Page 88 of Shattered & Returned

“How would I know? And I don’t want to find out!” she said. “Let’s get Professor Ravencrux!”

“He’s not here,” I said, but I didn’t explain how I knew—how something in my bones could now sense his presence. Or absence. “I drove off the phantoms before. I can do it again.”

Sindy’s eyes went round. “You what?”

“We have to try something,” I said. “But first I need to figure out why they’re back and what they want. I don’t want them to keep visiting us in our sleep.”

“Fuck, this has really happened before?” Her voice shrank to a whisper, as if she was afraid of being heard by the dead. “Why is this even happening? We have the wards.”

“Maybe wards only work on the living.” My teeth worried my lower lip as options raced through my mind. The dead didn’t breathe, but my chest heaved like I’d run for miles. “Maybe they only prevent the rival students and professors from getting into our tower.”

Fog crept over the window as more and more dead gathered outside, skeletal fingers pushing the glass. The pane rattled under their weight.

“They’re going to break in!” Sindy shrieked.

The door burst open, and the three-headed hellhound charged inside.

Sindy screamed. The door slammed shut behind it, sealing us in and keeping other students from rushing to our aid, or worse, stumbling into the chaos.

“It’s fine,” I said, pulling Sindy into a tight hug. “He’s friendly. A nice hellhound.”

But wait. Orren was supposed to be guarding the door. Was Orren the hellhound? We had shifters in the house, so it wouldn’t be unusual for him to take that form. And if he was the hound, then who was Nero Ravencrux? Hades? The devil? I shook my head, refusing to let paranoia take hold.

The hellhound stalked to the window, snarling at the dead. Hellfire flickered across his three snouts, glinting against his silken black fur. But the dead didn’t retreat.

They wailed, voices scraping like rusted hinges.“My queen, don’t forsake us!”

“You came to the wrong place,” I growled, stepping forward.

Enough. I’d spent my life enduring harassment from the living. I wouldn’t tolerate it from the dead, too.

My hands lifted, and my Weaver magic answered. Silver fire flickered at my fingertips, invisible to the world, but to me, alive with radiant light. I pulled power from the air, the earth, the distant stars, weaving threads of energy that twisted and danced between my fingers. Patterns formed on their own, writing themselves into existence.

First, the warp—vertical strands of pure energy, shimmered like moonlit water. Then the horizontal threads slid into place, guided by instinct. With every motion, the tapestry grew, rippling outward in waves of golden light.

Ancient sigils burned within the weave. Greek letters twisted with something ancient and primal. The net expanded, spiraling into a design so intricate it hurt to look at.

I hurled it toward the window. The glass offered no resistance.

The dead screamed, a sound like wind through shattered chimes, before dissolving into smoke. A heartbeat later, only smudges remained: ghostly fingerprints and fading mist, the last traces of the vanished.

Sindy gaped at me. “Did you just do that, Bloom?”

I smiled, my pulse quickening. “Apparently.”

The hellhound trotted toward me and rubbed one of his heads against my leg. I absently scratched behind his ear, the fur soft beneath my fingers.

Sindy pointed at the hellhound. “And that’s Cerberus, the hellhound?”

He bared his teeth at her, and I flicked his snout. “Behave. Sindy’s a friend.”

The hound’s heads drooped, then his entire body sank to the floor. His middle head settled on massive paws, eyes sliding shut.

I guessed that meant he wasn’t leaving, and I didn’t have the heart to haul him out.

“We should get some sleep,” I sighed.

Sindy hesitated, then retreated to her bed, dragging the quilt up to her chin like armor.

---