The hallway stretched out ahead of them, quiet and clean.
No foot traffic. No late students. Just the sound of their boots on polished stone and the faint buzz of the upper hall lights.
Merlin didn't look back.
Whatever was in that courtyard hadn't followed them physically.
But the feeling stayed.
Right behind his ribs.
A slow pull. Like something reaching through the ground with hands that hadn't taken shape yet.
Elara walked beside him, silent. She hadn't sheathed her weapon. Not completely.
They passed through the eastern arch.
Nathan stood in the middle of the hall.
Shoulders slouched. Bag half-zipped. A rolled-up training mat in one hand and a stick of dried fruit in the other.
"You two look like hell," he said.
Merlin didn't say anything.
Elara didn't, either.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Not even a sarcastic greeting? That bad?"
His gaze swept over them. Elara's stance. Merlin's face. The way neither of them met his eyes.
Then the snack disappeared into his pocket.
"What happened?" he asked, quieter now.
"We handled it," Elara said.
"That's not an answer."
Merlin stepped past him.
"Okay, slow down. What did I miss? Was there a fight?"
"Then why do you look like someone peeled your skin off and whispered at the muscle underneath?"
Elara let out a slow breath.
Nathan glanced at Merlin again. His expression flattened.
"You're doing the thing again."
"The 'I already know what's going on but I'm not going to tell you because I think it's safer if you don't know' thing."
Merlin didn't deny it.
Nathan stopped walking.
"So you're not gonna tell me."
Nathan stared at him.
Then looked at Elara.
"Fine," he muttered. "But if I die because I walked into some cursed hallway barefoot, I'm haunting you personally."
Elara's voice was soft.
"Don't go near the garden stair."
No one said anything for the next minute.
But Merlin could feel Nathan thinking.
The way he adjusted the strap on his shoulder. The small twitch in his fingers like he wanted to ask again but knew better.
But the questions were already forming behind his eyes.
Merlin's gaze drifted to the arch behind them.
Nothing about this felt quiet anymore.
Merlin turned left at the end of the corridor.
Nathan followed without asking.
Elara stayed close. Her steps were quieter now. No tension in the stride, but no trust in the silence either.
The side hall they took was older. No windows. Just long stone walls and doorframes built before the current headmistress ever arrived.
It led to an unused study room, one of the ones without enchantments or sound filters. No students liked it for that exact reason.
Merlin pushed open the door.
Inside, a square table sat in the center. Dusty. Two broken chairs pushed to the side. A cracked chalkboard on the back wall with a half-erased rune diagram from last year.
He stepped in. Elara followed. Nathan hesitated just long enough to be obvious.
Then he stepped through and closed the door.
No one said anything for a while.
Nathan leaned against the wall near the door, arms crossed, chewing at the edge of a hangnail.
"You're not going to tell me everything," he said.
"But you're going to tell me something."
Merlin looked at him.
Not hard. Not cold. Just tired.
Nathan sighed and dropped into the chair across from him.
She stood by the door, spear still slung along her back, arms folded. Watching the hallway through the narrow slit in the wood.
Nathan stared at the table.
"Alright," he said. "No more jokes. No more questions you're not going to answer."
"You're both serious. Really serious. And whatever you walked into, it wasn't just a weird magic anomaly."
Nathan tapped his fingers against the table.
"You think it's dangerous."
"You think it's going to spread."
Nathan leaned back in the chair.
Elara looked over her shoulder.
"He's not wrong," she said.
That was the first time she'd sided with him in weeks.
"Okay," he said. "So it's real. It's serious. You two didn't start it. But you were the first to see it."
He looked at Merlin again.
"You're not surprised."
Because he'd read this scene before.
He hadn't thought it would happen.
Nathan was still watching him.
"I'm not asking you to tell me what it is," he said. "But I need to know how bad it can get."
Merlin looked at the cracked chalkboard.
"If it opens," he said. "No one in our year survives."
Nathan didn't flinch.
"Then we make sure it doesn't open."
Merlin didn't answer.
