Lantern-light bled out of the ballroom and into the corridor, thin and strained, like even the flames were unsure if the party was still happening.
The stone under my boots held a faint, fading tremor. Whatever had hit behind Door 3C was settling—or hiding. The nobles around us clearly preferred the second option. Easier to whisper about danger than walk toward it.
Someone in Academy black swept in from the far archway—a steward, not a professor. Middle-aged, spine like a rulebook. He took one look at the cluster of masks, the shut door, the way no one wanted to stand too close, and smiled with professional calm.
"No need for alarm," he said. "Minor structural reaction. The East Wing is old. You are all perfectly safe."
He hadn't even reached the door.
"That," Rhea muttered, "is the least convincing thing I've heard all term."
The steward raised a hand. The crowd quieted, eager to be reassured. "The room will be sealed for the evening," he went on. "Please return to the Prelude. The Chancellor does not wish for the celebration to be disrupted."
There it was. Tradition over sense.
Mirelle was the first to move—the perfect obedient noble. "Of course," she said, voice light. "We wouldn't want rumors. You know how first-years are."
Her eyes slid briefly to me when she said it. Then to Kael.
Celia leaned closer to her sister. "Do you think something exploded?" she whispered, not quietly enough. "Or someone?"
"Celia," Selene murmured, "not in the corridor."
Kael hadn't shifted. Neither had Lian. The steward's gaze caught on them, flickered to the crowd, then away. Whatever hierarchy he lived in, they were high on it.
"Lord Sorrel," the man said, tone deferential. "Lord Avarren. I assure you, it's contained. Faculty will inspect at once."
Lian inclined his head, smooth as ever. "Of course," he said. "We trust the Academy's judgment."
That was impressive. He managed to sound respectful and quietly unconvinced at the same time.
Kael gave a lazy, effortless nod. "If it was serious," he said, "we'd have felt more than a shiver."
I had felt more than a shiver. Pressure, heat, the beginning of a surge. But that was Aether's fault, not the corridor's.
The steward seized on Kael's words like a lifeline. "Exactly. Nothing to concern yourselves with. Please—enjoy the evening."
People wanted to believe him. They turned back toward the ballroom in groups, tension dissolving into speculation. Danger was easier to swallow if you could turn it into conversation later.
Rhea tugged lightly at my sleeve. "Come on, hunter," she murmured. "Before someone decides you're to blame by proximity."
She wasn't wrong. Half the glances down the hall had already recalibrated: 3C, scream, strange Aether ripple, new Aether girl standing far too close.
I pushed away from the wall. The stone felt reluctant to let me go.
We merged into the flow of bodies heading back toward the main room. Rhea stayed close, navigating the swell of masks and perfume and layered fabrics like a bird cutting through branches.
"On a scale of one to inevitable disaster," she said under her breath, "where does that rank for you?"
"Higher than I like."
"So…inevitable. Good. I was worried we'd be bored this term."
We re-entered the ballroom. The music had never fully stopped, just faltered—a heartbeat missed before resuming its steady, elegant rhythm. Couples drifted back onto the floor. Servers resumed weaving between them with trays of glass and glitter.
Crestborn adaptability: pretend nothing happened until you can weaponize it later.
Somehow, in the shift, Kael ended up in front of us. Not an accident. One moment there was just crowd; the next, he stepped sideways from a cluster of upper-years, blocking our path with easy, social precision.
"Farrell," he said. "Ashford."
Rhea sighed. "Tragic," she told me quietly. "He knows our names."
Kael's mouth ticked. "I heard you both enjoy trouble."
"Then your sources are lazy," I said.
He studied me for a beat too long to be casual, eyes skimming from my mask to my shoulders, cataloguing, measuring. His usual amused detachment felt thinner, like there was something sharper underneath pressing against it.
"I told you earlier," he said, "that the East Wing holds more than music." His tone stayed light, but the words were not. "Now you've had a demonstration."
"I didn't schedule it," I replied.
"Didn't say you did." He glanced past me to the archway leading back to 3C, then back again. "But you were very close to it."
"So were you," I said. "Do you interrogate everyone who happened to be in a corridor?"
"Only the interesting ones."
Rhea made a low, suffering sound. "And here we are," she muttered. "Witnessing a terrible attempt at charm."
Kael ignored her. "Did you feel anything…odd," he asked, "before the noise?"
Aether twitched at the question. Heat crept along my palms, wanting out.
I kept my tone flat. "Aside from the part where the floor moved? No."
He watched my face with the intent focus of someone checking for cracks. He didn't believe me. Or he believed me partially and disliked the gaps.
"I've walked that hallway a hundred times," he said slowly. "It doesn't react like that on its own."
"Maybe the building is tired of nobles," Rhea suggested. "I sympathize."
"Darling, if the East Wing decided to revolt, it would start with the Ashborne cluster," she added. "Not with our end of the corridor."
Mirelle, as if summoned by spite, appeared to our right. "We were nowhere near the door," she said sweetly. "Some of us know how to respect boundaries."
Her eyes flicked to me, lingering on the line of my borrowed mask, the simple black of my outfit. "Some," she added, "clearly do not."
"Boundaries are hard to see when they're imaginary," I said.
Mirelle's smile tightened. Celia, hovering behind her, bright with barely-contained glee, seized the opening.
"That scream sounded awful," Celia said, to no one in particular. "Do you think it was a miscast? First-year recklessness?" Her gaze settled on me with the enthusiasm of a child spotting a new insect. "Or something…unstable?"
