Page 9 of A Touch of Darkness

Lara is missing, and I can’t shake the feeling that this place—and the man in the window, this Professor Draedon character—has something to do with it.

The hour approaches seven, and the encroaching dusk casts Blackthorne’s halls into a construct of shadow and dim light. The stone walls hum faintly, steeped in centuries of whispered secrets, as though the building itself conspires against the unwary. Time slips by differently here—fluid, viscous, as though it clings on for dear life.

It never ceases to astound me, the ease with which most of the students traverse Blackthorne’s halls, oblivious to the weight of its history, the shadows that cling to its stones like cobwebs spun from despair. The air here is thick with something they cannot name, something just beyond the edge of their understanding. Yet they remain unsuspecting, blind to the undercurrent of death that vibrates beneath their feet, the lingering whispers of those who walked these halls long before their time.

It is a rare thing, almost miraculous, when one among them senses it—when a mere human steps through these doors andfeels the wrongness, the way the very walls seem to breathe in tandem with something primordial and unholy. I have seen it before: the quickened pulse, the widening eyes, the instinctual hesitation at crossing thresholds they cannot explain. They never stay long, those who sense what lurks here. Their instincts are too sharp, their minds too unwilling to be lulled into ignorance. They flee, as they should.

But the others—oh, the others. They are so painfully, beautifully blind. Impressionable youth, with minds so pliable and eager to absorb knowledge, and yet they fail to perceive the lessons etched in every shadow of this place. They walk these corridors with laughter on their lips, their hearts unguarded, noses in their devices, their thoughts preoccupied with trivialities, while the very marrow of Blackthorne vibrates with the echoes of lives taken, secrets buried, and power unyielding.

Blackthorne is not merely a university. It is a mausoleum of ambitions, a cradle of monstrosities. It purrs with the presence of supernaturals, the blood-drinkers, the spell-casters, the shadow-walkers. And though most mortals lack the sensitivity to recognize it, those who do are unforgettable.

Sylvie Rosenthal belongs to the rare few. She may not fully understand it, not yet, but she senses it. I felt it when I opened her mind and crept inside as she walked up the hill to Blackthorne, as I watched her from my window. I saw it in the way she moved through the terrace, her gaze catching in the corners where the light refuses to linger. She does not meander about like the others. She listens. She watches. She senses the tremor in the air, the unspoken warnings whispered by the stones beneath her feet.

Blackthorne speaks to those willing to hear, and my God, she is listening.

It’s a good thing, too. Because she’s going to need all the help she can get.

Descending the staircase, my fingers lightly graze the carved mahogany banister, its wood polished smooth by the hands of generations long dead—humans and witches and vampires alike. Their touch still lingers in this place, a ghostly echo of lives lost and forgotten. But I remain. Eternal. Detached. Watching as the world reshapes itself into endlessly repeating cycles of ambition, ignorance, and ruin.

Tonight, my purpose is singular.

Sylvie Rosenthal.

The young girl is an anomaly. Since her arrival, she has upset the careful equilibrium I have maintained in this place, though she does not yet realize it. There is a charge to her presence, like a struck tuning fork, barely perceptible but constant. It is the signature of power—untamed, dormant, and utterly unclaimed. She does not wear it with intention; it adheres to her like a second skin, invisible to all but those who know where to look.

She is dangerous, so ungodly dangerous, precisely because she is unaware.

I navigate the East wing, my footsteps silent, the movement instinctive. This part of the university houses its own particular foreboding, the portraits of Blackthorne’s long-dead founders watching all who roam these halls. The only power these relics possess is the one given to them by students’ fear and superstition, and yet, in their glassy eyes, I see a reflection of my own shadow.

I pause at the rectangular stained-glass window at the end of the corridor, the vantage point I favored last night once the girl caught me in my classroom window. The courtyard below lies empty, the waning light sinking into deep blues and grays. It was here that I first observed Sylvie and her sister, Lara.

Twins. Nature’s strange symmetry that is believed to be nothing more than a spontaneous happening during conception. Among mortals, their births are regarded as mundanecoincidence, but in the circles I have traversed, their existence often signifies something greater—a rift, a balance disrupted or restored. Sylvie and Lara Rosenthal are no exception. I knew the moment I saw them that there was much more than meets the eye—with Sylvie, that is. The girl is destined for power, for greatness, for changing and disrupting the natural flow life has taken on.

I was hoping they’d have time to be students, grow accustomed to this place, settle in before everything changed. But I was wrong.

The sisters were once inseparable, and yet now, Lara is absent. Removed.

It is deliberate, of course. As many things are.

Everything about this perilous game has been set in motion with care, and Sylvie, like all pawns, has begun to move precisely as intended.

I hear her, sense her, before I see her. Her footsteps echo faintly against the weathered stone, rapid and uneven, driven by a mounting desperation she does not yet understand.

Sylvie.

She is looking for answers, chasing shadows. Searching for a sister who is no longer within her reach—who will, more than likely, never be within reach again if they have anything to do with it.

And they do.

Of course they do.

I step into the periphery of her path, keeping to the darkness, my presence folded into the gloom. She moves with purpose, with intense deliberation, though her movements betray her unease—a sharp glance over her shoulder, increasingly quickened footfalls, the way her hand hovers near her side as though reaching for a weapon she does not possess.

Her path leads her to Fallon’s office. Of course. She will find no answers there, though I allow her the illusion of choice. It is a necessary indulgence, this facade of autonomy.

From the shadows, I observe her knock at his door, the motion hesitant but firm. Fallon’s polite murmur follows, inviting her into the warm glow of his cluttered sanctuary. She disappears into the room, closes the wooden door behind her, and I wait, feeling like I lost a limb now that she is no longer in my presence. My senses are automatically attuned to the conversation within.

Fallon fumbles through pleasantries—bluster and protocol that Sylvie does not entertain. She is direct, her tone clipped, her distrust of him, of everyone, evident. She is clever enough to see through the façade of authority he projects, the vociferous imbecile, though not yet wise enough to see the larger game.

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