Elara was still standing there when Kael left moments ago, leaving her behind with Riven and Xera without a single explanation that actually satisfied her.
Every so often, her gaze drifted to the door leading into the corridor, hoping Kael would walk back through it, but all she ever heard was the quick tap of footsteps somewhere out in the hall, then gone.
“Was that Kael?” Elara asked, glancing between Xera and Riven.
They only shook their heads, saying nothing.
Out of ways to figure it out on her own, she finally gave in and asked, “What do you two actually think is going on?”
Xera, who’d been leaning against the wall this whole time, just shrugged.
“I don’t know either.”
Riven smiled faintly at the sight of Elara’s confusion.
He was standing right beside Xera.
“In a situation like this, I kind of wish you were one of us.
Then we could just talk through this–” He tapped a finger against his temple.
Elara frowned, turning the gesture over in her head for a few seconds, and it finally clicked–the strange way Kael, Riven, and Xera had been acting all night.
They weren’t talking out loud.
Not to each other, anyway.
“So right now, the three of you are–” Elara trailed off abruptly as Riven placed his index finger over his lips, signaling her to stay quiet.
Elara swallowed the rest of her sentence, afraid her voice might carry to whoever was waiting for information from her.
Xera and Riven nodded slowly.
Xera answered Riven’s earlier comment instead.
“If Elara were one of us, Kael would probably be losing his mind right now trying to keep up with her rambling.”
Riven and Xera burst out laughing.
Elara shot them an annoyed look, though she couldn’t really argue the point.
She was indeed too curious, and if she could communicate the way they did, she’d probably bother Kael all day long without a break.
Elara threw herself onto the couch and suddenly felt just how exhausted she was after walking and standing without a break since that afternoon.
She was just about to ask how Kael was doing when, at the same moment, Riven and Xera both tensed up.
Their heads turned toward the window in perfect unison.
The motion was so sudden, so synchronized, that Elara–who’d only just sat down–found herself back on her feet, staring in the same direction.
“What is it?” she asked.
Riven didn’t answer right away, as if he had just realized something that didn’t need to be said out loud.
Then he looked at Elara.
“Kael says they’ve been caught.”
Elara’s head snapped toward him.
“Caught?”
Xera picked up where he left off, worry creasing her face.
“They’re being dragged to see Headmaster Magnus.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Elara went quiet, her eyes drifting back to the window, unease settling deeper in her chest.
She had no idea what Kael and Lucan were doing out there, but judging by how Xera and Riven were reacting, she was starting to understand that this night was far from over.
They waited long past midnight, until a heavy bell tolled across all of Ravencrest.
Elara had never been awake this late before, and the sound cut through her hard enough to make her flinch.
Xera spoke up.
“Now all we can do is wait.
We couldn’t communicate anymore once Kael went into Headmaster Magnus’s office.” She glanced at Elara, who was fighting a losing battle against her own eyelids.
“Get some sleep.
He won’t be long,” Xera added.
Elara insisted on staying up until Kael came back.
She kept forcing her eyes open despite yawning again and again.
But her eyes were only human, and human eyes weren’t built for that kind of stubbornness.
No matter how hard she fought to stay awake, she eventually lost, sinking into sleep right there on the common room couch–until a hushed voice finally pulled her back.
“Kael?
You’re back?” Elara asked the moment her eyes opened.
She had no idea how long she’d been out on that cramped little couch.
Kael stood with his arms crossed over his chest, deep in a tense, low conversation with Riven and Xera, both of whom wore expressions just as grim as his.
“What’s wrong?
Are you okay?” Elara asked when Kael turned toward her.
Kael gently pulled Elara’s arm toward the open dormitory balcony door.
The night air combed through her messy hair, cold enough to bite through her uniform.
Somewhere in the distance, the footsteps hadn’t fully died out yet, tangled with the rustle of leaves stirred by the wind.
Xera and Riven followed a step behind, silent.
“Look,” Kael said, his mouth close to her ear.
Elara let her gaze drop.
Below, in the open courtyard connecting one building to another, the amber lamplight cast long shadows from hurried footsteps.
The atmosphere was bustling even though it was past midnight.
Teachers and Ravencrest’s guards moved fast, scattering in every direction.
Some vanished into the forest.
Others cut toward the back of the main castle.
A few headed for the western woods.
Elara didn’t know the area well enough yet to say where any of them were going–all she could tell was that everyone looked busy, and this kind of busy, at this hour, was never a good sign.
“Magnus told them all to sweep the entire Ravencrest area,” Kael said.
His stare fixed on one particular corner and stayed there a long moment, like he was turning some possibility over in his mind, weighing it.
“Is that where you and Lucan went?” Elara asked, pointing toward the spot he’d been watching.
Kael shook his head.
“No. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
We went the other way.
That’s just where it ended up.”
His gaze moved–Riven, then Xera, then finally Elara–and lingered there.
Of course she was lost.
None of this fragmented information was adding up to anything.
Her brow furrowed as she pushed back.
“Could you explain this in a way I can actually follow?”
No one paid her protest any mind.
Riven and Xera were too busy wanting more.
“How’d you two end up over there?” Riven asked.
Kael pressed his lips together, swallowing once.
He seemed to be arranging his findings in his head before answering.
“The vampire from this afternoon never went to Lake Tangini.
He just used it as a detour–so his scent wouldn’t be easy to follow–then circled back toward the western woods–”
He let the sentence die.
“And?” Xera pressed.
“And the trail stopped there.
He never actually entered Ravencrest.”
Riven and Xera traded a quick glance, but neither spoke, letting Kael keep going.
“Lucan was the first to notice a different scent.
We’re not sure what it was,” Kael continued.
He drew a breath, then went on, quieter now, nearly swallowed by the wind cutting across their faces.
“It came from inside Ravencrest.
It wasn’t the kind of scent we can track and follow.
It kept darting back and forth and vanished just before entering the western forest.
I found nothing after that.”
“Vanished?” Elara asked.
She hadn’t imagined a creature with a werewolf’s sharp senses could lose a trail entirely.
Unless, perhaps, the scent had been made to disappear on purpose.
“Can someone’s scent be erased?” she asked.
Now, all three of them turned to her at once, like they’d just gotten an answer from the last person they expected could give one.
A power stone would mean the world to me.
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