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I wake up and the ceiling's wrong.
Not hospital fluorescent. Not my apartment's water-stained drywall. This is dark wood beams and actual carved molding, like someone ripped a bedroom out of a Victorian mansion and dropped it on top of me.
I try to sit up. My chest aches like someone's been doing compressions on it. Which is funny, because last I checked, I was the one doing compressions. Forty-eight hours into a double shift. Mrs. Chen coding for the third time. My hands cramping. The monitor screaming.
Then nothing.
Oh.
Oh shit.
I died.
I push myself upright anyway, because apparently dying doesn't get you out of consciousness, it just gets you weirder real estate. The bed I'm on has actual curtains. Velvet. Deep green. There's a fireplace across the room, not even electric, with actual logs turning to embers. Two desks by the window. Trunks at the foot of each bed.
I'm still wearing my scrubs. They're stiff with dried sweat and God knows what else. My shoes are gone though. Someone took my sneakers.
That pisses me off more than the dying part.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and my feet hit cold stone. Not tile. Not linoleum. Actual stone floor with a thin rug that probably costs more than my student loans.
There's a mirror across the room, full length, gilt frame. I catch my reflection and yeah, I look like death. Which tracks. Hair's a mess. Dark circles I could pack for a week-long trip. But I'm still me. Still Alex Morris, 26, ER nurse, owner of three scrub tops and chronic anxiety.
Still dead, apparently.
I'm trying to figure out if this is hell or a really pretentious afterlife waiting room when the door slams open.
A girl stands there. Maybe nineteen, twenty. Blonde hair in a braid, wearing what I can only describe as a school uniform designed by someone who thought regular uniforms weren't extra enough. Dark skirt, white blouse, a vest with actual embroidered badges. She's holding a stack of books and her face goes white.
"You're awake."
I stare at her. "Yeah?"
"You're not supposed to be awake."
I'm getting real tired of people telling me what I'm not supposed to be doing. "Well, here I am. Where the hell is here?"
She drops the books. They hit the floor with crashes that sound too heavy for normal textbooks. "I have to—I need to get—"
She runs.
Great.
I stand up, test my legs. They hold. Everything hurts in that distant way that means either I'm in shock or this is a really elaborate dream. I'm betting on dream. The dying thing was probably my brain's last desperate attempt at REM sleep before I face-planted at the nurse's station.
I'm halfway to the door when it opens again.
This time it's not a scared student.
The woman who walks in is tall, maybe early thirties, with black hair pulled so tight it could double as a facelift. She's wearing something between academic robes and a fashion statement, all dark fabric and silver buttons. Her eyes are pale gray, the kind that look silver in certain light.
They're locked on me like I'm a code that just walked into her ER.
"Sit down."
I don't sit. "Who are you?"
"Sit. Down."
There's something in her voice that bypasses my brain and goes straight to my knees. I sit. Not on the bed, on the trunk at the foot of it, because I'm not giving her everything.
She closes the door. Doesn't lock it. Just stands there, between me and the exit.
"Do you know where you are?"
"No."
"Do you know what you are?"
I laugh. Can't help it. "A dead nurse having the weirdest goddamn dream of her life?"
Something flickers in her expression. Not quite surprise. More like she's recalculating.
"You're at Thornwell Academy," she says. Each word comes out measured, like she's talking to someone who might explode. "You arrived three days ago through the summoning circle in the East Tower. You were clutching a medical device that was emitting class-seven arcane energy. You've been unconscious since."
I process that. Try to.
Fail.
"Summoning circle."
"Yes."
"Arcane energy."
"Yes."
"Lady, I don't know what kind of insurance you think I have, but—"
"You're the Midnight Summoner."
I stop.
She takes a step closer. The temperature in the room drops about ten degrees. I can see my breath.
"You disappeared three hundred years ago," she continues. "The records said you'd return when the academy faced its greatest threat. That you'd come through the old circle, bearing the tools of your craft." Her eyes flick down to my scrubs. "We didn't expect medical equipment."
"I'm not—" I start, but my left wrist chooses that exact moment to start burning.
Not burning. Pulsing.
I yank up my sleeve. There's a mark on my inner wrist that definitely wasn't there before. Dark lines, intricate, moving under my skin like they're alive. It looks like a tattoo designed by someone having a nightmare. Circles within circles, symbols I don't recognize, all of it radiating out from a central point that's starting to glow faint blue.
"What the fuck is that?"
The woman—I still don't have her name—goes very still.
"That," she says quietly, "is the Summoner's mark. It appears when the host awakens. It's keyed to midnight." She checks her watch. It's ornate, definitely not digital. "You have six minutes."
"Six minutes until what?"
"Until you lose control."
The pulsing gets stronger. I can feel it now, not just in my wrist but crawling up my arm. It doesn't hurt exactly. It feels cold. Empty. Like the feeling I got in the ER when we called time of death and had to step back and let the person go.
Like death.
I brought death with me.
I stand up. "I need to leave."
"You can't."
"Watch me."
I start for the door. She moves faster than anyone should be able to move and suddenly she's in front of me, one hand raised. The air between us crystallizes. Actual ice, spreading across the door, the frame, the wall. Frost crawls across the wood in patterns that look intentional.
The door's sealed shut.
I back up. The mark on my wrist is glowing brighter now, blue light spilling between my fingers. The cold is in my chest, spreading.
"You need to calm down," she says. Not unkind. Clinical. Like she's talking down a patient.
I'm the patient now.
"Let me out."
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
She meets my eyes. For the first time, I see something other than ice in her expression. Something that might be fear.
"Because you weren't supposed to wake up," she says. "Not yet. Not until we'd prepared the wards. If the mark activates at full strength inside the dormitory—" She cuts herself off. "You'll kill everyone in this building."
The mark pulses again. Stronger. The blue light fills the room.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell starts to ring.
Midnight.
"My name is Cassandra Nightthorn," she says quietly. "I'm the combat instructor here. And I'm the only thing standing between you and a body count you won't come back from."
The cold in my chest cracks open.
Something dark pours out.