ARIA POV
Magic explodes from my hands like a dam breaking.
I touch the first robed figure and my Siphon ability rips their fire magic straight out of their body. They scream and collapse. The stolen power floods through me—hot, wild, dangerous. My eyes shift to burning orange, and flames dance across my fingers.
"She IS a Siphon!" Melissa shrieks, backing away. "I told you!"
Professor Thorne's face hardens. "Subdue her. Now!"
The second figure launches an ice spell at me. I absorb it mid-flight, adding frost magic to the fire already crackling through my veins. The combination feels like it's tearing me apart from the inside, but I hold it together through sheer desperation.
Luna grabs my arm. "Aria, we have to run! You can't fight a Council member!"
She's right. Professor Thorne is already building a spell that makes the air smell like lightning and death. I've stolen two people's magic, but I'm just a seventeen-year-old girl who's never been in a real fight. He's a trained Council enforcer.
I blast fire at the greenhouse roof. Glass explodes everywhere, creating chaos and smoke. Luna and I run through the broken wall into the darkness beyond, magical alarms screaming behind us.
"Where do we go?" Luna gasps as we sprint through the forest.
"I don't know!" My stolen magic is already fading, draining away like water through my fingers. In minutes, I'll be powerless again. "We need help. We need—"
"The Forbidden Archive," Luna cuts in. "It's the only place with answers. We have to break in tonight, before they catch you."
"That's suicide! We can't break Council wards by ourselves!"
"Then we get help!" Luna stops running and grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. "This is it, Aria. This is the moment. Either you trust someone, or you die alone. Your pride or your life. Choose."
I want to argue. I want to say I can do this myself, that I don't need anyone, that asking for help is weakness.
But Luna's right. I'm out of options.
"Fine," I breathe. "Who do we need?"
"Ezra Wraith for shadow magic to hide us from guards. Felix Zhao for transmutation to change the lock mechanisms. And someone with massive raw power to overwhelm the wards." Luna's expression turns apologetic. "The only person at this Academy with that kind of power is—"
"Don't say it."
"Caspian Everhart."
I actually laugh, but it comes out bitter and broken. "The boy who humiliated me this morning? Who treats me like dirt? Whose father is probably the one trying to kill me? That's who you want me to trust with my life?"
"I know it's horrible. But we're out of time." Luna pulls out her phone and shows me a timer app. "Twenty-three hours until your deadline. And Professor Thorne will have the entire Academy searching for you by morning. We break into the Archive tonight, or you lose your only chance."
I stare at that countdown, watching the seconds tick away. Twenty-three hours until I'm exposed and executed. Thirty days until I'm sacrificed in a resurrection ritual.
My life has always been measured in countdowns.
"How do we even recruit them?" I ask quietly. "Ezra doesn't know me. Felix sees me as competition. And Caspian actively hates me."
"Ezra knows more than you think. His sister Sarah was murdered six months ago, and he's been investigating. He'll help if we tell him the truth about the ritual."
"And Felix?"
"His family lost everything last year. They're drowning in debt to the Crimson Syndicate—the magical crime family that runs half of London's underground. Felix needs Council connections to save them, and we can offer him something better: proof that Council members are corrupt murderers. That's leverage he can use."
I have to admit, Luna has thought this through. "And Caspian?"
Luna hesitates. "We tell him the truth about his father. That Lord Silas is dying because he's performing forbidden rituals. That he's already killed three students and plans to kill more. We give Caspian a choice: help us stop his father, or become an accomplice to murder."
"He'll never believe us."
"He already suspects something's wrong. You saw his face when he read your note." Luna squeezes my hand. "Caspian isn't stupid, Aria. He's trapped. Just like you. And trapped people will do desperate things to get free."
Distant shouts echo through the forest. They're searching for us.
"We need to move," I say. "Where's Ezra now?"
"Library, East Wing. He's always there researching after hours."
"Then that's where we go first."
We run through the forest toward the Academy's back entrance, using shadows and my fading stolen magic to avoid patrols. My heart pounds so hard I think it might explode.
Three strangers. One enemy. All holding my survival in their hands.
This is either the bravest or stupidest thing I've ever done.
We slip through a service entrance and navigate empty hallways toward the library. Luna guides us through paths she's seen in her visions, avoiding guards by seconds.
Finally, we reach the East Wing library—a massive room of old books and darker secrets. At a corner table, surrounded by towers of forbidden texts, sits a boy with messy dark hair and amber eyes that see too much.
Ezra Wraith looks up as we approach. His gaze locks on me, and something flickers in his expression. Recognition? Understanding?
"Aria Nightshade," he says softly. "I've been waiting three years for you to finally ask for my help."
I freeze. "What?"
He closes his book and stands, and I see the grief carved into his young face. "My sister Sarah told me about you before she died. Said there was a girl at Thornwick with silver-blonde hair and eyes that changed colors. A girl who was kind to her when no one else was. A girl who was hiding something dangerous and beautiful."
My throat tightens. I remember Sarah—sweet, lonely Sarah who used to sit with me at lunch sometimes. I didn't know she was Ezra's sister.
"She knew what I was?" I whisper.
"She suspected. And the night before she died, she made me promise something." Ezra's amber eyes burn with intensity. "She made me promise that if anything happened to her, I would find you and protect you. Because she believed you were in danger too."
Luna gasps softly. "The killer took her because she knew about Aria."
"Exactly." Ezra's jaw clenches. "I've been watching you for three years, Nightshade. Waiting for the moment you'd need help. Waiting for you to trust someone enough to ask." He holds out his hand. "So ask me now. Ask me to help you find my sister's murderer."
I stare at his offered hand, this stranger who's been protecting me from the shadows, and feel something crack open in my chest.
Maybe I'm not as alone as I thought.
I reach out to take his hand—
And the library door explodes inward in a blast of Celestial light.
Caspian Everhart stands in the doorway, magic blazing around him like a star, his ice-blue eyes locked on me with an expression I can't read.
"Step away from her, Wraith," Caspian says coldly. "That girl is a Siphon. And I'm bringing her to the Council."