Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold blooms in the air with every breath, a pale cloud where there should be none. There is no wind in Obsidian—only shadow and the slow echo of a heartbeat that might be hers or this realm’s.

Bloom slams her palms into stone. Fire claws out of her hands in a violent flare, searing the floor, racing up the jagged rise where a sword juts from a mound of twisted shapes—bodies frozen into statues, faces turned upward as if still begging the light. The flame washes over steel and gutters out, smothered by something she cannot see.

“Pathetic,” hisses a voice older than dust.

“She was wrought from the same power, and yet…”

“She cannot break a simple sword.”

Bloom doesn’t look back. She is barely into her teens and already her body knows exhaustion like a language; Obsidian teaches it early. Hunger tightens her belly and she remembers the meat of shadow-creatures—rubbery, flavorless—the price of surviving a place where nothing living should. She had never tasted sweetness, never even learned what it meant.

She forces herself upright. The cavern’s dimness reflects in her eyes, blue as noon for a heartbeat, then deepening—hazel, then gold, a serpent’s glint caught in the ember of her stare.

On the height, the sword gleams. It is the only light here, a narrow, stubborn thread of dawn stitched into endless night. It has kept her “mothers” imprisoned. It has kept her here. And still, it refuses to break.

“One day,” she says, almost to herself, almost to the steel. Her voice is raw from smoke and shouting. “One day I’ll grind you to ash. I’ll make them choke on silence.”

The darkness listens.

Behind her, the witches’ whispers coil and scrape, a chorus of needles pricking at the back of her skull. They call her daughter when it suits them and weapon when it doesn’t; either way, the chain feels the same. She bares her teeth in a smile that isn’t one and calls the fire again.

This time she doesn’t hurl it. She shapes it—draws it thin and bright, a ribbon of heat trembling in the air. It quivers toward the blade like a question.

For a breath, the sword answers.

A flicker—soft, familiar—presses against her flame and pushes it gently back, not with force but with refusal, like a hand turned aside at the last moment. The touch is nothing like Obsidian’s hunger. It is…known. The recognition hits her so hard she almost drops to a knee.

Bloom jerks the fire away, anger snapping shut over the hesitation. “Don’t,” she whispers, to the steel, to the voices, to the part of herself that reached without permission. “Don’t touch me.”

The cavern settles. The blade glows on, small and relentless.

She turns her palms up and watches heat crawl over her skin, golden and dangerous. The witches behind her are still speaking—plans, threats, promises—but their words fade to a thin buzz.

Because in the quiet after the flame, she hears something else. Not words. A rhythm beneath the rock, older than her rage. It feels like defiance. It feels like a memory she doesn’t have.

Bloom lifts her chin and lets the fire coil tighter, hotter, meaner.

If the sword will not break, then she will.

Or the world will.

Either way, one day, silence will come. And it will sound like her.  

Chapter Text

The music was thunderous—bass pulsing like a heartbeat through floor, flesh, and bone. Lights flickered like lightning across the smoke-heavy air, catching on the shimmer of dark lipstick, sharp heels, and wicked grins. It was a Cloud Tower night at the club, and the witches had taken it over like a storm.

Laughter spilled through the room, wild and unfiltered. Somewhere near the back, a girl leaned against the bar like she owned the place. Her long crimson hair flowed as if stirred by a phantom wind, even in the dead air. Her shoulders were bare, her posture regal—high chin, narrowed golden eyes that gleamed like coiled serpents under the flashing lights.

She laughed, low and deliberate. But it wasn’t joy that colored the sound. It was something sharper. Something dangerous.

A tall man in his twenties stood beside her, dark-haired and dressed to impress—someone used to getting his way with little effort. He gave her a sidelong glance, his voice smooth with practiced charm.
“Enjoying your cocktail?”

Bloom didn’t look at him right away. She lifted her glass, the drink glowing blood-red beneath the neon strobe. She sipped slowly, her golden eyes sliding toward him with a calculated smirk. “Mmm… if I knew what anything tasted like, I’d tell you.”

The man raised a brow, intrigued. “Oh? So… you didn’t like it? Could I order something more suitable?”

“I mean it literally,” Bloom replied, finally turning to face him fully. Her voice didn’t lose its flirt, but there was steel behind it. “I don’t have a sense of taste.”

“Huh.” He chuckled, brushing it off as if she were joking—though something about her unnerved him. Still, he leaned in closer, one hand sliding lightly to her waist. “Then maybe I could offer something different. Something more… memorable.”

Bloom raised her chin with lazy arrogance, her gaze sharp and unblinking.
“Surprise me, pretty hair.” Her words slipped into his ear like a spell, laced with smoke and sin.

He didn’t hesitate. Their lips met in a kiss that started slow—teasing, testing—but it turned feral in an instant. Bloom leaned into it, all sharp edges and hidden fire, her breath spiced with nicotine, her blood buzzing with alcohol and something darker.

Magic simmered beneath her skin, coiled tight like a serpent, hungry to be let out.

She bit down—harder than playful, just shy of cruel. Just enough to draw blood. Her fingers tangled into his hair with purpose, sharp nails grazing his scalp like the unsheathing of claws. It was possessive, predatory, like a trap snapping shut around prey too slow to recognize the danger.

But the kiss didn’t end on her terms.

With a sudden jerk, he tore himself away—staggering, gasping, as if he’d inhaled fire instead of breath.

“Shit!” he hissed, stumbling back and clutching his face. His hand came away red. Smoke curled from his lips.

The scent of scorched flesh filled the air, subtle but unmistakable beneath the haze of sweat and liquor. His eyes widened in horror as he realized: she hadn’t just bitten him.

She’d burned him.

“I—what the hell?!” he stammered, his voice tight with pain and confusion. “You burned me! What kind of freak are you?”

Bloom didn’t flinch. She stood calmly, lips still glistening with the remnants of blood and heat, her expression unreadable—but her golden eyes gleamed with something primal.

Something dangerous.

She tilted her head, almost mockingly. “What? Didn't like the taste?”

“You—are you crazy?!” he snarled, clutching his blistered mouth, voice thick with pain and disbelief.

Bloom tilted her head, lips twitching into a smirk that didn’t quite reach her serpent-gold eyes. She folded her arms, sleek and composed, like a flame that knew it could consume everything around it and didn’t need to hurry.

“Crazy?” she repeated slowly, almost tasting the word. “Please. My magic merely slipped off me for a moment.” Her voice dropped into something silkier, more venomous. “After all, you decided to play with fire. And like everyone else—you got burned.”

He stared at her, breath ragged, trembling between fight and flight. He clearly hadn’t expected this from the redhead with the mysterious eyes and sly smile.

“Hey, Bloom.”

The voice sliced through the tension—calm, crisp, and cool as glacier wind.

Icy.

She strode through the crowd with the elegance of a queen and the danger of a blade. Darcy flanked her with a subtle smirk, arms folded; Stormy looked amused, like she was hoping for round two.

Icy’s eyes skimmed over the scene, unimpressed. “We’re leaving. You coming?”

Bloom gave the man one final look—like he was a flickering candle already forgotten in a burning room. She sighed. “Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “This one got dull fast.”

“Dull?!” he barked, fury overtaking fear. “You fire-breathing bitch!”

The club seemed to pause for a second. The music didn’t stop, but the space around them tightened, as if holding its breath.

Bloom’s steps halted mid-turn.

Her smile faded.

Her shoulders straightened.

She turned back to him slowly—no drama, no rush, just the kind of composure that’s far more terrifying than a scream. Her eyes burned, not with rage, but with disdain—a predator annoyed its prey had the audacity to snarl.

She lifted her hand. No words. Just a snap.

FWOOSH.

Fire ignited on his scalp in an instant—bright and hungry, licking through his gel-slicked black hair like paper.

He screamed, staggering back into a table, clawing at his head as patrons scrambled away. A drink spilled. Glass shattered. Someone yelled for water. Others just laughed.

Bloom didn’t even blink.

Icy arched a brow but said nothing. Darcy chuckled under her breath. Stormy gave a low whistle.

Together, they turned and walked—heels clicking, smoke trailing in their wake like a signature, leaving behind only embers and echoing screams swallowed by the relentless bass of the music.

Bloom didn’t look back.

She never did.

The hallway of Cloud Tower was thick with whispers. Students pressed closer to the walls as footsteps echoed against the stone floor—measured, confident, deliberate. Long red hair swayed as though carried by a phantom wind, catching what little torchlight clung to the corridor. Her chin was lifted, her back unbent, and on her lips played a smile too sharp to be kind. Golden serpent eyes flicked across the crowd, and wherever they landed, conversation died.

Bloom didn’t need to speak to silence a room. Her presence did it for her.

She strode into the cafeteria, a vast chamber where floating platforms served as tables. Lunch hour filled the air with noise: witches laughing, voices rising, spells sparking in midair. On one of the higher stands, three witches leaned close, murmuring about plans best kept in the shadows. Their words cut off the instant Bloom alighted on their platform.

Darcy smirked faintly, but said nothing.
Stormy shoved food into her mouth to hide her irritation.
Icy’s eyes narrowed, sharp and calculating.

Bloom dropped into the empty space without a word. Her outfit left little doubt she didn’t care for anyone’s approval—loose trousers dragging at the hem, a cropped top exposing pale skin and lean muscle, golden arm bands glinting faintly against her shoulders. She sat like a queen in exile, dangerous and self-assured.

From her pocket, she produced a cigarette. She set it between her fingers, gaze fixed on the unlit tip. A second later, smoke began to curl upward, thin and steady, lit not by fire but by her eyes alone.

Icy tilted her head, one brow arching. “Interesting.”

Bloom looked up slowly, exhaling a stream of smoke through a smirk. “What?”

“Channeling magic through your eyes?” Icy’s tone was cool, curious, edged with challenge.

Bloom’s hum was low, almost amused—a sound like a purr undercut with steel.
“Yeah,” she said slowly, eyes half-lidded, serpentine gold flickering beneath heavy lashes. “Comes in handy if my hands and legs are tied. Or broken.”
Her smile widened—not warm, but deliberate, calculated, the kind that made people flinch before they even understood why.
“Wouldn’t you agree?”

Stormy snorted, propping her boots on the floating edge of the table. “You still have fire breath though. You burned that dude’s freaking mouth while kissing him, remember?”
She mimed an exaggerated kiss, then a recoil, cackling as she slapped her knee.

Darcy raised an eyebrow and snapped her fingers with a satisfied smirk. “Or when you torched that guy’s stupid hair. That was art.”
“That was hilarious,” Stormy agreed between bursts of laughter. “He looked like a lit matchstick!”

Bloom exhaled a plume of smoke that curled through the air like a spell. She flicked the ash off her cigarette with the grace of someone who'd done far worse with a flick of her wrist. Her gaze glittered, dark and thoughtful.

“And if my mouth was bound too?” she asked, voice low, almost philosophical now. “What if I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move—what would I have left?”

She leaned back, spine arched like a queen on a throne, smoke rising from her lips like incense.
“Wouldn’t it be beautiful,” she murmured, “to burn everything… with just a look? No spells. No chants. No movements. Just a stare.”

“Right,” Icy drawled, cool as frostbite, though her tone held a flicker of reluctant intrigue. “Although, that would be incredibly hard to master. Very few mages can channel even a flicker of magic through their eyes alone. And to direct it—pinpoint it—”
Her gaze lingered on Bloom, sharp and calculating. “—that takes more than raw power. That takes control. Precision.”

Bloom exhaled slowly, a ribbon of smoke slithering upward, delicate as silk, dangerous as a spell. Her lips curled into a sly smile.
“Is that a compliment I hear?”

Her golden eyes gleamed through the haze, serpentine and gleefully provocative—daring Icy to say yes.

Icy’s answering smile was thin and elegant, like a knife slipping between ribs.
She tilted her chin, ice-blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t dream. It’s an observation.”

Bloom chuckled softly, unbothered, the cigarette burning lazily between her fingers like a fuse waiting to ignite.
“Observation,” she echoed, voice a velvet hum with barbed wire beneath it. “Funny thing about those—they tend to reveal more about the observer than the subject.”

Darcy’s grin widened at the edge in Bloom’s tone. Stormy gave a sharp snort, clearly entertained, her eyes bouncing between them like a spectator at a fight she hoped would escalate.

But Bloom didn’t press. She inhaled once more, exhaled deliberately, and let the silence wrap around them like smoke and silk. The tendrils drifted above her head, curling into the shape of a crooked crown.

The tension hung in the air—unspoken, unmistakable.
A challenge.
Two predators circling.
Neither willing to blink first.

Then, like a blade slicing through a spell, the silence cracked.

A sudden hush rippled across the cafeteria as all the chatter dissolved. Heads turned. Even the floating trays of food paused in midair, as if the building itself was listening. From the tallest platform, the voice of the Headmistress rang out—sonorous, sharp, and amplified by a spell that made her words echo through every corner of the vast stone hall.

“Attention, students,” she began, her tone laced with urgency. “There is a matter of growing concern.”

The torches lining the walls dimmed slightly, as if the room sensed what was coming.

“There are shadows moving through Magix,” the Headmistress continued, her eyes sweeping the crowd with that strange, knowing look she always had—like she saw past flesh and bone, and into the soul. “Not the kind we welcome here at Cloud Tower. These shadows are deeper. Older. And not born of our own magic.”

A quiet murmur passed through the witches. A few shifted in their seats. Some leaned closer, listening. Others scoffed under their breath, rolling their eyes. Still, no one dared speak aloud.

“These forces,” she said, “have been disturbing the natural balance of realms beyond our own. Even the shadows we draw power from have begun to recoil.”

That caught more attention. Even the Trix, casually draped across the upper tiers, straightened.

“And that is why, for the first time in Cloud Tower history,” she went on, “we will be collaborating—formally—with our sister school of light, Alfea.”

Gasps and groans followed. Some witches immediately frowned in disgust; others exchanged curious glances.

“A student exchange program will commence in one month’s time,” the Headmistress announced. “A select group from Cloud Tower will be sent to live, train, and cooperate with a group of fairies from Alfea. For one month, you will coexist under a shared mission: unity in magic, and preparation for a threat we do not yet fully understand.”

Her gaze narrowed slightly, and though she stood on the far side of the room, Bloom felt as if it landed squarely on her.

“This is not an invitation,” the Headmistress added. “This is a summons. Those chosen will be notified by tomorrow morning. Attendance is not optional.”

The spell broke.

The Headmistress’s voice fell silent, leaving the air in the cafeteria strangely still—like the echo of a storm that hadn’t yet passed. For a heartbeat, no one spoke. The usual clatter of trays and lazy magical squabbles didn’t return. Even the floating platforms bobbed a little lower, as if the building itself was unsettled.

Voices resumed, yes—but not with their former fire. The hum of conversation returned as a hushed murmur, thinner, uneasy, as if someone had cast a silencing charm just out of sight.

At the highest tier, Bloom didn’t move.
The cigarette between her fingers was little more than glowing ash now, the smoke curling in uneasy spirals—no longer under her control, as though something else in the air was stirring it. She watched it drift toward the ceiling, her golden eyes sharp, yet distant.

“Well, that was dramatic,” Darcy muttered, though even her usual sarcasm lacked conviction.

Stormy crossed her arms with a frustrated sigh. “Ugh, do you think she’s picking the ‘best of the best’? Because if that means WE will haw to deal with pixie-loving bootlickers, I’m out.”

“Likely,” Icy said coolly, though there was an edge beneath her words. Her arms folded, her pale gaze narrowed slightly—not at the announcement, but at something deeper, something unsaid. “But what threat is she talking about?”

Her eyes slid across the table and settled on Bloom.

Bloom felt it immediately.

Slowly, she turned her head to meet Icy’s stare. Her expression didn’t shift, but one elegant eyebrow arched in a silent challenge, a wordless what are you implying?

Icy didn’t look away.

Across the table, Darcy leaned forward. Her voice dropped low, barely audible under the cafeteria’s trembling buzz. She scanned the surrounding platforms, making sure no ears—magical or otherwise—were turned their way.

“You don’t think,” she whispered, “this has anything to do with them, do you?”

There was a beat of silence. A flicker of something darker passed through the group like a shadow skimming under the surface.

“Who?” asked Stormy—too loudly, too bluntly, drawing a sharp glare from Darcy.

Bloom exhaled through her nose, then crushed the remainder of her cigarette against the edge of the floating table. “No,” she said, arms folding across her chest, posture stiffening just slightly. “They can’t reach this realm. Not directly.”

Her voice was calm. Too calm.

“But they can whisper,” she added, golden eyes darkening. “They can get into minds. Twist dreams. Make people see things that don’t belong in this world.”

That silenced them.

Even Stormy sat straighter, mouth pressed in a line as unease slithered into the space between them.

For a moment, no one spoke. The sounds of the cafeteria faded again into the background, replaced by the faint rustle of cloaks, the creak of stone, the distant hum of torches guttering.

Outside the high, narrow windows, clouds rolled in thick and fast—darker than before. Heavy. Watching.

Then Bloom spoke, her voice softer now. Not fearful. Not uncertain. Just steady. Focused.

“I guess,” she said, almost to herself, “we’ll find out… in the near future.”

Chapter Text

Griffin’s office smelled of ink and banked smoke, the kind that clung to old pages and older secrets. Tall shelves of grimoires scaled the stone like dark ribs; in the corner, a brass armillary turned with slow, whispering grace, measuring out a hush that felt deliberate. A single candle guttered against a draft behind the desk, its blade of light carving the headmistress’s severe profile into amber and shadow.

“Three of you will go to Alfea in about a month,” said Griffin, “But you, Bloom, will stay here.”

Confusion flared—sharp voices, a hiss of breath—while Bloom only lifted a skeptical brow, cool and unbothered.

“What, am I not good enough?” She crossed her arms over her chest, bracelets whispering.

“Quite the opposite. You will stay here as a defense measure,” the headmistress replied. “Your talents will be useful and needed here in case the Cloud Tower falls under attack.”

Stormy’s boot clicked once against the flagstones. Icy shifted her weight, blue eyes narrowing to icy slits. “What’s the threat?” she asked, tone level but edged; a question dressed as a statement.

Griffin leaned forward, fingers laced, the candle’s flame laying a thin gold seam along her knuckles. “An ancient darkness whose plans were broken once,” she said—measured, careful—“is moving again. You will train and prepare to face creatures born of shadow and older night with instructors who have experience fighting them. That is all for now. You’re dismissed.”

Stormy’s mouth twisted. “And what exactly are we supposed to fight—names help, you know.”

Griffin’s expression did not change. “I won’t repeat myself,” she said, each word precise as a spell. “You’re dismissed.”

Silence drew tight as wire. Then, in near unison, four sets of heels turned and carried them back into the chill of the corridor.

They left to the dry hush of pages and the soft click of the latch. The corridor outside was cooler, the air cleaner, torches hissing with a restless, low burn. Students farther down the hall went quiet as they passed, pressing themselves closer to stone. Footsteps fell in a staggered cadence—Stormy impatient, Darcy unhurried, Icy exact, Bloom unbothered.

“Studying at a fairy school,” Stormy muttered, half a growl, half a laugh. “I’d rather kiss a thunderhead.”

Darcy’s mouth curved, dark amusement soft as velvet. “Do they grade on glitter? I’d hate to fail sparkle etiquette.”

Icy didn’t bother to hide her disdain. “It’s a tactical assignment, not a tea party. We go, we endure, we return.”

Bloom kept her gaze forward, golden eyes unreadable, hands loose at her sides. “Pack sunscreen,” she said, light as smoke. “Wouldn’t want any of you melting.”

Stormy snorted. Darcy’s eyes gleamed. Icy’s jaw worked once, then stilled; a stray pale strand was tucked behind her ear, the gesture neat enough to count as a decision.

A faint heat pulsed in Bloom’s fingertips—the kind only someone who’d lived with fire would notice. Darcy’s attention flicked over warded doorways and painted sigils, cataloging, connecting. Stormy fell quiet, sparks of temper tamped beneath a heel.

They climbed the spiral stair, passed a slit of window where the sky had gone a shade darker than the hour allowed, and turned into their corridor—a run of doors tattooed with scorch scars and glamour stains. At their door, Bloom’s knuckles brushed the iron ring; it swung open at her practiced nudge.

The dorm held the mess of power and routine—charms pinned to a cracked mirror, potion vials haloed in dust, a jacket slung over a chair, singe marks no one bothered to scrub. The room breathed them.

The door’s soft thud flattened the corridor’s murmurs, leaving the dorm wrapped in its own hush. Charms pinned to a cracked mirror clicked once and went still; a thread of incense smoldered on the windowsill, sweet and acrid over the bite of old smoke.

Bloom let herself fall into the couch, one arm thrown along the back, boots crossed at the ankle. The cushions hissed with trapped dust. Across from her, Icy took the edge of the desk like a throne—straight spine, folded arms, eyes pale and exact.

“We can agree the Ancestral Witches aren’t behind this,” Icy said at last. “Do they have allies?” Her gaze settled on Bloom, cool and expectant—the look you give the only person in the room who might actually know.

Bloom studied her nails as if the question were a draft she could ignore. “No idea,” she said, tone even. “If they did, they didn’t tell me. I don’t ask about their past; if they want me to know, they say it.” She flicked an imaginary speck from a cuticle. “What I do know is the King of Domino locked them in Obsidian when they went after the Dragon Flame.”

“Maybe… I don’t know… leftovers of their power adapted intelligence or something,” Stormy offered, hands moving as if to shape the thought midair.

“You could try adapting some intelligence,” Darcy murmured, lips quirking. She leaned against the bedpost and let her eyes narrow, replaying the meeting in her head. “Griffin looked like she’s seen this before. Old-enemy kind of look.”

“So either it touches the Witches,” Icy said, “or it sits on their level.” Her fingers tapped once against her sleeve and stilled.

Bloom didn’t reply immediately. Her stare drifted past them to the window’s thin slice of sky—too dark for the hour, rain scent threaded through the stone. The room held its breath.

“Guesswork wastes time,” she said finally, voice low. “Work from the worst case. Whatever it is, it’s ugly. We’ll regret chasing shadows we don’t understand.”

She rose in one smooth motion, the couch sighing as it lost her weight. A jacket from the chair found her shoulders; gold bands at her arms caught a dull gleam from the lamplight. She palmed the door latch.

“I’ll be in the forest,” she added, without looking back. “Training. Alone.”

Stormy half-lifted a hand. “You want—”

Icy’s glance was a small shake of the head. “Let her.”

Darcy exhaled a quiet laugh that wasn’t amusement. “Try not to set the trees on philosophical fire.”

Bloom’s smile was there and gone. The door opened on a draft of cooler air and the faint hiss of distant wards. It closed behind her with the same sure finality.

Silence flowed back in, coiled but thinner now. Outside, the wind shifted. Inside, three witches listened to the old tower settle—and to the space Bloom left behind.

Bloom stood in the ribs of the Dark Forest, breath fogging faintly in the cool shade. She worked until her muscles sang—pushups on slick roots, pull-ups from a gnarled branch, core tight as wire. When sweat slicked her spine, she switched to flame. A pulse of heat gathered beneath her skin; she loosed it with a flick of intent. Stones the size of wolves split open with a dry, cracking thunder, shards skipping across the leaf-litter like knives. Ember-ash drifted down, glowing and brief.

Her mind moved faster than her body. Shadows, Griffin had said. The word didn’t frighten her; she’d been raised where shadows were born. If this were tied to the Ancestral Witches, it would mean her years of maneuvering had bought her nothing—and Bloom refused that. Perhaps it was something new. Perhaps there was no threat at all, only politics dressed as prophecy and a convenient exchange to bind wrists in velvet. Either way, she reminded herself, it didn’t matter. She had one purpose: grow stronger, and shatter Oritel’s sword. That vow had teeth long before Cloud Tower, long before cigarettes and smirks.

The echo of detonated stone still hummed through the trees as she wandered deeper, following a deer path that wasn’t truly a path. The forest pressed close, then yielded without warning; thorns softened to velvet moss, black bark bled into silver trunks that caught thin bands of light. She let thought unspool until the world slipped at the edges, then caught herself—and felt the difference first on her tongue. The air had changed. It tasted… clean. Sweet in a way she had no memory for, a quiet gentleness brushing the heat coiled inside her.

She lifted her gaze. Ahead, through a narrow seam in the trees, something pale seemed to breathe.

She stepped out of the thicket—and her breath hitched.

Soft light opened in front of her: a lake, still as held glass, bright where the Dark Forest should have been unlit. The air here was saturated with light magic, so fine it seemed to float; the aura of this place was utterly unlike the rest of the wood. Peaceful. Quiet. As if the magic itself were awake and watching.

Bloom stood at the shore, the usual heat in her veins crowding against something gentler. For a heartbeat, the Dragon Flame inside her leaned toward the light—as if it remembered a language she’d never learned. The sensation was foreign: peace threading through her, uninvited, impossible. Yet the lake glowed as if it had been waiting.

