Chapter 1

Stone

I runin the direction of her dorm, even though I know she won't be there, even though I can feel she's gone; my bond strained and stretched as if she's far far away.

But that can't be right. That can't be possible. Something has happened and I need to find her.

My feet hit the gravel path as students race around me, ducking for cover, seeking safe refuge, calling out to one another. Above me, the huge silhouettes of dragons swoop eastward and westward, north and south, great balls of fire roaring through the air, scorching everything in their paths. The sky blazes a multitude of colors too, magic colliding and exploding with such force I swear any minute the fabric of the heavens themselves will rip and tear away.

I keep running, ignoring magic that swoops past my head, magic that explodes on the path around me, magic that smashes into buildings and sends rubble flying.

I keep running, the dark dorm building that is hers soon emerging from the gloom.

And then I skid to a halt.

A man lies motionless and still on the path in front of me, his eyes open and lifeless, gazing up at the riot of colors in the sky, the lights reflected back in his blank pupils.

As I venture closer, I see the dark shadow wrapped around his neck, his hands still clasped there, see the purple hue of his face, the strained expression frozen in time across his features. Strangled, strangled with magic.

The man is Marcus Lowsky.

I know his face, even if it's aged, even if there are more inks scrawled across his skin, more lines of time etched into the flesh. We walked the same streets as kids. We trod the same paths. He was a cruel bastard even back then, although a mere shadow of the man he became.

I stare down at his face. Who the hell killed him? Not anyone from the academy. The magic lingering around his neck is dark, nothing anyone in the academy would use. Unless …

Rhi?

The man wanted to kill her. Did the bastard come close?

I glare down at his lifeless form and then I spit on his face. I consider giving his corpse a kick for good measure, but then I hear voices in the distance and footfall on the path. I look up and find three of Lowsky's men, their wolf tattoos clear on their skin, sprinting towards me. They halt just as I did when they spot the dead man on the path.

"He's dead," I yell at them. "Lowsky is dead."

They hesitate in indecision. One hauls magic at me halfheartedly, and then they're running away, yelling the news to their comrades.

I watch them go and then I turn my attention to Rhi's room, entering the dorm and finding her door ajar.

I've stood outside her room before, but I've never entered. It feels strange to do so now without an invitation, like an invasion, but what choice do I have? I need to find her.

The sight of the shabby room has my stomach turning. I hate the stupid social politics of the academy. I always have. It seems brutally unfair that some students can live in such fucking splendor while others live in such squalor. Is it necessary? Really necessary to rub the noses of those who have nothing in a daily reminder of their relative obscurity?

Her room is seriously crappy. Sure, it's no better than the room I had myself back when I was a student in the academy, but I feel more angry about it. Rhi deserves to live in a fucking palace like a princess, not a cellar like fucking Cinderella.

The room is empty. I search under the bed and inside the wardrobe anyway. My eyes lingering over her desk, her notebooks, her scribbled handwriting, her clothes hanging untidily in the cupboard.

She's not here. She really is fucking gone.

I stumble out of the dorm and automatically I sense something has changed.

The sounds of battle no longer boom through the academy, the sky is no longer ablaze with fire and magic, and the smell of fear and death and dying no longer permeates the air.

I pull out my phone as I pick up my feet again, but there's no coverage. The network is down. I curse under my breath, racing back along the pathways, back towards the mansion.

As I careen around the corner, I'm in time to see the great dragons launch up into the sky together. I lift my hands, bracing myself, ready. The soldiers and men who attacked us have scattered, but I assume this is simply a temporary reprieve, a chance to gather their forces before striking us again. Around me other academy magicals do the same – a handful of teachers, a few of the students, York herself in her ripped and charred ballgown.

But there's no strike. No attack. The soldiers have gone and the dragons lift into the night in formation, high above us, soaring not in the direction of the city but out towards the west.

I tip back my head, mesmerized by the sight despite everything, the great creatures truly graceful in flight, as if they weigh nothing at all, as if they aren't vicious killing machines. As I watch them go, one of the riders out front turns his head and peers down at the ground, his eyes a glowing golden even over the distance. For a brief moment of time, our eyes meet, our gazes lock and my magic crackles.

I flex my fingers, ready again for the strike, but again it doesn't come. The man simply shifts his gaze back to the west and sweeps his arm over his shoulder, signaling for the other riders to follow him.

"They're leaving," York says, clearly as puzzled as I am.

"For now," I say. "For now."