The music shifted.
It wasn't dramatic at first, but there was something wrong with it. The melody was too sharp. A single violin note stretching a fraction too long, bow dragging like the musician's arm had forgotten where the song ended.
Thorn's brows furrowed. This definitely wasn't the orchestra that Reichenbach Academy would have spent thousands on. Xavier noticed her reaction almost immediately, his head tilting as if trying to catch something under the melody.
Another note bent out of tune.
Then another.
The chandelier crystals trembled, but not enough for anyone else to notice. Thorn felt it in her teeth, a vibration running along her bones.
Her fingers tightened on Xavier's shoulder, where they had rested from their shared dance.
"Do you hear—"
"Yeah," he murmured. "I do."
The orchestra's masks began to hum.
Not loudly.
Not visibly.
But Thorn saw it, the faint shimmer of resonance flickering in their silver filigree, each musician's mask pulsing with a soft, rhythmic glow.
Xavier's blood ran cold.
"Thorn," he said under his breath, "they're here."
The first note struck.
A deep, ancient drone cut through the Great Hall like a blade through silk. As if a large gust of wind swept over the hall. Every candle flickered out, every chandelier guttered, and every mirror warped under the vibration.
Students gasped and clutched their heads as the sound burrowed under their skin. The wolves' bracelets flared bright red. A few of them staggered back, claws half-sprung, before the wards snapped tight, suppressing the shift so violently their knees buckled. Loud groans of pain echoed between the walls, and students staggered forward.
Thorn's breath hitched violently, something tightening deep in her ribs, a wire drawn taut.
The Great Hall was awakening beneath them.
Anchor One responding to the Choir's call.
Thorn turned her head at the exact moment the adults realized something was wrong.
It wasn't the slow, confused realization that the students had. It was clear this had hit like a memory, like they had felt something like this before.
Professor Alarie, who'd been standing near the refreshments table, snapped her head up so sharply her raven-feather earrings swayed. Her glass shattered on the floor at her feet.
"Everyone AWAY from the center of the floor!" she barked, voice cutting through the first wave of panic. "Move. MOVE!"
Her command jolted several students into motion, but not fast enough.
The marble under their feet thrummed like a living thing, and Xavier didn't think. He moved automatically, reaching into the inside pocket of his blazer. He pulled out pages of protective runes, ones he had been studying for days, drawing and redrawing in his dorm at night instead of sleeping.
He shoved Thorn behind him just as the second resonance wave hit. It was harder, sharper, a shock that made glass cry out in the windows. The backlash slammed into him. He gasped, too sharp, too sudden, blood bursting from his nose in a hot rush, stars clouded his vision.
"Xavier!" Thorn grabbed his arm, supporting him as his legs buckled. But he held himself upright with sheer will, teeth clenched so hard they might've cracked. One of the rune pages crumpled in his fist, its black ink beginning to glow with a dull, volatile light as it reacted to the resonance, not controlling it.
He'd meant the runes as a buffer, nothing more. A way to redirect vibrational force, soften a hit, but not to take the full surge head-on.
The wave didn't care.
And the Choir cared even less.
They had learned from the incident in Mrs. Weaver's class, and the next strike from the orchestra wasn't musical at all. It wasn't even trying to hide behind the wicked melody.
A vicious, resonant crack split the air.
The chandeliers ruptured in brilliant bursts of crystal. The stained-glass windows imploded inward. Shards turned to shrapnel.
More students screamed, ducked, curled into themselves, and hid under tables and chairs. Teachers tried their best to escort them out in an orderly fashion despite the panic. However, it was evident that none of them knew what the correct thing to do was.
But Xavier moved.
Instinctively, with no logic, least of all a strategy. Xavier yanked Thorn tight against him, turning his whole body into a shield.
"Xavier—!" she gasped, but the sound drowned underneath the explosion of glass. The shards hit him first.
The smaller pieces slashed across his back and shoulders. They were thin, stinging lines that sang with heat. One of the larger shards, jagged and dagger-like, caught him across the cheekbone, slicing a clean line through skin. Blood welled immediately, beading bright against the mask.
