"Incorrect dismissal!" Morrigan shouted, striding toward the disturbance. "All of you, collapse your circles! Now!"

  Students hurried to sweep away their summoning boundaries, hastily thanking their elementals before trying to put as much space as possible between themselves and Ronan. Finn turned to his bog sprite, which was now tugging at the Heart-seed, insistently, trying to drag it away. "Thank you for coming," he said quickly, reaching for the seed. "I appreciate your warning, but you need to go now."

  The elemental's eyes flashed, their green glowing brighter, its tiny body trembling with frustration. It abandoned the Heart-seed and instead grabbed Finn's finger, pulling him toward the acorn pattern with surprising strength.

  "Finn!" Morrigan's voice had lost all patience. "Dismiss it immediately! I hope you see that using a heart-seed as a lure wasn't as brilliant as you might have thought it to be. I have to take care of Mr. Fitzgerald's destabilizing elemental. Dismiss the sprite and join the others - now!"

  Across the clearing, the grey mass had grown to the size of a small car, roiling with internal lightning that cast eerie shadows through the mist. Ronan cowered on the ground beneath it, while Bran and several other students attempted to corral the expanding entity with hastily woven threads of Aether.

  Finn reached for the circle's edge, intending to sweep it away as instructed, but the bog sprite moved with startling speed. It leapt onto his hand, its soil-body cool against his skin, and pressed itself against the blue veins of his wrist. An intense jolt ran up Finn's arm, like the moment he'd touched the water elemental bestiary in the Archival Wing, and images that weren't his memories flashed through his mind.

  A vast tomb-like chamber carved into ancient stone, its walls, ceiling, and floor all hewn from the same dark rock. The only light came from flickering torches along the walls. At the chamber's heart, a raised dais, its sides inscribed with runic carvings that glowed faintly. On the platform, a cauldron of burnished silver, big enough to sit in, pulsing with waves of blue-white Aether. Six figures in a half-circle around the dais, their backs to the cauldron, facing toward the chamber's single entrance, their hands glowing with lashing Aether. "How dare you desecrate this place!" one of the six called out, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "You swore to protect the balance, not destroy it!"

  Finn gasped and pulled his hand back reflexively. The bog sprite tumbled to the ground, its body crumbling on impact. But it reformed quickly and again looked up at him with its big green eyes, as if it was trying to tell him something. Finn's mind was reeling. What was that? What did I just see? He was sure that the cauldron was the one from his dreams, but who had been those people?

  Across the clearing, the roiling grey mass had doubled in size and was growing larger by the second. It surged upward, forming a vaguely humanoid shape with long, wispy limbs and a featureless head. Lightning crackled within its cloudy body, and a hollow moan echoed across the grove.

  "Storm wraith!" Morrigan shouted, raising her staff. Ogham symbols flared along its length, burning with emerald fire. "Everyone behind me! Now!"

  Students scrambled to gather behind the Warden. Finn scooped up the Heart-seed, but hesitated, watching the bog sprite desperately trying to maintain its form as the storm wraith's influence grew stronger.

  "Come on!" Sophie tugged at his arm. "That's a wraith! They feed on fear and confusion. We have to get behind Morrigan. Now!"

  "But the sprite," Finn protested, looking back at the tiny earth elemental. "It tried to tell me something!"

  "It'll return to the earth," Kai assured him, joining Sophie to drag him away from the circle. "Elemental forms are temporary. Their essence remains in the grove. And yours is too small to sustain itself."

  Finn reluctantly allowed them to lead him back toward their classmates, watching the bog sprite crumble back into ordinary soil. The storm wraith loomed even larger, the size of a house now, its cloudy form crackling with increasingly violent lightning. Wind whipped through the clearing, snatching at cloaks and sending fallen leaves spiraling upward.

  Morrigan, standing firmly between the wraith and the students, had her staff raised, chanting in a language Finn didn't recognize, harsh syllables that seemed just as loud as the storm wraith's moaning. The ogham on her staff burned brighter, threads of Aether flowing around it, when suddenly it sent beams of light into the wraith's chaos.

  The entity recoiled, its misty arms thrashing, and for a moment, it seemed Morrigan would subdue it, as a bolt of lightning erupted from its core, striking a massive tree at the clearing's edge. Its trunk split with a deafening crack, sending pumpkin-sized fragments of hard, splintery wood flying towards them with destructive speed.

  "MOVE!" Bran shouted, pushing several students out of the tree's path, which had started to tip in their direction. Panic ensured and students scattered, breaking formation and running in different directions.

  Finn found himself separated from the main group, with only Sophie and Kai nearby. The storm wraith, too, began to fragment, splitting into smaller cloud-forms that started to pursue different groups of fleeing students like swarms of bees chasing a bear.

  "The forest!" Kai pointed toward the twisted rowans where Finn had performed his summoning. "We can use the trees for cover!"

  The three of them sprinted for the tree line, a wraith-fragment pursuing them, this one darker than the main entity, almost black, and terrifyingly fast.

  They ducked beneath the rowans' entwined branches, wriggling through slippery undergrowth and wet soil. Behind them, the wraith-fragment howled, high and piercing, like wind forced through a canyon.

  "Keep moving!" Sophie gasped as she leapt over a fallen log.

  Finn ran, his lungs burning, the Heart-seed clutched in his fist. Its warmth pulsed, synchronizing with his racing heart, and the bog sprite's images - the stone chamber, the cauldron, and the figures standing around it - flashed through his mind again. When they stumbled across a small hollow formed by the roots of a massive oak, partially hidden by ferns and moss, Kai pushed them into its shelter, and they crouched, breathing hard, listening for any suspicious sound.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "I think it's gone," Sophie whispered after what felt like hours, peering cautiously through the ferns. "Storm wraiths can't track well through living wood. Too much natural Aether interference. And this one's too small to flatten the place."

