I walked alongside Waelid, Silas, Sora, Luna, and Mel down House Anu’s main corridor. Our footsteps echoed off the marble, the stench of smoke still clinging to the air. Behind us, Galina barked orders, securing the building.

  Ahead, two upperclassmen dragged the captured mageblood girl—maybe sixteen—across the hall. Without her armor, she looked even thinner. Her severed arms were bound behind her back, her tunic stained with tears and blood. She muttered under her breath before raising her voice.

  “You’re all fools,” she spat, glaring at me. “Following a demon! That’s what you are. A devil wearing human skin.”

  I stopped, meeting her gaze.

  “Don’t forget your kind started this. You invaded our home,” I said.

  She scoffed, eyes burning. Behind me, Galina ordered Jorinmo’s body taken deeper into House Anu.

  “Jorinmo . . .” the mageblood whispered, voice hoarse. Guilt twisted in my gut, but I shoved it down. She looked back up, defiant. “You’re the spitting image of a dark lord. How long until your ‘self-defense’ turns into destruction?”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” I muttered, walking on.

  She barked a bitter laugh, tears brimming. “The church warned us about you. Voidbloods are pathetic enough, but you”—she jerked her chin at me—“you’re worse. A real devil. He told us to look for the green-haired demon.”

  Before I could respond, Ol’ Mumm stepped between us. “That’s enough.” The hulking bear-woman stuffed a wad of cloth into the girl’s mouth, earning a muffled protest.

  Ol’ Mumm turned to Waelid and me. “I’ll lock her in storage. After that, I’ll fix you both something to eat.”

  I frowned. “Thanks, but we don’t have time—”

  “Nonsense,” she interrupted. “You need strength. I’ve got Professor Rennal’s herbs. I’ll brew a proper soup.”

  Waelid shot me a look that said, Don’t bother arguing. I sighed and nodded.

  She grinned, canines glinting, then dragged the gagged girl away.

  A pit twisted in my stomach. In our eyes, they were the monsters. Were we the monsters in theirs?

  We descended a flight of narrow stairs to the basement. Normally bustling with housemates, the corridors now felt hollow. Lanterns flickered over scorched walls, the scent of charred wood lingering.

  “Did we lose anyone?” I asked.

  Mel stopped. Silas lowered his head. “Ten upperclassmen.”

  Waelid froze. “I . . . I didn’t even think to ask.” He fell silent, his usual strong exterior cracking.

  I let the moment pass, then asked, “What about the first-years?”

  Mel’s jaw tightened. “We all made it. They can’t hurt the legendary House Anu recruits.” She raised a fist.

  I smiled and returned the gesture. “That’s right.” I clapped Waelid’s shoulder. “Let’s go. We’re not letting them get away with this.”

  He met my gaze, then nodded. “I’ll have vengeance.”

  ‘You’re worried about him,’ Fern said. ‘Like you were about me before the first trial.’

  You’re getting good at reading me.

  ‘We’ve lived through your worst memory. And we bonded with the spirit of a chimera. I think I know you pretty well now.’

  You’re right. But for now, I’ll let him direct his anger at the enemy. I can’t argue that what we’re doing isn’t violent—but we have little choice.

  We stopped at a thick wooden door.

  “Through here,” Luna said. She pushed it open, revealing a broad, low-ceilinged room. Luna had returned to her normal teenager form, and as far as I could tell, she was behaving like her normal self, waiting to see what I would do.

  Three upperclassmen surrounded a bound figure in the center, a sack over their head.

  My chest tightened. Silas and Mel had done everything right—multiple guards, the prisoner’s face concealed. I had to give them credit.

  Silas stepped forward and yanked the sack off.

  I blinked. “You? You’re the spy?”

  Professor Twinges squinted against the lantern light, his graying hair plastered to his scalp.

  I turned to Silas. “We’ve had his class, what, ten times? He never seemed sketchy. I figured it’d be Professor Rennal.”

  Silas smirked. “You’d think so. But the files we stole tell a different story.”

  Twinges had been at the academy for years but never graduated—washed out after failing the final trial. He lived in Ash for several years before returning as an assistant to the Artifact Engineering department. This year, he was only supposed to assist, but after the previous professor’s “accident,” he stepped into the role. His confusing past made it hard to follow the paperwork to even find out who he was.

  “But here’s where it got suspicious,” Silas continued. “When I went to turn in the grapple gauntlets, he wouldn’t let me inside his office like he normally did. He showed me away. He was working on something he didn’t want me to see.”

