doors.
"Enough," I replied, yielding a fraction of my hostile stance, though my guard remained up and locked. "You're coming to my house with me after school. Marcus wants to see you. And he wants to hand over your package in person."
We walked in silence to one of the round tables near the window. Before sitting down, I glanced at her, testing the waters.
"Are you Julian's daughter?" I asked.
Rowan stopped mid-motion of pulling out the chair. The facade of superior boredom vanished for a second, giving way to sharp surprise. She raised her eyebrow again, but this time her golden eyes evaluated me with cautious respect.
"You know my father?"
"By name only," I replied, sitting down and throwing my bag on the next chair. And through Marcus's mental transmission, but she didn't need to know that.
Rowan sat across from me. Instead of leaning back with her customary arrogance, she leaned over the table, slightly invading my space. Her gaze was fixed on mine, clinical and intense.
"How did you do it?" she whispered, her voice laden with a genuine, almost obsessive curiosity.
I frowned, maintaining eye contact.
"Do what?"
"How did you beat Elias like that?" she pressed, the words coming out fast. "We Halloways are sensitive to the Flow. I can read the static in the air, measure anyone's core. And looking at you now... your mana reserve is almost laughable. You're barely a basic-level mage. How did someone with so little magic manage to break the renegade prodigy?"
I held her gaze, my expression completely blank.
She had no idea. Elias had been a brutal nightmare, but what she didn't know was that that near-fatal terror served as my greatest catalyst. In these last two weeks, I had progressed more than in all the time since I discovered magic. The paranoia of nearly dying pushed me into insane training.
Guided by Marcus's relentless teaching, and dissecting page by page of my own grimoire, I had dived headfirst into the rules and secrets of the Arcane Society. I studied lineage politics, deciphered ancient formulas, mastered advanced branches of defensive and offensive magic, and refined my Flow control to a new level, which allowed me, right now, to hide my true strength from her. I had stopped being a teenager reacting to monsters with basic telekinesis. I was molding myself into their predator.
"He underestimated me," I replied, feeling my stomach growl. "I just refused to die. And after that... let's just say I did my homework."
Rowan narrowed her eyes as if she understood the secret behind my words.
The cafeteria doors burst open with a crash that echoed through the empty hall.
Stiles and Scott came running in. Stiles's face was red, breathing hard, and he held something hidden under his flannel jacket, looking around with the paranoia of a bank robber.
They marched straight to our table, so focused on their own crisis they ignored the magical tension hanging in the air between me and the new girl.
"We got it," Stiles panted, slamming his hands on the table and dropping the object right in the center, between me and the Halloway.
I looked at the table. It was an expensive hairbrush with a silver base, thick bristles, and a tangle of strawberry-blonde hair caught in it.
"I had to climb her house trellis, her mother almost caught me in the hallway thinking I was a burglar, but I got it," Stiles explained, still breathless, tapping his fingers on the wood anxiously. "Does this work? Is there enough DNA for you to do your trick?"
I looked at the silver brush on the table. The strands of strawberry-blonde hair were tangled in the bristles, carrying a weak but chaotic energy signature. Exactly the kind of static I expected from someone like Lydia after surviving an Alpha's bite.
I reached out and picked up the object, feeling the weight of the cold metal against my palm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rowan lean forward by a millimeter, golden eyes fixed on my hand, hungry to see any spark of magic escape my control.
I didn't give her the pleasure. I locked my mana with absolute force.
"It works," I replied, flipping the brush between my fingers casually before tucking it into my jacket pocket.
I pushed the chair back and stood up. Stiles let out a sigh of relief so big he almost collapsed onto the table, while Scott squared his shoulders, ready for action.
I ignored Rowan's cynical smile and focused on the two makeshift werewolves in front of me. The normalcy of the first day of school had officially gone down the drain. The break between rounds was over.
"Alright," I said, my voice cold, sharp, and laden with dark determination. "Let's find Martin."