The roar of Nathan's Charger's engine still echoed in the distance when I turned to the front door. I pressed the doorbell. The metallic chime sounded perfectly ordinary, which left me a bit frustrated. I was expecting some kind of magical ward, protection runes burning into the wood, or maybe a repelling spell. Instead, the Salt house felt annoyingly... suburban.
I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, preparing my mental defenses. I was about to come face-to-face with a legend of magical society.
The lock clicked, and the door swung open.
Instead of a menacing patriarch cloaked in an arcane aura, I came face-to-face with a young woman, barely in her thirties. She wore jeans and a cozy cardigan, her hair tied up casually, and she exuded a comforting scent of fresh coffee and vanilla.
She looked me up and down. Not with the calculating glare of a mage measuring my core, but with the curious, light assessment of someone trying to understand why a teenager in a leather jacket was standing on her porch first thing in the morning. Her eyes held no static. No spark. They were perfectly human.
"You must be Rowan," she said. And then, she offered a smile so genuinely warm it almost made me take a step back. "Come in, sweetie. Don't stand out there in the cold."
I crossed the threshold almost on autopilot, feeling the house's warm air hit my face.
"I'm Alice, Nathan's mom," she continued, closing the door behind me with a soft click.
Alice was the blind spot. The anomaly in that entire bizarre equation. I had read my family's files: Marcus Salt's wife was a complete mundane, without a single drop of magical talent in her blood. Yet there she was, the anchor of normalcy in the middle of a nest of arcane predators, completely oblivious to the invisible pressure that was already starting to crush my lungs.
"Marcus is in the kitchen," Alice casually pointed her thumb down the hall, as if she were sending me to talk to a husband fixing sinks on a weekend, and not to one of the most feared mages in the state. "You can head on in. Do you want me to make some tea?"
"No... thank you," I murmured, still disarmed by the reception.
I walked down the polished hardwood hallway. Alice headed into the living room, muttering something about the television, leaving me alone with the weight of the house.
With every step I took toward the kitchen, gravity seemed to increase. The air grew thicker. My skin prickled, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up beneath the room's heavy static.
I stopped at the kitchen doorway. And there he was.
What Nathan had said in the car was true, but his ironic words didn't do justice to the real image. Marcus Salt wasn't chanting, dissecting animals, or sharpening ritual blades. He was dressed in dark slacks and a gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, leaning against the granite counter, holding a black coffee mug while reading something on a tablet.
But his presence...
We Halloways don't possess the Salt bloodline's famous Magic Vision. Our domain is frequency, resonance. We listen to power. And my senses, even suppressed as a precaution, nearly collapsed.
Marcus's Flow didn't echo through the room arrogantly and deafeningly, like the flashy magic of my family's patriarchs. His mana circulated tightly, contained at great cost beneath his own skin. It was an ultra-low frequency hum, a bass so dense and heavy it made my skull bones vibrate and my teeth ache. It was like standing next to a jet engine about to take off, but locked inside a soundproof vault.
He was a large man, broad-shouldered, with graying temples and the posture of a predator at rest. He didn't look like a master of the dark arts from a fairy tale; he looked like a ruthless war veteran who, if magic failed, would rip my throat out with his bare hands without blinking.
He lifted his gaze from the tablet and locked it on me.
His eyes were dark, heavy, and absolute. They dissected me in less than a second, reading not only my defensive posture but every ounce of fear I desperately tried to hide beneath the mask of Halloway superiority. That look made me feel as if the lethal hum of his aura was crushing my eardrums from the inside out.
My breath hitched. The air in the kitchen suddenly felt thin, too dense to inhale.
In that instant, as he took a slow sip of coffee without breaking eye contact, the overwhelming vibration of his power humming in my blood, I understood perfectly why my family's prodigy never stood a chance.
"You've grown."
His voice cut through the silence of the kitchen, deep, drawling, and utterly unceremonious. The hum of his power seemed to vibrate in tune with his words, resonating straight into my chest.