Goosebumps broke across her arms. Instinct asserted itself. She listened—cataloging the hush, the small lap of water against stone, the sift of leaves—scanning for the wrongness that meant a threat. Nothing moved. Still, she kept her shoulders squared as she approached the edge and lowered herself into a squat.

Her hand slipped into the water. Cold kissed her skin; crystal clarity closed around her fingers. Light danced thin as silk across her knuckles, the magic here feather-light, almost delicate. She cupped her palm and lifted. Thirst tugged. Bloom took a sip.

Regret followed at once.

Her mouth twisted—not at taste, but at sensation—as light energy wrapped her like a veil pulled too tight. Dizziness surged; her body quivered in a fine, involuntary shake, the Dragon Flame flaring then recoiling as if rejecting the purity seeping in. She pushed to her feet too fast and stumbled back, breath sharp. One hand raked through her hair, the familiar tug a rough anchor while the world steadied and the bright pressure thinned.

She drew in a measured breath. Decision settled cleanly.

She turned from the shore, set her shoulders toward Cloud Tower, and began the way back—already choosing, with a final, flat glance at the waiting light, to never return.

The sunlight poured in through the towering arched window, painting the headmistress’s office in strokes of honey-gold. Dust motes floated lazily in the warm light, drifting over the polished wood and velvet-bound books stacked with careful precision. Faragonda stood still, her eyes distant as they traced the horizon, her expression a quiet sculpture of thought.

The moment fractured at the sound of knuckles against the door—two crisp knocks that echoed through the vaulted room.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened with a soft creak, and he stepped inside.

He moved like the room belonged to him—tall, composed, his strides effortless. Long light brown hair swept past his shoulders, silken and unbound, catching the sun in faint glimmers of gold. His tailored waistcoat, a rich blue embroidered with subtle arcane patterns, hugged his frame perfectly, gold trim accentuating his sharp elegance. The crisp white shirt beneath opened slightly at the collar, revealing just a hint of his collarbone and a pale blue gem nestled at his throat. Black gloves dressed his hands, one resting casually on his hip, the other lifting with a flick of mock flourish. There was command in the way he stood, in the sculpted stillness of his form—but his eyes, sharp and amused, and the faint curve of a smile softened it all.

“I was notified that you had called me in,” came his voice—low, smooth, resonant. “How can I be of assistance?”

Faragonda turned from the window, her chair creaking as she sat. “Thank you for coming, Valtor. There is something important I need to discuss with you.”

“Well, whatever it is, I hope it won’t take too long. I have class starting in about twenty minutes,” he replied, settling his weight onto one leg with casual grace.

“I’ll be as quick as possible,” she assured. “Have you already heard the morning news?”

“Does it have to do with the person some students found at the gates?” Valtor asked, brows faintly lifting with curiosity.

Faragonda nodded, folding her hands on the desk. “Her name is Layla. She’s the princess of Andros. She collapsed at our gate from exhaustion—still recovering. But we managed to speak with her briefly.”

She recounted what Layla had told them—how she had gone alone to the underground castle in search of her pixie friends, only to encounter a figure cloaked in crimson armor, a knight forged of shadow and menace. He had thrown her from the precipice like she was weightless—but somehow, impossibly, she had survived the fall.

Valtor’s eyes narrowed as he listened, the playfulness in his expression flickering out like a snuffed flame. “Was she checked for dark magic traces?” he asked slowly, voice cool, clinical. “Any chance she’s a spy? Manipulated?”

“We ran the tests,” Faragonda said. “There’s no trace. And I don’t believe he expected her to live. Her clothes were soaked—she must have fallen into a river or lake beneath the castle.”

She paused, letting silence settle between them. Outside, wind stirred the high branches, and the faint creak of wood echoed through the walls. She watched the subtle shift in his gaze, the flicker of memory that passed like shadow over his face.

“But the man she described… does he sound familiar to you?”

Valtor’s shoulders drew in just slightly, barely enough to notice. His gaze dropped, not in shame but in calculation—then rose again, steady and sharp. His voice, when it came, was low and unflinching.

“Shadow Phoenix.”

Faragonda exhaled, slow and heavy, as if the name itself thickened the air between them. “If he’s abducting pixies… he might have a new agenda.”

“You mean, the Magic Dimension will be threatened once more,” Valtor said, quiet but direct. The words held weight, like the closing of a gate long left open.

“Yes. I came up with an idea,” Faragonda said, sitting straighter. “I discussed it with Griffin, and she agrees that we should come to this measure.”

She laid out the plan in steady detail—the creation of an exchange program between Alfea and Cloud Tower. Not politics. Not forced. Just preparation. Integration. Two worlds rarely meant to touch now learning to stand beside one another.

“Fairies and witches working together?” Valtor tilted his head, a faint hum of amusement under his breath. “Haven’t seen that in a while.”

“We believe that preparing our best students—and allowing them to learn the most diverse aspects of magic—would make them stronger,” she said. “Half of the Company of Light disappeared. The others… are not in the age to be primary fighters.”

Valtor’s lips curved into a smile—slow, dry, touched by disbelief. “That’s… quite unexpected from you to hear that.”

Faragonda sighed, the sound theatrical and weary. “It is what it is. But I need you for this. I want you to oversee the program. You are the most experienced—and the only one who has ever faced the Shadow Phoenix face-to-face.”

“You’re saying,” he replied with a small, strained smile, “you want to put more trouble on my shoulders.”

But the mirth didn’t quite reach his eyes. It never did when that name surfaced.

His expression sobered. The teasing edge faded entirely, leaving behind a thoughtful silence.

“I know it might open old wounds,” Faragonda said gently. “But we can’t let history repeat itself.”

Valtor didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked to the window, to the glow beyond the glass, to something distant—something buried. Then, finally:

“I’ll think about it.”

Chapter Text

There was nothing.

Not darkness. Not light. Just a boundless hush that pressed in from every direction—neither warm nor cold, neither cruel nor kind. And yet, Bloom drifted within it as if it were home. No floor beneath her feet, no sky overhead, no shape to the silence. But she didn’t question it. The nothingness felt… right, in the way a half-forgotten dream sometimes does.

She wandered through that weightless expanse, her senses groping through velvet void—seeking nothing, searching for something. Her thoughts were distant, like lanterns glimpsed through fog, flickering in and out. Time didn’t exist here. Only feeling.

Then, without warning, it stirred.

A thrum. A presence. A pull.

Power coiled in the distance—not close, not far, but there. Familiar in its rhythm, in its song. It brushed against her skin like a breath of heat against frost. Her spine prickled.

It was power like hers. And not hers.

The Dragon’s flame within her was dark, cold fire forged in fury and will. But this… this was warmth. Golden. Gentle. Not hot, not consuming, but alive—like the sun filtered through old glass. Her body twisted instinctively, searching. She turned and turned, arms slightly raised as if to feel the air. But there was nothing. Not even a glimmer.

Then—

Bloom.

The name bloomed in the space around her, not spoken but felt, as though the void itself whispered it in a voice not her own.

Bloom.

Again, it echoed—softer this time, melodic, lilting. The kind of voice that could coax a heartbeat from stone. And with it, a sudden wash of warmth swept over her skin, chased by a chill that scattered down her arms and legs like whispered lightning.

Bloom!

The third call struck deeper. Urgent now. Velvet turned to silk and silk to smoke, the voice rising like a song barely contained by sound. Her heart lurched, fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird.

Her calm unraveled. Cool detachment shattered.

Bloom spun sharply, breath catching, her eyes straining into the distance. And then—just there, on the edge of sense—she saw them.

Golden sparks.

Tiny, delicate, dancing like motes of starlight far, far away. They pulsed in the unseen distance, rhythm slow and eternal, like the breathing of something ancient. Something divine.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t.

The nothingness wrapped around her like a second skin, and still the sparks shimmered—pulling, beckoning, waiting.

She stared.

Something ancient had spoken her name.

And something holy was beginning to answer.

Bloom’s eyes snapped open, breath caught mid-gasp.

Cold sweat clung to her like second skin, tracing shivers down her temple, the curve of her throat, the small of her back. Her heart surged in her chest, a relentless drumbeat that pulsed through every vein like a war cry. For a breathless moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d truly woken—or if she was still plummeting through the dream’s silence.

Slowly, she pushed herself upright, spine unfolding in tight, careful increments. Her room was cloaked in that half-light before dawn, the hour where shadows held their breath and the world still pretended to sleep. The narrow dorm window glowed faintly, its frame limned in ash-blue. Outside, the sky hovered between worlds—neither night nor morning, but some haunted thing in between.

Her lungs pulled in air that felt stale and stony, tinged with the faint, lingering scent of burnt incense and smoldered candlewax. Her hands curled against the blanket, tension curling in her knuckles.

A dream. Not nightmare—those she could categorize, analyze, file away. This was something stranger. It made no sense, and yet it sank beneath her ribs like an anchor. It left her hollow in a way she couldn’t name, anxious in the quiet ache it stirred beneath her breastbone. But Bloom would not let it unravel her.

She had seen worse. Lived worse. Nightmares tailored by witches to carve her into something sharp, something usable. Nightmares sewn by her own fire. This was nothing compared to those. Just a phantom whisper with no claws.

Still, sleep had fled her, and something inside refused to be still.

She slid from the bed, breath steadying with purpose. Her fingers reached for her jacket—the one the color of bruised wine, supple leather shaped by use. She pulled it on over the thin black shirt she slept in. The weight of it grounded her, familiar. On the shelf by her bed, she found the small carton of cigarettes. Its soft crinkle sounded loud in the hush. She tucked it into her pocket.

Crossing the room, she moved like a shadow. Her hand brushed the windowsill, cool to the touch. With a silent thought, her body lifted from the ground, the air yielding beneath her with practiced ease. The window creaked open, letting in a breath of cold that kissed the sheen of sweat on her skin, chasing the last of the dream’s warmth.

Then, without a glance back, she slipped through the frame—vanishing into the waiting dark.

The vast training chamber of Cloud Tower pulsed with raw energy. Spells cracked in the air like thunderclaps, casting flickering shadows along the high arched walls. Witches moved in swift, calculated duos across the space, their magic dancing wild and sharp between them.

Each girl wore the witch’s battle attire—sleek, dark, and arcane like an extension of their magic. It shimmered with protective enchantments, fitting to their bodies like a second skin.

Bloom stood among them, unmistakable. Her witch uniform hugged her form like shadowed flame—obsidian and burnished gold with slits that gave her freedom of movement and flair. Long strands of copper-gold hair spilled down her back, a fierce contrast to the midnight tones of her suit. Gold accents kissed her arms, and her gloves traced power into her fingers like inked fire. She looked like a storm veiled in silk—elegant, dangerous, alight with something ancient.

She’d chosen Stormy as her sparring partner, not by chance but intent. Bloom craved the challenge—Stormy’s attacks were aggressive, sharp as broken lightning and just as erratic. There was no room for dullness with her. One misstep could mean being slammed into the training floor or singed by a bolt of wild thunder.

Stormy, on the other hand, welcomed the match with a grin that promised destruction. She loved a good fight, and Bloom—strongest of their odd quartet—was the only one who made her pulse race for real. It was more than rivalry; it was the pleasure of pushing a worthy opponent to the edge. Stormy didn’t just want to win. She wanted to break through Bloom’s control, to rattle the calm from her voice, to make the fire girl burn.

And Bloom? Bloom wanted to lose herself in something she could fight with her fists, instead of her dreams.

Bloom...

The voice from the dream curled around her spine again, weightless and warm like mist rising from a still lake. But it sliced through her focus.

Her head snapped up, eyes scanning the edges of the training hall as if she might find the source. Her magic flared, restless.

At that same instant, Stormy struck.

A jagged bolt of lightning cracked through the air like a whip, aimed straight for her. Bloom barely had time to react—just enough to throw up a fire shield in front of her. The barrier shimmered with red-gold heat, absorbing most of the strike, but not all. The impact sent her flying backwards with a burst of force that knocked the breath out of her lungs. She hit the ground hard, the sting of it blooming across her back.

Stormy cackled. “What was that? It’s like you lost your grip there for a moment.”

Bloom pushed herself up, movements slow and deliberate, her expression cold. Serious. Her heart still echoed with that dream voice, her vision swimming with leftover sparks—until something else flickered into view.

A human-like silhouette shimmered into existence between her and Stormy—barely visible, radiant, golden. Ethereal. And then, as quickly as it appeared, it vanished, leaving nothing but drifting sparks in the air.

Bloom’s gaze sharpened.

Without a word, she thrust both arms forward, hands clapping together. Fire surged between her palms, compressed and coiled into a razor-fine beam. It wasn’t a technique built for elegance—it was brute force, fast, concentrated, and deadly when aimed right.

Stormy had no time to dodge. Her shield went up instinctively, a flash of electricity sparking in defense. But Bloom’s fire tore through it with such intensity that Stormy was driven back—sliding hard and fast across the training hall floor until she collided with the far wall. The thud was loud. Final.

The rest of the class froze. Heads turned.

Icy and Darcy, mid-spar, were the first to move. They crossed the room toward Bloom, eyes narrowed with interest rather than concern.

Darcy let out a low whistle. “Oh, you slammed her pretty good. Not holding back today?”

Bloom didn’t answer. Her eyes remained locked on the space where the silhouette had flickered. Something about it still pulsed in the air—an afterimage she couldn’t shake. Then, slowly, she turned her head, side-eyeing Darcy. Her eyes glowed, faint but unmistakable. Gold. Ancient. Quiet fury held beneath glass.

“If I did it right,” she murmured, voice barely audible, “it would’ve gone through her shield… and through her body.”

Silence stretched.

Then Bloom turned without another word and strode out of the training room, her boots echoing across the stone floor.

Icy blinked, watching her go. “The fuck?” she muttered under her breath as Darcy crouched beside Stormy, who groaned from the floor, dazed and smoldering.

The archive chamber lay steeped in shadow, lit only by the flickering breath of magical torches clinging to the stone walls. Dust hung thick in the air, glittering faintly in the dancing amber glow. It clung to the shelves like a second skin, as if the books themselves had long been forgotten by time. But not by her.

After training, Bloom had come straight here—her limbs aching, her knuckles bruised, her mind ablaze with questions that refused to be silenced. The dreams. Their meanings. Entities that whispered into sleep and bent the world of dreams to their will. She devoured pages on illusion spells, on spirit invaders, on the magic of foresight and manipulation. Visions and omens. Curses and prophecies. Anything that might explain what had clawed at her mind the night before… or the golden flicker she’d seen earlier in the training hall.

The archive had become something of a second home to her. Since she’d arrived at Cloud Tower a little over a year ago, this had been her haven, her war room, her sanctuary. She’d spent countless nights here, poring through ancient knowledge in search of a single truth—the sword.

The Sword of Oritel.

A blade steeped in legend and ruin. The very weapon that had imprisoned her masters within the obsidian heart of primordial darkness. Her masters—the three Mothers of All Witches—bound in Obsidian by the last, desperate act of King Oritel, ruler of Domino. He had lost everything. His kingdom. His people. And with the last flicker of Dragon Flame, he had forged a prison and sealed them inside.

It was the last light before the fall.

And Bloom… Bloom was born of that same flame. Carved from it. Tempered by darkness. Only Dragon Flame could destroy what was made by it. Only she could shatter the sword. But she couldn’t.

Not yet.

That was why she had come to Cloud Tower—to search for knowledge and grow stronger. Strong enough to destroy the blade, release her masters, and with them… corrupt the world.

For hours now, she had scoured every source, turning page after page, letting her eyes blur as the hours slipped by. But the deeper she searched, the more elusive the truth became. The torches guttered low as night settled fully outside, the windows offering no light now but a murky reflection of the girl hunched at the table, a gleam of gold still faint in her tired eyes.

Frustration hit her like a slap. With a snap, she slammed the book shut, the sound cracking through the silence. Her jaw tightened.

Nothing.

Nothing useful. Nothing that explained the vision that stalked her sleep or haunted her while awake. And still—still—some part of her knew this wasn’t exhaustion or stress. This wasn’t her imagination. No, she knew better than that. But for now, she would let others think it was.

Let herself think it was.

Her hand lingered on the leather cover a second longer, and then she rose and walked toward the door. Back to her room.

The Trix lounged in their dimly lit dorm, their conversation dissolving the moment Bloom stepped inside. The air shifted, thickening with a tension that hummed beneath the silence. None of them spoke. But their eyes followed her—sharp, curious, waiting.

Bloom felt it instantly. The weight of their stares pressed like a hand between her shoulder blades. But she didn’t falter. Her boots clicked softly against the stone floor as she made her way to the journal table, its surface littered with spell drafts, stray crystals, and the sharp scent of old ink. She stood there without a word, her presence coiling into the space like smoke.

“What happened earlier?” Icy’s voice cut through the stillness, as cool and precise as a dagger’s edge.

Bloom raised a brow. Her fingers slid to her hip in a casual, unbothered curve. “You mean the part where I beat the crap out of Stormy?” she asked, her tone edged with dry amusement. “That happens all the time. What’s so special about this one?”

Stormy lurched forward in her chair, a flash of fire in her eyes, but stopped short as Icy made a sound—low, sharp, warning. Stormy bit down on her fury with visible effort.

“Oh, you know,” Darcy drawled, reclining lazily but watching with razor attention. “Little things. Like how you got oddly distracted in the middle of a fight. Or the part where you looked at Stormy like she wasn’t Stormy. Or—and this one’s my favorite—when you tried to incinerate her.”

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“And after failing to do that, you stormed off without a word. Disappeared. Left the entire class and half the faculty wondering if you’d snapped.”

So they had seen it all, Bloom thought. Every flicker. Every crack. Her gaze narrowed, just slightly.

“I’m not going to apologize,” she said flatly, folding her arms across her chest. Her posture was effortless, but her voice struck like flint. “You know better than to ask.”

“If she died,” Bloom added, eyes flicking to Stormy, “that would’ve been her fault. For being weak.”

Stormy surged again, but this time Icy rose.

“Please,” Icy said, voice silken with contempt, “spare that crap for someone who still cares.”

She crossed the room with slow, measured steps, stopping just before Bloom. “We want to know if you’ve lost it. If you’re about to turn on us. Because that,” her tone dipped into something deceptively soft, “would be the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

There was a promise in her voice. Icy didn’t threaten—she warned. Like frost on steel.

But Bloom didn’t blink.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t care.

“You don’t need to worry,” she said, the faintest smile curling at her mouth. “You’ve got nothing I want. And you’re not in my way.”

Her eyes gleamed—fire banked, not gone.

“The only thing that binds us is that we practice the dark arts from the same masters,” Bloom finished, turning her gaze away, already done with them. “That’s all there is.”

It was well past midnight, the kind of hour where shadows thickened in corners and the silence of Cloud Tower curled in on itself like a slumbering beast. Most of the students had retreated into dreams—or nightmares—but Bloom remained awake, folded over the soft violet glow of her crystal phone.

Her brows were furrowed, jaw tight in concentration. The screen reflected in her eyes, flickering as she scrolled past ancient articles, half-buried forum threads, fragments of archived scrolls that had been poorly translated into digital files. All of it centered around the same obsession: the Sword of Oritel.

Her father’s blade. Her burden.

She had searched for hours now, long past when her body began to ache and her eyes blurred. Still, she found no answers. No whispered theory. No hidden clue. Nothing that could explain why, after all this time, after all her power, she still couldn’t destroy the damn thing. Not with her fire. Not with her will. Not with the part of her forged in Dragon Flame.

The screen dimmed. A soft buzz warned her of low battery, but she didn’t care. Her thumb hovered over the final page, the last useless source she hadn't yet read. Her breath left her in a quiet sigh, heavy with defeat. And then, at last, she powered it down, the room plunging into a denser kind of darkness as the light disappeared.

She dropped the phone onto the nightstand with a soft clatter and collapsed backward onto her bed. The pillow cradled her head, cool against the heat gathering at her temples. One arm fell across her stomach, the other resting above her head in a loose sprawl. Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling—stone gray, veined with shadow, cracked faintly in places like a wound that never healed.

Somewhere beyond the thick walls, muffled laughter echoed. The Trix, no doubt, still awake. There was the clink of glass, a sudden burst of snorting laughter—Stormy, probably—followed by Darcy’s more elegant, drawn-out chuckle and the unmistakable dry sarcasm of Icy’s voice cutting through it all.

Bloom could join them if she wanted. Sometimes she did. Shared wine from half-charmed bottles and silence that wasn’t quite friendship but wasn’t hostility either. Sometimes she even found herself smiling.

But not tonight.

Tonight, she didn’t want to pretend.

Tonight, she didn’t want company, didn’t want to explain the ghosts dancing behind her eyes, or why the exhaustion weighing her bones had nothing to do with lack of sleep. Tonight, the ache inside her felt ancient, threaded through with something she couldn’t name, like her soul had been scraped raw.

So she stayed in her bed, a solitary silhouette wrapped in a thin sheet of moonlight leaking through the high dorm window. The chill of the stone floor touched her bare ankles, and the scent of old parchment and ash clung faintly to her hair from the hours spent in the archives earlier.

Her eyelids fluttered as the room thickened with quiet. Her body slowly surrendered to stillness.

And then… sleep came, slow and creeping. It slid over her limbs like cold silk, threading through her fingers, her spine, her breath.

The last sound before everything slipped away was the soft clink of a glass bottle rolling against stone, echoing distantly like a bell tolling from another life. Then came the rhythm of her heartbeat—steady, but no longer calm. It pulsed in her chest like a quiet war drum, loud in the silence, louder in the dark.

Bloom…

The voice shimmered in the void, delicate and echoing, like a ripple across still water.

Bloom…

A breath, a whisper of power brushing across her skin.

Bloom!

Her name was a command this time—sharp, cutting, urgent.

Bloom's eyes snapped open.

Light assaulted her senses, stark and merciless, bleaching the ceiling above into a glare that forced her to blink. For a breathless moment, her body refused to move—her limbs numb with sleep, her mind fogged with fragments of the dream. That same dream again, the one that clung to her like smoke and vanished just as quickly, leaving only its strange weight behind.

Her chest rose in a sharp inhale as she bolted upright. Cold sheets tangled around her legs. Her breath came fast. Disoriented, she scanned the space, her pulse still stammering in her ears. This wasn’t her dorm. The walls weren’t the familiar deep grays and purples of Cloud Tower. No flickering shadows cast by arcane sconces. No shelves stacked with grimoires or charmed mirrors reflecting her own wary face.

The room was white. Soft. Blinding. Quiet.

Rows of narrow beds stretched out in either direction, each lined in crisp linens. The air carried a sterile, almost floral scent—something clean, something safe. Too safe.

A nurse’s ward. But not one she recognized.

Heart hammering, Bloom swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, the floor cool beneath her bare feet. She moved to the nearest window, drawn to the light like a moth to flame.

Outside, the world bloomed in pastel gold and pink. She blinked against the radiance, squinting as her vision adjusted. There, beyond the glass, stood a crescent of elegant towers rising like coral from the earth—soft pink stone kissed by sunlight, trimmed with lavender-blue roofs that gleamed with enchantment. Curved walkways arched between the towers like graceful wings in mid-beat, creating the shape of—

“Fairy wings…” she whispered, her voice nearly lost in the hush of the room.

Alfea.

The fairy school.

Chapter Text

Bloom couldn't make sense of how she'd gotten here.

Alfea stood around her like a dream made flesh—sun-warmed stone and flowering archways, the soft hum of enchantments lingering in the air like distant music. But this wasn't a dream. She remembered every second before sleep had taken her: the search, the frustration, the cold ceiling of her dorm as silence wrapped around her. And now this—waking not in Cloud Tower's familiar shadows, but here.

It wasn't a hallucination. She knew the feel of those—when the mind twisted reality until colors sharpened too much and sounds rang like bells underwater. This wasn't that. Everything here felt too grounded, too real. Even if someone had woven an illusion around her, they'd done so with a precision she hadn't seen since ancient magic walked the realms. And why would anyone go to such lengths just to trap her in a vision of Alfea?

Could this tie back to the dream? To the golden presence that had called her name like a song in the void?

"Oh, you're awake."

The soft voice brushed the air behind her. Bloom turned, stiff and guarded.

A girl stood at the edge of the room—young, maybe her age, with long light brown hair kissed by sunlit strands and skin the color of warm honey. She radiated softness. Kindness. A breeze made human.

"How are you feeling?" the girl asked, concern threading through her gentle tone.

"Who are you?" Bloom snapped, the question sharp enough to draw blood.

The girl blinked, taken aback. "I'm Flora. Student at Alfea. Do you remember what happened? We found you at the gates this morning—"

But Bloom didn't wait for her to finish.

The moment the words registered—gates—Bloom's pulse kicked. She moved fast and silent, brushing past Flora like smoke through cracks. Her bare feet slapped against cool stone as she slipped out of the infirmary and into the corridor beyond.

