The morning we were supposed to start Fourth Level, I woke up from something that felt very much like a dream, and somehow very different at the same time.
Something very vivid - like the time I had jerked back from Cas's touch because I knew I'd felt it before, when I hadn't. Something real yet distant. A memory, maybe, except I didn't see how I could have missed the presence of a memory for such a long time. Still, the longer I thought about it, the more I realized it was greater than a dream.
Another classmate, someone whose name had escaped me, stood in front of me, his back to me. He was taller than I was, with a slim frame and jet-black hair. He wore the dark blue uniform of an academy student, and yet I couldn't recall ever seeing him in academy.
He turned around, beginning to lo