I blinked, completely disarmed. The mask of cynical detachment I used as a shield slipped from my face for a second.
"You know me?" I asked, surprise trampling my training before I could stop it.
Marcus didn't smile. He took another sip of coffee, his expression indecipherable.
"It was a long time ago," he replied, his tone final and absolute. "You won't remember."
Before I could process the information or try to scour my childhood memories for that terrifying face, Marcus pushed off the granite counter. He set the black mug in the sink and turned his attention to the spacious island in the center of the kitchen.
Without saying a word, he raised his right hand and made a short, almost lazy gesture, twisting his fingers in the air.
I didn't see the magic form, but I heard it.
A muffled crack of Flow imploded in the room, dense as the crack of a whip breaking the sound barrier underwater. The pressure in my ears dropped painfully for a millisecond, the air hissed with absurd violence over the granite island, and in the next blink of an eye, a heavy object materialized there, crashing onto the stone with a dry, dusty thud.
My eyes widened.
It was a thick book, bound in dark, worn leather, exuding a magical frequency so somber and distorted it sounded like dead-air radio static.
Elias's black grimoire. The profane treasure that had caused all this hell.
Marcus rested both hands on the edge of the granite island, leaning slightly forward over the cursed book, and pinned that predatory glare on me once more.
He tapped his fingers on the dark leather. The sound echoed in my head like the rhythmic beats of a funeral drum, carrying the rotten static that permeated the object.
"Did your father send you to my kitchen to compensate us, girl?" he asked, his voice low, but filling every square inch of the room with the density of an avalanche.
I swallowed hard, fighting the physical instinct to step back. I forced my posture to stay straight, lifting my chin with the dignity my training demanded, even as my stomach churned beneath the pressure of his aura.
"'Compensate' isn't quite the word, Mr. Salt," I replied, choosing every syllable with the care of someone walking barefoot on broken glass. "Elias was a rogue. He hadn't been part of our family for years. We banished him. His actions do not reflectf"
"But the blood in his veins was still Halloway," Marcus cut me off, his harsh, unforgiving tone crushing my justification before I could even finish it.
He didn't raise his voice or alter his expression of dangerous boredom, but the magical hum in the air around him dropped an octave, becoming even heavier.
"The arrogance that blinded him was an inheritance from you all," Marcus continued relentlessly. "The basic knowledge that allowed him to open this abomination of a grimoire, he learned under your roof. His last name was yours. In the end, he was still one of you."
The weight of that statement hit me full force. He was right, and I knew that debating semantics with the patriarch of the Salts would be not only useless, but stupid.
I let out a slow breath, abandoning my defensive posture and unlocking my shoulders.
"Yes. He was," I agreed, my voice losing its sharp, defiant edge. "And that is exactly why I am here."
I took a step forward, stopping at a respectful distance from the granite island. I closed my eyes for a second, swallowing my family's centuries-old pride, and then lowered my head, bowing my torso at a rigid, precise angle. It was a formal, deep, and absolute bow of the old arcane traditions the kind of submission the elders of my bloodline would rather tear out their own tongues than offer to anyone outside the high council.
Keeping my face turned toward the spotless kitchen floor, I uttered the words that cost me every drop of my dignity:
"On behalf of my father, Julien, and the entire Halloway bloodline... I formally apologize for all the disruption, chaos, and danger our blood has brought to your home and your son."
I kept my head bowed, my neck muscles tense, waiting for his response. The silence stretched for three long seconds, filled only by the oppressive, deep hum of his aura brushing against my senses.
And then, the pressure shifted. The dense sound of Marcus's Flow relaxed by a millimeter.
I heard the sound of a low, short, gravelly laugh before I even looked up.
I straightened my torso slowly. The Salt patriarch had uncrossed his arms and was now looking at me with a half-smile, an expression that mixed dark cynicism with something that almost looked like respect.