Nathan adjusted the strap of his bag and looked at them both.
"You're not the only ones who can take things seriously," he muttered.
Then he opened the door.
The silence he left behind wasn't empty.
Not loud. Just final.
The sound of Nathan's steps faded down the corridor, softer with each second until it disappeared completely.
Still, Merlin didn't move.
She stood near the window now, what was left of the late afternoon pressing in through warped glass. The light hit the edge of her cheekbone, just enough to draw the sharpness of her expression into focus.
She didn't look away.
Merlin ran a hand down his face, slow. His palm felt colder than it should have. Or maybe the room was colder. Hard to tell anymore.
"You trust him," she said.
He let the words hang in the air for a moment.
"I trust his instinct."
"That's not the same."
"No," he said. "It's not."
Elara turned back to the room. The light shifted with her, slipping off the wall and falling back into shadow.
"He doesn't know what it is," she said.
"He doesn't need to."
"And when it spreads?"
Merlin didn't answer.
Elara exhaled once, barely a sound.
Then she stepped away from the window and leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.
He glanced at her. Then looked at the table again.
Not the dust. Not the scratches.
Four chairs. One broken.
He remembered the scene from the book. Different school. Different students. But the moment looked the same. Small room. Late light. Three people trying to act normal in the shadow of something they didn't understand.
In the book, the next day, two of them were gone.
The third turned traitor.
He remembered thinking the twist was obvious.
But it didn't feel obvious now.
Not when he could still feel the breath of the crack under his skin like a second pulse that didn't belong to him.
[AFFINITY STABILIZATION: UNLOCK PENDING]
[DOMAIN PRESSURE: STATIC HOLD — INTERNAL ACTIVITY DETECTED]
[CAUTION: SEEDING CYCLE NOT COMPLETE]
Whatever the vines were trying to anchor hadn't finished growing.
And that meant the time left was shrinking.
Elara didn't ask why. Just followed.
They stepped out of the room, one after the other.
The hallway was still empty.
No voices. No footsteps. Just the old building breathing slow and shallow, like something underneath it had started listening.
Merlin checked the thread in his coat pocket. Still coiled. Still unbroken.
He didn't need to look at the vines again.
He knew they were still there.
Too narrow. Too quiet. One of those places that never quite felt like it belonged in the Academy.
Seraphs boots clicked against the tile as she moved, faster than usual.
'Why is it always colder here?'
She glanced at the wall sconces. None of them were lit. No glowstone threads in the floor either. Just dark stone, rough edges, and silence.
'There's supposed to be at least one source of light here.'
She slowed near the corner.
The light ahead was too dim. Not gone. Just faded.
She adjusted the strap on her shoulder, fingers brushing the hilt of her dagger. Not drawn. Not nervous.
A breeze touched her cheek.
Not indoors. Not here.
'Okay. No. That was real.'
Her eyes narrowed. She took one step forward.
The stone under her boot felt soft.
She stepped back immediately.
Cracks. Thin ones. Branching out from the base of the planter wall like something underneath had shifted.
'Nope. That wasn't there this morning.'
She crouched slowly. Ran two fingers over the line. Dry. Cool. But not dead.
'Like skin before it splits.'
She stood again. Fast.
One more step backward.
It came from the planter. Silent. Fast. Wet.
Wrapped around her ankle before she could react.
Her leg jerked. The vine pulled.
She reached for her blade, yanked it free. Steel flashed in the dark.
She slashed down. Hard.
The vine cut loose with a slick, wet snap.
Another one hit her wrist before she could breathe.
She pulled again. Foot slipped. The floor beneath her flexed.
Not broke. Not cracked.
Like it was breathing.
'This isn't happening. This can't be happening.'
She stabbed again. Missed.
The ground opened under her.
A third vine caught her around the waist.
Her feet left the floor. Blade dropped from her fingers. The hilt hit stone with a loud metallic crack.
She clawed at the edge.
'Someone's gotta be nearby. Someone has to hear this.'
The darkness below opened wider.
And the hallway sealed shut.
Like nothing ever happened.