Two shots to her knee were all it took to bring her limping. Since the day she stepped into this accursed academy, her life had been nothing but torment.
"Arrghh…" Wendy hissed through clenched teeth. "What the hell…" she sighed, her voice trembling with pain. With a desperate leap over the crumbling brick fence, she vanished into the shadows.
"Where is she? I could swear I hit her," Kalyan muttered, half questioning, half convincing himself.
Kell's cold eyes narrowed. He could sense Kalyan's uncertainty, yet it was almost unbelievable that any girl could flee so swiftly in a ball gown. Still, Kell was the sole heir of the academy—privilege was his birthright, and he wielded it like a blade.
"Go to the Headmistress," Kell commanded, his voice echoing like iron striking stone. "Tell her I want all the girls assembled tomorrow at dawn. She won't escape us then." A cruel smirk twisted his lips. "Desha, you will conduct a full body search."
From the shadows near the fence, Wendy had not moved. By cruel chance, she overheard every word. The academy was a place of mixed bloodlines—demons, witches, and fae. Yet no fae had walked its halls since the last war, when demons betrayed the truce and slaughtered them. Some whispered it was the witches' doing, for they thrived in trickery and shadows.
And Wendy… Wendy was cursed with both. Half witch, half fae—the last of her kind. She suspected her origin but lacked proof. Powers stirred within her that no witch possessed: healing, concealment. Yet she had been told she was a witch, trained as one, and who was she to doubt her masters? She had never revealed her secret gifts. To do so would mean becoming a tool, a breeding vessel, a sacrifice. Better to remain hidden, cloaked in silence.
"Not again," she whispered bitterly. "The last time I used my healing, I was drained for hours. Must this spoiled heir force me into it?" She let the flow of spiritual energy seep through her veins, gathering in her palms. Pressing both hands to her wounded knees, she felt a cold breeze stir her skin, sinew knitting itself together. Sleep tugged at her, but she forced her mind to remain sharp.
"It's done," she murmured. "Such a waste of my gift. One day Kell will pay for this. And Cathy… that treacherous serpent. I should never have trusted her after her last betrayal. Tomorrow, she will learn what it means to cross me."
Feeling hollow, as though she had achieved nothing, Wendy turned toward her secret refuge. She was cautious—always cautious. The place she had discovered could be found by another with enough wit, and so she guarded it fiercely. From beneath her cloak she drew the locket she had torn from her skin near her scapula. Opening it, she gazed upon the portrait within.
The woman's dim silver hair shimmered faintly in the moonlight. Wendy felt a strange familiarity, though confusion gnawed at her. Her aunt had told her that her mother's hair was black, yet this woman bore no resemblance. Wendy herself had bright brown hair—no link to either. Closing the locket, she sighed. "No use tormenting myself. It will only worsen the ache in my head."
Dragging her weary body back to the dormitory, she reached her chamber door. A chill swept over her. The protective spell she had woven upon the threshold was gone. Worse—Hannah, her spirit companion, was nowhere to be felt.
The silence was suffocating. Something had breached her sanctuary