Elias’s POV

The academy’s corridors always felt colder after lights-out.

Silence hung between the walls like a living thing; sharp, filled with the ghosts of voices and footsteps that would return when dawn came. But tonight, it was heavier. Thicker. Like the air itself was watching me.

Or maybe that was just him.

I pressed a hand against the railing as I climbed the upper stairwell, pulse steady but my breathing too slow , deliberate. Controlled. My collar buzzed faintly at my throat, ...