She heard Flora behind her, calling after her—words fluttering like leaves in the wind—but Bloom didn't slow. Didn't look back.

A woman in healer's robes stepped into the hall, eyes widening. "Miss, wait—!"

Bloom breezed past her too. She had no interest in explanations, in soft voices and folded hands. She needed answers, and she wouldn't find them lying in a bed like some fragile thing.

The corridors of Alfea wrapped around her like a memory she had never lived. High ceilings spilled morning light across polished floors. The air smelled of lavender and spell-dusted parchment. Girls moved in clusters, laughter trailing behind them like ribbons—until they saw her.

She felt their stares cut through the air like blades.

She didn't blame them.

Her black sleep shirt clung to her skin, cropped just above her navel. The matching shorts hugged her hips, revealing lean, powerful legs marked with bruises half-faded from yesterday's training. No shoes. No armor. No glamour.

And yet, she walked like she wore a crown.

Copper hair spilled down her back in tangled waves, wild and unapologetic. Her eyes—those serpent-gold eyes—scanned the crowd with cool disinterest. She was dark fire in a place made of light, and the fairies could feel it. The energy around her crackled like a storm on the verge.

They stepped aside, instinctively.

Bloom didn't care. Let them whisper. Let them wonder.

She moved through Alfea like a storm wrapped in silk, but the corridors twisted like a dream half-remembered, and she couldn't find her way out. Her eyes scanned for a window, any glimpse of the world beyond these enchanted walls, when a subtle shift in the air made her falter.

She passed a man. And something about him tugged at the edges of her awareness.

It was subtle—just a ripple, a flare of energy brushing across her senses like heat rising off embers. Familiar, but distorted. Her feet halted instinctively. She turned her head, eyes locking onto a tall figure near one of the arching windows.

His presence was like an echo—familiar and strange, steady and dangerous. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in a tailored suit that whispered of authority and magic. His long, light brown hair framed a face too composed, too precise—each feature carved with deliberate symmetry.

Her instincts sharpened.

Instructor, she guessed. But her gut twisted with something else.

"Where are you rushing, young lady?" he asked, voice calm and composed, yet laced with quiet authority.

Bloom blinked, dragged from the momentary pull of energy she couldn't yet name. She turned sharply and continued walking, posture stiffening.

"Are you by chance the girl students found at the gates this morning?" he continued, his words following her like a tether.

"Don't know what you're talking about," she shot back, refusing to look over her shoulder.

But suddenly—he was in front of her.

One breath ago he'd been ten feet behind.

She stumbled back a step, caught off guard. His eyes were crystalline blue—chilling and clear, like a frozen lake with depths she couldn't fathom. His features were carved in precise lines: sharp jaw, sculpted mouth, and a gaze that didn't waver. He stood like a blade, hands clasped behind his back, posture exact.

"I don't recall a person such as yourself being enrolled at Alfea," he said, measured.

"What are you, some kind of creep who memorizes every girl's face?" Bloom shot back, arms crossing.

"That's a strong accusation," he replied, unbothered. "But I do tend to remember the faces of students who attend my classes. All of them are required to take them."

His voice was like velvet over steel. Controlled. Polished. Bloom hated it.

"Right," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

He stepped closer—not threatening, but imposing. "Someone who is neither student nor staff and lacks official invitation has no right to roam freely inside these walls. And I doubt you have one."

A spark ignited in her. Her pulse quickened. Fire flared in her serpent eyes.

But she said nothing.

"You will follow me to the Headmistress's office," he declared—not a request, but a command.

Something in his tone pierced her. Authority. Control. As if he believed he had the right to order her around. Only her creators ever spoke to her like that—and even they did so with caution.

Her blood boiled. Rage flared bright in her chest.

"I'm not going anywhere," she hissed—and her fist ignited, flame coiling up her arm.

She aimed it at him, fire ready to strike.

But he caught it.

Effortlessly.

His fingers closed around her wrist, cool and sure. For a breathless moment, their energies touched—hers blazing and volatile, his contained like pressure behind glass.

Then something flickered in his eyes. A shift. Not alarm. Not offense.

Recognition.

"I wouldn't cause a scene," he said softly, voice still composed but layered with something unspoken. "Don't make this more complicated than it already is."

He lowered her arm with quiet finality. "Just follow me."

Her breath caught. Not from the ease with which he'd disarmed her—but from what she'd felt in that contact. Something ancient. Something strange.

She didn't speak.

She didn't resist.

She followed.

"What is your name?" Faragonda asked, voice measured and diplomatic, though her eyes betrayed deeper curiosity.

Bloom exhaled through her nose, irritation coiling under her breath. "Bloom."

Faragonda's gaze flickered to Valtor, who stood with arms crossed beside her desk. The morning light carved shadows across his face, highlighting the subtle tension in his features. His jaw tightened at Bloom's clipped responses, though he said nothing.

The questions came predictable as clockwork, wrapped in condescending politeness:

How did you get here?

Why were you unconscious at our gates?

What are your intentions?

"I don't know," Bloom answered flatly to the first two. To the third: "I have none. I'm a second-year at Cloud Tower. I have no interest in this school or the fairies in it."

Her words were bitten off like thorns, irritation rippling beneath each syllable. She knew resistance would only drag this out, so she answered—curt, clipped, but clear.

Across the room, Griselda stepped forward, voice laced with accusation. "She likely came here with intent to stir trouble, like all witches do. When it didn't go as planned—she collapsed."

Bloom's eyes narrowed, lips curling into something that wasn't quite a smirk. "You're too pathetic to waste my time on."

Heavy silence followed, humming with tension.

Faragonda folded her hands gently. "This will be addressed with Headmistress Griffin."

Bloom shrugged. "Do what you want."

She didn't care. Not about their rules or suspicions. Not even about the silent exchange happening between Valtor and Faragonda—though she felt it. Felt the weight of his gaze lingering on her like something he was trying to place.

But Bloom kept her eyes forward.

The silence hung like a blade. Faragonda leaned forward, her robes rustling softly. "I want you to understand—we're not threatening you. We want to figure out the situation."

Bloom remained still, one brow arching in quiet skepticism. The tone was all too familiar—control wrapped in gentle diplomacy.

"As you should know," Faragonda continued, "both Alfea and Cloud Tower are preparing for an exchange program. To strengthen bonds between witches and fairies, so we may stand united against our common enemy. The shadows stir, and we are extremely cautious of who enters our school."

Bloom's eyes flicked toward the window. "So?"

Valtor answered, voice low and edged. "So we have every right to suspect you of being a spy."

A smile unfurled across Bloom's lips—slow, razor-edged, laced with unapologetic defiance. She leaned back with deliberate ease, as if the scrutiny of Alfea's most powerful figures was nothing more than a passing breeze.

"Well," she drawled, the word rich with cool amusement, "if this enemy thought sending me—someone who doesn't even try to hide her ties to dark magic—was subtle, I'd start questioning whether he's actually a threat."

Her gaze lifted and locked with Valtor's, golden eyes gleaming like molten metal. In that stillness, something dangerous coiled in the air.

"Besides," she said, voice dipping smooth as smoke, "I'm not spy material."

The smirk melted into something colder. More real.

"If I worked for someone..." Her serpent eyes flickered, catching like flint against steel. For the barest moment, the air grew heavier. "My only job would be to burn everything down."

Valtor's expression barely moved, yet everything in him shifted. The calm exterior remained intact, but his crystal gaze narrowed, tension crackling in the silence. Magic, restrained and simmering, ghosted beneath his stillness.

He said nothing. Only watched her, as if trying to read what lay behind the fire.

Faragonda cleared her throat deliberately. "We will contact Griffin and confirm your identity. While we await her response, you'll remain in the infirmary. If your presence is verified, we'll open a portal and return you to Cloud Tower."

She paused, tone cooling with finality. "Until then, you're not permitted to roam the halls unless accompanied by an instructor or designated student."

With a subtle turn of her head, she looked to Valtor. "Could you escort her back to the infirmary?"

He nodded once—slow, silent, like a verdict falling. Bloom rose before he could gesture, fire still simmering in her blood.

She didn't look back.

The door to Faragonda's office closed with a soft but resolute click. Bloom stepped into the hall, trailing behind Valtor as he walked with steady, composed strides, hands clasped behind his back. He moved like someone used to authority, used to silence.

Which made him all the more irritating.

He kept a few paces ahead, drawing some invisible line she was meant to respect. Bloom, naturally, felt compelled to cross it.

"So," she drawled, voice slicing through the corridor's hush, "if I decide to walk the other way right now, what would you do? Drag me by the arm?"

She tilted her head, copper hair shifting like firelight, trying to catch his expression. A tease lingered in her tone—but beneath it was something more dangerous. A dare.

Valtor didn't miss a beat. A low, almost amused chuckle escaped him. "Don't worry. I have methods I could use. You won't be a problem."

"Is that so?" she returned with a slow, sly smile. "Sounds like a threat."

"More like a warning," he answered coolly. "I wouldn't try anything if I were you."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Right. I'm trembling."

The sarcasm bit into the air between them like cold steel. Bloom's gaze drifted to the high windows, morning light catching shimmer in the polished floors. Everything about this school felt too pristine. It made her itch.

"Look," she said, picking up pace until she matched his stride. "How about you let me go, I return to Cloud Tower, and you never see me here again?"

Valtor didn't respond immediately. He let out a hum of faint amusement.

"Interesting," he said, voice like velvet over ice.

"Right?" Bloom lifted her hands in mock reason. "You just tell your boss that on our way to the infirmary, I disappeared into thin air. Believable enough?"

He stopped.

She did too, halting a pace behind, brow arching with irritation. Then he turned—fluid, deliberate—and faced her fully.

She wasn't prepared for that face up close.

The sharp lines of his jaw, the high cheekbones carved with almost arrogant precision, and that maddeningly calm expression struck her harder than she wanted to admit. There was quiet elegance to him, yes, but it was the infuriating self-assurance in the way he held her gaze that set her blood simmering. And that smirk—it wasn't just smug. It was calculated, like he knew exactly how to get under her skin.

"That sounds very arrogant," Valtor said, voice lowering to a whisper laced with iron. "If you think my 'boss' would ever believe I let you vanish."

His calm wasn't indifferent. It was purposeful—like the eye of a storm, all force kept tightly bound. He didn't need to raise his voice. With him, authority wasn't spoken. It was felt.

Bloom's laugh was quiet and sharp, like a blade dragged across skin. "You underestimate me," she said, each word slow and thick with warning.

Her golden eyes sparked, molten with restrained fury. "That's the mistake most people make. And they regret it."

Valtor didn't flinch. Didn't blink. He met her flame with something equally dangerous—his smirk deepening, not out of mockery, but sheer, maddening certainty.

He leaned in slightly, the air between them tightening.

"I never underestimate anyone," he murmured, voice brushing the space between them like smoke curling around a match. "I know when to pick my battles. And I certainly know that I can handle you."

Bloom's smile faded. Her eyes narrowed—not in retreat, but calculation. Something in her shifted. It wasn't rage that sparked now, but something deeper. Something that whispered of promise and destruction.

Valtor felt it—her fire, rising between them like a silent scream. It pulsed with raw, untamed power that mirrored his own far too closely. Yet where his flame burned with purpose and control, hers was colder, laced with something more dangerous. More wounded. It wasn't the warmth of life, but the frostbitten edge of survival.

He straightened slowly, deliberately, gaze locked on hers. Whatever flicker of amusement had danced there before was gone, replaced by cool gravity etched in every line of his face. The air between them crackled with unspoken things—recognition, defiance, and the haunting sense of something unclaimed.

"As I said before," he said, voice low and even, every syllable laced with restrained authority, "don't make it more complicated than it already is. You'll be back at Cloud Tower soon enough... once we confirm you're not a spy."

No threat. No plea. Just certainty.

But beneath the surface, something stirred. Not fear. Not suspicion.

Something that burned.

Valtor left her with that warning, the door clicking shut with irritating finality. Bloom let out a low growl, the sound rumbling from her chest like a warning to the walls themselves. Every instinct screamed at her to bolt—to leap through the nearest window, vanish into shadow, and leave this glitter-drenched academy behind in smoke and ash.

But she didn't.

Instead, she flung herself onto the bed with a huff of frustration, landing with a soft thud against sterile linens. The mattress was too soft, the pillow too fluffed, the ceiling above far too pristine. Her restless golden eyes traced delicate carved molding and light fixtures that sparkled like bottled starlight.

It all felt suffocating.

The room was drenched in daylight—sunlight streaming through arched windows, catching pastel curtains, throwing dappled patterns of gold and rose across the floor. Everything shimmered. Everything gleamed. Even the walls seemed to hum with serene magic.

It made her skin crawl.

Bloom wasn't used to this softness, this quiet. It wasn't just foreign—it was wrong. The calm here wasn't comforting; it was cloying. Too bright, too perfect. The kind of peace that made your stomach twist when you knew you didn't belong.

She turned her face into the pillow and exhaled slowly, jaw tight. She was alone, finally, but it brought no relief. Just echoing stillness that set her teeth on edge.

Then she heard voices in the corridor outside. Without realizing it, she focused her hearing, instincts sharpening. Judging by the voices and footsteps—three girls walking toward the infirmary. She wondered what their business was here.

As she'd thought, three girls walked in. She recognized one from earlier.

"Oh, she looks like a witch," a blonde girl said, raising her brow in surprise as her hands found her hips dramatically. "Are they infiltrating Alfea now? Flora, Musa, why would you even bring her inside?"

Bloom raised an unimpressed brow.

"Stella, she was lying unconscious on the ground," Flora protested. "We couldn't just leave her there."

"That's the second time we've found unconscious people here in a short period," Stella said. "You think she's related to Layla?"

"She's right there," the third girl—dark-haired, with an edge to her voice that Bloom almost appreciated—gestured toward the bed. "Ask her."

"Oh yes, I'm indeed right here," Bloom drawled lazily, propping herself up on one elbow. "What's your business with me?"

"We wanted to check on you," Flora said softly.

"Check on me?" Bloom placed a hand on her chest, expression mockingly touched. "How noble. A true fairy." Her golden eyes slid to Stella. "And the blonde just wants to gawk at fresh gossip material."

"Excuse me?" Stella exclaimed, hands flying to her hips.

Musa's lips twitched despite herself. "Wow. She's not entirely wrong."

"Alright, fairies. You've done your noble deed." Bloom waved them off dismissively, turning toward the window. "Do me a favor and get out."

Flora, Stella, and Musa stared, eyebrows shooting upward in unison.

"Who do you think you are?" Stella's voice rose indignantly. "Some witch infiltrates our school, gets treated with nothing but kindness, and that's how you talk?"

"At least I don't pretend," Bloom said flatly, not bothering to look back.

Musa crossed her arms, brows furrowed. "She's a witch. What did you expect?" She jerked her head toward the door. "C'mon. She clearly doesn't want our company."

"Right. Why waste time on an ungrateful witch anyway," Stella huffed, turning on her heel.

Flora hesitated, discomfort flickering across her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something, thought better of it, and followed the other two out.

The door closed with a soft click.

Bloom exhaled slowly through her nose, the tension in her shoulders easing just slightly. Finally. Alone again.

She turned her gaze back to the window, where sunlight poured through in relentless brightness. Her reflection stared back at her in the glass—wild copper hair, serpent-gold eyes, shadows beneath them that spoke of sleepless nights and darker dreams.

Bloom...

The phantom echo whispered through her mind again, that same voice from her dreams. Warm. Distant. Calling.

She pressed her palm against the cool glass, jaw tightening.

Whatever was happening to her—the dreams, the voice, waking up here—it was connected to something bigger. Something she didn't understand yet.

And Bloom hated not understanding things.

Chapter Text

She reached for another book, fingers clumsy, and knocked over a candle instead. Hot wax spilled across the table, the flame guttering before dying with a whisper of smoke. The sudden loss of light made the remaining candles seem dimmer, their glow barely pushing back the encroaching darkness.

"Still at it?"

The voice cut through the silence like a blade.

Bloom didn't look up. Her fingers kept turning pages, even as Icy's presence filled the entrance to her corner of the archives. She could feel Darcy and Stormy there too—shadows at the periphery of her vision—but she refused to acknowledge them.

"What do you want?" Her voice came out raw, scraped thin by hours of silent reading and barely controlled rage.

Icy's gaze swept over the chaos—books thrown to the floor, others stacked in toppling towers, candle wax pooling on ancient wood. "We heard you came back from your little fairy vacation. Thought we'd check in."

"Check in." Bloom's laugh was bitter, hollow. Another page turned. Another useless passage about nymphs collecting morning dew. "How thoughtful."

Stormy snorted, pushing past Icy to lean against a bookshelf. "You look like shit. What happened, did the fairies—"

"If you're here to mock me, save it." Bloom finally looked up, and her eyes were pure gold, burning with exhaustion and barely leashed fury. "I'm not in the mood."

"Obviously," Darcy said, her dark eyes taking in every detail—the unchanged Alfea clothes, the trembling hands, the manic desperation in Bloom's movements. "You've been down here for hours. Haven't even changed."

"Brilliant observation." Bloom grabbed another book, pulling it toward her with enough force to send two others sliding off the table. They hit the floor with dull thuds she didn't acknowledge. "Now leave."

Icy stepped closer, her boots clicking against stone with deliberate precision. "Research on nymphs?" Her pale fingers trailed across a fallen book's spine. "Spirits? Dreams?" Ice-blue eyes sharpened. "Interesting reading for someone who claims nothing happened."

Bloom's hands stilled on the page. For a moment, she just sat there, copper hair hanging in tangled curtains around her face, shoulders rigid with tension. When she spoke, her voice was deadly quiet.

"I didn't ask for company."

"No," Darcy agreed, moving to partially block the exit. "But you have it anyway. So why don't you tell us what really—"

The book in Bloom's hands burst into flames.

She didn't even flinch as it crumbled to ash between her fingers, grey dust falling like snow onto the table. Her eyes had shifted to serpent-yellow, and heat rolled off her in waves that made the nearest candles flare and dance.

"Back. Off."

Stormy's hands sparked with electricity, but Icy held up one hand, stopping her. The Ice witch studied Bloom with clinical detachment, taking in the exhaustion, the desperation, the barely controlled power crackling beneath her skin.

"You're afraid," Icy said quietly.

The words hit like a physical blow. Bloom shot to her feet, chair scraping against stone, but the sudden movement made her sway. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision. She locked her knees, gripped the table's edge, and refused to show weakness.

"I don't do fear."

"No," Icy agreed. "You do control. But right now? You're spiraling."

Bloom's jaw clenched until her teeth ached. Another book caught fire in her peripheral vision—she hadn't meant to do that. The flames reflected in Icy's eyes, twin points of light in the growing darkness as more candles guttered and died.

"It's not your concern," Bloom said, voice dropping to something arctic despite the heat pouring off her. "Not your problem, and not your business. And if you're pretending to care—" Her laugh was sharp as breaking glass. "Save it. We both know none of you have that capacity. Least of all for me."

She turned back to her books, dismissing them entirely, but her hands shook too violently to turn the pages. The text blurred, swimming in and out of focus. She blinked hard, tried to concentrate, but the words might as well have been written in water.

For a long moment, no one moved. The archives held its breath.

Then Icy straightened. "Fine. But whatever this is—it's going to eat you alive if you keep fighting it alone."

She turned, gesturing for the others to follow. Darcy went first, casting one last penetrating look over her shoulder. Stormy lingered.

"You know where to find us," Stormy said gruffly. "When you stop being stupid about this."

Then they were gone, footsteps fading into the darkness, and Bloom was alone again with her useless books and dying candles.

She sank back into her chair, legs giving out completely. The trembling had spread through her entire body now—violent, uncontrollable shakes that made her teeth chatter. She pressed her palms flat against the table, trying to ground herself, but the wood felt insubstantial. Unreal.

Everything felt unreal except the exhaustion crushing her from all sides.

No, she thought desperately, forcing her eyes open as they tried to close. Not yet. I need more time. I need—

But her body had nothing left. She'd burned through every reserve, every scrap of willpower. The page before her—something about woodland nymphs and their favorite flowers—mocked her with its uselessness.

Her head dropped forward, too heavy to hold up anymore. Copper hair spilled across the open book as her cheek pressed against parchment that smelled of age and dust and failure.

The last coherent thought she had was that she looked pathetic—still in Alfea's clothes, surrounded by scattered books like a desperate student cramming for an exam she was destined to fail. Hunted by something she couldn't name, couldn't fight, couldn't even properly research.

Then darkness rushed in, inevitable as the tide.

The candles flickered one last time before dying, plunging her corner of the archives into shadow.

And somewhere behind her closed eyes, golden light began to bloom, warm and terrible and inescapable.

Bloom.

The voice wrapped around her name like silk, pulling her down.

Bloom.

Closer now. Urgent. Desperate.

Finally...

The archives dissolved into nothing, and she fell into dreams that had been waiting for her all along.

The following morning, Bloom woke in her own bed with no memory of how she'd gotten there. Fragments came back slowly—the archives, the collapse, dragging herself up the tower stairs in the dead of night, her body moving on autopilot while her mind drifted somewhere between consciousness and dream. The golden void had released her, but its warmth still clung to her skin like a phantom touch.

She'd skipped morning classes. Had no intention of waking early after the past few sleepless nights. Yet even with more hours of rest, exhaustion clung to her bones like a curse. Her body felt heavy, unresponsive, as if she were dragging herself through water. And her consciousness—traitorous thing—kept circling back to that voice. Bloom. Bloom. Bloom. Warm. Insistent. Familiar in a way that made her chest tighten with something she refused to name.

By the time lunch rolled around, Bloom had decided she needed caffeine. Lots of it. And nicotine. Definitely nicotine.

The dining hall of Cloud Tower was a cavernous space carved from black stone, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into shadows that no light could fully penetrate. Floating platforms served as tables, suspended at varying heights throughout the chamber. Torches burned with enchanted flames—some violet, some green, casting the room in an eerie, shifting glow that made everyone look slightly spectral.

Bloom flew up to their usual platform—one of the highest, tucked into a corner where they could observe without being observed. Even the simple act of levitation felt like dragging weights through water, her magic sluggish and resistant. When she landed on the platform's edge, the Trix were already there, plates of food spread before them in various states of being ignored.

Icy sat with perfect posture, picking at something that might have been salad. Darcy lounged with feline grace, dark eyes tracking Bloom's approach with knowing amusement. Stormy had her boots propped on the edge of the platform, gesturing wildly as she finished some story that made Darcy's lips twitch.

They all stopped when Bloom dropped into her seat.

She looked like hell, and she knew it.

Her copper hair was pulled back in a messy knot, strands escaping to frame a face that had gone pale and hollow-cheeked. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes—eyes that had lost some of their usual gold fire, dimmed to a dull amber. Her light beige top was wrinkled, hastily thrown on, and her wide wine-red pants hung loose on her hips. She looked like she'd dressed in the dark and hadn't bothered to check a mirror.

She set down a cup of espresso—double shot, black as sin—and a pack of cigarettes. The espresso was still steaming, wisps of vapor curling upward like little ghosts.

"Damn, you look like…" Stormy started, trailing off as she searched for the right comparison.

"Like you after the first day in Obsidian?" Darcy suggested, lips curving into a sharp smile.

"Please." Icy's voice was dry as winter wind. "Bloom doesn't look half as bad."

Stormy rolled her eyes, electricity crackling faintly at her fingertips in annoyance. "Oh, fuck off."

Bloom stared at them, her face an unreadable mask. She had no desire to respond, no energy for banter. Instead, she lifted the espresso to her lips and downed half of it in one long pull. The bitter heat scorched down her throat, but she barely flinched.

"Trying to give yourself a heart attack?" Darcy asked, one elegant brow arching.

Bloom ignored the question—rhetorical, most likely. She set the cup down with a soft clink and pulled out a cigarette, holding it between two fingers. A small flame sparked to life at the tip of her index finger, controlled and precise. She lit the cigarette and took a long drag, smoke filling her lungs before she exhaled slowly through her nose.

Only then did she raise her eyes to meet theirs.

"Do you know anything about nymphs?" she asked, voice hoarse from lack of use and too many cigarettes. Her face was serious, exhausted, stripped of its usual sharp edge.

The question hung in the air like smoke.

Stormy blinked, caught off guard. "Nymphs? What, like… nature spirits?"

"Obviously nature spirits, genius," Icy said, though her ice-blue eyes had fixed on Bloom with sudden intensity. "The question is why."

Darcy leaned forward, propping her chin on one hand. Her dark eyes glittered with curiosity and something sharper—the look of someone who'd just found a particularly interesting puzzle. "This is about last night, isn't it? All that research in the archives."

Bloom took another drag, buying herself a moment. The nicotine helped, slightly. Sharpened the edges of her thoughts just enough to function. "I'm asking a question. Are you going to answer it or waste my time?"

