Thornhill Academy. Chapter 79

The rest of the week leading up to the Moonlight Festival bled together in a blur of routine and anticipation. Classes, training, meals, nightmares. Repeat. The mornings were a mix of frantic students whispering about fated bonds and Professors pretending they weren’t just as curious. The air at the academy buzzed with charged energy, a strange mix of perfume and power, of expectation that clung to everyone’s skin like humidity. Evander shadowed me through most of it. Literally. My dragon-obsessed, overprotective, six-foot-something shadow. If I so much as breathed in the direction of danger, he was there, leaning against a doorframe, golden eyes watching, arms folded, pretending he wasn’t guarding me.

“Don’t you have your own classes?” I’d asked him one morning when he followed me to breakfast.

He only smiled. “My dragon says you’re more interesting than those.”

He was impossible. And wonderful. And infuriating. Tessa, on the other hand, had reached peak excitement levels. Every spare moment, she dragged me somewhere new, trying on accessories, debating enchanted perfumes, testing glamours that glittered and smoked. If she wasn’t planning the festival, she was talking about it, usually at a speed that made my head spin.

“Imagine it,” she gushed one afternoon, flopping dramatically across my sofa. “The moonlight, the music, the moment the bonds reveal. What if I get one of the professors!?”

I choked on my tea. “You have issues.”

“Maybe,” she said dreamily, “but I’ll have issues in a stunning silver dress.”

Cage remained a permanent thorn in my side. He’d been relieved to have his tutoring punishment revoked, but that didn’t stop him from sniping every chance he got. I didn’t rise to it anymore. Mostly. Besides, I had a better outlet for my irritation. Professor Hill had never said I couldn’t feed my wraith from other people. He’d only banned me from siphoning power directly from students. There’s a difference. So each night, after the halls fell quiet, I let my wraith drift through the academy, silent and hungry. It didn’t take much, a little fear here, a nightmare there. Just enough to keep her tethered. Cage, of course, remained her favourite target. I told myself it was only fair. He deserved a taste of his own cruelty. And the wraith… well, she thrived on his fear. The more she fed, the more she became part of me. I could feel her now, like a heartbeat beneath my skin.

Sometimes I even heard her whisper when I was alone, the same things my dragon whispered.

*"He watches, little siphon. The storm watches."*

I tried to ignore it. I tried to tell myself it was just the echo of too many late nights, too much power pressing at the edges of my mind. But every time lightning cracked in the distance, or a cold wind snaked down the corridors, I felt him, whoever he was, circling closer. Training with Hill and Evander became more intense as the week went on. Cassian was relentless but fair. He taught me how to funnel magic through my body instead of letting it explode out of me. How to feel before I feed.

“Magic listens,” he said one evening, pacing in front of me like a general before battle. “The question is whether you command it, or it commands you.”

Evander mostly just grinned from the sidelines, tossing me towels and water bottles, and occasionally whispering not-so-helpful comments like “You look hot when you’re focused.”

I’d eventually stopped accidentally blowing up the practice dummies, which Cassian considered progress, and I had finally managed to find the limit of how much power was too much power.

And now…Now it’s the day of the Moonlight Festival. The sun has barely risen, and I can already feel the magic in the air. The academy grounds have been transformed overnight into a maze of silver and glass. Floating candles hover over tables, enchanted fountains spray glittering streams of light instead of water, and everywhere I look, people are smiling nervously, brushing invisible dust off their clothes, checking their reflections twice. Tessa burst into my room before I’d even finished my morning tea, squealing like a banshee and waving my dress bag in the air.

“It’s time! It’s finally time! Oh, you’re going to die when you see yourself all dolled up.”

Evander had laughed from his perch on my window ledge, half-dressed and looking far too smug for someone who hadn’t been up before sunrise. “Try not to faint before the moon’s even up, Tess.”

I should be excited. Nervous, maybe. But instead, my stomach feels like it’s full of glass. The pull from that unseen presence is stronger than ever now, humming under my skin like a warning. Something’s coming. I can feel it in the way the wind stirs, the way the magic prickles at the back of my neck. The Moonlight Festival isn’t just going to change everything for the academy; it’s going to change me. And deep down, I already know. The storm is near.

“We need time for the glamours to settle, and for me to fix your hair if it decides to mutiny again!”

“It’s hair, not a small army,” I mumbled, taking a long sip of tea.

She ignored that completely, already dragging out bags from under her arms, filled with fabric, perfume, tiny enchanted crystal jars, and far too many makeup brushes.

Evander wisely took one look at the chaos and declared, “I’m going for a run,” before vanishing. Coward.

For the next two hours, Tessa was a whirlwind, pinning, painting, muttering charms under her breath. She’d alternate between humming happily and scolding me for twitching. “If you move one more time, I’m gluing your lashes shut,” she warned at one point, pins clenched between her teeth as she worked a curling spell through my hair.

When she was finally satisfied, she stood back with a triumphant sigh and said, “Alright, look.”

I turned toward the mirror and stopped breathing.

The girl staring back at me wasn’t the Allison Rivers I knew. The one who hid under messy buns and ink-stained sleeves. This version shimmered. My long dark hair fell in loose waves down my back, laced with faint glimmers of gold light that moved when I did. My skin looked sun-kissed and smooth, freckles dusted like starlight across my cheeks. And the dress… gods, the dress. Midnight blue silk that clung to my body like liquid shadow, with silver threads that caught the light and rippled like moonlit water when I moved. My dragon stirred inside me, pleased and proud.

“See?” Tessa beamed, hands on her hips. “Told you. You look like a goddess.”

I smiled faintly, still staring at my reflection. A goddess. Me? Ha. She is funny.