Then, another piece, longer and heavier, stabbed into his side, puncturing through the soft fabric of his dress shirt and digging into flesh beneath his ribs. He grunted, the breath knocked out of him, but didn't loosen his hold. A thin line of glass nicked across his knuckles as he tightened his grip around Thorn, pulling her entirely beneath him as more fragments rained down.
By the time the last of the chandelier's crystals hit the floor, Xavier had taken the worst of it. When he finally pulled back, Thorn saw the damage instantly.
A crimson slash along his cheek, dripping down to his jawline. Blood soaked the side of his shirt, darkening the forest-green fabric. A shard still lodged between his ribs, gleaming with each breath.
"Xavier... your side..."
"I'm fine," he rasped, clearly not fine.
His hand fluttered near the wound but didn't dare touch it. The cartilage-deep cut forced his posture crooked, each inhale sharp and too fast.
And within an instant, Thorn's pupils went white.
Not from loss of control.
But from pure, hot rage.
Xavier swayed, breath trembling.
"Don't—" he managed through a pained groan. "Don't worry about me. Just... focus."
But the words didn't make it to her all the way. Not with his blood warm on her hands. Not with the realization that he would've taken every shard in the room if it meant shielding her.
Every shadow within twenty feet snapped to her like iron filings dragged toward a magnet, roaring with life she had refused to give it before. The bridge between life and death simmered under the surface.
If Riechenbach was going to call her a monster,
She'd at least prove them right.
"Expergiscimini."
The shadows answered instantly, building a semi-circle of darkness around her, each one alive and antsy, like guard dogs waiting for the command to bite.
The masked musicians faltered.
They had not expected her.
Not like this.
Not when the school had done everything in its power to dull her abilities.
One of them struck another note. A piercing, metallic vibration meant to collapse the crowd to its knees, but Thorn's shadows surged upward in a wall, absorbing the shock like a blanket thrown over a flame.
The conductor hissed, flicking his wrist, and two cloaked Choir members vaulted from the stage, boots hitting the marble with ritual precision.
"Thorn—" Xavier choked, trying to stay upright, blood seeping into the green-grey fabric over his ribs.
"Stay down," she snapped.
But she wasn't talking to him.
She was talking to everything in the room.
"Impetus."
The shadows obeyed, rising like an army receiving commands. The first attacker lunged, a silver-bladed tuning fork aimed for Thorn's throat. She didn't move, but her shadows did. They whipped upward in a clean, precise arc. The black, inky tendril grabbed their wrist mid-strike and twisted. Tendons popped. The attacker screamed, the fork clattering harmlessly across the floor. Another charged her from the left.
Thorn stepped sideways, fluid and unpanicked, grabbed the back of his cloak, and slammed him into a pillar hard enough to make the marble shudder, and her shadows swept his legs the moment he hit the ground.
She wasn't fighting like the other vampires or like other psychics.
She wasn't fighting like anything the Choir had prepared for.
She was fighting like someone who had bridged the gap between life and death, but didn't even know it. Someone who had clawed her way back with teeth and nails and magic not meant for mortals. Especially not the ones who doubted her.
The conductor barked, "Anchor the Hall! NOW!"
The marble beneath Thorn glowed, golden veins spreading outward like a web being activated, as if the entire Great Hall were opening its eyes.
Thorn touched the floor.
Just two fingers.
Her shadows plunged into the resonance lines, choking them, corrupting the pattern with every breath she took. The golden veins flickered to black, then to nothing.
The Choir's conductor recoiled. "She's destabilizing it! Pull back!"
But one cloaked member didn't listen. Instead, he sprinted toward Thorn, blade raised. It was the last of the tuning forks carved with the Minstrels' sigils. Thorn didn't break stance; she didn't even flinch.
Her shadow struck first.
It wrapped the attacker's ankle, yanked, and dragged him across the marble. His mask cracked against the floor, and his hand flew up to cover the exposed half of his face.
He screamed.
This time, not from pain.
From fear.
"RETREAT!" the conductor barked again, voice cracking.
The remaining members scattered, dragging their injured with them, masks flickering as the ritual collapsed behind them.
The music died.
The hall went still.
Shattered glass glittered across the floor like spilled stars.
Chandeliers swung drunkenly from the ceiling.
Some of the students cried, coughed, and tried to stand. Others lay against the cold marble floor. Bleeding from minor cuts from the glass chandeliers, or just passed out from fear.
