Morning came slowly to Reichenbach Academy.
Not with sunlight, there wasn't much of that this high in the mountains, but with a gradual softening of the dark.
The light seeped through the windows in pale blue tones, brushing over stone walls and wooden floors like something careful not to wake what was sleeping.
Thorn sat at her desk, one leg pulled up into her chair, chin resting lightly against her knuckles as she watched Xaiver sleep.
He was still.
Too still.
Across the room, Pippa moved quietly, the soft clink of ceramic barely breaking the silence as she poured hot water into a mug. Steam curled upward, twisting lazily in the cold air.
Neither of them had slept.
Not really.
Not when Thorn had come in with a beaten and bruised Xavier carried by a stretcher of shadows in the middle of the night. Thorn hadn't explained what happened, but Pippa didn't need her to.
Her face had said it all.
"You're staring," Pippa said softly, not looking up from what she was doing, the kettle making a soft clink as she set it back down on its base.
Thorn didn't blink. "I know."
Pippa glanced over her shoulder, then, eyes flicking between Thorn and Xavier, where he lay on the bed, blankets half-tangled around him.
"He should've woken up by now."
There it was.
The thing they'd both been avoiding saying out loud.
Thorn's jaw tightened slightly. "I healed him."
"I know you did, I watched you do it."
"Then he's fine, it's just taking longer than normal... He's a tall guy."
Pippa turned fully this time, leaning back against her desk, arms loosely crossed, mirroring Thorn without actually meaning to.
"This is the second time this semester."
Thorn didn't answer at first.
"Was I supposed to let him bleed out?"
Pippa sighed, looking down at her. "Of course not. I'm just saying, clearly, this isn't safe for any of us. You're not always going to be there when one of us gets hurt. Xavier's luck is eventually going to run out."
Thorn's brow twitched as she looked down at her lap.
"It wasn't luck," she muttered. "I knew he was in danger."
Pippa's head snapped toward her. "What?"
A beat.
"What do you mean you knew? Did you have a vision?"
Thorn inhaled slowly, fingers tightening slightly around the cloth in her hands.
"I'm not sure."
Because she wasn't.
She hadn't had a vision since before she became… this.
She'd assumed that part of her, whatever fragile, flickering connection she used to have to the psychic world, had burned out when everything else in her changed.
But last night?
Her hand stilled.
"I was in the room," Thorn said quietly, gaze unfocused now. "I was tuning my violin. Everything was normal."
Pippa didn't interrupt this time.
"I wasn't thinking about him," Thorn continued. "Not really. Not in a way that mattered."
There was a small pause, but not long enough to let that sit.
"Then it just... hit."
Her fingers curled.
"Not like a vision. At least, not one that I've ever had."
Her voice lowered, almost like she was trying to understand it as she said it.
"But it felt like something grabbed me. Right here."
She pressed her hand flat against her sternum.
"Like my body knew something was wrong before I did."
Pippa's expression shifted, more focused now. "What did you see?"
Thorn hesitated.
"That's the thing," she said slowly. "I didn't see it."
She paused for a moment, already aware of how strange this was going to sound.
"…I felt it."
Pippa frowned. "Felt what?"
Thorn swallowed, her gaze locked onto the smooth grooves of the floor.
"The ground."
What followed was silence.
Pippa blinked. "What?"
"I felt the ground," Thorn repeated, quieter now, her brows pulling together. "Cold. Rough. Like stone under my hands."
Her breathing slowed, as if she were slipping back into it without meaning to.
"I couldn't breathe right. My chest..." She pressed her fingers lightly against her ribs. "It hurt. Like something was crushing it."
Pippa straightened slightly.
"Thorn…"
"I could hear it," Thorn continued, barely above a whisper now. "Not words. Not at first. Just ringing. Like my head had been hit."
Her eyes flickered up to catch Pippa's concerned gaze before she looked away as if it had burned her.
"Then there was this pull," she added. "At my throat. Like something was dragging me."
Pippa's face went still.
"You're describing—"
"I know what it sounds like," Thorn snapped softly, pulling herself out of it just enough to breathe. "But I wasn't there."
Her jaw tightened.
"I was still here, in the dorm room."
Silence pressed in between them.
Pippa didn't move.
Didn't joke.
Didn't deflect.
"…Did you see him?" she asked carefully.
Thorn shook her head immediately.
"No. I didn't see Xavier. Not exactly."
Pippa's eyes narrowed. "Thorn."
