The crowd buzzed like an angry hive the moment I stepped into the hall.

  Yesterday, the castle felt like a haunted museum — all spooky silence and empty corridors.

  Today? Jam-packed. Elbows, robes, and chatter everywhere. Robes flapped like black birds at a funeral disco, and everyone seemed to know exactly where to go.

  Except me, obviously.

  Elvira vanished into the crowd, and trying to spot her among fifty shades of identical black was about as easy as spotting a specific bat in a bat cave. Fantastic start to the day.

  I tried to get my bearings, glancing around for a clue, a sign, or even divine intervention. The hall looked like something out of a Gothic horror film — tall stone columns rose like dead trees twisting toward the high ceiling, where heavy chandeliers dangled from chains, flickering as if they were on their last magical breath.

  The crowd moved around me like I didn’t exist.

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  So this was what it meant to be a clueless first-year in a world you didn’t ask to be in — where even the walls looked like they judged you.

  “Brilliant, Malinka,” I told myself dryly. “Next time, maybe choose the pond you jump into a little more carefully.”

  Then I spotted it — a massive pale?grey wall covered in lettering so black it looked like it had been ripped straight out of the void. The letters weren’t just written there; they throbbed, like the wall itself was alive.

  The schedule.

  I moved closer and started scanning it, hunting for anything that resembled “first year” and “basic survival.”

  Intro to Necromancy. Foundations of Dark Alchemy. History of Dark Magic and Necromancy. Spectral Interactions. Basic Curse Defense...

  Well. Those were certainly subjects.

  I let out a deep sigh and glanced around, still completely lost. I was supposed to be adapting to this delightfully gloomy new reality — but honestly, it felt more like I'd faceplanted from a skyscraper and landed straight into a swamp.

  My first class was History of Dark Magic and Necromancy. Probably a bunch of tales about legendary necromancers scaring the life out of people just by showing up and raising skeleton armies with a dramatic flick of the wrist.

  Time to move. Only problem — the schedule was full of weird alphanumeric codes I couldn’t make heads or tails of, so I had no clue where to go.

  Soooo… Step one: find Grey Morne. He dragged me into this – let him deal with it.

  Step two: find someone who could tell me where step one was even located.

  Which meant spotting a student who looked mildly approachable. Someone I could ask for help. Preferably someone who didn’t look like they hex kittens for fun.

  Easier said than done.