"Touchy," Stormy muttered, but there was less bite in it than usual. Even she could see Bloom was running on fumes.

Icy set down her fork with deliberate care, the soft clink drawing attention. "Nymphs are elemental spirits bound to natural sites," she said, voice taking on the cool precision of someone reciting from memory. "Forests, mountains, springs, lakes. They're guardians of their domains. More powerful than lesser spirits, but not quite on the level of deities." She tilted her head. "Why the sudden interest?"

"Lake nymphs specifically," Bloom clarified, ash falling from her cigarette onto the platform. She didn't bother brushing it away. "What do you know about them?"

Darcy's smile widened, predatory and knowing. "Oh, this is definitely about something. Let me guess—you encountered one?"

"I didn't encounter anything," Bloom snapped, then caught herself. Took another drag. Forced her voice back to something level. "I'm researching. That's all."

"Right. Research." Stormy's grin was sharp-edged. "At two in the morning. After mysteriously waking up at Alfea."

Bloom's jaw tightened. "Are you going to help or not?"

A beat of silence. The three of them exchanged glances—some unspoken communication passing between them that Bloom was too exhausted to parse.

"Lake nymphs are rare. Rarer than their forest or mountain counterparts." Icy's fingers drummed once against the table. "They're tied to sacred waters—places of power. But as nature spirits, they're probably not what you're looking for."

Bloom's eyes narrowed slightly, ready to dismiss the entire line of questioning.

"They're not that powerful," Icy continued, voice matter-of-fact. "Can't get into minds, can't drag people across realms through dreams."

Bloom opened her mouth—whether to agree or redirect, she wasn't sure—but Icy's hand came up, cutting her off.

"Don't give me that crap," Icy said, ice-blue eyes sharp and knowing. "I see what you're doing. You asked about nymphs for a reason."

Finally, Icy spoke. "The Nymphs of Magix." Her voice carried the weight of something ancient. "Nine exceptionally powerful nymphs who once ruled over the fate of the Magic Dimension."

Bloom's eyes sharpened. "Once?"

"They're ancient history," Icy continued, fingers drumming once against the table. "Legends say they protected the Great Dragon's slumber in the Vortex of Flames on Domino. The last Supreme Nymph—the most powerful of them—died during Domino's fall."

"Daphne," Darcy added softly, eyes glittering with dark knowledge. "Princess of Domino and the most powerful nymph of her generation. The Ancestral Witches killed her when they destroyed the realm."

Bloom's breath caught—just for a second, barely noticeable—but Darcy's knowing smile said she'd seen it anyway.

"According to legend," Icy went on, ice-blue eyes studying Bloom's face, "the true home of the Nymphs is Lake Roccaluce."

The name hit Bloom like a physical blow. She kept her expression carefully neutral, but her hand tightened around her cigarette.

"What about their spirits?" Bloom asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "If one died—"

"Depends on the circumstances of death," Darcy interjected, leaning forward with interest. "A nymph killed violently might linger as a spirit, especially if their domain—their sacred place—remained intact." She paused. "A spirit powerful enough could reach beyond physical boundaries. Through dreams. Visions. Even pulling someone physically to their location if the connection was strong enough."

"What kind of connection?" Bloom's voice came out rougher than intended.

Stormy shrugged. "Could be anything. Shared magic. Some kind of magical resonance." She squinted at Bloom. "Why? You think a dead nymph is haunting you?"

"I think," Bloom said carefully, tapping ash from her cigarette, "that something is pulling me places I don't want to go. And I need to know how to stop it."

Icy's expression shifted—something calculating flickering across her features. "If it's a nymph's spirit, especially one as powerful as a Supreme Nymph, you can't stop it. Not without understanding what it wants." Her voice dropped slightly. "And if it's reaching you from Lake Roccaluce specifically—that's not random. That lake was their home. Their source of power."

"Great," Bloom muttered, finishing her espresso in one bitter gulp. "Fantastic."

"There's a section on ancient magical beings," Icy said, breaking through Bloom's spiraling thoughts. "Third floor, east wing. If you want real answers about the Nymphs of Magix and their connection to Roccaluce, start there."

Bloom nodded slowly, too tired to bristle at the implied command. "Fine."

"And Bloom?" Darcy's voice was uncharacteristically soft. When Bloom looked up, the illusionist's expression was serious. "If it is a Supreme Nymph's spirit calling you—spirits that powerful don't reach out without reason. Especially not across realms."

"I'm handling it," Bloom said, though even to her own ears it sounded like a lie.

"Right." Stormy snorted. "By looking like death warmed over and drinking espresso like it's a sport."

Bloom shot her a withering glare. "Your concern is touching. Really."

"Not concern," Icy corrected, voice cool and precise. "Pragmatism. Whatever this is, it's affecting you. And if it affects you, it could become our problem." She leaned back, arms crossing. "So handle it. Before it handles you."

The message was clear: figure this out, or we'll step in. And none of them wanted that.

Bloom pushed to her feet, the movement making her head swim slightly. She steadied herself against the table. "I'm going to the library."

"Now?" Darcy asked. "You look like you're about to collapse."

"I'll collapse when I'm dead," Bloom muttered, already turning toward the edge of the platform.

Behind her, she heard Stormy's voice: "Give you twenty she passes out before dinner."

"Thirty that she makes it to midnight," Darcy countered.

"Both of you are idiots," Icy said flatly. "She'll last until she finds what she's looking for. Stubbornness is the only thing keeping her upright."

Bloom didn't turn around, but a ghost of a smile tugged at her lips despite everything. They were insufferable. All of them.

But Icy was right.

Stubbornness was all she had left. That, and the burning need to understand what the hell was happening to her before it dragged her under completely.

Her hand found another cigarette as she lifted off the platform, already lighting it with a thought. Smoke trailed behind her like a banner, and somewhere in the back of her mind, that golden voice whispered her name again.

Bloom.

She pushed it down. Pushed it away.

But it was getting harder to ignore.

And deep down, in a place she refused to acknowledge, Bloom was starting to realize that Darcy was right.

The spirit wasn't going to stop.

Not until Bloom gave it what it wanted.

Whatever the hell that was.

The library's musty air felt heavy as Bloom closed yet another tome, dust motes dancing in the lamplight like tiny spirits mocking her fruitless search. The information was frustratingly sparse—fragments gleaned from Icy's cryptic words, but nothing about a vengeful spirit stalking through dreams, hunting minds like prey in the darkness of sleep.

Then the illustrations stopped her cold.

Daphne, Princess of Domino. Last Supreme Nymph.

The delicate brushstrokes depicted a figure of ethereal beauty, golden hair flowing like liquid sunlight, eyes that held the wisdom of ages. The text beneath spoke in reverent tones: Daughter of King Oritel. Perished defending her realm during Domino's final hours. Destroyed by the Ancestral Witches.

Bloom's fingers trembled as they traced the portrait's edge. The resemblance to her visions was undeniable—the same haunting grace, the same otherworldly presence that invaded her dreams and flickered at the edges of her waking sight. But in her visions, that beauty had twisted into something else, something hungry and hate-filled.

A terrible understanding crystallized in her mind like ice forming on glass.

The lake. Roccaluche.

When she'd touched those cursed waters, the spirit within must have sensed her—sensed the dark energy that coursed through her veins, the power she'd inherited from the very beings who had torn Daphne from life. The princess's spirit had tasted the essence of her murderers in Bloom's magic and latched on like a drowning soul grasping for vengeance.

She thinks I'm one of them. Or worse—she knows exactly what I am. The heir to her killers' legacy.

Bloom's jaw clenched with determination. She refused to become a victim of some specter's vendetta, no matter how justified its rage. The dead belonged to the past; they had no right to poison the present with their ancient grievances. Daphne was gone—whatever lurked in that lake was merely an echo, a shadow puppet of pain and memory.

But how to sever a connection forged by magical resonance itself?

Destroy the lake? The environmental devastation alone made that impossible, even if she had such power. Banish the spirit? She doubted Cloud Tower's archives held anything useful—she'd already scoured every text on spectral magic she could access without raising suspicions.

The book shut with a decisive snap that echoed through the empty library like a gunshot. Bloom rose from her chair, shadows pooling around her feet as she moved. Whatever solution existed, she wouldn't find it buried in these dusty pages.

As she made her way back through the tower's twisted corridors toward her dormitory, one thought burned bright in her mind: If Daphne wants a fight with the heir of the Ancestral Witches, then that's exactly what she'll get.

Chapter Text

Two weeks. Fourteen nights of golden voices calling her name. Fourteen mornings of waking with dirt under her fingernails and the taste of light magic burning her throat like swallowed starlight.

Twice more she'd found herself at Alfea's gates—barefoot and disoriented, copper hair tangled with leaves, nightclothes damp with dew. Both times she'd managed to portal back before dawn painted the sky pink, before any early-rising fairy could spot her and raise questions she couldn't answer. But the close calls left her nerves raw, frayed like rope pulled too tight for too long.

She existed now in a perpetual haze, reality blurring at the edges like watercolors left in rain. Her mind felt wrapped in gauze—thoughts sluggish, reactions delayed, everything filtered through the grey exhaustion that had become her constant companion. Coffee turned to tar in her stomach, cup after cup of black liquid that barely touched the bone-deep weariness. Cigarettes became her punctuation marks—one after waking from nightmares, another between classes, three during late-night research sessions that yielded nothing but frustration. The nicotine made her hands steadier, even if her mind remained fractured.

She'd even tried destruction—the most fundamental of witch arts. Standing at Roccaluce's shore in the dead of night, she'd summoned every technique Cloud Tower had taught her. Corruption spells to poison the water. Decay magic to rot it from within. Pure, concentrated Dragon Flame to boil it dry.

Nothing.

The lake had swallowed her attacks like a mirror swallowing shadows—her dark magic simply dissolved against that terrible, pure light. It was too old, too sacred, too deeply rooted in light magic's foundation. She might as well have tried to burn the sun.

Now, in Cloud Tower's training hall, the exhaustion clung to her like a second skin. Her witch attire—rich brown leather with gold trim that usually made her feel powerful—felt wrong today. The halter-style top left her shoulders bare and cold, the deep cutout at her chest making her feel exposed rather than confident. The fitted coat-tails that normally flowed behind her with elegant menace now dragged like weights, pulling at her shoulders. The form-fitting leather pants clung too tightly, restricting her movements, while her dark boots—reaching up to her knees—felt leaden with each step. Even her long copper hair, usually her pride, hung heavy and lifeless despite being pulled back from her face. The gold accents that traced her outfit seemed to mock her with their brightness, a cruel reminder of the golden light that haunted her dreams. Every piece of the ensemble that once made her feel like a formidable witch now felt like a costume she was too exhausted to wear properly.

"Partners for combat practice," Professor Ediltrude barked. "Intermediate level curses only. And try not to kill each other—the paperwork is tedious."

Of course, it would be Icy.

The Ice Witch stood across from her on the training mat, perfection incarnate in her pale blue attire that seemed to shimmer with frost. Not a hair out of place. Not a shadow under those crystalline eyes. She looked like winter personified—beautiful, deadly, and utterly in control.

Everything Bloom wasn't anymore.

"You look terrible," Icy said conversationally, stretching her arms above her head with feline grace. "Let me guess—another all-nighter with your precious books?"

Bloom didn't answer. She dropped into a combat stance, or tried to. Her knees felt unsteady, her center of gravity off. When had standing become so difficult?

Icy's first attack came fast—ice shards materializing from nothing, slicing through the air with whistling precision. Bloom threw up a fire shield, but it flickered, uneven. One shard got through, grazing her shoulder, tearing through leather and skin.

"Sloppy," Icy tsked, circling her like a predator scenting weakness. "Where's that legendary control, Bloom? That perfect precision you're so proud of?"

Another volley of ice. Bloom dodged, but her movements were sluggish, half a beat too slow. She stumbled, caught herself, tried to counter with a fire blast that came out weak and unfocused—more like a torch's flame than dragon's breath.

"Pathetic." Icy's voice dripped disdain. "Are you even trying? Or have you finally figured out you're nothing special after all?"

The words scraped against already raw nerves. Bloom's hands clenched, Dragon Flame stirring in her chest—not the controlled burn she usually maintained but something wilder, angrier.

"Maybe those fairies scrambled your brain," Icy continued, sending a wave of frost across the floor that made Bloom slip and barely catch herself. "Made you soft. Weak. Or maybe—" Her smile turned cruel. "Maybe you were never as powerful as you pretended to be."

Something snapped.

The exhaustion, the frustration, the constant invasion of her dreams, the failure to find answers or solutions—it all crystallized into pure, incandescent rage. The Dragon Flame roared to life, not cold and controlled but burning with the kind of heat that existed in the universe's first moments, before matter learned to be solid.

"ENOUGH!"

Fire exploded from Bloom in a spherical wave of destruction. Not the purple-black flame she usually wielded but something deeper, older—tinged with gold at the edges like the dreams that haunted her. The training mat disintegrated instantly. The floor beneath cracked, stone turning to glass from the heat. The very air ignited.

Icy threw up an ice barrier, but it sublimated instantly—ice to steam without ever becoming water. She dove sideways, frost armor manifesting around her body, but even that began to melt. Other witches screamed, scrambling away from the expanding inferno. Someone's cloak caught fire. A training dummy twenty feet away burst into flames.

The fire raged, hungry and wild, fed by two weeks of suppressed fury and sleepless agony. It wanted to consume, to devour, to reduce everything to ash and silence and—

"BLOOM!"

Professor Ediltrude's voice cut through the roar, laced with a containment spell that slammed into Bloom like a physical force. The flames guttered, pulled back, forced into submission by the professor's considerable power.

Bloom stood in the center of devastation, chest heaving, eyes blazing with residual fire. The training hall looked like a war zone—scorch marks climbing the walls, floor melted and reformed into twisted glass sculptures, smoke thick enough to choke on. Several witches had burns. Icy was on her knees, frost armor half-melted, a red burn across her cheek where the heat had gotten too close.

The silence that followed was deafening.

“Headmistress’s office," Ediltrude said, voice arctic. "Now."

Bloom didn't move. Couldn't move. Her legs shook violently, the adrenaline already fading and leaving nothing but hollow exhaustion. Black spots danced at the edges of her vision. She could taste copper—she'd bitten through her lip at some point.

"I said NOW, Bloom!"

The command broke through her paralysis. She took one step, then another, each one requiring monumental effort. As she passed Icy, the Ice Witch looked up at her with something that wasn't quite fear but close to it.

"You're losing it," Icy said quietly, just for her. "Whatever's happening to you—you're losing."

Bloom wanted to deny it. Wanted to snarl that she was fine, that she had everything under control.

But the words died in her throat because Icy was right.

She was losing—to the dreams, to the exhaustion, to whatever spirit had sink its claws into her mind. And if she didn't find a solution soon, she'd either burn Cloud Tower to the ground or lose herself completely.

Maybe both.

The walk to Griffin’s office felt endless, each step heavier than the last, while behind her the training hall smoldered with the evidence of just how badly she was falling apart.

Griffin's office occupied one of Cloud Tower's highest points, a circular chamber where the walls themselves seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Dark stone, darker wood, and the faint purple glow of protective wards created an atmosphere of cold authority. The headmistress stood behind her desk, hands clasped, expression carved from ice.

Professor Ediltrude hovered near the doorway, arms crossed, her disapproval a palpable force in the room.

"Explain yourself, Bloom." Griffin's voice could have frozen fire.

Bloom stood in the center of the chamber, swaying slightly, fighting to keep her eyes focused. Everything felt distant, muffled, as if she were experiencing the world through thick glass. The exhaustion had transcended physical—it was spiritual now, a bone-deep weariness that made even breathing feel like work.

"I need..." Bloom's voice came out hoarse, scraping against a throat raw from smoke and screaming. "I need Instructor Ediltrude to leave."

Ediltrude's eyes widened with indignation. "Excuse me?"

"If she stays, I won't say a word." Bloom lifted her gaze, meeting Griffin's eyes with what little defiance she could muster. "The fewer people who know, the better."

A tense silence stretched between them. Griffin's fingers tapped once against her desk—a measured, contemplative rhythm. Then: "Ediltrude. Wait outside."

"Headmistress, I really don't think—"

"Outside."

The instructor left with a sharp turn, the door closing behind her with a definitive thud. The wards shimmered, sealing the room against eavesdropping. Now it was just the two of them—predator and wounded prey.

"Sit before you fall," Griffin said, gesturing to a high-backed chair.

Bloom's pride wanted to refuse, to stand tall and prove she wasn't weak. But her legs were trembling, and the black spots dancing at the edges of her vision suggested that pride was a luxury she couldn't afford. She sank into the chair, the leather cool against her overheated skin.

"Now," Griffin said, settling into her own seat with deliberate calm. "Talk."

Bloom's mind raced, trying to construct a narrative that was truth enough to be believable but vague enough to protect herself. Because she absolutely could not—would not—mention the Ancestral Witches. Could not explain that the only family she had were the three most notorious dark sorceresses in magical history, currently existing as disembodied souls bound to her through blood and power.

"There's..." Bloom started, then stopped, her exhausted brain struggling to find the right words. "Something is hunting my dreams. A spirit."

Griffin leaned forward slightly, her sharp features intent. "What kind of spirit?"

"I don't know." The lie came easier than expected. "But it's been happening for two weeks now. Every night. That's why I was at Alfea—twice. I didn't sleepwalk there. I was..." She paused, hating the admission. "Dragged there. In my sleep. By whatever this thing is."

The headmistress's expression remained neutral, but something flickered in her eyes—concern, perhaps, or calculation. "And you've been researching this."

"Trying to." Bloom's hands clenched in her lap. "But there's nothing in the archives that helps. I can't find a way to break the connection, can't find a way to fight it. And it's getting worse."

"Describe this spirit to me."

Bloom hesitated. This was dangerous territory. But she was too tired to construct elaborate fictions, and the words slipped out before she could stop them: "Golden. It appears as... a woman made of golden light."

"Golden?" Griffin repeated, her tone sharp with interest.

Damn it. Bloom hadn't meant to be so specific. "Yes. She comes every night. Calls my name. Tries to..." How to explain it without sounding insane? "Tries to show me things. Memories that aren't mine. And she keeps pulling me toward Alfea. I don't understand why."

Griffin's fingers resumed their tapping—a tell that meant she was processing, analyzing, connecting information Bloom couldn't see. Behind that harsh, weathered face, calculations were being made. But Bloom was too exhausted to notice the subtle shift in the headmistress's demeanor, the way her eyes narrowed with recognition.

"Is there anyone you know," Griffin began carefully, "anyone related to you, who might be trying to reach out? Family, perhaps?"

The question hit like a physical blow. Bloom's expression flattened instantly, going cold and closed. Family. The word tasted like ash.

Belladonna. Lilith. Tharma. The Ancestral Witches—my blood, my teachers, my curse.

Their souls were ancient darkness, corruption given consciousness. There was nothing golden about them, not even remotely. They existed as shadow and malice, their essence the color of void and decay. Whatever spirit hunted her dreams couldn't be further from them if it tried.

"No," Bloom said, her voice flat and absolute. "There's no one."

Griffin studied her for a long moment, those pale eyes seeming to peer past flesh and bone to the truths Bloom kept buried deep. The silence stretched, uncomfortable and probing.

Finally, Griffin leaned back, steepling her fingers. "Alright. I will contact Miss Faragonda and discuss this matter. If a spirit is specifically pulling you toward Alfea, then Alfea's resources may be better suited to addressing it."

The thought of being shipped off to fairy school like damaged goods made Bloom's stomach twist. But what choice did she have? She couldn't continue like this—hadn't sleeping properly in two weeks, losing control of her magic, endangering other students. She was falling apart in real-time, and everyone could see it.

"In the meantime," Griffin continued, "you are forbidden from attending classes until this is resolved. Return to your dormitory and rest. That's an order."

Rest. As if rest were possible when every time she closed her eyes, golden light waited to swallow her whole.

But Bloom didn't argue. She simply pushed herself up from the chair—muscles screaming in protest—and gave a short nod. "Sounds good to me."

She made it three steps toward the door before Griffin's voice stopped her.

"Bloom."

She turned, meeting the headmistress's gaze.

"Whatever you're not telling me," Griffin said quietly, "whatever secrets you're keeping—I hope they're worth the price you're paying."

Bloom's throat tightened. For a brief, terrible moment, she wanted to confess everything. Wanted to spill every truth—the Ancestral Witches, the Dragon Flame burning in her chest, the terrible certainty that the spirit knew exactly who and what she was.

But the moment passed, crushed under the weight of self-preservation.

"They are," Bloom lied, and walked out into Cloud Tower's dark corridors, leaving Griffin alone with her suspicions and unanswered questions.

Behind her, the headmistress sat motionless, her expression grave. Then she reached for a communication crystal, its surface already glowing with conjured light.

"Faragonda," Griffin said into the crystal, her voice heavy with concern. "We need to talk. It's about my student – Bloom – and I believe the situation is far more serious than she's willing to admit."

Back in the dorm, Bloom stopped at the threshold, one hand braced against the doorframe for support. The Trix were already there—Icy lounging on her bed with a magazine, Darcy organizing potion ingredients on her desk, Stormy sprawled across a chair with her feet propped up, cackling at something on her communication crystal.

Three pairs of eyes turned toward her.

"Don't," Bloom said before any of them could speak. Her voice came out hoarse, scraping against a throat raw from smoke and exhaustion. "Don't bother me. Don't talk to me. Don't even look at me. I'm going to sleep, and I swear to whatever dark powers are listening, if any of you wake me up, I will burn this entire room to ash."

Icy's eyebrow arched with amused disdain. "Someone's cranky."

"I'm serious." Bloom pushed off the doorframe, swaying slightly as she made her way to her bed. Every muscle screamed in protest. The brown leather of her outfit felt like it was constricting her lungs, the gold trim digging into her ribs. She didn't bother changing—couldn't spare the energy. "Just... leave me alone."

Stormy exchanged a glance with her sisters. "Yeah, okay, psycho. Sweet dreams or whatever."

Bloom collapsed onto her bed face-first, not even bothering to pull back the covers. The moment her body hit the mattress, consciousness began to slip away like water through cupped hands. She wasn't sure how much actual sleep she'd get—the spirit would come, it always came—but her body had reached its absolute limit.

The last thing she registered was the muffled sound of Darcy's voice: "Should we be worried?"

Then everything went dark.

The darkness lasted only a heartbeat before light bloomed around her—not harsh or burning, but soft, diffused, like dawn breaking through morning mist. Bloom stood in a corridor, though calling it merely a corridor felt inadequate.

This was a palace.

The ceiling soared impossibly high above her, vaulted and painted with murals depicting scenes she didn't recognize—dragons in flight, phoenixes rising from flames, figures dancing beneath stars. Columns lined the walls, each one carved from pale stone that seemed to glow with its own inner luminescence. The floor beneath her bare feet—when had she lost her boots?—was polished marble inlaid with intricate geometric patterns in gold and azure.

Everything felt ancient. Sacred. Wrong.

At the end of the corridor, golden light flickered like a congregation of fireflies, pulsing with that familiar, maddening warmth. The spirit. Always the spirit.

Bloom's hands clenched into fists. "What do you want from me?" she called out, her voice echoing through the vast space.

No answer. Just that beckoning light, insistent and patient.

Fine. If this thing wanted to show her something, she'd see it. Maybe then it would finally leave her alone.

She walked forward, her footsteps soundless against the marble. The corridor seemed to stretch and contract with each step, distance becoming meaningless. The golden light drew closer, or she drew closer to it—hard to tell which.

Then the scene changed.

The palace shuddered violently, as if struck by an earthquake. Bloom stumbled, catching herself against a column that suddenly bore deep cracks spider-webbing across its surface. The painted ceiling above fractured, chunks of plaster and stone raining down. A piece struck her shoulder—she felt the impact, felt the pain, too real for a dream.

The corridor transformed into a war zone.

Walls collapsed inward, revealing glimpses of rooms beyond consumed by fire—not her fire, something darker, corrupted, tinged with sickly green. The beautiful murals blackened and peeled. The marble floor cracked open in jagged fissures that leaked smoke and shadow.

And then came the monsters.

They poured through the broken walls like a flood of living darkness—creatures assembled from nightmare and shadow. Some had too many limbs, others had none, merely flowing like oil given malevolent consciousness. Their eyes—those that had eyes—glowed with predatory hunger. Hundreds of them. Thousands.

And they were coming for her.

Bloom's stance shifted automatically, muscle memory from years of brutal training in Obsidian's pits taking over. She'd fought these things before—shadow creatures, void spawn, whatever name you gave the darkness given form. The Ancestral Witches had thrown her into chambers full of them when she was barely tall enough to reach a doorknob, teaching her that hesitation meant death.

Remember, child, Belladonna's voice echoed from memory. Shadow creatures have no vital organs. Fire to scatter them, then burn the core before they reform.