"I didn't see him," She continued, "I saw Marcellus, but not with my own eyes."
Her fingers flexed slightly in her lap.
"I didn't question it," she admitted. "I didn't have to. It was just... there."
A certainty.
Unshakable.
"I knew where he was," she added, her voice tightening again. "I didn't have, like, directions. Not like a map."
She glanced up at Pippa, something unsettled flickering behind her eyes.
"But I could feel the distance."
Pippa's breath caught slightly as she tightened her grip around her own mug of tea.
"Like a tracking device?"
Thorn's gaze dropped again.
"Yeah, sort of," she said quietly.
More silence followed, longer this time.
Pippa pushed off the desk slowly, stepping closer. "That's not a vision."
"I know."
"It's not even remote viewing."
"I know."
Pippa studied her carefully.
"…Did it stop when you found him?"
Thorn's shoulders stiffened.
"It did, like as soon as I got close enough, I stopped feeling it."
Pippa's expression shifted, something like understanding brushing the edges of it, but not fully forming.
"And then?" she asked softly.
Thorn hesitated before she looked away.
"And then I ended it. My shadows were finally on my side, working with me instead of against me. To save him."
Pippa exhaled slowly, running a hand through her hair.
"…Okay."
But it wasn't okay. Thorn couldn't explain why, or at least, she didn't want to.
But it was all Pippa had.
She looked back at Thorn again, sharper this time. "You've never had anything like that before?"
"No."
"Not even close?"
"No."
Another pause.
"…It didn't feel like mine, Pip."
Thorn blinked, surprised at herself for the sudden declaration. She hadn't meant to say that.
Pippa caught it immediately. "What?"
Thorn shook her head, like she could take it back. "Nothing."
"No, you don't get to do that," Pippa stepped closer. "What do you mean it didn't feel like yours?"
Thorn exhaled sharply, frustrated now.
"I don't know how to explain it."
"Try."
Thorn sighed deeply before her voice dropped.
"It felt like I was… inside something."
Pippa went very still.
"Not controlling it," Thorn added quickly. "Not changing anything. Just... I don't know..."
She struggled for the word.
"…experiencing it?"
A long silence followed.
Because that? That wasn't normal.
Not for Thorn.
Not for anyone.
It wasn't something either of them had heard about in class or had seen another student do. Maybe not even faculty, some of whom have been studying magic for their entire lives.
Pippa's voice softened, but there was something wary underneath it now. "That's not how your magic is supposed to work. That's not Psychic or Vampiric."
"I know."
"Then what is it?"
Thorn didn't answer because she didn't have one.
"I don't know, and it doesn't matter right now."
Her fingers curled slightly against the desk now, remembering.
"What matters is that he's breathing," Thorn said after a moment, quieter. "And his heart's steady."
Pippa softened a little. "So you've been counting?"
Thorn shot her a look.
Pippa lifted her hands defensively. "I'm just saying, it's very you. Checking that he has a normal resting heart rate."
"It's very necessary."
"Mm."
Pippa picked up one of the mugs and walked over, setting it down on Thorn's desk without a word.
Thorn glanced at it.
"…Thanks."
"You look like you're about to pass out."
"I'm not."
"You haven't slept."
"I don't need—"
"You do," Pippa cut in gently. "Even you do. Especially you do. I don't want these powers, if we can call them that, draining my best friend."
Thorn exhaled through her nose but didn't argue further. She reached for the mug, letting the warmth seep into her hands, grounding herself, just enough.
Her gaze drifted back to Xavier.
He was still, almost too still. Thorn didn't know how long she had been staring, but eventually, his breath hitched.
Both girls froze.
It was small, barely noticeable, but it was there.
Thorn straightened immediately, her chair scraping softly against the floor as she stood.
"Xavier?"
No response.
But his fingers twitched against the blanket.
Pippa moved closer, too, but more slowly, more cautiously. "Okay… that's something."
"Xavier," Thorn said again, sharper this time.
His brow furrowed.
A faint crease formed between his eyebrows, like he was fighting his way up through something thick, something heavy pressing down on him.
Then he took another breath. This one was deeper and more intentional.
His chest rose fully this time, as if his body were remembering how to exist again.
His eyes fluttered.
Once.
Twice.
And then they fully opened. It took him a second to focus and realize where he was. Then his gaze shifted and landed on Thorn.
Relief hit her so fast it almost made her dizzy.