Rhea tilted her head. "Careful, Celia. If you say the word unstable too loudly, the faculty might start thinking of you."
Selene approached more slowly, composed, eyes sharp behind an ornate mask. She watched the three of us—Kael, Rhea, me—with a calm that had teeth.
"Kael," she said, voice smooth, "the Chancellor asked whether everything was under control. I told him you were assessing the situation." A faint pause. "Should I correct that?"
There was nothing openly sharp in her tone. The cut lived underneath—Why are you standing with them?
Kael's jaw flexed once. It was gone by the time he spoke. "Tell him it was an architectural tantrum," he said. "Nothing more."
She nodded. No argument. But her gaze slid back to me as she turned. Measuring. Categorizing. Deciding exactly which shelf to place "Leslie Farrell" on—too close to Kael, too unpredictable, too…other.
Wonderful.
The music shifted to a slower piece. Lanterns along the balcony chimed faintly as someone adjusted them. The room resumed its pattern of movement: dance, murmur, watch. The corridor incident already transforming into a story.
Kael took a step closer, close enough that his next words were for me alone. "Stay away from that hallway for a while," he said. The ease fell out of his voice for a fraction of a second. "Whatever's happening there, it's not a first-year problem."
"I'm not fond of problems at all," I said.
"Then don't go looking for them."
I held his gaze. "Is that advice, or an order?"
"Call it a warning." His eyes dropped briefly to my hands again. "You don't look well."
Aether pressed against my skin, restless, like static caught under it. "I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar," he said, almost conversationally. "Which would be refreshing, if it weren't dangerous."
Rhea slipped neatly between us, smiling with weaponized politeness. "As much as I enjoy this," she said, "Leslie and I are going to find something to drink. Ideally strong enough to erase the memory of nobles attempting concern."
Kael's mask of nonchalance snapped back into full place. "Don't wander," he said. "The East Wing likes to keep its secrets."
"Don't worry," Rhea replied. "She has me."
"That's what concerns me," he said, then turned away, swallowed into another group like he'd never left.
We wove past the edge of the dance floor, away from Selene's watching eyes and Mirelle's carefully maintained smirk. My head ached in a low, persistent throb. Aether had settled from a boil to a simmer, but the tension stayed high under my ribs.
At the drinks table, Rhea seized two glasses and shoved one into my hand. "Here," she said. "It's mostly fruit. With a little bit of courage."
"I don't need courage," I muttered.
"You do when the golden boy decides to play interrogator." She studied my face, her joking tone softening just slightly. "What did you feel in that corridor?"
I considered lying. Decided against it. I was bad at it, and she was annoyingly perceptive.
"Pressure," I said. "Like the air wanted to move without me."
"And under your skin?"
I hesitated.
"Rhea."
"Darling, I'm not asking for a confession. Just risk assessment."
"Fine," I said. "It…reacted. Before the scream."
She went still for a heartbeat. "Aether?"
"Yes."
She blew out a slow breath through her nose. "Wonderful," she said. "Unstable corridor plus unstable magic. Truly, the Academy has outdone itself."
"I kept it down."
"For now." She tilted her head. "He noticed, you know."
"Kael?" I asked.
"Unfortunately, we're using his name now, yes." Her mouth curved. "He watches you like you're an exam question no one prepared him for."
"That sounds like his problem."
"Oh, it will be," she said. "But until then, it's also yours."
Noise surged around us again—laughter, strings, the crackle of spell-light as someone showed off a harmless trick near the far wall. The Prelude had recovered. Only the East Wing corridor remained wrong, a quiet scar just outside the music.
Rhea nudged my shoulder with hers, quick, almost accidental. "We survive tonight," she said. "Then you can decide whether you want to chase screaming doors later."
"Screaming doors aren't part of my plan," I said.
"Neither was this school. Yet here you are." She sipped her drink. "Try not to look like you're hunting someone. It upsets the décor."
I forced my shoulders to loosen a fraction. Let my expression smooth into something closer to bored than alert. Nobles saw what they wanted to see. A tired Aether student at a party was safer than an assassin measuring exits.
Across the room, Kael stood near the balcony, talking to Lian. Their heads were angled together, expressions unreadable from this distance. Lian's gaze flicked briefly over the crowd, landing on me for half a second.
Not accusation. Not surprise. Just…acknowledgment.
He said something to Kael. Kael didn't turn, but the line of his shoulders shifted—tighter, then controlled again.
They knew something was wrong in the East Wing. They didn't know what. Neither did I.
But I knew where the corridor was. I knew the room number. And I knew, with the kind of certainty that warped missions, that whatever had just happened behind that door was connected to the note in my sleeve and the prince I was supposed to kill.
Aether pulsed once in quiet agreement, then went still.
"Rhea," I said.
"Yes, tragedy?"
"I'm not going near that hallway tonight."
"Good."
"But later," I added, "I want to see it in daylight."
She studied me over the rim of her glass. "Of course you do," she said finally. "Fine. We'll schedule our impending doom after breakfast."
Her mouth quirked. "Try not to collect any more princes by accident before then."
"I haven't collected any," I said.
She glanced toward Kael and Lian. "Mm," she said. "Tell that to the rumors."
The music swelled around us, warm and bright and suffocating. I finished my drink, set the glass down, and counted exits again.
The door to 3C stayed out of sight, but not out of mind.