"You've become quite the mage, Rowan," his voice echoed through the kitchen, losing a bit of that lethal coldness. "Having to come all the way out here, bend the knee, and swallow your own blood so your family's elders wouldn't have to do it. The Halloway bloodline is too proud to muddy their boots stepping into my house after such a failure."
He took a step closer to the granite island, his predatory gaze still locked on me.
"I imagine you hate being in this position. The perfect scapegoat."
I didn't look away. I clenched my jaw, but didn't try to deny the humiliation boiling in my chest. I hated every second of it, and trying to lie to a man who could read the tension in the air would be suicide.
Marcus reached out his large hand and pushed the black grimoire across the surface of the island. The thick, old leather slid with a harsh hiss across the stone until it stopped right at the edge, just inches from me. The dark, rotten static of the book prickled the skin of my hands before I even touched it.
I reached for the heavy cover and pulled it close to my chest, bearing the profane hum of Elias's residual magic.
"A little," I admitted, my voice controlled, distilling the honesty he seemed to demand. "However, sir... my arrival is not just an apology. My father will come personally at some point to speak with his old friend."
The smile vanished from Marcus's face so abruptly that the air around him seemed to freeze.
The frequency of his aura spiked suddenly, an invisible and violent crack that made my eardrums throb with pain. The "resting war veteran" disappeared, giving way to the shadow of the monster the legends described. He leaned both hands on the granite island, leaning toward me.
"Are you telling me your presence in my town is permanent?" he asked. The tone was no longer an interrogation; it was a warning.
I held the grimoire tighter against my chest, planting my feet on the kitchen floor so as not to yield an inch. My father's presence was my only true safeguard here.
"At least until you two talk," I replied, lifting my chin, allowing the Halloway inside me to finally speak.
The shadow on Marcus's face deepened. He didn't blink or look away from me. The mention of my father had shifted the dynamic of the conversation from an "apology" to something much more tactical.
"What could that old bastard possibly want with me after all this time?" Marcus murmured, his voice deep and dangerous, more to himself than to me. The dense, heavy hum of his magic seemed to vibrate with irritation before calming again. He straightened up, leaning back against the granite counter, and crossed his arms with a short sigh. "Well, it doesn't matter. He knows the way to my door."
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, waving off my father's latent threat as if it were an annoying detail in his schedule. He pointed his chin at the heavy book against my chest.
"The grimoire is all yours, girl. Take that plague back to your elders and put it to good use."
I squeezed the dark leather tighter, Elias's putrid static tingling under my fingernails. Marcus's dismissal was clear, a tacit command for me to leave his house. But there was something I needed to know, a piece of the puzzle that hadn't fit in my head since I had felt Nathan's pathetic aura in the car.
I swallowed my hesitation.
"Sir..." I began, my voice contained, maintaining my formal posture. "May I ask something before I go?"
Marcus tilted his head a fraction of a millimeter, his eyes locked on me. The weight of his stare demanded that the question be good, or I would regret asking it.
"What?"
"How did you take down Elias?" I asked, the words rushing out in a single breath. "From what I 'felt' from Nathan this morning... his core barely reaches two thousand points. He doesn't have the level or the experience to break my cousin's final spell alone. Let alone leave him in that vegetative state."
Silence crashed down on the kitchen.
Marcus's expression didn't change, but the air around him seemed to freeze. The frequency of his aura hummed in a strange, deep way, something that wasn't irritation or a threat, but a dark, almost perverse amusement.
He uncrossed his arms slowly, resting both hands on the edge of the granite island, and leaned forward, closing the distance between us. The pressure of his power crushed the room once more, a weight so physical I had to fight the instinct to take a step back.
"You know what you felt in the car was a lie," he said. His low voice and the bass of his magic resonated straight into my bones, a statement of fact, not a question. "You have enough experience to discern between a fake mana signature and a real one, girl... or did the Halloway training not go that far?"