  Twinges shot him a sharp glare.

  Silas ignored him. “So, I snuck back in after I watched him leave. Turns out, the pillardust he gets from the gauntlets hooks, he scrapes off, keeps every little grain. That set off alarms in my head.”

  Mel stepped forward. “His signature’s on every pillardust export the academy sent out. When we confronted him, he panicked and transformed into his ferret form. That’s when we knew he was the one who attacked us.”

  Sora crossed her arms. “Luckily, these two were smart for once and told us. Galina, Luna, and I waited in the dark and took him down before he could ambush Silas and Mel.”

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  Waelid let out a low whistle and then stepped forward in front of the professor.

  “So, you think you can just ambush and attack students?” Waelid leaned down over Twinges.

  “I . . . I don’t have to answer to you children.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to answer a child’s questions, but you’ll sic a damn Guardian on them.”

  “That . . . was different. You were all supposed to run. It was just supposed to get him.” Twinges looked up at me and nodded his nose toward me.

  “I don’t think you got a good look at what we just did outside, old man!” Mel shouted. She slammed her foot into the side of his shin. Twinges cried out in pain. Mel leaned close. “We killed one of them. Cut the hands off the other. Don’t think we won’t cut off anything of yours.”

  Twinges looked up at her, and a small bit of fear filled his eyes.

  “Why?” I said.

  Twinges turned to look at me past Waelid.

  “Why do all this? Speak now. I don’t have time to deal with you. As you can see, we are under attack, so time is a rare thing we have right now. Speak now or lose your tongue.” I stepped forward and Waelid moved aside for me.

  “I . . . I had to. You have to believe me. If I didn’t, they would have killed my family, my loved ones!” Twinges shouted.

  “Explain. Now,” I said as I pulled out Lightcutter. I didn’t want to torture the man, but time was ticking. Every second here is a second longer that the magebloods outside could notice four of their group were missing. If what the villagers of Ash said was true, there were eight more magebloods here.

  “Okay!” Twinges twisted in the tight ropes tying him to the chair. “They threatened my family.”

  “Oh, here we go.” Mel groaned. “A likely story, bud. Spill the truth!” She grabbed Twinges by the collar and shook him.

  “Fine! Fine! Damn it. Damn you, girl!” Twinges said. “It’s not like you brats will win anyway.” Twinge’s personality shifted dramatically. Now he looked like he was looking down at us.

  “Twinges isn’t my real name, first of all. What kind of backward-town, voidblood-ass mother would name their kid Twinges? No, my name is Xavier Mourncrest,” he said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Waelid said with venom in his mouth. He shifted behind Xavier and brandished a hidden blade. He moved the knife against our prisoner’s throat within a breath of a moment.

  “Wait!” I held out my hand. “Waelid, calm down. What are you freaking out about?”

  “Mourncrest,” Luna whispered next to me. I turned toward her and raised my eyebrow. “That’s the family name of one of the princelords of the royal court.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Wait, now there’s a royal court?”

  “My gods, man, do we have to give you a political lesson every time we talk about the magebloods?” Mel said.

  “Let’s just say his family, the Mourncrests, are one of the branches of the Royal Magebloods.”

  Waelid pressed the blade against Xavier’s neck. “So you see? We’ve got one of our archenemy’s leaders in our hands. Let me gut him. For my sister!” He pressed the blade further.

  “Waelid, no!” I shouted at him. “Look, I know you are pissed at them, but do you think killing him now without extracting any info would benefit us at all?”

  “They wouldn’t even care if you did kill me,” Xavier said. “Why would they care if their voidblood son died? That’s what they sent me here for anyway. But then they saw I could be useful when I sent them my findings on pillardust capabilities.”

  “So you really did all this for, what . . . approval from Mom and Dad?” I said.

  “No, for my honor. To have my dignity restored. To have the curse of the voidblood be forgiven for my service,” he said, twisting in his bondages.

  “So you figured out a way to get through the barrier and sent them the materials to do it, huh?”

  Xavier turned his head away from me.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. And so? Now what? What is their plan? Why did they send twelve mages here?”

  Xavier didn’t answer until Waelid tugged the blade against his neck.

  “They don’t need to send an army,” he spat. “The magelord could take this whole place by himself.”

  “Really?” Waelid said with a smile on his face. “Then how come we’ve defeated four of these so-called powerful magebloods? They are not as strong as you make them seem.”

  “You’ve taken out merely students. Kids younger than you. In terms of strength, you’ve defeated an insect.”