  "What was that thing?" Finn croaked, his mouth and throat dry from running. "I thought we were just summoning minor elementals."

  "Must be because the veil is already thinning," Kai said, examining his glasses, which had been knocked askew during their flight. "Morrigan warned about it earlier, but I don't think anyone expected a full manifestation from someone like Ronan. Storm wraiths usually only appear when the boundary is at its weakest or when summoned by a Master Weaver."

  The Heart-seed in Finn's palm throbbed with lingering warmth. He opened his hand, examining it. The spiral marking hadn't lost its glow yet. "The bog sprite," Sophie said, studying the acorn. "I saw your face change when it touched you. Did it hurt you?"

  Finn shook his head. "It showed me things. Like a vision, I guess." He searched for the right words. "It was like watching snippets of a movie."

  "And you think the bog sprite did that?" Sophie hushed. "That's... crazy! What did it show you?"

  Before Finn could tell them about what he'd seen, a horn blast echoed through the forest, deep and resonant, raising goosebumps on his arms. A flash of emerald light burst above the trees, followed by the Morrigan's voice, weirdly amplified, echoing from all directions:

  "ALL STUDENTS RETURN TO THE CLEARING IMMEDIATELY. THE WRAITH IS CONTAINED."

  After a moment of tense silence, listening for any nearby howling, they left their hiding place and made their way back through the trees. Other students appeared from various directions, some looking shaken, others excited by the unexpected adventure.

  The storm wraith, now reduced to a pale grey wisp no larger than a hedgehog, was contained within a glowing green dome of woven Aether strands.

  "Is everyone accounted for?" Morrigan asked as the last stragglers returned. Her gaze swept across the class, pausing briefly on every student as if taking a mental note. She tapped her staff once, her eyes flicking from Finn to Ronan. "Errors may summon sprites that are harmless to novices like yourselves, but during this time of the year - well, you've all seen what a wraith that feeds on fear is capable of. Precision is your shield. Remember that for our next session!"

  Something in her voice hinted at the effort it must have taken to subdue the wraith. "The lesson is concluded for today," she announced. "Return to the Academy and prepare for tonight's Samhain Eve feast. First-years will report to the Grand Hall at dusk for instructions."

  The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the eastern grounds, as students began dispersing to head back toward the Academy's main buildings, chattering excitedly about their summonings and how one might subdue a storm wraith.

  "That was incredible," Sophie said, her earlier disappointment at failing to summon a water elemental forgotten. "I mean, terrifying, of course, but incredible. A real storm wraith!"

  "I'm just glad no one was seriously hurt," Kai replied, still looking shaken. "When that tree exploded..." He shuddered. "Ronan's lucky Bran pushed him out of the way."

  Finn walked between his friends, only half-listening to their conversation. His mind kept returning to the vision the bog sprite had shared. The images had felt so real, and the cauldron looked exactly like the one from his dreams.

  The Heart-seed's spiral marking had ceased to glow, and it now felt cool between his fingers. Whatever power it contained had definitely attracted the bog sprite's attention. But what did it want to tell me? That damned storm wraith. If I could've -

  "Another spectacular performance today, Madden."

  He turned to find Bran approaching from behind, flanked by two of his companions, Ronan Fitzgerald, who still looked pale from nearly getting impaled by tree shrapnel, and a sharp-faced girl named Pia Parrish, who loved to wear her silver-blonde hair tied to a small bun that looked like an albino hamster was sitting on top of her head.

  "Blackthorn," Finn replied warily, ignoring Sophie's warning hand on his shoulder.

  Bran stopped just within arm's reach, his grey-green eyes scanning Finn. "First successful summoning, bog sprite..." He tilted his head slightly. "One might almost think you were showing off."

  "I wasn't trying to-"

  "Of course you weren't," Bran cut him off. "Just like you weren't trying to upstage everyone during Aine's thread-weaving practice. It's all just... natural talent, isn't it?"

  "Just luck, I guess," Finn replied, trying to sound casual.

  "Luck," Bran repeated, a cold smile playing on his lips. "Is that what we're calling it? My father says there's no such thing as luck in the Aether's flow - only bloodlines and power."

  Sophie stepped forward. "What's your point, Bran? Jealous that it wasn't you who summoned the little soil man?"

  Pia snorted. "Jealous? Of him?" She gestured dismissively at Finn. "Please. Anyone can get lucky with the right bait."

  Finn felt his pulse rise. "None of your business."

  "Is it not?" Bran stepped closer, lowering his voice. "See, I've been thinking about you, Madden. About how you appeared out of nowhere, with no training. About how the teachers watch you like you're either very precious or very dangerous."

  "I've no idea what you're talking about - "

  "Oh, you don't?" Bran said, his eyes glittering. "It's plain and obvious, foster boy. You're hiding something." He waited for the words to sink in. "My father has contacts throughout the weaver community. If there's something to know about you, trust me, I'll find it."

  He sauntered off before Finn could think about a response, Ronan and Pia behind him. Like a string of goldfish poop. What a bunch of turkeys.

  "Ignore him," Sophie shook her head, staring after Bran. "He loves to act like he's privy to great secrets because of his family connections."

  "Sometimes he is, though," Kai murmured. "The Blackthornes have served on the Druid Council for generations. They probably have access to knowledge most Weaver families don't."

  As they entered the Academy, passing beneath the archway where protection runes glowed with renewed strength in preparation for Samhain, Finn made a silent promise to himself. After the feast, after Samhain eve had passed, he would find out what the sprite had been trying to tell him.