The first creature lunged. Bloom didn't flinch.

The Dragon Flame erupted around her fists and feet, purple-black fire wreathed in gold at the edges. She met the first monster with a roundhouse kick that incinerated it mid-leap, then spun into a palm strike that sent a lance of fire through three more. They shrieked—sounds that existed somewhere between screaming wind and dying animals—and dissolved into ash.

But more came. Always more.

Bloom fought like she'd been trained—efficient, brutal, every movement calculated for maximum destruction with minimum effort. Punch, block, sweep the leg, redirect momentum, incinerate everything within reach. The Ancestral Witches had taught her well; violence was a language she spoke fluently.

Fire blazed from her hands in controlled bursts. She vaulted over a lunging creature and brought both fists down on its back, reducing it to embers. Ducked under grasping claws, pivoted, sent a wave of flame cascading outward that carved a temporary circle of safety.

But there was no end to them. For every shadow she destroyed, ten more surged forward. Her fire blazed brighter, hotter, fueled by desperation and fury. The corridor became an inferno—her inferno, wild and golden-tinged, consuming everything.

"ENOUGH!" she screamed, preparing to unleash everything she had, to burn this entire cursed dreamscape to nothing.

Then the cold hit.

Ice erupted from the ground beneath her feet, racing up her legs faster than thought. Not her ice—she didn't wield ice magic. But the frost climbed her calves, her thighs, her torso, locking her in place with crystalline inevitability. She tried to burn through it, but the ice was somehow immune, swallowing her fire.

Within seconds, Bloom was encased from neck to feet in a prison of translucent ice, frozen mid-combat stance, one fist still raised and wreathed in dying flames.

The shadow creatures stopped advancing, hovering just beyond reach, as if held back by invisible barriers.

Then she heard it—the voice that had haunted her for two weeks, but different now. Not distant or echoing. Right beside her. Gentle. Warm. Unbearably sad.

"Bloom."

The golden light materialized next to her frozen form, coalescing into a shape—a woman, or the suggestion of one, made entirely of radiant luminescence. The spirit reached out as if to touch Bloom's face but stopped just short, fingers hovering inches away.

"You need to find the light," the spirit whispered, and for the first time, Bloom heard genuine desperation in that ethereal voice. "Please, sister. Before it's too late. Find the light within yourself."

Sister?

"What are you—"

But the dream was already fracturing, dissolving at the edges like watercolor bleeding into water.

Bloom woke to cold.

Not the metaphorical cold of fear or shock, but actual, physical, bone-deep cold that made her teeth chatter and her skin feel like it was crystallizing. Her entire body shook violently, muscles spasming as if she'd been submerged in arctic water.

She tried to sit up and discovered she couldn't move her arms.

Confusion slammed into her consciousness like a physical force. Everything felt disjointed, wrong, her thoughts struggling to piece together where dream ended and reality began. The dorm room swam in and out of focus, shapes and shadows refusing to resolve into anything coherent.

Then awareness sharpened with horrible clarity.

Ice. She was coated in ice—actual ice, frost spreading across her skin in intricate crystalline patterns. Her arms were frozen to her sides, legs locked together. Even her copper hair had frozen into rigid strands that clicked together like glass when she tried to move her head.

But worse than the ice covering her body was what surrounded her.

Everything was burned. The walls were scorched completely black, paint and stone alike charred beyond recognition. Deep cracks spider-webbed across their surface, some still glowing a sullen orange from heat trapped within. The ceiling had partially collapsed, blackened beams hanging at dangerous angles, chunks of charred debris scattered across the floor.

Every piece of furniture had been consumed by flames. Bloom's bed was nothing but a skeletal metal frame twisted from the heat, surrounded by a pile of ash that had once been mattress and blankets—all of it now encased in a thick layer of frost that sparkled grimly in the dim light. The wardrobe had collapsed into smoldering wreckage, its charred remains buried under mounds of hastily conjured ice that melted and refroze in uneven layers. Darcy's desk was a charred husk, its contents—carefully organized bottles and books—reduced to melted glass and burnt paper, now frozen mid-drip in crystalline formations like a macabre ice sculpture.

Even the door frame bore scorch marks, the wood cracked and smoking, with frost desperately clinging to the hottest points as if trying to smother embers that refused to die.

Ice was everywhere—coating every burned surface, filling every crevice, desperately thrown over the destruction in a frantic attempt to drown the flames. Icicles hung from charred furniture like frozen tears. Frost painted the blackened walls in thick, uneven strokes where someone had clearly tried to contain the inferno before it spread. The floor was a treacherous landscape of black ice mixed with ash-filled water, puddles forming where melting ice met residual heat in hissing pools of steam.

It looked less like a coordinated defense and more like a desperate, panicked battle to stop the room from becoming a crematorium.

Through the haze of steam and smoke, Bloom finally registered movement—figures near the doorway. Icy and Stormy stood like sentinels who'd been holding a line against an army, their usual composed menace replaced by raw, frayed tension.

Icy's platinum hair hung in disheveled strands around her face, some clinging to her forehead with sweat despite the cold she wielded. Her pale blue combat attire was streaked with soot and ash. Frost armor still encased her arms and torso, crackling with residual magic that made the air around her shimmer with cold. Her ice-blue eyes blazed with fury barely contained.

Stormy looked equally wrecked—her wild magenta hair stood on end, static electricity making it crackle. Purple lightning still sparked around her clenched fists, arcing between her fingers in erratic patterns. Scorch marks darkened her dark purple outfit, and a fresh burn marked her left arm where fire had gotten too close.

Both of them were coiled tight, bodies locked in battle-ready stances as if Bloom might explode into flames again at any second.

"What..." Bloom's voice came out barely above a whisper, her throat raw and tight. She tried again, forcing the word past frozen lips. "What..."

"What?" Icy's voice cracked like breaking ice. She took a sharp step forward, frost spreading across the floor with the movement. "You're wondering what happened? That's what we'd like to know, Bloom! Care to fucking explain?"

"For real!" Stormy's voice was nearly a roar, lightning intensifying around her hands. "What the actual fuck! You decided to burn down the whole damn tower? With us in it?!"

Before Bloom could form a response—before her exhausted mind could even process the accusation—Icy closed the distance between them in three aggressive strides. Her hand shot out and grabbed the leather strap across Bloom's chest, just below the halter neckline, hauling her partially upright with surprising strength. Ice cracked and fell away from Bloom's body with the movement.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Icy's face was inches away, close enough that Bloom could see the genuine fear beneath the rage in those pale eyes. "First you're buried in those useless books for days, then you're acting paranoid and weird for two straight weeks, then you put on that psychotic show in training, and now—" Her grip tightened, the leather creaking. "—now you're trying to kill us in your sleep?"

Bloom's eyebrows drew together instinctively, a defensive gesture, some shadow of her usual defiance trying to surface. But her eyes betrayed her—they were lost, confused, swimming with disorientation that she couldn't hide. The fury that normally burned there had been replaced with something hollow and frightened.

She had no answer. No explanation. No memory of what her body had done while her mind fought shadow creatures in a burning palace.

The sound of purposeful footsteps cut through the tension. Griffin strode into the ruined room with Darcy trailing behind her, the younger witch's dark eyes wide with concern. The headmistress took in the devastation with a single sweeping glance—the burned walls, the desperate ice, the melting chaos, and her three students locked in confrontation amid the wreckage.

Her expression remained carved from stone, but something dangerous flickered in her pale eyes.

"Icy." Griffin's voice was quiet but carried absolute authority. "Release her. Now."

For a moment, Icy's grip tightened further, frost spreading from her fingers across the leather. Then she shoved Bloom backward with enough force to make her stumble, the ice still coating her legs making it impossible to catch her balance. Bloom landed hard on the treacherous floor, ash-filled water soaking into her already-ruined clothes.

Icy stepped back, breathing hard, frost still crackling around her clenched fists.

Bloom stayed where she'd fallen, her gaze dropping to the destroyed floor. Water and ash and melted ice spread in dark pools around her. She could see the twisted remains of her bed frame through the haze. Could smell the acrid stench of everything she'd burned. Could feel the lingering heat in the walls and the desperate cold of ice trying to contain it.

She'd done this. All of it. While unconscious.

"Explain, Bloom." Griffin's command cut through her spiraling thoughts.

Slowly—so slowly, as if her neck could barely support the weight of her head—Bloom raised her eyes. When her gaze met Griffin's, the headmistress saw something that made her stance shift almost imperceptibly.

Bloom's eyes burned. Not with the literal fire of her magic, but with an exhaustion so profound it had transcended physical limitation and become something existential. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath them, bruise-dark and sickly. But beneath that exhaustion, behind it, fueling it, was a rage that could have set the world ablaze—fury at her helplessness, at the spirit hunting her, at her own treacherous body that destroyed the dorm while she fought dream battles in a golden palace.

"It was her again."

Four words. Flat. Empty. Final.

But they carried the weight of two weeks of torture, of sleepless nights and waking nightmares, of research that yielded nothing and desperation that yielded only more destruction.

Griffin's eyes narrowed slightly. Understanding flickered across her severe features—not surprise, but confirmation of suspicions she'd already held.

"I see," the headmistress said quietly.

Icy looked between them, confusion replacing some of her anger. "Her? Her who?"

But Griffin ignored the question, her focus entirely on Bloom. The girl looked broken in a way that had nothing to do with the ice coating her body or the ash staining her clothes. This was deeper. More dangerous.

"Darcy," Griffin said without looking away from Bloom. "Take your sisters to the guest quarters. You'll be relocated temporarily while this room is... addressed."

"But Headmistress—" Stormy started.

"Now."

The tone left no room for argument. Darcy moved first, gently touching Stormy's shoulder and jerking her head toward the door. Stormy shot Bloom one more furious, confused look before allowing herself to be guided out.

Icy remained a moment longer, her ice-blue eyes locked on Bloom's bowed head. Something complicated passed across her face—anger still, yes, but also something that might have been concern if Icy ever admitted to such weakness.

Then she turned and followed her sisters, frost trailing in her wake.

The door closed behind them with a soft click that echoed louder than any slam could have.

Now it was just Griffin and Bloom in the ruins of what had been a dorm room. Steam continued rising from melting ice. Somewhere, embers still glowed in the wreckage.

"Get up," Griffin said, her voice softer now but no less commanding.

Bloom tried. Her body screamed in protest—every muscle exhausted, over-extended, pushed past any reasonable limit. But she managed to rise to her knees, then her feet, swaying dangerously on the treacherous floor.

Griffin stepped closer, steadying her with one hand on her shoulder. The touch was brief, professional, but not unkind.

"You'll spend the remainder of the night in the infirmary under observation and magical suppression," Griffin said, each word precise and weighted with finality. She paused, her pale eyes assessing Bloom's trembling form. "After that, you'll be moved to a private room—one warded against magic. Tomorrow, once you've rested, we'll discuss the possibility of your transfer to Alfea."

A flicker of surprise crossed Bloom's face—brief as lightning, barely there before exhaustion swallowed it whole. Possibility. Not certainty. Not a command. Griffin was offering her a choice, or at least the illusion of one.

But Bloom was too tired to parse the distinction. Too tired to wonder why Griffin would frame it as a discussion rather than an order. Too tired to feel relief or dread or anything beyond the bone-deep exhaustion that had become her constant companion.

She managed the barest nod, her head moving perhaps an inch. Even that small motion felt like lifting a mountain.

Griffin's expression softened almost imperceptibly—a slight easing of the harsh lines around her mouth, nothing more. "Can you walk?"

Bloom wasn't sure. But she took a step anyway, her legs shaking, boots sliding on the treacherous mixture of ice and ash-filled water. She would have fallen if Griffin hadn't caught her elbow with surprising gentleness.

"I'll take that as a no," the headmistress said quietly, and with a gesture, conjured a levitation spell that lifted Bloom's feet from the ground.

As they left the ruined room behind, Bloom's eyes drifted closed. She didn't have the strength to keep them open anymore.

Behind them, steam continued to rise from the wreckage, and in the melting ice, something almost looked like it glowed gold—but it was only a trick of the light.

Only that.

The chamber Griffin had assigned her was more cell than room—four bare stone walls, a narrow bed with institutional white sheets, and a bathroom barely large enough to turn around in. No windows. No decorations. Nothing that could be used to channel magic, intentionally or otherwise.

The wards hummed against her skin like a constant low vibration, making her teeth ache. They were strong—stronger than anything she'd felt before, layered in complex patterns that would repel even the most determined magical intrusion. Combined with the suppressants Griffin had forced down her throat—bitter pills that made her magic feel distant and muffled, like trying to grasp smoke—the room should have been impenetrable.

Earlier that day, Griffin had delivered the news with her characteristic bluntness.

"You'll be joining the exchange program," the headmistress had said, standing in the doorway of the warded chamber like a judge pronouncing sentence. "Undercover. As far as Alfea's general population is concerned, you're simply a Cloud Tower student participating in inter-school cooperation."

Bloom had stared at her, exhaustion warring with disbelief. "You can't be serious."

"Miss Faragonda and I are in agreement." Griffin's tone left no room for argument, but she continued anyway, perhaps recognizing that Bloom needed to understand. "This spirit—whatever it is—clearly wants you at Alfea. It's dragged you there, through wards and distance, while you were unconscious. If it's that determined, then perhaps Alfea is where the answer lies."

"Or maybe it's trying to kill me." Bloom's voice had been flat, empty of inflection.

"Possibly." Griffin hadn't softened the truth. "But staying at Cloud Tower while you incinerate your dormmates in your sleep isn't a viable option either. At least at Alfea, they have resources we don't—light magic specialists, access to fairy archives, and Miss Faragonda's considerable expertise in matters of... spiritual disturbance."

Bloom had argued. Of course she'd argued—the idea of going to fairy school, of pretending to play nice with the glittering, naive children of light, made her skin crawl. But Griffin had remained immovable, and even through her exhaustion, Bloom had recognized the truth: she was out of options.

This was the only path left that didn't end with her either destroying herself or everything around her. Although, why would she care about anything around her?

Now, lying in the narrow bed with wards pressing against her consciousness and suppressants dulling her magic to near-nothing, Bloom felt something she rarely allowed herself to feel: defeat.

Her eyes drifted closed.

Just sleep, she told herself. The wards will hold. The suppressants will work. Just... sleep.

The magical barriers created an illusion of safety—paper-thin and probably meaningless, but her exhausted mind clung to it desperately. And somehow, miraculously, it was enough.

Darkness rose to meet her.

There was no golden light this time. No palace corridors or shadow creatures or ice freezing her in place. Just darkness—deep and complete and almost peaceful.

And in that darkness, a voice.

Not the warm, feminine voice that had haunted her for weeks. This was different. Distant. Barely audible, like someone calling from the bottom of a well.

"Bloom..."

She tried to ignore it, to sink deeper into the darkness where even voices couldn't reach.

"Find him..."

Him? Find who?

But before she could question further, before she could even fully process the words, something else stirred in the darkness. A presence. Familiar. Insistent.

The golden warmth surged forward like a wave—

Bloom woke to sunlight.

Warm, natural sunlight that shouldn't exist in a windowless chamber. It fell across her face in dappled patterns, shifting slightly as if filtered through leaves. The sensation was so wrong, so impossible, that for several heartbeats her mind simply refused to process it.

Then she felt the ground beneath her.

Not the firm mattress of the institutional bed. Not cold stone floor. Soft earth. Grass. The slight dampness of morning dew soaking through her clothes—she was wearing her casual clothes that she didn't bother to change before dropping on the mattress. 

No.

No.

Bloom's eyes snapped open fully, and her breath caught in her throat.

Trees. Sky. The massive walls of Alfea rising in the near distance, gleaming in the early morning light like something from a fairy tale. She was lying in the forest just outside the school's boundaries, grass crushed beneath her body, leaves scattered across her legs.

The wards hadn't held. The suppressants hadn't worked. Nothing had stopped it.

Her heart began to race, each beat painful against her ribs. Her breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps that made her vision swim at the edges. The world tilted dangerously as panic clawed up her throat with razor-sharp talons.

I'm going insane. This isn't possible. The wards should have—the suppressants were supposed to—I can't keep doing this, I can't—

"I don't get it."

The voice cut through her spiraling thoughts like a knife through silk—male, deep, but carrying an almost casual curiosity that seemed wildly inappropriate given the circumstances.

"What is it you find so appealing about sleeping on the ground right outside Alfea's walls?"

Bloom's head snapped toward the source of the voice so fast her neck cracked audibly.

Him.

Valtor sat fifteen feet away beneath an ancient oak, its gnarled roots spreading across the forest floor like veins. His posture radiated casual authority—back resting against the trunk, one leg stretched out while the other was bent, his arm draped across his knee with elegant ease. His other hand gripped his opposite forearm, fingers adorned with black gloves that seemed to absorb the morning light rather than reflect it.

He wore a deep navy vest with gold trim over a crisp white shirt, the collar high and formal. A blue gemstone gleamed at his throat, catching the dappled sunlight. Gold chains connected ornamental buttons down the front of the vest in three precise rows, each one polished to a mirror shine. Dark trousers and boots completed the ensemble—impeccably tailored, professional enough for an Alfea professor, but with an edge of danger that no amount of pressed fabric could disguise.

His hair was long and pale blonde, falling past his shoulders in smooth waves that caught the morning light like spun silk. Sharp, aristocratic features—high cheekbones, a strong jaw, a mouth that curved with something between amusement and predatory interest. But it was his eyes that seized her attention and wouldn't let go: crystal blue, bright as winter ice, watching her with the focused intensity of a wolf observing wounded prey.

How long had he been sitting there? How long had she been lying unconscious and vulnerable in the grass while this man—this stranger who radiated controlled danger like others radiated warmth—simply watched?

Bloom scrambled to her knees, grass stains joining the catalogue of damage already marring her ruined leather outfit. Her pulse hammered in her throat, each beat painful and too fast. "What are you—"

"No."

The single word sliced through her question with surgical precision. Valtor's interruption was smooth, almost courteous in its delivery, but carried an unmistakable edge beneath the veneer of civility. Those crystal blue eyes sharpened, narrowing fractionally as he tilted his head to study her with unnerving focus.

"That's my question, witch."

The word rolled off his tongue with deliberate emphasis—not quite an insult, but certainly not spoken with any warmth or respect. He shifted slightly, the gold chains on his vest catching the filtered sunlight as his gloved fingers tightened fractionally on his forearm.

"If I'm not mistaken," he continued, his voice dropping to something quieter and infinitely more dangerous, "this is your third time appearing at these walls. Not counting your initial... visit to the school itself."

Bloom's eyes widened before she could stop them. Genuine shock cracked through her carefully maintained composure like lightning through stone. Her breath caught audibly in her throat.

Third time. He knows about all of them.

After that first nightmare—waking in Alfea's sterile infirmary with Faragonda's knowing eyes on her and a concerned fairy hovering nearby—Bloom had appeared at these walls twice more. Both times at dawn, when the world was still painted in shades of grey and gold, when the dew hadn't yet burned off the grass. Both times she'd woken alone, disoriented and furious, but alone. She'd managed to slip away before anyone could witness her humiliation, vanishing back toward Cloud Tower like a ghost caught in the wrong realm.

This was technically her fourth appearance at Alfea's boundaries. But the third time waking specifically at the forest's edge near these walls, rather than inside the school itself.

And now he was here. A witness. Someone who'd been tracking her movements, cataloguing her arrivals like some sort of twisted record keeper.

The implications made her skin crawl.

"How did you know?" Bloom's voice came out steadier than she felt, though suspicion dripped from every syllable. Her muscles remained coiled, ready to bolt or fight—whichever became necessary first.

Valtor began to rise with that same unsettling grace, unfolding upward in one smooth motion. His navy vest shifted with the movement, gold chains catching fragments of morning light and scattering them like shards. The blue gemstone at his throat gleamed as he straightened to his full height, pale blonde hair falling perfectly into place as if choreographed.

Those crystal blue eyes never left her face—not for an instant, not even to watch where he placed his feet. The intensity of that gaze was almost physical, like being pinned by icicles.

"You didn't answer my question," he said quietly, brushing invisible dust from his dark trousers with gloved fingers. His tone remained conversational, almost pleasant, but underneath ran a current of steel that promised consequences for continued evasion.

He took a single step forward, boots silent on the grass. Then stopped, waiting. The smile that curved his mouth held no warmth—just patient, predatory interest.

The unspoken message was clear: You answer mine, then perhaps I'll answer yours.

Chapter Text

"So." Valtor's arms crossed over his chest, the movement causing his gold chains to clink softly. He began walking toward her with measured steps, each one deliberate and unhurried. "What exactly is your agenda—appearing at Alfea's walls on random mornings like some sort of recurring omen?"

Bloom pushed herself up from the ground, grass and damp earth clinging to her ruined outfit. Her legs trembled slightly as she found her footing, and she immediately took several steps backward, putting distance between them. Her copper hair hung in complete disarray—strands matted with sweat and tangled with leaves and grass, some pieces sticking up at odd angles where they'd pressed against the ground. She looked like she'd been dragged through the forest rather than simply sleeping in it.

Her mind raced, exhausted and sluggish but still calculating. She didn't have time for elaborate lies, didn't have the energy to construct believable fictions—especially not for this man. Everything about him screamed danger: the way he moved, the sharpness in those crystal blue eyes, the predatory patience in his posture. If she actually made it into Alfea as an exchange student, having him suspicious of her from day one would make everything exponentially harder. Her goals, her cover, her very survival in enemy territory—all of it would be compromised.

Sometimes the best lie was one wrapped around truth.

"I'm going to be an exchange student at Alfea," Bloom said, lifting her chin with what little defiance she could muster despite looking like a disaster. "Starting in a couple weeks. I'm sizing up the school that's going to be responsible for me for at least a month." Her eyes met his with calculated boldness. "Can you really blame me for wanting to scope out the territory?"

It wasn't entirely a lie. Just... severely incomplete.

Valtor's head tilted slightly, pale blonde hair shifting across his shoulders. One eyebrow arched with what might have been amusement or disbelief—hard to tell which. "Is that so?" His tone was silk over steel. "Your methods are rather questionable, don't you think? Most students arrange for tours during daylight hours. Conscious ones, preferably."

"Didn't ask for your opinion," Bloom snapped back, her exhaustion making her sharper than strategic.

The words had barely left her mouth when Valtor moved.

He covered the distance between them in a blur of motion—not running, not quite teleporting, just impossibly fast in a way that suggested either enhancement magic or reflexes far beyond human norm. One moment he was several feet away, the next he stood barely three feet from her, close enough that she could see the exact shade of blue in his eyes, could count the gold buttons on his vest if she wanted to.

Bloom's body locked up, every instinct screaming at her to move, to defend, to do something—but her muscles refused to cooperate, caught between fight and flight and simply freezing like prey under a predator's gaze.

Then she felt it.

That sensation. The same one from the infirmary—that strange, indefinable pull that had made her skin prickle and her magic stir restlessly beneath the surface. But this time it was different. Muted. Distant. Like trying to hear music through walls, or see colors through fogged glass.

The magical suppressants. They were still active in her system, dulling everything, creating a barrier between her consciousness and her power. That's why she could only feel it now—standing this close to him, with barely an arm's length between them. Whatever this sensation was, whatever energy radiated from Valtor, the suppressants were filtering it down to a barely perceptible whisper.

But it was there. Unmistakable. Wrong in a way she couldn't articulate but felt in her bones.

Her breath caught slightly, pupils dilating as recognition flickered across her face before she could suppress it.

Valtor's crystal blue eyes sharpened immediately, noticing the change. His head tilted fractionally, studying her with the intensity of a scientist observing an unexpected reaction in an experiment.

"Something wrong?" Valtor asked quietly, his voice dropping to something softer but infinitely more dangerous. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"What tricks are you playing?" Bloom's voice came out as a low growl, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

Valtor's head tilted slightly, the gesture almost curious, predatory in its patience. "Why would I waste my morning playing tricks on students from other schools?" The question was reasonable, his tone mild, but underneath ran that current of steel she was beginning to recognize.

Bloom ground her teeth hard enough to make her jaw ache. Every instinct screamed at her to get away—now, fast, before this situation spiraled further out of her control. She could feel her magic stirring beneath the suppressants' dulling weight, sluggish and distant but still there. Still accessible, if barely.

She took a step backward, already reaching for her power, already visualizing the portal that would take her back to Cloud Tower or anywhere else that wasn't here. The magic responded, trickling through her consciousness like water through a blocked pipe—too slow, too weak, but maybe enough—

Nothing happened.

Bloom remained exactly where she stood, grass beneath her boots, Valtor's crystal blue eyes locked on her face. The portal hadn't formed. Hadn't even flickered. The suppressants were still too strong in her system, her magic too dampened to manage teleportation. And if she couldn't portal away, she sure as hell didn't have enough power to fight him off either.

Which left exactly one option that burned like acid in her throat: run.