"Hey," she said, softer now, stepping closer without realizing it. "Welcome back."
Xavier blinked slowly, like the world was still catching up to him. "…Did I die?"
Pippa let out a short, breathy laugh. "Not this time."
She turned, already grabbing her phone off the desk. "Now that you're awake, I'm texting Danny to get his ass over here."
Xavier's head tilted slightly toward her voice, wincing as he moved. "Why?" he muttered. "Was there a bet on how long I'd be out?"
Thorn rolled her eyes, and Pippa huffed. "You're not that important."
"Thanks for that, Pippa," he murmured, his voice rough.
He tried to sit up.
Immediately regretted it.
A sharp inhale cut through the room, his face twisting as pain hit him harder than he expected.
"Don't," Thorn said quickly, stepping in and pressing a hand lightly against his shoulder. "I healed the major stuff, but you're still going to feel it."
He stilled under her touch.
Her hand was warm and grounding. He looked at her then, as if checking whether she was actually there.
"…Thank you," he said quietly, reaching up to carefully take her hand in his. "I seriously don't know what would've happened if you didn't show up."
Thorn hesitated, just for a second. The touch had caught her off guard.
His hand was so warm and much bigger than her own. She almost forgot to respond.
"Yeah, well…" she muttered, pulling her hand back a little slower than she needed to. "I couldn't exactly let you keep getting hurt because of me."
Pippa snorted from across the room.
"You two are so transparent," she said, not even bothering to look up from her phone.
Thorn shot her a glare.
"Yeah, yeah," she cut herself off, waving a hand dismissively. "Is your boyfriend coming or not?"
"He's not my boyfriend," Pippa shot back immediately. Then, after a beat, quieter, "But he's on his way."
As if right on cue, the door swung open hard enough to hit the stopper with a sharp thud.
Danny stood in the doorway, slightly out of breath, hair a mess like he'd run the entire way.
"What's up? You said it was an emergen––"
His eyes landed on Xavier.
He blinked.
Then blinked again.
"…Whoa," he said flatly. "What the fuck happened to you?"
"Marcellus," Thorn answered.
Her tone was sharp enough to make Danny flinch.
"Marcellus?" he repeated, confusion pulling his brows together. "The school's golden boy? Why would he do anything to get himself in trouble?"
"He probably did it because he knew he wouldn't get in trouble," Thorn shot back, voice edged.
Danny opened his mouth, then closed it again.
"…Yeah," he muttered. "That checks out."
"That's why I asked you to come over," Pippa cut in, stepping forward, grounding the moment before it could spiral. "This whole situation is getting really dangerous."
That shifted the air.
Immediately.
Thorn pushed off the edge of the bed, arms crossing again like armor snapping back into place. "Between the choir, vengeful students, and the anchors acting up…" she trailed off, jaw tightening. "We need to start being more careful."
Danny nodded slowly, his gaze flicking back to Xavier. "No kidding."
"So," Pippa continued, already moving into action, "we're implementing a buddy system. No one goes anywhere alone."
She glanced down at her phone for half a second, and then all of theirs buzzed at once.
A chorus of notifications.
Xavier frowned faintly, pulling his phone from where it had been half-buried in the blankets.
"I started a group chat," Pippa said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "We check in. Regularly. And I turned on location sharing, so if someone has to be alone, we know where they are."
Xavier's brows pulled together as he forced himself a little more upright, ignoring the way his body protested. "That seems… excessive."
Thorn turned her head slowly, fixing him with a look.
"You're lying in my bed," she said flatly, "after passing out for the second time this semester."
A beat.
"We get to be excessive."
Danny nodded immediately. "Yeah, dude. You're kind of the liability of the group."
"Fantastic," Xavier muttered, dragging a hand over his face. But he didn't argue further. "Fine. Buddy system. Check-ins. Whatever."
His gaze sharpened slightly.
"But what's going on with the anchors?" he asked. "You said they're acting up... How?"
"They're changing," Thorn said.
"Feeding," Pippa added, pacing slowly now, energy building in her movements. "Faster. Stronger."
Thorn's expression darkened. "And not just off presence anymore."
Xavier stilled.
"…Memory," he said quietly. "That's what was happening in the library, right?"
"Right," Thorn confirmed, nodding. "That's why it feels like we're losing pieces. Not just forgetting, like something is taking it."
The room felt colder at that.
Thorn crossed her arms tighter. "And we need to track it."
