Rhett:
Night slicks the stones of the courtyard like spilled ink. I cross it fast, every sense straining. The wards hum, faint and thin, the way a dying heart might. Shadows slide along the cloisters, too quick to be mine.
The Headmistress waits for no one, but I don’t knock. Her door swings open on a hiss of old hinges.
Voss’s office smells of rain-soaked parchment and dying roses. Candles gutter as I enter, their flames bowing as if they recognize the power inside me.
She sits behind a desk carved from obsidian, white hair coiled tight, a single streak of silver catching the dim light. Her eyes—eerily-bright, ancient—lift to mine.
“Rhett,” she says, low and measured. “You look like a storm come to beg the sky to let it brew.”
“I’m not begging.” My voice is rough, still edged from p