Principal Maren had finally arrived, too late to do anything but stare as nurses rushed into The Great Hall to take over the disastrous scene.
Thorn turned, and Xavier was no longer standing.
He had slid down the column he'd been braced against, one hand limp at his side, the other smeared with red. Blood trickled steadily down his ribs where the shard had opened him. Too deep, too clean, too close. The corner of The Great Hall where he was hidden from general view, as if he wanted to disappear rather than have anyone see he needed help.
"Xavier—"
He looked up at her, pupils unfocused, chest rising in shallow, uneven pulls.
"You... should've—" he tried to swallow, and winced when it hurt, "—gone after them."
She dropped to her knees beside him so hard the marble should've bruised them, but she didn't feel a thing. Her hands found his face automatically, framing it, steadying it. The shadows that had surged to life behind her recoiled the instant she touched him, like dogs backing away from fire. They knew better than to get close when she was like this.
"Don't be stupid," she whispered, voice breaking on the edges. "You're bleeding."
He managed a soft, wet, dizzy laugh.
"I'm fine," he breathed out, but his voice wavered, thinner than he meant it to be. He blinked like the world kept tipping sideways.
"Your version of 'fine' needs serious revision," she muttered.
His eyes fluttered.
"Xavier." She shook him gently, but desperately. "Stay awake. Come on. Stay with me."
He tried to lift a hand.
It barely made it to her cheek, just a tremor of intent in the air.
"You look... different," he murmured, words slurring at the edges. "Not... scared."
"I'm terrified," she whispered, leaning closer. "For you."
His breath hitched once, and then his body slumped forward. Dead weight, collapsing into her arms.
Thorn caught him before his head could hit the floor, pulling him against her, pressing her palm over the wound beneath his shirt. When she lifted her hand, it came away drenched in scarlet.
"Fuck," she breathed. The word trembled weakly.
Her vision swam for a moment, black blooming at the corners. She forced it back. She'd already spent too much power in the fight. Already pushed herself past what the school allowed her to handle.
Because Reichenbach had starved her for years.
Full vampires drank real blood.
Fresh. Warm. Nourishing.
But her?
The hybrid, they didn't trust?
She got the synthetic rations. Lab-made bullshit, iron-flat, nothing more than flavored water pretending to be life. It was just enough to keep her upright, just enough to keep her powers contained, just enough that she never fully knew what she was capable of.
She had spent three years walking through the Academy like a dimmed flame, never once allowed to burn bright enough to understand her own heat.
And now Xavier was dying in her arms because she didn't have enough strength left to heal him properly.
But that couldn't stop her, it wouldn't stop her.
If she'd chased the Choir, if she'd put the mission first, if she'd treated him like anyone else in her life... she would've lost him.
And she hadn't even admitted, to him or herself, how badly she wanted to keep him.
"Xavier... Xavier, open your eyes. Please."
Her hand shook as she lifted it to her mouth. She pressed her thumb to her tongue, tasting copper and adrenaline and fear. Her saliva warmed her thumb instantly, tingling faintly. The way it always did when instinct took over.
She brushed her saliva-soaked thumb over the elongated cut across Xavier's cheek, and the wound closed under her touch, skin knitting together in a single shiver of magic. The skin left behind was smooth, unscarred, as if the glass had never touched him.
He didn't stir. Didn't gasp or question or flinch. Xavier was too far under.
The room started to blur, her pulse dropping in sharp, uneven beats. Her shadows trembled ever so slightly, but she kept her hand pressed to Xavier's face, forehead resting against his temple.
"Stay with me," she whispered. "Xavier, please."
Because she could lose the mission, she could lose the Choir's trail. Hell, she could even lose Reichenbach's approval, which didn't exist in the first place.
But she couldn't lose him.
Not tonight.
Not like this.
Thorn shifted just enough to reach his side. Her pulse thundered in her ears when she saw the glass embedded deep beneath his ribs, glinting wet and red under the fractured chandelier light. Without giving herself time to hesitate, she wrapped her fingers around the shard.
The edge sliced immediately across her palm, splitting skin and dragging a line of fire through her hand. The smell of blood filled the air at once. It was hot, sharp, and metallic. Thorn's breath faltered as she clenched her jaw and pulled.