She tensed, muscles coiling, preparing to bolt toward the tree line—

Valtor's gloved hand shot out and caught her wrist mid-motion, his reflexes inhumanly fast. His fingers closed around her arm like iron bands.

Bloom jerked backward violently, trying to wrench free, but his grip didn't budge. Years of training kicked in automatically—she twisted her wrist at the exact angle needed to exploit the weak point in his hold, using his own grip against him. Her arm slipped free with a sharp motion that sent her stumbling back half a step.

But she didn't waste the momentum. Her body pivoted, left leg sweeping up in a vicious roundhouse kick aimed at his ribs with enough force to crack bone.

Valtor's arm came up and blocked it, the impact jarring up her leg as he simultaneously stepped back and to the side, moving out of her attack range with practiced ease. His expression barely changed—just a slight narrowing of those winter-blue eyes, a fractional shift that might have been interest or annoyance.

"You like fighting, don't you?" He tilted his chin, looking down at her with the kind of assessment a teacher might give a student who'd just demonstrated both skill and stupidity. "But you clearly don't know when to pick your battles. Or against whom."

"Spare me your lectures!" Bloom snarled, her chest heaving. "I didn't ask for them!"

He moved.

Too fast—impossibly fast for someone who hadn't even seemed to be trying. One moment he stood at a distance, the next he was in her space, invading it with brutal efficiency. His hands captured her wrist and upper arm before she could react, his grip iron-strong despite the deceptive gentleness of the leather gloves.

Then the world spun.

Valtor swept her legs and redirected her momentum with mechanical precision, and suddenly Bloom was airborne for a heartbeat before her entire body slammed face-first into the ground. The impact drove the air from her lungs in a painful gasp, grass and dirt pressing against her cheek, her free arm pinned beneath her own weight.

He maintained his grip on her captured wrist, and before she could recover, he applied pressure—bending it backward at an angle that sent sharp, bright pain lancing up her arm. Not quite enough to break or dislocate, but close enough that her body instinctively went still, locked in place by the threat of real damage.

"I have considerable experience dealing with undisciplined young people like yourself," Valtor said softly, his voice calm and almost conversational despite the violence of the takedown. He spoke just loud enough for her to hear clearly, each word measured and deliberate. "I don't fully understand what your goals are here. But I have a strong suspicion the headmistress does."

He increased the pressure fractionally, making Bloom's breath hiss between her teeth. "So we're going to walk to her office together and sort this situation out. Like civilized individuals."

"Yeah, right," Bloom growled, trying to jerk her arm free. Pain exploded through her wrist as Valtor bent it again—not breaking, but promising he could.

"Fuck!" The curse escaped her lips before she could stop it, raw and involuntary.

"Sorry, I couldn't quite catch what you said there." She couldn't see his face from this angle, but she could hear the smile in his voice—that infuriating, controlled amusement she remembered from their first meeting. "Now, you have a choice. Either you walk peacefully with me and we figure this situation out with the appropriate adults..."

"The fuck are you talking to me like I'm some dumb teenager—" Bloom tried to crane her neck to glare at him, managing only a sideways glance that showed his navy vest and the glint of gold chains.

"I'll ignore that interruption," Valtor continued as if she hadn't spoken, though his grip tightened just enough to make his point. "Or I will conjure restraints and drag you to the headmistress's office. Your choice, but I'd suggest choosing quickly—my patience, while considerable, is not infinite."

Bloom groaned in frustration, the sound vibrating against the ground. "Whatever."

"Hm?" That smile again, audible in the single syllable. "I'm afraid 'whatever' doesn't constitute a clear answer. So what will it be?"

Every fiber of Bloom's being wanted to tell him exactly where he could shove his options, preferably using language colorful enough to make a sailor blush. But she was pinned, powerless, and rapidly running out of dignity. Pride was a luxury she couldn't afford when her wrist was seconds away from being snapped.

"I'll go!" she finally snarled, the words torn from her throat with violent reluctance. "Just get your damn hands off me!"

Valtor's eyes narrowed fractionally. He remained perfectly still for a long moment, as if weighing whether to trust her word or simply follow through with the restraints anyway. The morning breeze rustled through the trees, carrying the scent of dew-damp grass and Alfea's perfectly manicured gardens.

Then, slowly—deliberately slowly, maintaining control of the release—he let go of her wrist and stepped back, giving her space to rise.

"Very well," he said, his tone suggesting this was a concession rather than compliance. "But know that if you attempt to run or attack again, I won't be nearly so gentle next time."

Bloom pushed herself up from the ground with shaking arms, dirt and grass stains now thoroughly coating the front of her already-ruined outfit. Her wrist throbbed where he'd bent it, her pride ached worse, and somewhere beneath the anger and humiliation burned the terrifying knowledge that she'd just been completely, effortlessly neutralized.

Without her magic, she was nothing against someone like him.

“For an instructor in fairy’s school, you seem enjoying pain of others a bit too much,” she glanced at him.

He turned his body, as if going to walk in another direction. “I don’t. But I do enjoy watching people doing right judgment.”

Bloom’s brows narrowed. What was that supposed to mean? She thought. But she did not say anything and just followed him.

Faragonda's office was a study in controlled chaos—shelves lined with ancient tomes and curious artifacts, morning sunlight streaming through tall arched windows that overlooked Alfea's pristine grounds. The headmistress sat behind her ornate desk, fingers steepled, her expression carefully neutral as she listened to Valtor's explanation.

"I was taking a morning walk through the square," Valtor said, standing with perfect posture near the window, his navy vest and gold chains catching the light. "When I discovered Miss... Bloom, was it? Lying unconscious on the ground just outside the school's boundaries."

He conveniently omitted the attempted escape, the brief fight, the way he'd pinned her face-first into the dirt. His tone remained professional, detached, as if reporting a simple finding rather than a confrontation.

"She informed me upon waking that she's to be an exchange student in the program," he continued, turning those crystal blue eyes toward Faragonda with pointed interest. "Naturally, I wanted to clarify the situation with you, as I suspected you'd have more information about her... unusual arrival method."

Faragonda's expression shifted almost imperceptibly—a slight tightening around her eyes that suggested this conversation was heading exactly where she'd hoped it wouldn't.

Valtor's posture remained relaxed but his voice carried unmistakable authority. "If I've agreed to oversee this exchange program, I believe I'm entitled to know exactly what students I'll be dealing with." He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "And given recent events that I'm certain you're aware of, I want to understand what the situation is with this particular girl."

Bloom's eyes widened, her eyebrows snapping together as her head whipped toward Valtor. The pieces clicked into place with horrible clarity. "You?"

Her hand came up and slapped against her face in a gesture of pure, exhausted frustration. "Of course it's you."

Valtor's face remained serious and composed, the picture of professional dignity. But the corner of his mouth twitched—just barely, just enough to be visible if you were looking for it. "Well," he said, crossing his arms over his chest with deliberate slowness. "You certainly seem enthusiastic about the arrangement."

Faragonda's eyebrow arched delicately, her gaze moving between Bloom and Valtor with new interest. She hadn't expected this reaction—or perhaps she'd expected it but found its intensity noteworthy. "Bloom," she said gently but with unmistakable firmness. "Could you tell us again how you ended up at Alfea's boundaries? This would be the third time, if I'm not mistaken?"

Fourth, actually. But Bloom had told Griffin she'd only appeared twice before this morning, carefully omitting one incident. The discrepancy hung in the air, unspoken but noticed.

Bloom forced herself to breathe evenly, to push down the rising tide of frustration and panic. She recounted the same story she'd given Griffin—the golden spirit, the dreams, being dragged to Alfea against her will while unconscious. Her voice remained flat, mechanical, reciting facts like reading from a particularly irritating report.

"A golden spirit dragging you to Alfea," Valtor repeated slowly, his tone thoughtful rather than skeptical. "And you claim to have no idea why."

"Headmistress Griffin mentioned that last night you destroyed your dormitory while sleeping," Faragonda added, her fingers interlacing on the desk before her.

Bloom rolled her eyes with enough force to make her head tilt back slightly. "The spirit made me fight monsters in the dream. Apparently my body decided to fight them in reality too while I was unconscious." She gestured vaguely, her exhaustion making her movements loose and careless. "Miss Griffin put me in a warded chamber last night—walls covered in anti-magic barriers, made me swallow enough suppressants to knock out an elephant. Clearly—" She spread her arms in a sardonic display, indicating her presence in the office. "—it didn't work."

"Have you learned anything else about this entity?" Valtor asked, and there was something sharper in his tone now. "I would assume you've done your research. Someone with your... resourcefulness wouldn't simply accept this situation without investigation."

Bloom's eyes narrowed, suspicion flickering across her features. How would he know what she'd do? They'd met exactly once before this morning, and he was already reading her like she was predictable.

"Not really," she said carefully, measuring each word. "I know it most likely started after I had contact with Roccaluce Lake, but that's it." Partial truth wrapped in deflection. "Maybe someone drowned there and whatever spirit made contact with me decided to have some fun torturing me for kicks."

Valtor's expression shifted—just slightly, a barely perceptible flinch that someone less observant might have missed entirely. His jaw tightened fractionally, his eyes going distant for half a heartbeat before snapping back to focus.

Bloom caught it immediately. Her gaze sharpened, studying his face with new intensity. What was that reaction? What does he know about Roccaluce?

"Alright, Bloom," Faragonda said, breaking the moment of tension. Her voice carried the weight of decision already made. "My colleague and I will discuss the details of your transfer here in more depth. For now—"

"So nobody's going to ask my opinion on this transfer?" Bloom interrupted, lifting her chin with defiant challenge. Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "Or do I just not get a say in what happens to me?"

Faragonda's shoulders tensed, her expression tightening.

"It's not as though you have a choice," Valtor commented flatly, his tone matter-of-fact rather than cruel. Simple statement of reality.

"Maybe I do," Bloom countered, her voice gaining an edge.

"Then you would have already suggested it to Miss Griffin," Valtor replied without missing a beat. "And she would have discussed that alternative with Miss Faragonda. The fact that we're having this conversation indicates you've already exhausted your options."

"Why do you people even care so much about this?" Bloom threw her hands up in frustration, her voice rising. "It's my problem, my mess. Just let me deal with it!"

"Because your headmistress is responsible for both you and the other students in her school," Faragonda explained, her tone gentle but unyielding. "Your situation is causing harm—to yourself and to those around you. That's why Cloud Tower has asked for our assistance. And we are willing to help. That's what sister schools do."

Bloom groaned loudly, the sound reverberating through the office with raw frustration. She leaned forward, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose as if trying to physically squeeze away the headache building behind her eyes.

Trapped. She was completely, utterly trapped. Sent to fairy school to be supervised by the one professor who'd already proven he could neutralize her without breaking a sweat. Living among enemies who wielded light magic, surrounded by everything the Ancestral Witches had taught her to despise.

And somewhere in her dreams, a golden spirit waited to drag her deeper into mysteries she couldn't understand, toward answers she wasn't sure she wanted to find.

"Perfect," she muttered into her palm, the word dripping with bitter sarcasm. "Just absolutely perfect."

The door closed behind Bloom with a soft click, followed by the distinctive shimmer of teleportation magic whisking her back to Cloud Tower. The silence that settled over Faragonda's office felt heavier than it should have, weighted with unspoken knowledge and carefully guarded secrets.

Faragonda remained seated behind her desk, but her posture had shifted—no longer the composed headmistress managing a difficult student, but something more vulnerable. More human. She folded her hands on the polished wood surface, her weathered features creased with concern.

"I apologize for not informing you of the full situation earlier," she said quietly, her voice carrying genuine regret. "I needed to verify certain things for myself first. To be absolutely certain before..."

She trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"I understand," Valtor said, and his tone had changed completely. The professional detachment, the carefully maintained professor persona—it dropped away like a discarded coat. What remained was rawer, more genuine. He stood still for a moment, his crystal blue eyes distant, processing.

Then he moved toward the tall arched window, his boots silent on the office floor. His hands clasped behind his back in a gesture that might have looked casual if not for the tension radiating from his shoulders, the rigid set of his spine.

Faragonda watched him, her expression thoughtful but troubled. "What do you think?" she asked softly. "A golden spirit from Roccaluce Lake, bringing a witch to Alfea against her will. Trying to reach her through dreams, showing her visions." She paused, letting the implications hang in the air. "What does that suggest to you?"

Valtor's jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath his skin. He stared out the window at Alfea's pristine grounds—the manicured gardens, the training fields, the peaceful quad where students would soon gather for morning classes. Everything serene and untouched by darkness.

Everything that had once existed at Domino, before it burned.

"There isn't much to think about," he said finally, his voice low and carefully controlled. Each word felt measured, as if speaking them cost him something. "I wish I was wrong, but it's too obvious."

The silence stretched. Outside, a breeze stirred the trees, sending leaves dancing across the courtyard. Morning sunlight painted everything in shades of gold—cruelly appropriate, given what they were discussing.

Faragonda rose from her chair with the slow deliberation of someone carrying a great burden. She moved to stand beside him at the window, her eyes searching his profile. Something glimmered there in those crystal blue depths—grief, perhaps. Or guilt. Or the weight of memories twenty years old that still cut like fresh wounds.

"It's Daphne," Valtor said, and the name fell into the room like a stone into still water, sending ripples through the quiet.

His reflection in the window glass showed a man perfectly composed on the surface, but his eyes told a different story. They held shadows that had nothing to do with the morning light, depths that spoke of old pain carefully locked away but never truly healed.

Faragonda's lips pressed together, a thin line of tension appearing as she visibly debated her next words. The question hung unspoken between them for several heartbeats before she finally released it into the room.

"And do you think... could she possibly be...?"

"I don't know." Valtor's voice came out rougher than intended, sharp edges showing through his usual control. His hands tightened behind his back, knuckles pressing together. "I was trapped in Omega. I didn't witness Domino's fall—I only heard about it secondhand, through prison rumors and your eventual explanation."

He drew a breath, steadying himself. "When you finally pulled me out of that frozen hell, you told me yourself that Domino had fallen and the royal family had vanished. Disappeared without a trace, presumed dead." His jaw worked, processing memories that still tasted bitter. "And later, when I encountered Daphne's spirit at the lake all those years ago, she said she could still feel Oritel and Marion's life force—faint, distant, but alive somewhere. But her younger sister..."

The pause stretched, heavy with implication.

"She couldn't feel the child at all. Which can only mean one thing—the princess died during the attack."

"But surely," Faragonda said carefully, her tone measured as she walked this conversational tightrope, "the fact that this girl shares the same name as the younger princess couldn’t be mere coincidence?”

"It's not a coincidence." Valtor’s voice flat with certainty. The words carried weight that had nothing to do with volume.

He finally turned from the window, and Faragonda saw something in his expression that made her breath catch—a mixture of dread and resignation, the look of someone confirming their worst suspicions.

"I felt the Dragon Flame within her," he said quietly. "When I got close enough this morning, when she couldn't mask it with distance or those suppressants dulling her power—I felt it." He paused, his jaw tightening. "I noticed something when we crossed paths a few weeks ago at the infirmary, but I couldn't be certain then. The sensation was too brief, too obscured. But today, standing that close..." His voice dropped lower. "That specific magical connection is unmistakable."

Faragonda's eyes widened, her composure cracking for just a moment. "Then it must be—"

"Not necessarily." Valtor raised a hand, cutting off her conclusion before she could voice it. "There's another possibility we need to consider." His expression darkened. "The Ancestral Witches could have acquired the Dragon Flame after Domino fell. They could have used it to create something—or someone. A weapon. A loyal servant infused with stolen power."

The implications hung heavy in the air between them.

Faragonda's eyebrows drew together, her mind clearly racing through the possibilities and their ramifications. "You're suggesting they could have used the Dragon Flame to birth an entirely new being? One raised to serve them?"

"It would explain everything," Valtor said, though his tone suggested he took no satisfaction in the theory. "The power, the connection to Cloud Tower, the way she carries herself—that edge of violence barely contained. She moves like someone trained for war, not like a princess raised in light and love."

He turned back to the window, but his gaze had gone distant, seeing something—or someone—from the past rather than the present landscape.

"I still remember the eyes of the young princess like it was yesterday," he said, his voice dropping to something softer, almost vulnerable. "She was barely more than an infant when I last saw her, but those eyes... they had such a vivid hue of blue, like a deep clear lake catching sunlight. And within that blue, there were flecks of gold—like the Dragon Flame itself was woven into her very soul, warm and bright and alive."

His expression hardened, the brief moment of softness vanishing like frost under harsh light.

"The eyes of that girl we just met are nothing like that. Nothing." The words carried an edge of something that might have been grief or anger—perhaps both. "Hers are pure gold, burning like embers in darkness. And they hold the same vicious edge I've seen in the Ancestral Witches' eyes—that cold, calculating cruelty born from living in shadows and learning that power is the only currency that matters."

Faragonda absorbed this, her fingers interlacing with white-knuckled pressure. "This could become far more complicated than we anticipated," she said slowly. "The Ancestral Witches were servants of Darkar before they were imprisoned. If Bloom has any connection to them—if she was created or raised by them—she might not be a victim seeking help. She could be an enemy. A threat walking straight into Alfea's heart."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Valtor remained motionless at the window, his reflection a study in controlled tension. Outside, students began emerging from dormitories, their cheerful voices carrying on the morning breeze—oblivious to the conversation happening above them, to the dangers that might be approaching their sanctuary.

"It has been quite some time since I've spoken with Daphne," Valtor said finally, his voice quiet but carrying unmistakable resolve. "Perhaps I should pay her a visit. If anyone would know the truth about what happened to her sister—about whether that girl carries the soul of a lost princess or the malice of dark witches—it would be her spirit."

Faragonda nodded slowly, though concern etched lines around her eyes. "Be careful, Valtor. Roccaluce is not an easy place, even for you. And Daphne's spirit... she may not be entirely rational anymore. Twenty years of existing as consciousness without form, trapped between life and death, watching over a lake that holds her final sacrifice..." She trailed off, the implications clear.

"I'm aware of the risks," Valtor said. "But if we're about to bring a potential weapon of the Ancestral Witches into Alfea—into a school full of young fairies who wouldn't stand a chance against someone wielding the Dragon Flame with dark intent—we need answers. Real ones, not speculation."

He finally turned fully from the window, his crystal blue eyes meeting Faragonda's with sharp focus. "Besides, Daphne is not a mere spirit—she's the supreme Nymph of Magix, and she chose this girl. She's been dragging her here for weeks, showing her visions, desperately trying to make contact. There's a reason for that—something she knows that we don't. And I intend to find out what it is before that girl walks through Alfea's gates as an 'exchange student.'"

Faragonda inclined her head in agreement, though worry still shadowed her features. "When will you go?"

"Tonight," Valtor said. "After sunset, when the lake is quiet and Daphne's presence is strongest. If she wants to talk, that's when she'll be most able to manifest."

He moved toward the door, his movements carrying that same fluid grace that had allowed him to neutralize Bloom so effortlessly earlier. But he paused with his hand on the handle, glancing back.

"One more thing," he said. "If I'm right—if that girl is a creation of the Ancestral Witches rather than the true princess—we need to consider what Daphne is trying to accomplish by bringing her here. Is she trying to save the girl from darkness? Or is she trying to use her as a weapon against those who destroyed Domino?"

The question hung unanswered as he opened the door and stepped out, leaving Faragonda alone with thoughts too heavy for the bright morning sunshine streaming through her windows.

Outside, Alfea continued its peaceful routine, unaware that in one week's time, a girl carrying either a dead princess's soul or a dark witch's legacy would walk through its gates, and nothing would ever be quite the same again.

Chapter Text

The moon hung full and luminous in the velvet darkness, its silver light spilling through the canopy of Dark Forest like liquid mercury. At this hour, Roccaluce Lake transformed into something beyond mere geography—it became a threshold between worlds, a place where the veil between life and death grew gossamer-thin.

The night was alive with sound, yet peaceful in its vitality. Crickets chirped their ancient songs. Frogs called from hidden banks. Water lapped gently against the shore in a rhythm that felt almost like breathing. The darkness here wasn't oppressive but sacred—the kind of darkness that existed before light learned its name, primordial and patient.

But Valtor's thoughts as he approached were anything but peaceful.

He wore the same navy vest and white shirt from the morning, but now a coat had been added—long and flowing, the same deep blue as his vest, adorned with gold embroidery that traced intricate patterns along the sleeve cuffs, across the shoulders, and around the high collar. The garment fit his frame with tailored precision, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the lines of his chest before cinching slightly at the waist. From there it flowed outward and down, the sides and back falling nearly to his ankles like a nobleman's formal attire or a wizard's traveling cloak. The gold threading caught moonlight as he moved, glinting like captured stars.

His boots made soft sounds against the forest floor—fallen leaves, damp earth, the occasional snap of a twig. Then the trees parted, and he stood at the shore.

Valtor paused there, drawing a deep breath. The air tasted different here—cleaner, somehow, despite the humidity rising from the water. It carried magic the way other places carried scent, an almost tangible presence that made his skin prickle with awareness. This wasn't the corrupted magic of dark spells or the clinical precision of light magic—this was something older, wilder, closer to the source of all power.

His eyes narrowed slightly, fatigue showing in the fine lines at their corners despite his composed posture. He gazed out at the water's surface, which reflected the star-scattered sky with such perfect clarity it was impossible to tell where heaven ended and earth began. The moon floated twice—once above, once below—creating a vertical axis of silver light.

Magical, indeed.

Then the water began to change.

Golden lights sparked beneath the surface—not reflected from above but originating from the depths, as if dawn had somehow gotten trapped in the lake bed and was fighting its way up. They moved with purpose, rushing and swirling in patterns too deliberate to be natural. Water fireflies, perhaps, if fireflies could burn with the intensity of condensed sunlight.

The lights intensified, concentrating, rising. Water that had been silver-black moments before now glowed with warmth that seemed impossible for something so cold. The golden energy broke the surface tension and began to coalesce, gathering itself into form and purpose.

A shape emerged—feminine, ethereal, hovering just above the water as if standing on glass. The light solidified into the suggestion of a woman, her form both completely present and somehow translucent, existing in that liminal space between substance and spirit.

Daphne.

She wore a gown of pure golden light that flowed around her like water given luminescence, the fabric—if it could be called fabric—moving with winds that existed only in whatever realm she truly occupied. Upon her face rested a golden mask, elegant and simple, covering her features from forehead to cheekbones, leaving only her mouth and chin visible. The mask bore delicate engravings that might have been decorative or might have been ancient runes—difficult to tell when they seemed to shift in the light.

But it was her eyes that arrested attention—visible through the mask's openings, they glowed with the same golden radiance as her form, bright enough to cast shadows, ancient enough to make mere time feel insignificant.

Valtor's crystal blue eyes reflected that golden light, his pupils contracting slightly against the sudden brilliance. For a moment, he looked carved from ice and moonlight, a winter king facing summer's ghost.

"Finally, you came here," Daphne said, and her voice was like wind through leaves—soft, layered, carrying harmonics that suggested she spoke from somewhere both very close and impossibly far away. "I wondered how long it would take before you arrived with questions."

The words held no accusation, only a gentle knowing, as if she'd been counting the hours since dawn and found his timing neither early nor late but exactly as expected.

Valtor exhaled—long and deliberate, the sound almost too loud in the magical stillness. His right hand came up to rest over his heart as he bowed, the gesture formal and courtly, something from an older age when such displays of respect carried weight. The gold embroidery on his coat caught Daphne's glow, making him look for a moment like he was threaded with captured light.

"You were expecting me, of course," he said as he straightened. A soft smile tugged at the corners of his mouth—not the predatory amusement he'd shown Bloom, but something gentler, tinged with old familiarity and older sorrow. His gaze softened as well, the sharp edges that defined him dulling in her presence. "Then you know the reason for my visit."

Valtor didn't know if spirits or ethereal forms needed to breathe, if the mechanisms of life translated across the boundary of death. But he could have sworn he heard a sigh—soft and weighted, carrying the exhaustion of someone who'd held a vigil for far too long.

The golden light around Daphne flickered slightly, like a candle touched by draft, and in that moment she seemed less like a powerful nymph and more like what she truly was: someone caught between worlds, neither fully alive nor truly dead, waiting for something that might never come.

"My little sister..." Daphne began, and those three words carried the weight of twenty years' grief compressed into syllables.

"Are you certain it's her?" Valtor interrupted, his tone not unkind but urgent. They both knew there was no time for the gentle spiral of conversation, no luxury of approaching the truth obliquely. If Daphne could maintain this manifestation for long, he would visit far more often than he did. "Beyond doubt?"

Even behind the golden mask, he could see her expression shift—that particular tightening around the visible portion of her face that he recognized from decades past. The same look she wore when puzzling through complex magical theory or weighing battle strategies. Some things death couldn't erase.

"You think it is not?" Her voice carried genuine curiosity rather than offense. The light around her pulsed gently, like a heartbeat made visible.

