'Some things seem to have changed.'
They were moving faster.
He muttered under his breath, "Damn it…"
Liliana stepped in front of him. "What are you not telling us?"
He hesitated.
She narrowed her eyes. "Is it a cult or something?!"
He didn't answer.
Liliana didn't back off. "Merlin. You're clearly planning for something, and this—whatever this is—it's not supposed to happen! This place is supposed to be secure!"
His eyes snapped open.
She read the answer in his silence.
"Shit," she whispered.
The third wave hit.
This one cracked.
The very air around the West Wing shuddered like glass beneath too much weight. And then came the sound—barely audible, but wrong.
Like something crawling between layers of the world. The way mana snapped when summoned violently. The way a soul fractured mid-ritual.
Liliana flinched.
Students below in the courtyard started to look up. Confused. Uneasy.
One of them shouted.
Then—finally—alarms.