I felt my face burn. Shame mixed with the cold pit in my stomach. The pathetic two-thousand-point hum I had heard in the car... was a disguise. A containment so perfect and absolute that it had completely fooled my refined senses. And Marcus knew I had fallen into his son's trap like a novice.
I clutched the thick cover of the grimoire to my chest, forcing my voice not to tremble.
"But aren't you afraid he'll get hurt?" I shot back, using the information I held as a trump card to try to destabilize him. "My father said that many mages will be coming to this place soon. Drawn here because of you."
Marcus let out a short huff through his nose, a harsh sound that could have been a laugh if it weren't so laced with disdain. The lethal hum of his aura didn't waver. There wasn't a drop of anxiety regarding the threat of an invasion of mages in Beacon Hills.
"I have absolutely no fear of mages hurting Nathan," he replied, his tone laden with a cold, almost paternally sadistic certainty. "If my son dies today, it's far more likely he gets torn apart by a werewolf in the woods than brought down by sorcery."
He straightened up. His presence seemed to swallow the light in the kitchen, and the look he gave me was a clear warning not just for me, but for my entire bloodline that was about to knock on his door.
"Elias learned that the hard way," Marcus concluded, his voice dropping to a whisper that echoed far too loudly in the silence of the house. "Right now, Rowan... anyone who tries to brag about magic in front of my son is going to be in for a massive surprise."
Arcane Mathematics
I slowly lowered my hand and, for the first time since stepping into the clearing, I turned my face to look at the hooded mage. I let the vault hiding my aura crack open, releasing the pressure of my true magic into the freezing forest air.
His mocking smile faltered for a fraction of a second. But chronic arrogance was a hard habit to break.
"Gonna try to scare me with containment tricks, kid?" he snarled, his hand trembling slightly as he channeled more energy. "Die."
He thrust his palm forward. The fireball instantly expanded into a roaring torrent of red flames, shooting toward me with the heat of a furnace. The air hissed, evaporating the moisture in the clearing and illuminating the darkness of the preserve.
I didn't back down. I didn't raise a brute-force shield. I didn't summon water or wind to smother the attack.
I merely opened my eyes to the hidden reality of the world. Level 5 Magic Vision.
The forest around me lost its normal colors, transforming into a three-dimensional ocean of lines, flows, and frequencies. The torrent of lethal fire rushing toward me stopped being just heat and destruction; to me, it was a crude cluster of mana vectors. I saw the mage's energy threads woven together amateurishly to sustain the combustion. His spell was loud, wasted a ridiculous amount of energy out the sides, and, most importantly: it was full of structural flaws.
When the flames were less than three feet from my face, I raised my right hand. Two fingers extended.
I didn't meet it head-on. I wasn't the hammer. I was the needle.
I injected a microscopic sliver of my own mana directly into the central sustaining vector of his spell. A subtle touch, a mathematical rerouting of just a few degrees in the original structure.
The torrent of flames didn't hit me. It simply obeyed the new physical order I had rewritten in the air. The fire split perfectly down the middle inches from my nose, rushing past on both sides of me like a river current parting around a sharp blade, and went on to harmlessly burn the tree trunks several yards behind me.
The hooded mage's eyes went wide, shock paralyzing his lungs. His connection to his own spell had been cut like a snapped puppet string.
"What... how did you...?" he stammered, panic finally strangling the sick amusement out of his voice.
"You channel too much emotion," I murmured, taking the first step toward him. My voice was cold, purely analytical. "You waste energy in the conjuration. And your vector control is pathetic."
He tried to back away, stumbling over his own legs, frantically throwing both hands up to conjure a shield, pulling Flow from the surrounding air with blind desperation.
But with my Magic Vision, I was already reading the energy lines forming around his hands before the defensive spell could even take shape.
I clenched my hand into a fist in the air, grabbing the base of the invisible vector he was trying to create.
I didn't launch an attack. I just strangled his magic at the source, forcing the energy he had accumulated to pull a U-turn and implode inside his own core.
