The were-raven exploded up into the sky, hovering next to the tower, wings spread and dripping darkness that stood out brightly against the light of the full moon rising in the background. A bit past sunset, there were a few students making their way in and out of the brass dorm tower that it had a half dozen targets to choose from.

  It chose all of them.

  Blades of shadow erupted from its sharp-tipped wings, and the gadhar hounds at my side let out ear-shattering barks. The shadows tore down at the students, but the blue light nudged them to the side.

  I didn’t know what exactly was going on with Salem’s other form, a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if it was aberrant in nature, but its power was real, dwarfing the power that my angelic dogs could emit. But the gadhar weren’t trying to stop the blades dead, they were just knocking them slightly off course.

  It was enough, just barely. Swords of darkness bit flesh, but instead of skewering people through the neck, they struck the shoulder. Instead of the heart, the arm. Instead of the gut, the leg.

  I clapped and shouted up at the were-raven, trying to draw its attention back to me. All around me, I could hear students starting incantations of their own. Streams of arcane missiles, glowing with a rainbow of colors, impacted the raven’s form.

  Blood gushed from the creature, hot, thick, and unnervingly gray in color, but it healed instantly, then flashed down. Spears erupted up from my own shadow, and if I hadn’t already been attacked during the library in the same way, it might have caught me off guard. Instead, I was able to just barely shift out of the way, and it struck my armor, leaving long, thin cracks, but not breaking it. Even as the etheric constructed armor began to heal itself, the bird lashed out with a talon, and I stepped back.

  Even with my bloodline’s power expended, I was still faster and stronger than a normal human. The bird had no mind, lashing out with sheer violence and hate, which made it predictable.

  Despite both of those factors, the claw was still so fast that it grabbed around my armor and shattered it. I dove beneath its feet, and shadows speared upward. I felt a sting of hot blood on my shirt, even as I threw myself to the side, causing the spear to drive itself through my bicep, leaving a ragged hole that I could actually see through.

  My gadhar let out a series of quick barks, buying me the time to push myself up to my feet as quickly as I could, but I hadn’t had the time or ether to layer defensive spells over them. Two lines of shadow descended from the wings of the raven, and the gadhar were banished back to their celestial realm. I sent them a mental apology, though I wasn’t sure they could hear me.

  The raven whipped around and dove at me, and I threw a punch at it, even as others unleashed spellfire on its shadows. The overgrown bird was rushing me, so it contacted with ease, but shadows rushed over my entire body and enclosed me. They started to press in, and I felt my muscle and bone creaking.

  “Enough.”

  The voice was quiet and calm, and it cut through the chaos of the battle. The shadows around me fell apart, and I was laying on my back, bleeding out into the grass, looking into the sky.

  Hovering above us all was the Erudite.

  He held one of my celestial mice in one hand, and his staff in the other, and he radiated an aura of calm and control that was absolute. This was his school, and he would brook no further interruptions.

  Bindings of bright blue etheric power shot from the great crystal set at the head of his staff and wrapped themselves around the were-raven.

  The monstrous raven trashed and squirmed against its restraints, but to no avail, and served to only thicken the magic. Shadows erupted from it, but were soaked up by the binding magic surrounding it, which sprouted more and more interconnecting chains. It flapped its great wings, but they were only pulled and locked into place, the magic spreading until it was an orb of shimmering light, the were-raven not even visible within.

  The ball of light floated up in the air until it hovered next to the Erudite, who swept his gaze over all of the students. He tilted his staff and began a low, rumbling chant. Lines of blue light began to envelop my arm, the leg of the student who’d taken the stab there, the shoulder of another, and spread until everyone’s injuries were wrapped in the blue light. The Erudite put the mouse on his shoulder and pulled something from his pocket, a vial that glowed with a gold and silver light. He uncorked it, pouring the liquid into the air, where it gathered into a ball. His chant came to an end, the liquid vanished, and the blue bandages soaked into my arm, leaving it completely healed.

  “This is all under control now, you can go about your business,” the Erudite said, and his voice came out flat and bored. “Except you. You stay.”

  As he spoke, I floated up in the air until I was hovering next to him. He nodded to me, then tilted his head towards the ball of ether that held the were-raven.

  “Did Salem tell you about this?”

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  “No,” I said.

  “I figured,” the Erudite sighed. “It shouldn’t have happened. Let’s go.”

  He tapped his staff against an invisible floor, and we appeared inside the common area. Jackson’s head shot up, but he was no longer possessed by his god, one of the gods' angelus servants, or whatever had been going on. Wesley had been healed, but was passed out, probably from shock or trauma. At least, I thought that was how a half-elf’s body would respond.

  “Erudite!” Jackson said, scrambling up. “And Emrys! You’re okay!”

  “He’s fine,” the Erudite said, sounding uninterested. “Do I have your permission to read your memories of this event, to see if I can piece together what happened?”

  “Yes,” I said. I wanted to know what happened myself, after all. A moment later, Jackson agreed as well, and the Erudite raised his staff. Several Words of Power flowed from his lips, and I felt a featherlight touch on my mind.

  It was gone an instant later, his staff vanished, and the mouse squeaked. The Erudite nodded as if he understood, then waved his hand. The bits of silver jewelry that had melted off of Salem’s face floated up into the air, where they hung in suspension.

