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The thing came at them half an hour past sundown, right when they were leaving the inn.
Cole heard it before he saw it—boots scraping stone, too fast, wrong rhythm. He shoved Ivy sideways as something pale blurred past where her head had been. They hit the dirt street together. His elbow cracked against a rock and went numb.
"What the hell—" Ivy started, but Cole was already pulling her up, dragging her toward the treeline across from the inn. The street was empty. No lanterns. The inn's door hung open behind them, and he could still hear the innkeeper muttering inside, that wet syllable-chant that wasn't any language Cole knew.
The pale thing stepped into the moonlight.
It had been a man once. Maybe still was. Hard to tell. Its skin looked slick, like something half-melted, and its eyes were black pits that didn't reflect any light. It wore torn trousers and no shirt. Bare feet. When it opened its mouth, Cole saw teeth filed down to points.
"Guild?" it said. The voice came out sideways, like it forgot how tongues worked.
Cole didn't answer. He pulled Ivy behind him and felt heat gathering in his left hand, the start of a barrier spell. Simple stuff. First-year guild work. A half-dome of compressed air that'd stop a charging boar.
The thing tilted its head. "Smells like guild. Smells like... old work."
"Cole," Ivy said quietly. Her hand gripped his shoulder. "There's prints all over it. Fresh."
"How fresh?"
"Minutes. It's been killing."
The thing smiled. Lunged.
Cole threw the spell.
The barrier snapped into place—he felt it lock, solid, a wall of nothing three feet in front of them. The thing hit it face-first and staggered back. Good. Standard. Except the spell didn't stop. Cole felt it keep pulling, dragging more heat from his core, shapes forming that he didn't call for. The air in front of him rippled and cracked, and something white pushed through.
Bone.
A wing made of bone, thin and jagged, spreading from the left edge of his barrier like a sail catching wind. The ridges gleamed in the moonlight. Cole tried to cut the flow, tried to snap the spell shut, but it wouldn't listen. The wing kept growing, membrane stretching between the bone struts—not skin, something thinner, wet-looking.
"Cole, stop it—"
"I'm trying!"
The thing recovered and came again, claws out. It hit the barrier and this time the bone wing folded inward, fast, wrapping around it like a hand. Cole heard ribs crack. The thing screamed—high, thin, almost human—and then the wing tightened and there was a wet tearing sound and the screaming stopped.
The spell dropped.
The thing fell in pieces. The wing dissolved into smoke that smelled like burnt hair and old meat. Cole's hand was shaking. He could still feel the spell trying to pull, like a dog on a chain that wanted more.
Ivy stepped past him. She crouched next to the largest piece—the torso, mostly intact, split open from neck to hip. She wasn't looking at the wound. She was looking at the ground around it.
"Ivy, don't—"
"Shut up a second."
Cole shut up. His hand still tingled. He clenched it into a fist and felt the heat fade, slow. The street was quiet again. No one came out of the inn. No lights in the other buildings. Just them and the corpse and the moon.
Ivy reached out and touched the dirt next to the body. Her fingers traced something Cole couldn't see. Her eyes went unfocused, the way they did when she was reading prints. She'd told him once that death left marks, that the last few seconds of a life burned into the ground like shadows. Half-bloods could see them. Guild mages couldn't.
She went still. Her hand stopped moving.
"Ivy?"
She didn't answer. Just stared at the dirt. Then she stood up, slow, and turned to look at him. Her face was white.
"What?" Cole said. "What'd you see?"
"It's your prints," she said.
"What?"
"On the body. On the ground around it. Your death-prints. Not its. Yours."
Cole felt cold spread through his chest. "That doesn't make sense. I didn't die. It did."
"I know what I'm looking at." Her voice was flat. She pointed at the torn body. "There's prints all over it. The shape of your hands. Your boots. The way you stand. It's you, Cole. You're the one who died here."
"That's not possible."
"Then explain it."
He couldn't. His mouth was dry. He looked down at his hands—still whole, still warm—and then at the thing on the ground. The bone wing was gone but he could still remember the feel of it, the way it moved without him telling it to. The way it knew what to do.
"Maybe you read it wrong," he said.
"I don't read wrong."
"Then maybe it's the thing. Maybe it—I don't know, maybe it copied me. Mimicked me."
Ivy shook her head. "Death-prints don't lie. They're the last true thing a body does." She stepped closer. Her eyes were hard. "Those prints lead right to you. Right to your boots. Right now."
Cole looked down. His boots were covered in dust from the road, same as they'd been all day. Nothing strange. Nothing wrong. But when he looked up again, Ivy was still staring at him like he was something she didn't recognize.
"We need to go," she said.
"Go where?"
"Anywhere but here."
She turned and started walking, fast, toward the edge of town. Cole stood there for another second, looking at the body, at the place where the wing had been. His hand still tingled. He thought about the way the spell had pulled, hungry, and how good it had felt when the wing closed around the thing and squeezed.
He followed Ivy into the dark.
They made camp an hour outside Ironthorn, in a clearing just off the road. No fire. Ivy sat with her back against a tree and didn't say anything. Cole tried twice to start a conversation and gave up. He sat across from her and watched the treeline.
The moon was high now, bright enough to read by. Somewhere in the woods, something screamed—animal, maybe, or maybe not. Cole didn't move. His hands were steady now but he didn't trust them. He kept thinking about the wing. The way it had known.
Finally Ivy spoke.
"You ever cast something like that before?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"I think I'd remember growing a bone wing, Ivy."
She didn't smile. "Then what was it?"
"I don't know. The spell just... went. I couldn't stop it."
"Spells don't just go. You pull them or you don't."
"I know that."
"So?"
Cole looked at his hands. "So maybe something's wrong."
Ivy leaned forward. Her face was half in shadow. "Your prints were on that thing before you killed it. You understand what that means?"
"No."
"It means you were already dead when the spell hit. Or you're going to be. Or time's folded and I'm seeing something that hasn't happened yet." She paused. "Or you're not who you think you are."
Cole felt anger spike, hot and fast. "I know who I am."
"Do you?"
They stared at each other. The woods were quiet now. No more screaming. Just wind through the branches and the faint smell of smoke from Ironthorn, a mile back.
Cole thought about his mentor. About how she'd died. The guild report said it was a spell misfire, but they'd never found her body. Just prints. Just marks in the dirt that didn't make sense.
He looked at Ivy.
"When you see the prints," he said, "can you tell when? Like, how far out?"
Ivy shook her head. "Doesn't work like that. I just see the last thing. The moment it happens."
"So it could be tomorrow. Or a year from now."
"Or ten minutes ago."
Cole's chest tightened. "You think I'm already dead."
"I think something's wrong with you," Ivy said. "And I think it started before we got here."
She stood up, brushed the dirt off her trousers, and walked to the other side of the clearing. She lay down with her back to him and didn't say anything else.
Cole sat there and stared at his hands. They looked normal. Felt normal. He flexed his fingers and watched the knuckles move. Living hands. Living skin.
He thought about the wing. The way it folded. The way it killed.
Somewhere deep in the woods, something laughed.