The muffled boom echoed through the forest.
The mage's body was thrown backward violently, snapping the low branches of a pine tree before slamming against the thick trunk. He fell to his knees in the muddy ground, choking on his own blood, his eyes rolling back from the excruciating pain of his own mana burning his nerves from the inside out.
I wasn't even sweating. I walked until I stood in front of him, looking down at him.
The hooded mage coughed, spitting dark blood into the mud. Absolute panic finally crushed any remnant of arrogance he still had left. Cornered, his survival instinct took over.
He raised his trembling right hand toward me, pushing his own core far beyond its safe limit. The air around him hummed violently. A dart of purple energy, pure and hyper-concentrated a magic missile designed to pierce steel materialized inches from his open palm. It was a desperate, lethal attack, aimed straight at my chest.
I didn't blink. I didn't change my expression of boredom.
I just raised my hand and snapped my fingers.
The sharp sound cut through the forest air. And in that exact millisecond, the magic missile simply ceased to exist.
There was no explosion, no sparks, no resistance. I read the spell's bindings with my Magic Vision and severed its cohesion vector right at the root. The concentrated energy collapsed in on itself, turning into nothing more than a harmless breeze that lightly ruffled my shirt collar.
The man froze. His arm remained outstretched, eyes wide open, staring at his own completely empty hand. His mind couldn't process the impossibility of what he had just seen. His universe, where whoever had the most brute force won, had just been shattered by pure arcane mathematics.
"I know I should ask you a few questions," I muttered, looking down at him, my tone drawling and pragmatic. "But, to be honest, I'm in a hurry."
Before he could open his mouth to beg, I clenched my hand into a fist.
With my perception locked onto him, I grabbed the magic core inside his chest using only my telekinesis. And I squeezed, all at once.
The hollow snap of something fundamental breaking echoed inside the man. He didn't even have time to scream. The shock of having his mana source obliterated in a millisecond overloaded his nervous system. His body gave a single violent spasm before his eyes rolled back. He collapsed face-first into the mud, completely unconscious.
He wasn't dead. But the sickly static that plagued the clearing vanished instantly. He would never light so much as a match with magic again; from that second on, he was just an ordinary, broken human.
I took my eyes off the inert body. I closed mine for a moment and accessed my bloodline's familiar frequency, shaping my mana into a restricted communication vector.
Dad, I projected the thought through the Flow, an encrypted mental transmission that crossed the forest straight to our kitchen. Found one of them here. Broke his core. Sending the package to you to play interrogation. See if the Halloway spy wants to watch.
Without waiting for Marcus's reply, I reached into my jacket's inner pocket and pulled out a small disc of darkened silver, engraved with a spatial displacement rune. I knelt, slapped the metal matrix onto the back of the unconscious man's neck, and injected a quick pulse of mana into it.
The rune glowed a silvery-blue. The air around his body distorted, folding inward with a muffled vacuum sound, and in the next blink of an eye, the man vanished from the preserve's mud, dispatched straight to the floor of Marcus Salt's living room.
The forest finally fell empty and silent again.
I turned my back on the patch of crushed dirt and walked slowly toward the giant tree. I started taking off my leather jacket as I approached.
Lydia was still in the exact same position I had left her in: pressed against the trunk, shivering violently from the cold, with her eyes squeezed shut so tightly her face must have hurt. She remained absolutely blind and trapped in the acoustic vacuum I had created around her, immune to all the violence and magic that had just taken place a few feet away.
I stopped in front of her. Careful not to startle her with sudden movements, I dispelled the wall of silence with a thought. The sound of the wind in the leaves filled the space once more.
I opened my jacket and draped it over her pale, bare shoulders, pulling the thick leather around her fragile body to protect her from the biting morning air.
The physical weight of the jacket and the residual heat of my body in the fabric were the trigger I had promised.
With a jolt and a shuddering breath, Lydia Martin opened her eyes.