  “Ah, I see. This explains a few things. I’ll put him in his cage until morning.”

  The ball of light shot into Salem’s room, where I assumed that it locked itself in the jail cell.

  “I don’t want to be rude, but can you explain them to us?” Jackson asked, crossing his muscular arms. “All I know is that two of my friends are apparently terrifyingly powerful monsters.”

  “Will Salem be okay?” I asked. “I’ve never seen a were- transformation like that.”

  “He’ll be fine come morning,” the Erudite sighed. “His were-raven status was tainted by an aberration, but he’s not one himself. In werewolves they call it a loup garou werewolf, as opposed to a turned werewolf or bloodline werewolf. Were-ravens don’t have a term for it that I know.”

  “Was this recent?” Jackson asked. “I won’t lie, if not, and he knew he would turn, but cut it close with , I’ll be pretty pissed at him.”

  “It’s not new, but this shouldn’t have happened at all. The jewelry was made of silver and enchanted with a great deal of faerie bloodline powers, artificer affinity magic, and his own psychic binding knots to stop the transformation. The cage was put in place as an emergency measure, just in case.”

  The Erudite pointed to a charred spot on one of the studs, where I could see a little engraved rune. It had turned black.

  “Emir’s blackfire affinty magic can eat through enchantments. I’m guessing that some brushed Salem. Emir pulled back before it could hurt a student, but it burnt out the affinity magic holding the loup garou transformation back. Salem didn’t know what was happening, but when the moon rose, he felt the bonds straining. He tried to make it to his room, and just barely missed it. Shame.”

  The Erudite cracked his neck one way, then the other, and his voice took on a bit more life and energy.

  “You did good, kids. Emrys, you held off the monster a lot longer than most students your age could have, even after your bloodline stopped being more than a minor boost. Jackson, you saved Wesley’s life, as well as two who it attacked in the hallway.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t even realized that the bird had attacked people in the hallway, let alone that Jackson had saved either of them. The Erudite’s eyes glazed over for a second, and then he reached out and plucked two items from empty space.

  Both rippled with a magical power of some sight, visible even to my bare eyes, but were otherwise entirely different in appearance. One of them was a glowing red and black stone, like a hot piece of coal, while the other was a long, thin line that seemed to be made of light. The coal floated to Jackson, while the line landed in my palm. Studying it, it seemed to be a long bit of hair?

  “Crystalized etheric fire from an elemental plane of flame,” the Erudite said to Jackson. “It’s a suitable focusing component, suitable for up to fifth circle spellcraft, and is particularly attuned to heat, fire, and light spells.”

  He turned to me and gestured to the hair.

  “That’s the whisker of a foo lion, a guardian spirit found in Shen-Long. It’s a core component that will serve you up until fifth circle as well, and it’s attuned to spells of protection and defense.”

  “Thank you,” I said, examining the whisker with wide eyes. I’d never held something this valuable before. “But… Why?”

  “Both of you acted well to defend the school,” the Erudite said. “You used what you learned in your classes, and the power you had from outside of it. You also immediately started seeking people out, which shows some degree of wisdom. Consider this a reward for meritorious service.”

  “Thank you,” Jackson echoed, clutching the crystal he’d been handed. Apparently it didn’t burn him. I wondered if that was because the crystal didn’t emit any heat, or if he had some degree of resistance to fire through a ritual, or if it was a boon from his god, or something else.

  The mouse faded from the Erudite’s shoulder as my spell completed, and the Erudite sighed as if disappointed.

  “Well, I’m going to go chew Emir’s ear off for this little event, as well as check him thoroughly. He should have known to check for any damage to the enchantments from his affinity…”

  The staff reappeared in the Erudite’s hands. He glanced at the door to Jackson’s room exploded from where I’d punched it, and he muttered a few words before the door built itself back from the shards of wood. Then he was simply gone, leaving Jackson and myself standing in the room with a passed out Wesley. I glanced at Jackson, then at the whisker.

  “I’m putting this in my room,” I told him. “I don’t think we should speak about this. Some of the rich students might not care, but I’ve seen people killed over an item worth a tenth of this.”

  That wasn’t even an exaggeration. After a year of especially bad harvests, I’d seen villagers turn on one another over a loaf of bread, and throw me out of town under the suspicion that I might be there to try and steal food from them. This whisker might have started a bloodbath in parts of White Sands, if they learned of the cost.

  I wasn’t even sure of what number to put on the whisker, but I knew it would be high. I resolved to check at work tomorrow. I didn’t think we stocked the whiskers of a foo lion specifically, but we did have components suitable for fifth circle spells, rituals, and other wand components so it had to be somewhat comparable.

  “I don’t want to lie to my friends,” Jackson said, then sighed. “But you’re probably right. Better to just not talk about it.”

  We both headed into our rooms, where I tied the whisker around one of the screws on the inside of the dresser to hide it.

  I thought that, between my discoveries on bloodline magic and the events of the night, I’d be too energized to sleep, but to my surprise, the moment I sat down to open my grimoire and record the night’s events, I was already yawning. I wrote a quick entry, then showered and headed to bed.

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