"How?" Xavier asked.
A moment passed before Pippa spoke up again.
"Ledgers," Pippa said, already moving toward the bookcase, scanning the shelves.
Thorn glanced at her, one brow lifting slightly. "Looks like you finally have a use for all those empty notebooks."
Pippa shot her a smirk without turning around. "You know Barnes & Noble hates to see me coming."
Danny huffed under his breath. "At least you're not the one carrying all of them."
Thorn scoffed lightly, shaking her head. "Better you than me."
"If the anchors are feeding off memory," Pippa continued, pulling a stack of journals free and handing them out, "Then we record it. Before it's gone."
Xavier's eyes lit faintly. "Like… documentation?"
"Exactly."
Thorn hesitated.
For just a second, but it was long enough for Pippa to notice.
To look at her.
Then Thorn nodded once. "Fine."
They moved quickly after that.
Paper.
Ink.
Structure.
Something solid to hold onto.
Rules formed between them, spoken out loud like grounding points—like if they said them clearly enough, they might actually work:
Names.
Relationships.
Anchor order.
Resonance symptoms.
Xavier was the first to move.
Of course, he was.
He took the pen Pippa offered and immediately started writing. No hesitation, no pause. Thorn was almost a little jealous of how easily this came to everyone else.
Ink moved fast and deliberately, filling the page with careful detail.
Names, connections, timelines. Even things that felt too small to matter.
Xavier wrote as if he were trying to outrun something.
Like if he stopped, it would catch up.
Pippa followed, slower. More methodical. Each word is placed with intention.
Danny sat cross-legged on the floor, already distracted, turning his pen over in his hands.
"…Why is there a purple puff on this?" he muttered.
No one answered him.
Thorn stared at her page.
Pen hovering.
Unmoving.
"Thorn," Pippa said gently.
"I know."
She didn't move.
Because writing it down made it real.
Made it permanent.
Made it something that could be lost.
Xavier didn't look up from his page. "You don't have to write everything at once."
She glanced at him.
"…Easy for you to say. You're halfway through a dissertation."
He paused then to look up at her long enough to understand what she wasn't saying.
"This doesn't make you weak, Thorn," he said quietly.
Low enough that it didn't belong to anyone else.
Just her.
The words settled into her chest, pressing against something already raw.
She exhaled slowly and finally pressed pen to paper.
She didn't write like Xavier. It wasn't clean or neat, it wasn't even complete sentences: fragments, half-statements, Names without context, memories without emotion. Facts she could tolerate looking at. People she refused to define.
She stayed carefully away from anything that would require her to admit how she felt.
Because forgetting facts was one thing.
Forgetting that was something else entirely.
Her hand stilled.
She reached into her pocket.
Pulled out the folded note.
The one he'd left her a few mornings before.
Her fingers lingered on it for a second.
Then she unfolded it.
Carefully and quietly so as not to bring any attention to her.
She flipped to the page she'd started for Xavier, just a few small notes, nothing too revealing. Nothing that felt like too much. She hesitated for a moment before taping it in, using her thumbs to flatten it against the page.
Like it mattered.
Because it did.
Even if she wouldn't say why.
A knock came at the door.
Sharp and unexpected.
All of them froze.
Pippa moved first, crossing the room cautiously and pulling the door open just a crack.
"Hello?"
Alarie stood on the other side, and she looked different.
Like she'd been moving too fast for too long.
"I don't have time," she said immediately, stepping forward and pressing a stack of journals into Pippa's hands.
"Wait... What?" Pippa started.
"Maren's snooping," Alarie cut in, her voice low and urgent. "She's looking where she shouldn't be."
Thorn stood slowly. "What does that mean?"
"It means you keep these safe," Alarie said, glancing between them.
"Don't leave them out. Don't let anyone know you have them. Lock them away if you have to; the faculty can't go through students' things if they have a lock on them."
Xavier pushed himself off the bed slightly. "Alarie, hold on. You're not making any sense."
But she was already backing away, hands held out in front of her.
"I'll come back when I can," she said.
"You better," Thorn muttered.
Alarie gave her a look, something almost like good luck.
Then, with that, she was gone.
Just like that.
The hallway was empty.
The air was still.
Pippa slowly closed the door.
Looked down at the journals in her hands.
Then back at Thorn.
"…Well."
Thorn stared at them.
At the weight of them.
At what they meant.
And for the first time since the night before, something colder than fear settled in her chest.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "…well."