I didn't sleep that night.
Not really.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face—Lucian Drelmont's original reflection, flickering in the shard like a memory I wasn't supposed to carry. Not angry. Not hateful. Just... tired. As if disappointed I'd woken up at all.
By morning, I had a headache, a dozen failed rune sketches, and a strong suspicion that something was leaking through the mirrors across campus.
I wasn't wrong.
When I entered the classroom, the air was off.
It wasn't the students. They straightened, smirking or sighing in their usual half-cocked rhythms. Mira raised an eyebrow. Julien offered a lazy salute. Felix looked like he'd slept in a ditch. Cassandra, as always, sat poised with that eerie silence that was becoming less of a quirk and more of a warning.
No, the room felt wrong.
Specifically—the mirrors.