  “I don’t know about that. What was that guy’s name again? The fat one? Jorinmo? And what about that other older woman I beheaded? She had a witchy voice,” Waelid said with a snarl.

  Xavier tensed up. He didn’t know that we had killed two of the magebloods.

  “He’s right, Xavier,” I said. “We’ve spared the students.”

  “Minus a few hands,” Waelid said, laughing. Mel joined in and laughed next to him.

  “Are we starting a collection now?” she asked.

  Xavier looked more panicked now.

  “You don’t know why we were up there, do you?” I said to Xavier while pointing up above. “We reached the third level of our infusions.” I held out three fingers.

  His eyes widened. “Impossible. That sort of bullshit meditating to find one’s spirit is supposed to take years.”

  “Not with the major’s training.” I smiled.

  Xavier twisted his face. “That eccentric old man? A teacher? I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care if you don’t. I just wanted to tell you how we took out four magebloods so you know that your ‘masters’ aren’t so invincible. You picked the wrong side, Xavier. Now, before we decide if you’re worth keeping alive or not, what is their plan?”

  When Xavier didn’t answer, Waelid twisted the blade, pointing the tip into his chest.

  “Agh! Okay! He . . . wants to kill all the professors and older Cinders. Get rid of the old guard before bringing their people in here. The magelord will usher in the royal mage knights into Baldred’s Pillar, and under their supervision, the the royal mage knights will take over the training of the . . . voidblood slave army.”

  “Kill the professors? How can the magebloods possibly do that? There were twelve of them, and like, what, over a hundred staff members. The professors are stronger than us. Explain, pig,” Waelid said, tightening the blade against Xavier’s neck again.

  “The magelord; that’s how,” Xavier coughed. “He easily overpowered the Cinders and staff and sapped them of power and strength. Tied them all up in the academy. He merely brought the other magebloods along for fun.”

  “Did any of you find out what happened to the professors?” I asked the group.

  “When the mages came, it was late at night. None of us have made it to the academy to check on the professors,” Sora said. “We heard loud explosions coming from the academy and the other two houses. It was chaos, but we had our own problems to deal with as you saw. We just assumed that was everyone else fighting back too. We were locked into battle for several days before you arrived.”

  I looked around at them closer in the dark light. Everyone looked exhausted. They must have fought in shifts to try to keep the magebloods at bay. I poked the side of my thumb with my forefinger nail.

  This has gone on long enough! I thought.

  I stepped close to Xavier and pressed Lightcutter against his chest.

  “What is their plan after right now? Out with it!”

  Xavier looked up at me with anger in his eyes. He looked at me like the magebloods in Corello looked at Fern. The same way they had looked at me. Xavier was a voidblood himself, but he was raised to hate who he was. He still held onto that hate. Would his family ever accept him back?

  “The Royal mage knight’s will kill every cinder who defies them. They will use the power trapped within their body, within the infusions they took and their souls to open a teleportation portal. Where they can bring the rest of the magelord’s army to the Pillar and take over the whole damn place. They already pierced the barrier; they are safe from its effects. It’s too late to stop them, you know. They will come here, rescue me, and then I will make you all my servants!”

  “How long do we have?” I pressed him for an answer.

  “He may already have opened it. He did tell everyone to have fun and that tonight was their last night on this mission,” Xavier said, shrugging.

  “How do you know about that?” I asked him

  Mel spoke up. “We all heard that announcement. The two magebloods who were attacking us had it playing out of the small boxes they kept on their hips. It’s some sort of communication device.”

  “We don’t have much time.” I stood back up and sheathed Lightcutter. I looked down at Xavier and saw anger in his eyes. The moral part of me said to keep him alive. But something deeper inside me told me to take him out of the picture. Something in my gut, like intuition.

  “Well?” Waelid looked at me, the knife still held against Xavier’s neck.

  I sighed. This was for the best. It would stain my soul, but if he was left alive, it would come back to bite us in the ass, right? That’s how all those good guys in the books and movies got betrayed, right?

  “Xavier, may you be reincarnated and learn from your past mistakes. You picked the wrong path this time.” I nodded to Waelid and turned around.

  “Wait! I—” Xavier blurted out his last word before a gurgling sound came next. I heard the chair topple over and saw Silas out of the corner of my eye cover his mouth.

  I shook away any guilt that tried to bubble up.

  “Must . . . stay . . . strong,” I whispered to myself as I walked up the stairs before I vomited.