"The Ancestral Witches acquired the Dragon Flame when Domino fell," Valtor said carefully, each word chosen with precision. "If they possessed that power, they could have created an entirely new being—artificial life infused with stolen essence. A weapon born rather than corrupted." His jaw tightened fractionally. "As I was created."

The comparison hung in the air between them, sharp-edged and uncomfortable.

"You're right," Daphne acknowledged, her ethereal form drifting slightly closer to the shore, the hem of her luminous gown touching the water's surface and sending ripples of golden light across the dark mirror. "And that would explain something that has troubled me deeply—why I felt no familial connection to her the way I still do with my parents."

Valtor felt the weight of her gaze settle on him, even through the mask. Those glowing eyes seemed to peer through flesh and bone to the truths he carried.

"When she touched these waters," Daphne continued, her voice dropping to something quieter, more haunted, "I felt a darkness so deep and cruel it was as if the Ancestral Witches themselves had plunged their hands into the lake. Corruption thick enough to choke on, cold enough to freeze light itself." She paused, and the golden radiance around her dimmed slightly, as if the memory alone drained her strength. "But beneath that darkness—buried so deep I almost missed it—I also felt the Dragon Flame."

"Which supports my theory entirely." Valtor's eyebrow arched, though whether with vindication or disappointment was unclear. "A construct. A weapon wearing a familiar name."

"It would seem so," Daphne agreed, and the admission seemed to cost her something. Her form flickered again, less substantial for a heartbeat. "But there's more to it than that. Something I didn't understand at first."

Valtor's brows drew together, his posture shifting almost imperceptibly—leaning forward, attention sharpening. "More?"

"The connection I maintain with my parents—with Oritel and Marion—isn't simply the bond between creatures who both carry the Dragon Flame's essence," Daphne explained. Her hand rose, fingers spreading as if trying to demonstrate something that had no physical form. "It's deeper than magic. It's blood. It's the sacred tether that exists between family, woven into the very fabric of our souls before birth. That connection transcends death, transcends dimensions, transcends even the complete absence of physical form."

She paused, letting him absorb this. The lake around her seemed to hold its breath.

"When she touched the water—when her hand broke the surface and her power reached into mine—I felt that same connection. Not the kinship of shared magic, but the bond of shared blood."

Valtor's eyes widened fractionally, his careful composure cracking just enough to reveal genuine shock beneath. Though if he was honest, some part of him had expected this. Had feared this. "What are you saying?"

He knew what she was saying. He simply needed to hear her speak it aloud, needed the words to make it real.

"There is a sacred familial connection between her soul and my family's bloodline," Daphne said, each word deliberate and weighted with certainty. "She is not merely a construct infused with stolen power. Somehow, impossibly, she is connected to us by bonds forged before the Ancestral Witches ever touched her."

The golden light intensified around her, as if the truth itself demanded more luminescence to be properly seen.

"The reason I couldn't sense this connection before she touched these waters—the reason I couldn't find her all these years—is because the darkness filling her body and saturating her soul acted as a barrier. A corruption so complete it masked what lay beneath, like shadow burying light so deep no one would think to dig for it."

Valtor went very still. His mind raced through possibilities, implications, ramifications that spiraled outward like cracks in glass. The night sounds of the forest continued around them—indifferent crickets, uncaring frogs—but he barely heard them over the rush of his own thoughts.

"You've been trying to draw her to the light," he said slowly, working through the logic aloud. "Dragging her here, night after night, showing her visions. You're trying to pull her toward me, toward Alfea..." He paused, the final piece clicking into place. "So I could what, exactly?"

"So you could help her return to the light," Daphne finished, her voice carrying both hope and desperation in equal measure. "Help her heal from the darkness that's poisoned her soul since before she could remember. You, who were created by those same dark forces but chose a different path—you understand both sides in ways no one else can."

The implication was staggering. Daphne wasn't just trying to save a lost girl. She was trying to reclaim her sister from the corruption that had claimed her, piece by piece, since infancy. And she'd chosen Valtor—himself a creation of dark magic who'd walked back into the light—as the instrument of that salvation.

"That's quite an assumption," Valtor said quietly, his voice carrying an edge of something that might have been fear or might have been awe. "That I'm capable of such a thing. That she'd even allow it."

"You're the only one who can reach her," Daphne insisted, her ethereal form drifting closer, until she was nearly at the shore's edge, hovering just above the water like a ghost refusing to cross a threshold. "She won't trust the fairies—they're too bright, too pure, everything she's been taught to despise. But you..."

Her glowing eyes locked onto his. "You carry darkness you've transmuted into strength. You understand what it means to be forged in shadow and still choose the light. She might resist you, might fight you, but she won't be able to dismiss you as naive or weak. And that gives you a chance no one else has."

The lake lapped gently at Valtor's boots, water touching leather with delicate persistence. The moon continued its ancient watch overhead, indifferent to the weight of the conversation happening beneath its gaze.

And Valtor stood on the shore, caught between the ghost of someone he'd once known and the fate of someone he'd just met—a girl who might be a weapon, might be a princess, or might somehow be both, waiting in Cloud Tower for a transfer to Alfea that would change everything.

Three in the morning, and the moon hung full and luminous in a sky unusually clear of Cloud Tower's eternal shroud of mist. The perpetual clouds that typically choked the stars had parted like a curtain drawn back, revealing a vast expanse of silver-washed darkness. It was the kind of night that happened perhaps once a month, if that—when the heavens decided to show themselves to a school built on shadows and secrets.

But something felt different about this particular night. The air carried a strange quality, a tension that had nothing to do with weather or season. As if the universe itself was holding its breath, waiting for something to shift.

Bloom sat on one of Cloud Tower's highest external platforms—a narrow ledge of stone that jutted from the tower's face like a gargoyle's perch, hundreds of feet above the ground. She'd positioned herself right at the edge, legs dangling over the precipice, boots swaying gently in the void. One strong gust of wind and she'd fall. One moment of imbalance and gravity would claim her.

She didn't care.

A cigarette burned between her fingers, the ember glowing like a tiny captive star in the darkness. She brought it to her lips and inhaled deeply, pulling smoke into her lungs with the practiced ease of someone for whom this had long ago become ritual rather than vice.

The tobacco burned. Not painfully—not anymore—but she felt it. That harsh scrape against her throat, the acrid heat filling her chest, the way her lungs protested before accepting their familiar poison. It was nothing, really. Barely noticeable compared to the deliberate damage she'd done to herself years ago.

Her mind drifted to Obsidian, pulled there by the sensation of burning.

She'd been so young when the Ancestral Witches had thrown her into those lightless pits. Young enough that precise memories blurred at the edges, but old enough to remember the feeling of it—the crushing weight of primordial darkness, the cold that existed before warmth learned its name, the hunger that gnawed at her insides like a living thing.

They hadn't taught her to hunt shadow creatures for sport. They'd taught her because it was hunt or starve, and starvation was a slow death they found insufficiently educational.

She remembered the taste of that meat. God, she remembered the taste.

Rotten. Putrid. Like swallowing death itself, if death had been left to decay in darkness for a thousand years. The first time she'd forced it down, she'd vomited for hours. The second time, only minutes. By the tenth time, she'd learned to simply swallow without thinking, to treat eating like any other survival mechanism—necessary, mechanical, divorced from sensation.

But the taste had persisted. Clung to her tongue, coated her throat, invaded her dreams.

So she'd solved the problem the way she solved most problems: with fire.

She'd burned away her taste receptors. Carefully, methodically, using precisely controlled flames to sear the sensitive nerves on her tongue, the delicate tissues lining her throat. The pain had been exquisite—far worse than the rotten meat—but it had been temporary. And when it healed, when the damaged nerves grew back wrong and numb, she could eat without tasting. Could swallow shadow-creature flesh like it was bread. Could survive without the constant reminder of how low she'd been brought.

The cigarette smoke burning through her lungs now was nothing compared to that. A gentle warmth, almost pleasant in its familiarity.

Those days in Obsidian had forged her into something harder than diamond and colder than ice. The Ancestral Witches had created a human child—given her everything human and childishly innocent—precisely so they could tear it all away and reshape what remained into a weapon. The cruelty was intentional: why corrupt something already dark when you could take something pure and watch it shatter?

Bloom still didn't understand how human life could be conjured from magic alone, how consciousness and flesh could be woven from pure power without womb or birth. But the Ancestral Witches had possessed abilities stolen from the Creator—that ancient force that existed before time learned to count. With power like that, perhaps creating life was no more difficult than creating fire.

They'd made her human so they could unmake her humanity. And they'd succeeded.

She knew—with absolute certainty—that nothing in her current situation compared to those years. The golden spirit, the sleepless nights, the destroyed dorm, being sent to Alfea like a problem to be solved—it was all just noise. Mild disturbance. A temporary inconvenience in a life that had been forged in far darker crucibles.

So why did she feel so weak?

The admission came unbidden, unwelcome, and she hated it immediately. But it was there, a poisonous seed of doubt taking root in her chest: the feeling that something—someone—was getting the better of her. That life itself had decided to become her enemy, throwing obstacles in her path specifically designed to stop her from reaching her goals.

The spirit. Valtor. Faragonda. Griffin. All of them moving pieces on a board she couldn't fully see, making decisions about her fate while she sat powerless, dragged through the night like a puppet on golden strings.

Weak. You're being weak.

Bloom took another drag from the cigarette, the ember flaring bright in the darkness. Exhaled smoke into the night air and watched it dissipate into nothing.

No. She wasn't weak. She'd just forgotten—allowed herself to be distracted by exhaustion and frustration and the constant invasion of her sleep. But she could remember. She would remember.

Be cold-blooded. The first lesson they'd taught her, before the hunting, before the fire, before everything else. Emotion was a liability. Feeling was a weakness to be exploited. The moment you let yourself care—about anything, about anyone, even about your own comfort—you gave your enemies a blade to gut you with.

Dull the feelings. Lock them away where they couldn't touch you, couldn't slow you down, couldn't make you hesitate when hesitation meant death.

Dull the distractions. The golden spirit wasn't a mystery to solve—it was an obstacle to overcome. Valtor wasn't a threat to fear—he was a variable to account for. Alfea wasn't a prison—it was an opportunity waiting to be seized.

Because only when she was cold, when she was focused, when she'd stripped away everything except pure purpose—only then could she burn everything in her path to ash.

The thought settled over her like armor, familiar and comfortable. This was who she was. This was what she'd been made to be.

Alfea was just another mission. Another battlefield with different parameters. The Ancestral Witches had sent her to Cloud Tower to learn, to grow strong, to prepare. Now circumstances were sending her to Alfea, and she'd adapt. She'd survive. She'd thrive.

And perhaps—a small, vicious smile touched her lips—she'd even enjoy it.

The fairy school held resources Cloud Tower didn't. Ancient archives about Domino's fall, texts about Oritel's legendary sword, research on the Dragon Flame's origins and applications. Information she needed, locked away in a place that thought itself safe from dark magic's reach.

They'd handed her the keys and called it a punishment.

Fools.

And for the sake of entertainment, for the simple pleasure of watching the righteous squirm... she might torment a few goody-goody fairies along the way. Nothing too obvious—she wasn't stupid enough to blow her cover—but subtle cruelties. Psychological warfare. The kind of damage that left no visible scars but hollowed people out from the inside.

She'd been trained by the best, after all.

Bloom finished her cigarette and flicked it over the edge, watching the ember fall and fall and fall until it disappeared into the darkness below. Somewhere far beneath, it would hit the ground and die, just another spark extinguished by the void.

But she wouldn't be extinguished. Wouldn't fall. Wouldn't break.

The moon continued its silent watch overhead, casting silver light across Cloud Tower's black stone. The strange tension in the air persisted, that sense of something shifting in the magical currents—but Bloom ignored it. Whatever forces were moving in the darkness, whatever plans were being laid, she'd face them the same way she'd faced everything else.

With fire. With fury. With the cold, calculating precision of a weapon that had never forgotten what it was made for.

One week until Alfea. One week to prepare, to plan, to sharpen herself into something even more dangerous than she already was.

The fairies wouldn't know what hit them.

And that smile—small, vicious, entirely without warmth—remained on her lips as she sat alone in the darkness, a girl-shaped weapon waiting for her next war.

Chapter Text

"I'll see you in a couple weeks," Bloom said, that familiar smirk touching her lips as she turned toward the door.

Two days after the last incident—after waking at Alfea's walls for the fourth time, after Valtor had dragged her to Faragonda's office, after everything had finally reached its breaking point—the decision became official: Bloom was being transferred to Alfea for the Exchange Program.

To Cloud Tower's general student population, it was a mystery. Exchange students weren't supposed to leave until the designated start date, still over a week away. Why was Bloom going early? The questions rippled through the halls like poison in water.

Only a select few knew the truth—the Trix, the instructors, Griffin herself. Everyone else was left to speculate, and speculate they did. Rumors spread with the gleeful viciousness that only teenage witches could muster.

Some said Bloom had finally snapped and attacked someone important. Others claimed she'd been caught doing forbidden magic. A few suggested she was being sent away as punishment for the destroyed dormitory. The more creative rumors involved secret missions, dark prophecies, or scandalous affairs with faculty.

Because Bloom had cultivated an unpleasant personality—deliberately standoffish, viciously competent, and utterly uninterested in social niceties—many of the rumors skewed nasty. But some students tried for logical explanations, treating it like an intellectual puzzle rather than gossip fodder.

Bloom didn't care. Had never cared what they thought, what they whispered behind her back, what conclusions they drew from incomplete information. All that mattered was her own agenda, and their opinions didn't factor into it.

Now she stood in Griffin's office for what would likely be the last time in weeks, listening to what amounted to a final warning disguised as instructions.

"While you're at Alfea, you'll be representing all of Cloud Tower," Griffin said, her tone carrying the full weight of her authority as headmistress. She moved from behind her desk to stand directly before Bloom, close enough to emphasize the seriousness of her words. "I expect you to be on your best behavior—obedience to their faculty and excellent execution in your studies. I will not tolerate complaints from Faragonda, as that would suggest our school has failed to properly discipline our students."

Her pale eyes bore into Bloom with intensity that could have frozen lesser witches in place.

"And that would be unacceptable. Am I clear?"

Sounds like a you problem, Bloom thought, but her expression remained composed, respectful. "Although the circumstances aren't what anyone expected, you're sending the best student Cloud Tower has to offer, Miss Griffin." Her tone carried just the right amount of confidence without tipping into arrogance. "I assure you, there's no need to worry about my performance."

Griffin stared at her—really stared, as if trying to peer past flesh and bone to read the thoughts Bloom kept carefully locked away. The silence stretched for several heartbeats.

"I hope so," the headmistress said finally. "I also hope this spirit issue resolves itself before the exchange program ends. Students are already wondering why you're leaving early. If you return still plagued by nightmares and mysterious incidents..." She left the implication hanging. "That wouldn't reflect well on you. Or on us."

Bloom tilted her head slightly, that small smirk returning. "Let them wonder. They can speculate all they want—none of them will dare say anything to my face." Her golden eyes gleamed with cold amusement. "But trust me, I want this resolved more quickly than anyone. It's become inconvenient."

Griffin studied her for another long moment, then nodded once. "Very well."

She raised her hand, magic gathering around her fingers in swirls of purple and black. The air before them shimmered and tore, reality folding back on itself to create a doorway of pure energy. Through the portal's surface, Bloom could see hints of another place—brighter, warmer, wrong in every way that mattered.

Alfea.

"Good luck, Bloom," Griffin said, and despite the formal distance she maintained, there might have been something almost like genuine concern beneath the words.

Bloom walked toward the portal without hesitation, her stride confident and measured, as if she were advancing toward a battlefield rather than a school. She paused at the threshold, glancing back over her shoulder.

"A witch doesn't need luck, Headmistress," she said, her voice carrying a hint of dark humor. "Didn't you teach us that yourself?"

Griffin's expression remained unreadable, carved from stone and shadow as always. She said nothing, simply watched as Bloom stepped through the portal, her form swallowed by the shimmering gateway.

The portal collapsed in on itself with a soft sound like silk tearing, and then there was only empty air where Bloom had stood.

Griffin remained motionless for a long moment, staring at the space where her most dangerous student had just departed. Her fingers drummed once against her side—a rare tell of unease.

"No," she said quietly to the empty office. "But sometimes even witches need something more than skill and power."

Outside her window, Cloud Tower's eternal mists swirled, indifferent to the departure of one copper-haired weapon walking into enemy territory, carrying secrets that could unravel everything.

The portal deposited Bloom directly outside Alfea's main gates, and the difference was immediate and visceral.

Sunlight. Blazing, brilliant, almost aggressive in its brightness after Cloud Tower's perpetual gloom. Bloom's eyes narrowed reflexively against the assault of color and warmth, her pupils contracting as they struggled to adjust. The sky above was a cheerful, cloudless blue that seemed almost offensively optimistic. Even the air tasted different—clean and sweet, carrying hints of flowers and fresh grass rather than stone and shadows.

She stood there for a moment, taking it in with the practiced assessment of someone entering potentially hostile territory.

Buses lined the circular drive before the gates—sleek, magical vehicles that shimmered with enchantments as they arrived and departed, ferrying students to and from Magix City. The casual display of convenience made her lip curl slightly. Cloud Tower had no such luxury. Witches teleported themselves or walked; comfort was considered a weakness to overcome, not a service to provide.

Of course the fairies had buses.

Bloom adjusted the bag slung over her shoulder—everything she'd deemed necessary for this mission packed into a single carry-all—and started toward the gates. Her boots crunched against the pristine gravel path, each step taking her deeper into enemy territory.

Two figures waited just inside the threshold, clearly expecting her.

Faragonda stood with her hands clasped before her, the picture of warm, grandmotherly welcome. Her cream-colored robes seemed to glow in the sunlight, and her expression radiated the kind of benevolent patience that made Bloom's teeth ache. Beside her stood a taller woman—sharp-featured, wearing glasses that caught the light, her posture military-straight. The assistant or vice principal, if Bloom remembered correctly from her research.

"Welcome, Bloom," Faragonda said, and her smile seemed genuine enough to be suspicious. "How are you feeling?"

Bloom raised an eyebrow, her expression carefully neutral despite the instinctive distrust crawling up her spine. The woman was acting too nice, too welcoming, like this was a pleasant social visit rather than a forced transfer due to supernatural harassment.

"Could always be better," Bloom said, her tone flat.

The woman beside Faragonda—Griselda, her memory supplied—made a soft humming sound that conveyed profound skepticism. Her expression remained serious, almost severe, studying Bloom with the kind of critical eye one might use to assess a potentially dangerous creature. For a fairy vice principal, she certainly didn't look very nice at all.

Actually, Bloom decided, she might be the only tolerable one here.

"That's understandable given the circumstances," Faragonda said smoothly, her smile never wavering despite Bloom's obvious lack of enthusiasm. "But we hope your stay here will be more pleasant than you might expect." She gestured toward the school's entrance, a graceful sweep of her hand. "Please, follow us. We'll discuss certain arrangements, show you to your room, and then you'll be free to explore the school grounds at your leisure."

Certain arrangements. Bloom translated that easily enough: rules, expectations, limitations. What they required of her, what she should anticipate from them. The parameters of her cage, dressed up in polite language and fairy courtesy.

"Lead the way," Bloom said, falling into step behind them as they turned toward Alfea's main building.

The school rose before her like something from a storybook—all elegant towers and graceful architecture, fountains and gardens, sunlight making everything gleam like it had been dipped in liquid gold. Beautiful, pristine, and completely at odds with everything she'd been taught to value.

Cloud Tower was power. Alfea was prettiness.

But prettiness could hide useful things. Archives, artifacts, information about Domino and the Dragon Flame and Oritel's sword. She just had to survive the sugar-coating long enough to find the substance beneath.

As they walked through the gates, Bloom caught Griselda glancing back at her, those sharp eyes missing nothing. The vice principal's expression suggested she knew exactly what kind of student had just entered her school, and she had no illusions about this being a peaceful cultural exchange.

Good. Bloom preferred people who weren't fools.

"Now that we've reviewed the general rules for all students at Alfea," Faragonda said, her tone shifting to something more serious, "let's discuss how we might resolve your particular issue."

Bloom's eyebrow rose fractionally, her only visible reaction.

"We've given this considerable thought and developed several methods you could practice," Faragonda continued, folding her hands on her desk with deliberate calm. "After careful consideration, we've decided that Professor Valtor has the necessary expertise to supervise and assist you with these approaches."

Bloom's eye twitched. Just once, barely perceptible, but unmistakable. Then her eyes rolled with such force they might have escaped their sockets entirely if anatomy permitted. Her jaw clenched, and when she spoke, her voice carried an edge sharp enough to cut glass.

"Is there really no one else?" The words came out less as a question and more as a demand.

"Watch your attitude toward the Headmistress, young lady," Griselda warned, her tone brooking no argument. She straightened even further—an impressive feat given her already rigid posture—and her eyes narrowed behind her glasses with clear disapproval.

Bloom turned that sharp gaze on the vice principal, meeting her stare with unflinching defiance. Neither woman blinked. The air between them crackled with unspoken challenge, two individuals who fundamentally did not trust each other sizing up exactly how much trouble the other could cause.

After several long seconds, Bloom looked back at Faragonda, her expression carefully neutral despite the obvious frustration simmering beneath.

Faragonda studied her for a moment, her head tilting slightly. "Is there something wrong with Professor Valtor?" she asked, and her tone carried genuine curiosity rather than accusation. "Has he done something to make you uncomfortable?"

"I just don't like him," Bloom said flatly, offering no further explanation. Her arms crossed over her chest in a posture that clearly communicated this conversation was unwelcome.

"I see," Faragonda said slowly, though her expression suggested she saw quite a bit more than Bloom intended to reveal. "Well, I understand that personal preferences matter, but in this case, Professor Valtor truly is the most qualified person for this task."

She leaned forward slightly, her voice taking on a more persuasive quality—warm, reasonable, the tone of someone who genuinely believed what they were saying.

"Valtor is our Professor of Advanced Magical Theory and Applications. He possesses an exceptionally deep understanding of magic's fundamental mechanics—how it works at the most basic level, what makes it function, what can cause it to malfunction or be corrupted." Her fingers steepled before her as she spoke. "He's familiar with an extraordinary diversity of magical disciplines—light, dark, elemental, spiritual, dimensional. Very few practitioners can claim such comprehensive knowledge."

Faragonda paused, letting that sink in before continuing.

"Beyond that, he has extensive knowledge of thousands of spells across multiple magical traditions, an encyclopedic understanding of magical creatures and entities—including spirits—and he's studied the history of the Magic Dimension more thoroughly than perhaps anyone currently living." Her eyes met Bloom's with quiet intensity. "He understands how magic has evolved, how different cultures approach it, how ancient practices differ from modern ones."

She let the list of qualifications hang in the air for a moment.

"Most importantly for your situation," Faragonda added, her voice softening slightly, "he has personal experience with complicated magical circumstances. He understands what it's like when magic behaves in unexpected or unwanted ways, when forces beyond your control attempt to influence you."

Bloom's eyebrows rose despite herself. The level of credibility Faragonda was attributing to this professor was... substantial. Admittedly impressive, if it was all true.

Too impressive, actually.

Which immediately raised red flags and questions she couldn't ignore.

"Isn't he a bit overqualified for teaching at a school?" Bloom asked, her tone shifting from irritated to genuinely curious. "I mean, someone with that resume could be doing research, working for magical governments, heading their own institution..."

Faragonda sighed, though a slight smile tugged at her lips as if she'd anticipated this question. "Believe it or not, I wondered the exact same thing when he first applied. But Professor Valtor insisted he wanted to teach here at Alfea specifically." She paused, her expression becoming more thoughtful. "And he's been doing so for nearly two decades now."

Bloom's eyes widened, her brows furrowing sharply. "Two decades?"

The math didn't work. He looked maybe thirty at most, probably younger. How could someone who appeared that young have been teaching for almost twenty years and accumulated such an encyclopedic knowledge of magic even before teaching? The timeline alone was suspicious, never mind the depth of expertise.

Something was definitely not right with this professor. And now, perversely, she wanted to find out what.

"Fine," Bloom said, pushing her suspicions aside for the moment. She could investigate Valtor later. "What methods were you talking about? What exactly am I supposed to be doing?"

Faragonda opened her mouth to respond—

And Bloom felt it.

That sensation. The same strange, indefinable pull she'd experienced at the infirmary, again that morning in the forest. Like recognizing a scent you couldn't quite place, or hearing a song just at the edge of perception. Her magic stirred beneath her skin, responding to something her conscious mind hadn't yet identified.

Not again. Not him again.

Three sharp knocks sounded against the office door, perfectly timed as if the universe enjoyed cosmic jokes at her expense.

"Come in," Faragonda called.

