"Raven."
The name escapes as a whisper, but it carries enough shock to draw everyone's attention.
She stands slightly behind Damien, and seeing her again after our last confrontation makes several pieces click into place. The way she moved during our fight, the particular grace that seemed familiar but wrong?—
"She's a hybrid," I mutter, the realization bringing new understanding to old encounters.
During our confrontation, when Damien had insisted she wasn't a hybrid, I'd assumed he was lying or ignorant. But now, seeing her here, seeing the particular way she holds herself that speaks of predator wearing prey's clothing?—
Half-feline. Half-vampire.
The combination should be impossible. Felines and vampires don't typically mix—their magics are fundamentally opposed, one drawing from life and cycles while the other feeds on death and stasis. Yet here she stands, proof that impossible is just another word for hasn't been done yet.
Damien shrugs with affected casualness.
"I have to be a jack of all trades. Can't be revealing my secrets, especially to those who don't deserve it."
His laugh is ugly—not the sound itself but what it contains.
Mockery, superiority, the particular glee of someone who mistakes cruelty for cleverness.
His eyes scan our group with the assessment of someone cataloging weapons to use later. They pause on each of us—dismissing Mortimer as mere scholar, calculating how touse Atticus's vampire pride against him, measuring Cassius's shadows for weakness.
Then they land on Nikolai.
The pause is deliberate.
Theatrical.
Designed to draw attention to what comes next.
"Surprised this lot isn't embarrassed to be around you."
Each word is placed with surgical precision, designed to cut deepest where the wounds haven't healed.
"Guess you still have some pride left despite everyone stripping it from you, huh?"
The cruelty is so casual it takes my breath away. Not heated anger or passionate hatred but cold amusement, as if Nikolai's pain is simply entertainment to be consumed when bored.
I'm moving before the last word finishes, protective fury overriding Cassius's restraining shadows through sheer force of will.
But I'm not the fastest to react.
Shadow tendrils shoot from Cassius with lethal intent—not warning shots but killing strikes aimed at every vital point on Damien's body. The shadows move with the particular fury of someone whose protective instincts have been triggered beyond restraint.
They never reach their target.
Metal screams against shadow as Raven intercepts, a scythe appearing in her hands with speed that speaks of spatial magic rather than simple quick-draw. She doesn't just block the tendrils—she redirects them, using their own momentum against them.
The scythe spins in her hands with deadly grace, building momentum for a return strike that would bisect anyone in its path.
Another scythe intercepts hers.
The clash of metal on metal rings through the oasis with a sound like funeral bells.
Zeke stands between us and them, no longer in cat form but fully human, holding a scythe I didn't know he could possess so quickly. The weapons lock, grinding against each other as their wielders test strength and resolve.
"It's rather displeasing to fight before the gates of the Academy outside of trials," Zeke says, his voice carrying that musical quality that makes threats sound like lullabies.