The shard came free with a sickening resistance, and she bit down on a groan as the jagged edge tore through her hand a second time. She set the bloody piece of glass on the marble beside her with trembling control. Her hand dripped freely now, her blood mingling with his on the floor beneath them.
The scent rose warm and intoxicating, and Thorn felt her fangs ache in her gums. The hunger crawled up her throat, vicious and instinctive, whispering at the edges of her self-control.
She swallowed hard, forcing her hunger back down where it belonged, pressing her wounded hand flat against the marble to keep herself anchored. Her appetite roared through her ribs, rattling against her restraint like something caged. She hadn't been fed properly, not once since the start of the semester.
Healing Xavier would drain her further. Healing herself after would drain her even more. But she could not stop.
Her breath shook as she brought her uninjured hand to her mouth again. She pressed her tongue against her fingertips, summoning that faint, tingling warmth in her saliva, the instinct she barely understood, the one she had never mastered because she had never been allowed the strength to. She didn't truly know her limits. She only knew that there would be consequences.
She placed her saliva-drenched fingers carefully over the bleeding wound at Xavier's side. The effect rippled beneath her touch immediately. Her vision dimmed around the edges, black creeping inward like spilled ink.
"Come on," she whispered. "Come back to me."
Her voice trembled, but her hand stayed firm.
The wound resisted her at first. It was deep, too deep, and her strength faltered as she tried to force more healing into it. Pain tore through her temples, sharp enough to blur her vision. Thorn gasped softly, nails digging into the fabric of his shirt as she tried to stay upright. She pulled her hand back, fingers coated with Xavier's blood.
The scent of iron flared stronger, rising from his skin and seeping into her own palm. The craving punched through her chest so hard she shuddered. Her fangs slid down a fraction before she clamped her jaw shut.
Thorn exhaled shakily and pushed the hunger down with everything she had. She guided her hands along the wound until the flesh finally sealed, leaving only a faint, raw pink line. She sagged forward, her forehead brushing his shoulder for a moment as she caught her breath.
Only then did she look at her own hand.
The glass had cut deep. Blood still welled from the gash, and the exposed skin throbbed violently. She lifted the injury toward her mouth and hesitated. The hunger jumped instantly, seizing her throat like a chokehold. She pressed her lips to the torn skin and felt the healing warmth surge painfully from her tongue. Her blood tasted wrong, thin, bitter, and sickly sweet. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she nearly toppled sideways.
Her hand healed, though sluggishly, the skin pulling itself together without the clean precision that marked her work on Xavier. It left her shaking, breathless, and hollow.
But he was alive.
He was breathing.
Thorn brushed his hair back from his forehead with trembling fingers, her voice breaking as she whispered, "I've got you, Xavier. I'm right here."
And for the first time since the attack began, she felt the weight of what she had chosen settle into her bones.
She had chosen him.
Over the mission.
Over the Choir.
Over the school.
Even over herself.
Her hand slipped from Xavier's cheek, but it wasn't because she wanted it to. Her body had finally given out.
One moment, Thorn was kneeling next to Xavier, fingers resting gently against his cheek. Next, her vision blurred at the edges, colors smearing into one another. The gold of the shattered chandeliers, the dark stain of blood on Xavier's shirt, the pale flicker of her own trembling hands. She tried to blink it away.
But she couldn't.
Her pulse dropped into a sluggish drag. Her shadows trembled violently, straining to hold formation around her, but even they flickered, shrinking back as if her dwindling heartbeat pulled them into silence. Then, she dropped backwards, the back of her head hitting the marble floor with a thud.
Her shadows surged forward as if to catch her, but without her strength behind them, they broke apart like smoke and dissolved into the floor. Thorn's breath came soft, barely there, her curls spilling like dark water across the marble floor.
Her eyes slid closed, lashes trembling once before settling against her skin.
Thorn went still against the floor, her body limp with exhaustion, power drained to the bone, shadows recoiling into silence around her like mourning birds folding their wings.
Thorn could have sworn she could hear Pippa shouting her name from across the hall, but it sounded too far away. She had burned through every drop of strength Reichenbach had begrudged her.
But Xavier was alive.
And that was the last thing she knew before the darkness pulled her under.