Bloom's head whipped around toward the door with startling speed, the movement almost involuntary. Her shoulders tensed, posture shifting subtly into something more defensive without her conscious decision.

The door opened, and of course—of course—it was Valtor.

He stood in the doorway looking exactly as he had that morning: impeccably dressed in his navy vest and white shirt, pale light brown hair catching the afternoon light streaming through Faragonda's windows, those crystal blue eyes scanning the room with sharp intelligence before settling on Bloom with what might have been amusement.

"Ah, Professor," Faragonda said warmly, gesturing him inside. "Your timing is perfect. I was just about to explain to Bloom how we might help her with the spirit that's been haunting her."

Valtor stepped fully into the office, and that pull intensified slightly—not painfully, just... there. Present. Undeniable. Making the space between them feel charged with something Bloom couldn't name and didn't want to examine.

His gaze met hers, and that ghost of a smile touched his lips—the kind of expression that managed to be perfectly polite while simultaneously mocking. "Miss Bloom," he said, his tone carrying flawless courtesy that somehow made her skin prickle with irritation. "How delightful to see you again so soon. I trust your arrival was less dramatic than our previous encounters?"

Bloom's jaw clenched hard enough to make her teeth ache. This was going to be absolutely insufferable.

"Funny," she said, her voice edged with false sweetness. "I've noticed the drama only appears when you're around, Professor." She emphasized the title like it was an insult rather than a sign of respect.

"Is that so?" Valtor hummed, the words forming a statement rather than a question. His expression remained infuriatingly pleasant, as if her barbs were merely amusing rather than cutting.

Bloom's patience—already worn thin by the morning's events—frayed further. "Well? What brilliant methods of torture have you all devised for me?"

"I wouldn't speak ill of our sister school," Valtor said smoothly, his crystal blue eyes glinting with what might have been amusement, "but I assure you, torture is not part of Alfea's teaching methodology. Unlike, perhaps, certain other institutions." The implication hung delicately in the air—a perfectly professional jab at Cloud Tower wrapped in diplomatic language.

Faragonda and Griselda exchanged glances—a complex mixture of suspicion, curiosity, and confusion passing between them in that silent communication administrators perfected over decades. Neither woman spoke, but their expressions suggested they were filing this interaction away for later discussion.

"The methods are quite straightforward," Valtor continued, apparently unbothered by Bloom's hostility. "Daily dream journaling to track patterns and triggers. Guided meditation sessions to strengthen your mental defenses. Regular consultations with either myself or Headmistress Faragonda to monitor your progress and adjust our approach as needed." He recited the list with the casual efficiency of someone who'd explained treatment plans many times before.

Bloom's expression remained flat, unimpressed. Her golden eyes tracked his every movement with the wariness of a caged predator, and she had to actively fight the urge to roll her eyes or groan at the sheer tedium of it all.

"Additionally," Valtor said, raising his hand, "you'll be required to wear this."

A bracelet materialized in his palm—simple, elegant, made of what appeared to be blue crystal or enchanted glass. Thin enough to be unobtrusive, but clearly magical in nature. The light caught it strangely, making it shimmer with inner luminescence.

"It will monitor your magical activity," he explained, his tone remaining professional and detached. "Track fluctuations, surges, patterns. This will allow us to observe how your magic responds when the spirit manifests or attempts contact."

Bloom's eyebrows drew together sharply, her expression darkening. Being tracked was bad enough. Having her magic monitored, catalogued, analyzed—that was crossing a line she wasn't comfortable with. Her power was private, personal, the one thing that was entirely hers.

"There's also one more requirement," Valtor added, and something in his tone made her tense further. "You're prohibited from using dark magic during your stay at Alfea."

"What?" The word came out sharper than intended, genuine shock breaking through her careful composure.

"Dark magic may be feeding the entity," Valtor explained with that same infuriating calm. "We need to determine if eliminating that energy source weakens its hold on you."

"There's only dark magic in my veins," Bloom countered, her voice rising slightly. "Are you seriously suggesting I'm not allowed to use magic at all? In a school where practically every class is built around magical application?" The absurdity of it made her want to laugh or scream—she wasn't sure which.

"That's not accurate," Valtor said, and now there was something sharper in his tone—the voice of a professor correcting a fundamental misunderstanding. "Magic itself is neither dark nor light. It's neutral energy. What determines its nature is the intention behind it, the emotions fueling it, the purpose you direct it toward." His crystal blue eyes held hers steadily. "You've been trained to channel magic through darkness, through negative emotion and destructive intent. I'm suggesting you try focusing it through... different channels."

"That's ridiculous," Bloom said flatly. The idea was so foreign to everything the Ancestral Witches had taught her that it almost didn't compute. Magic was power taken, control enforced, will imposed. There was no "positive channel" for that.

"Bloom," Faragonda interjected gently, her weathered features softening with what appeared to be genuine concern. "Please understand—we're not trying to restrict or punish you. We're trying to help." She leaned forward slightly, her hands folding on the desk. "We're willing to work with you, to provide whatever support and resources you need. But this can only succeed if you're willing to work with us. Cooperation has to go both ways."

Bloom's jaw worked silently for a moment, grinding her teeth as she processed what they were asking. Every instinct screamed at her to refuse, to fight, to reject this transparent attempt to control and monitor her.

But then she remembered last night. Sitting on Cloud Tower's ledge, reminding herself to be cold, calculating, strategic. Alfea was an opportunity—access to archives, to information, to resources Cloud Tower didn't have. And opportunities required patience, required playing the long game.

If she wanted to pursue her real objectives here, she needed to appear compliant. At least superficially.

Slowly, deliberately, Bloom extended her arm toward Valtor. "Fine." The word came out clipped, controlled. "I'll do whatever you're asking since you've been so gracious as to help a mere witch from a sister school." Her tone dripped with false gratitude, sweet enough to cause tooth decay. "After all, it would be terribly rude of me to make your jobs harder when you're working so hard to assist me. And I have a class."

The words were perfect—cooperative, grateful, appropriate. But her expression told an entirely different story. Her golden eyes remained cold and calculating, her smile didn't reach past her lips, and the set of her shoulders suggested a predator temporarily accepting a leash while plotting how to slip free.

Faragonda's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. Griselda's expression grew more skeptical, her lips pressing into a thin line of obvious doubt. Even Valtor's pleasant mask flickered for just a moment, something sharper showing through—recognition, perhaps, that this girl was playing a game and had no intention of genuine cooperation.

But Bloom held her arm steady, waiting for the bracelet, her false smile never wavering.

If they wanted to play at helping her, she'd play at being helped. And while they were focused on their spirit-hunting therapy sessions, she'd be focused on what really mattered.

The bracelet clicked into place around her wrist, cool against her skin, and Bloom felt its magic activate immediately—a subtle pressure, a watchful presence monitoring her every magical impulse.

She hated it already.

But she kept smiling, kept playing her part, because that's what weapons did. They adapted. They survived. And they struck when their enemies least expected it.

Griselda led Bloom through Alfea's pristine corridors with brisk, no-nonsense efficiency, her heels clicking against polished marble floors that practically gleamed with maintained perfection. Everything here was so aggressively bright—sunlight streaming through tall windows, pastel-painted walls, decorative flowers in vases that probably refreshed themselves with magic. It made Bloom's eyes ache after Cloud Tower's comfortable shadows.

They stopped before a door marked with a delicate placard bearing room numbers and names in elegant script. Not a private room, Bloom noted with resignation. She'd be sharing space with actual fairies. Wonderful.

"This is your dormitory," Griselda announced, knocking twice before opening the door without waiting for a response. Clearly, privacy was negotiable when you were the vice principal.

The common room beyond was spacious and decorated with that same irritating cheerfulness—soft furniture, plants everywhere, large windows, personal touches that suggested multiple occupants. It looked like more than two students lived here, but only two were currently visible.

Two girls emerged from their respective bedroom doors, drawn by the sound of arrival. The moment their eyes landed on Bloom, recognition flashed across all three faces simultaneously.

The music fairy. The plant one. From the infirmary.

Bloom's lips curved into a genuine smirk, because this was simply too perfect.

"What is she doing here?" Musa demanded, her voice sharp with indignation. She crossed her arms, blue-tinted hair practically bristling with hostility as she stared at Bloom like she'd just tracked mud across clean floors—or worse, like she was the mud itself.

"Girls," Griselda said with the practiced patience of someone who'd handled countless student objections over decades, "this is Bloom. She's an exchange student from Cloud Tower and will be residing with you for the duration of her stay at Alfea."

Bloom's smirk widened. Musa's outraged expression was absolutely delicious—better than she'd hoped for. This was going to be entertaining.

"But the exchange program doesn't start for another two weeks," Flora pointed out, her tone more confused than hostile. She stood with her hands clasped before her, gentle and questioning rather than combative. "Why would a student arrive so early?"

"Yeah!" Musa jumped on Flora's reasoning like a lifeline. "And why does a witch have to live with us? Don't you have, I don't know, special accommodations for—" She gestured vaguely at Bloom as if she were a particularly problematic piece of furniture that needed different storage.

"She has a specialized project that can only be conducted here at Alfea," Griselda explained, her tone brooking no argument despite the girls' obvious displeasure. "Headmistress Griffin personally requested that Miss Faragonda accommodate Bloom ahead of the official program start date. It's an exceptional circumstance." She paused, letting that sink in before adding, "Flora, Bloom will be sharing your room during her stay."

Flora's expression flickered—surprise, uncertainty, maybe a hint of suspicion—but she nodded slowly. Her nature-based empathy was clearly warring with reasonable caution about rooming with someone from Cloud Tower.

"I should mention," Griselda continued, her sharp gaze moving between the fairy students, "that some of you—particularly you, Flora, given your proximity—may witness unusual occurrences connected to Bloom's project. These incidents are expected and being monitored by faculty."

"Her entire presence here is an unusual occurrence," Musa muttered, loud enough to be clearly heard but quiet enough to maintain plausible deniability about whether it was meant as a direct comment.

Griselda's throat clearing was sharp and pointed, her eyes narrowing behind her glasses with clear annoyance at the interruption. "Bloom has been thoroughly informed of Alfea's rules and regulations. She is prohibited from using dark magic during her stay." Her gaze swept over both fairies with administrative authority. "You are to report immediately to myself, Miss Faragonda, or Professor Valtor if Bloom disturbs you, harms you in any way, or if you observe concerning behavior related to her project. Am I understood?"

"Her presence already disturbs me," Musa said, this time directly and deliberately. She met Griselda's gaze with teenage defiance barely tempered by respect for authority. "Does that count?"

"Am I clear?" Griselda's voice rose slightly, taking on that commanding tone that vice principals perfected through years of dealing with difficult students. It wasn't quite a shout, but it carried unmistakable weight—the sound of someone whose patience had limits and those limits were approaching.

Both Flora and Musa nodded quickly, though Musa's nod was distinctly more reluctant than Flora's.

Griselda held their gazes for another moment, ensuring compliance, before turning to Bloom. "Your belongings will be delivered shortly. Flora will show you where everything is. Remember—any violations of school rules will be reported directly to Headmistress Griffin as well as dealt with here."

The unspoken message was clear: You're being watched. Behave.

"Of course, Miss Griselda," Bloom said with that same false politeness she'd used in Faragonda's office. "I wouldn't dream of causing trouble in such a... welcoming environment." Her golden eyes flicked meaningfully toward Musa, her smirk never quite disappearing.

Griselda made a sound that might have been skepticism or resignation—possibly both—before turning on her heel and departing with sharp, efficient steps. The door closed behind her with a decisive click, sealing Bloom inside with her new roommates.

The silence that followed was thick and uncomfortable.

Musa stared at Bloom with undisguised hostility, arms still crossed, clearly debating whether to say something cutting or just storm back into her room. Flora stood uncertainly between them, her gentle nature probably screaming at her to be welcoming while her common sense warned that welcoming a Cloud Tower witch might be spectacularly stupid.

Bloom took in the room properly now—noting exits, window positions, the layout that would become her temporary territory. She dropped her bag casually on the nearest chair, claiming space with deliberate nonchalance.

"So," she said finally, breaking the silence with something almost conversational. "Which room is mine, plant fairy?"

Flora's expression tightened slightly at the dismissive nickname, but she maintained her composure. "This way," she said quietly, moving toward one of the bedroom doors. "I'll show you."

Musa made a disgusted sound and retreated to her own room, her door closing with more force than strictly necessary but not quite slamming—probably aware that Griselda hadn't gone far enough yet to avoid hearing actual rule violations.

Bloom followed Flora, that smirk still playing at her lips. This was already more entertaining than she'd anticipated. Living with hostile fairies who clearly didn't want her here, being monitored constantly, forced to pretend she was cooperating with their ridiculous spirit-cure program...

And all the while, she'd have access to everything Alfea tried to hide behind its pretty facade.

"Here's your space," Flora said, gesturing to the empty half of her room. "Bed, desk, closet—everything you'll need." Her voice carried that gentle politeness that seemed inherent to nature fairies, though Bloom detected an undercurrent of wariness beneath the courtesy.

The room was exactly what Bloom expected from a plant fairy: botanical overload. Vines trailed artfully along the walls, potted flowers crowded the windowsill in a riot of colors, hanging plants cascaded from ceiling hooks, and what looked like a small tree occupied one corner. The air smelled green—fresh and living in a way that felt alien after Cloud Tower's stone and shadow.

"As you can see, I have quite a few plants," Flora continued, a hint of apologetic defensiveness creeping into her tone. "If any of them bother you, just let me know. But they're all well-behaved, so they shouldn't cause problems."

Bloom's eyebrow arched. "Well-behaved?" She glanced at a particularly large fern that seemed to be leaning in their direction with what might have been curiosity. "They're plants, not puppies."

"They're alive," Flora said, and now there was a touch of firmness in her gentle voice—the kind of quiet conviction that suggested she'd had this argument before and wouldn't back down. "Some of them have distinct personalities. They respond to emotion, to energy, to how they're treated." Her hand brushed affectionately against a vine that seemed to curl toward her touch. "They're not just decorations."

"Right." Bloom's tone made it clear she found this perspective somewhere between amusing and absurd. She eyed the plants with the assessment of someone calculating potential obstacles. "I'll try not to accidentally incinerate any of them, but no promises."

Flora's expression shifted—concern flickering across her features. "You have fire-based powers?"

The rarest and most powerful fire in the Magic Dimension, Bloom thought with dark satisfaction. The Dragon Flame itself, though you don't need to know that.

But aloud, she simply nodded. "That's right. Fire magic." She paused, then added with deliberate casualness, "I also smoke. Cigarettes. So you might want to warn your plants about that too."

"We're not allowed to smoke on school grounds," Flora said quickly, her tone shifting to something more serious. "It's against Alfea regulations."

Bloom shrugged, completely unbothered by this information. "Too bad. I need my nicotine." She dropped her bag onto the empty bed—her bed now—with casual disregard for Flora's obvious discomfort. "What else aren't we allowed to do here? Curse? Drink? Eat junk food?" Her lips curved into a smirk. "Maybe there's a bedtime? Lights out at ten like we're children?"

"Well, not exactly—" Flora started, clearly preparing to explain Alfea's actual curfew policies.

"Can you show me the library?" Bloom interrupted, having exactly zero interest in a comprehensive review of fairy school rules. She turned to face Flora fully, her golden eyes sharp and focused. "I like to read. And I need to start researching for this 'project' everyone keeps mentioning." The word 'project' carried faint mockery, as if she found the euphemism amusing.

Flora blinked at the abrupt change of subject, her mouth still half-open with whatever she'd been about to say. "Oh. Um, sure..." She recovered her composure quickly, that ingrained politeness reasserting itself. "The library is in the main academic building. I can take you there now if you'd like."

"Perfect." Bloom was already moving toward the door, clearly expecting Flora to follow. She paused at the threshold, glancing back with that same calculating expression. "How extensive is your collection? Ancient texts? Historical records? Magical theory archives?"

"It's... quite comprehensive," Flora said carefully, following Bloom out of the room. "We have materials dating back centuries, though some of the older or more sensitive texts require special permission to access."

"Special permission." Bloom's smile sharpened. "Interesting. Who grants that permission?"

"Usually Professor Wizgiz for general historical materials, or Professor Palladium for advanced magical theory. Headmistress Faragonda for anything considered restricted or dangerous." Flora watched Bloom's expression carefully, clearly trying to gauge why a Cloud Tower witch would be so immediately interested in restricted materials.

"Good to know," Bloom said, her tone light but her mind clearly cataloging this information for future use.

They passed through the common room where Musa had strategically positioned herself on the couch, presumably to glare at Bloom as she passed. She didn't disappoint—her blue eyes tracked Bloom's movement with undisguised suspicion and dislike.

"Going somewhere?" Musa asked, though it was less a question and more an accusation wrapped in casual words.

"Library," Bloom replied without slowing down. "Unless that's also prohibited for witches?"

"It's open to all students," Flora interjected quickly, probably trying to prevent whatever confrontation was brewing. "Come on, I'll show you the way."

As they left the dormitory and stepped into Alfea's sunlit corridors, Bloom's mind was already working. Library access was good—better than expected, actually. If they had historical records about Domino, information about the Dragon Flame's previous guardians, research on Oritel's legendary sword...

She just needed to figure out how to access the restricted sections without raising alarms. And how to do her research without Flora or the other fairies—or worse, Valtor—figuring out what she was really looking for.

"So," Bloom began as they walked through Alfea's sun-drenched corridors, her tone carefully casual, "this exchange program. Its whole purpose is connecting witches and fairies to fight some common enemy, right? That's what they told you?"

She'd chosen Flora deliberately. The nature fairy seemed like the type who valued honesty, who might let information slip if approached correctly. Not stupid, but perhaps... idealistic enough to believe in the possibility of trust.

"Yes," Flora nodded, though her answer came with visible hesitation. She glanced sideways at Bloom, wariness flickering across her gentle features.

Bloom could practically see the wheels turning in Flora's mind. The fairy was clearly thrown off by Bloom's appearance, her attitude, the sharp edges that didn't fit Flora's worldview of how people should interact. But more importantly, Flora was debating something—weighing whether she should or could share information with a Cloud Tower witch she'd just met.

Not as naive as she appeared, then. Good to know.

"Actually," Flora continued slowly, as if testing the waters, "some of my friends are on a mission right now. One that's related to our enemy."

Bloom's interest sharpened immediately, though she kept her expression merely curious rather than predatory. "A mission? So you know who this enemy is?" Her golden eyes narrowed slightly, snake-like in their focus.

"You don't?" Flora looked genuinely surprised, then immediately uncertain. "I suppose it's not public information yet. I think... maybe we should wait for the professors to make an official announcement."

So she does know. Bloom filed that away, adjusting her approach. "Well, since I'm an exchange student who came here to learn, train, and..." She paused deliberately, letting the word hang. "...bond with fairy students, we'll find out pretty soon anyway. Might as well tell me now."

Flora's sideways glance was distinctly suspicious this time, her steps slowing slightly.

Bloom felt irritation prickling under her skin but forced it down. She needed to maintain the facade, needed Flora to think she was being genuine.

"Look," Bloom said, softening her tone into something that approximated friendly—or at least, what she imagined friendly might sound like. "I know you have every reason not to trust me. I'm a witch, I've got the attitude, and our first meeting couple weeks ago wasn't exactly... pleasant." She managed what might have been a self-deprecating grimace. "But what if we made an exchange? I tell you about my project—the real reason I'm here early—and you tell me who this enemy is. Fair trade. Might even help us trust each other a bit."

Flora made a long, thoughtful humming sound, clearly weighing the offer. "I am curious about your project," she admitted. "What could require you to come to Alfea specifically, two weeks early..." Her eyes searched Bloom's face, looking for deception. "And I suppose you'll learn about our enemy when the program officially starts anyway. There should be no harm in telling you."

"Pretty straightforward reasoning," Bloom observed. "I respect that."

Flora took a breath, seeming to come to a decision. "Alright. You first."

"My 'project' isn't actually a project," Bloom said, and the truth came easily because it was useful truth, carefully edited. "Something from Lake Roccaluce is haunting me. A spirit. It invades my dreams and drags me to this school while I'm unconscious. Remember when you found me a couple weeks ago? That's what happened—I woke up on your grounds with no memory of getting there."

Flora's eyes widened, genuine concern replacing suspicion.

"The spirit comes every night," Bloom continued, her voice taking on an edge of frustration that wasn't entirely faked. "And one time, while fighting it in my dream, I... incinerated half my dormitory. Nearly killed my roommates." She met Flora's shocked expression steadily. "Griffin and Faragonda think that since the spirit keeps dragging me here, staying at Alfea might somehow resolve the issue. So here I am. Fair warning though—if it happens again, your plants might become collateral damage."

"Oh my," Flora breathed, one hand coming up to her chest. "That's what Miss Griselda meant about unusual occurrences."

"Right. But they don't want this information spreading around." Bloom's tone implied significance, creating a sense of shared confidence. "So telling you is actually a risk for me."

The unspoken message was clear: I trusted you with this. Your turn.

Flora bit her lip, then nodded slowly. "A few of my friends - Layla, Stella, and three specialists - are on a mission right now. They went to an underground castle to rescue the pixies who were kidnapped." Her expression grew more serious. "The creature who took them is called Shadow Phoenix. Or Lord Darkar."

Bloom's expression shifted, going still and focused. She'd never heard that name before. Not from the Ancestral Witches, not in any of Cloud Tower's lessons, nowhere.

"According to Miss Faragonda," Flora continued, her voice dropping slightly as if the information itself was dangerous, "he was the master of three ancient witches. He commanded them to destroy the planet Domino."

Bloom's eyes widened involuntarily, genuine shock breaking through her carefully maintained composure.

The master of the Ancestral Witches? That couldn't be right. They'd never mentioned serving anyone, never suggested they answered to a higher power. They were the power—ancient, terrible, unstoppable. The idea that someone commanded them...

And then she felt it again.

That pull. That strange, indefinable sensation that made her magic stir restlessly beneath her skin, that made awareness prickle along her spine like electricity.

"Oh, we're here," Flora said, gesturing ahead to where the library's grand entrance came into view. Then her expression brightened with recognition. "Oh! Professor Valtor."

Bloom's head snapped up, following Flora's gaze.

Valtor approached from the opposite end of the corridor, moving with that same fluid grace she remembered from the morning. His navy vest caught the afternoon light streaming through tall windows, gold embroidery glinting. Those crystal blue eyes found them immediately, assessing.

"Hello, Flora," he said warmly, then his gaze shifted to include Bloom with considerably less warmth. "Showing our newest student around?"

"She asked to see the library," Flora explained, her natural politeness making her more talkative than she'd been with Bloom alone. "Bloom said she's very fond of reading."

"Hm." Valtor's gaze moved to Bloom slowly, almost lazily, but there was nothing lazy about the intelligence behind those eyes. "I can respect that. Literature is the foundation of all learning." A pause. "Are you planning to research your... project?"

Bloom didn't answer immediately. Her mind was elsewhere, spinning through implications.

Shadow Phoenix. Lord Darkar. Master of the Ancestral Witches. Why had they never mentioned him? Why was his name completely absent from everything they'd taught her?

And why did that damned magical pull intensify every time Valtor was nearby?

She realized both Flora and Valtor were watching her, waiting for a response. Flora looked mildly concerned. Valtor looked... curious. Calculating.

"Maybe," Bloom said finally, her voice more guarded than she'd intended. "I need to understand what I'm dealing with."

"A sensible approach," Valtor said, and something in his tone suggested layers of meaning she couldn't quite parse. "Though I should mention—some materials in our library are restricted. If you need access to specialized texts about spirits or spiritual phenomena, you'll need to request permission."

Of course there are restrictions. Bloom's jaw tightened fractionally. "I'll keep that in mind."

"I'll be in my office this evening if you need guidance on where to begin your research," Valtor continued, his tone perfectly professional. "Second floor of the faculty wing. Office hours are posted on the door."

It wasn't quite an order to come see him, but it wasn't exactly a suggestion either.

"How generous," Bloom said, her tone ambiguous enough to be either genuine or sarcastic.

Valtor's lips curved slightly—that ghost of a smile that made her want to set something on fire. "I do try." He inclined his head to Flora. "Enjoy your library visit. And Miss Bloom—do try not to incinerate any of the books. Some of them are quite irreplaceable."

He continued past them down the corridor.

Bloom watched him go, that pull gradually fading as distance increased between them. Her mind churned with questions, suspicions, fragments of information that refused to form a complete picture.

Shadow Phoenix. Valtor's mysterious age. The magical resonance she felt around him. The Ancestral Witches serving someone they never mentioned.

Nothing made sense. And Bloom hated not understanding things.

"He's actually quite nice once you get to know him," Flora offered quietly, apparently misinterpreting Bloom's intense expression. "Professor Valtor, I mean. He seems stern, but he really does care about students."

Bloom made a noncommittal sound, turning toward the library entrance.

She had research to do. And now she had far more questions than she'd started with.