Night still clung to the academy’s North Tower corridor, long, cold shadows crawling across the stone floor like something alive. The lanterns hadn’t been lit yet; only the faintest thread of dawn angled through the narrow arrow-slit windows — a reluctant, hesitant gray light.
Aria froze halfway up the stairwell.
She hadn’t meant to hear anything. She’d only been returning from the archives, documents tucked inside her coat, when the voices drifted through the half-open door at the landing above her. Low. Urgent. Wrong.
“…I’m telling you, it wasn’t a rogue. Rogues don’t move like that.”
A second voice hissed back, “Keep your voice down. If the instructors hear—”
Aria’s pulse kicked. Wolves. Again. Just like last night’s nightmare—flames, claws, the smell of burning fur—and the feeling
