Marked By The Dark Professors;, Claimed By The Cursed Princes

s nothing. The second time, he collapsed into my arms, and by the th

y, sliding the medical file across h

ause surely he couldn't expect me to accept a statement like

office door before returning to me. "There are

ecause sometimes people laughed when they were desperate enough to hear somet

firm despite the hesitation that had come

gs, our hope, and now our future had all disappeared inside one sentence. He reached for my hand, his fingers coo

His voice was bare

tighten

ed of ho

N

pretending I

ended, but I couldn't bear to hear him speak as though he

e angrier because it was the same one he used whenever he w

air scraped against the floor

ere

al logo or return address, only a silver crest pressed into the wax: six swords, one crown, and one eye. I stared at the unfamiliar symbol, trying to understand why a do

emy?" I w

ged immediately. "Y

stor

eared, professors never aged, and nobody graduated as the same person they had been when they entered. Most people dismissed those stories as f

ting applicati

ought nobody kne

y do

ow do I

d the envelope toward

my name already written across

le

er app

kno

sent

ul, as though he were choosing each word before allo

looking from the envelope to

ide was a single black letter, its contents brief enough to mak

ackthorn Acade

l: Tom

d forfeits the i

my name or why it had chosen to contact me. Only one final sentence had been written ac

g th

changing as he understood what th

ad the instruction again. No, it wasn't simply that they knew about Ethan.

y: some clothes, my notebooks, Ethan's medication, and the framed photograph of our parents. I wrapped the photograph car

tried to put those memories together, they became strangely blurry, like pages smudged by rain. I could never tell whether the gaps were the ordi

hing me with the patient expression he ha

en exist in the way the stories described it, but I nodded anyway and tucked the ph

the brother I remembered before the hospitals and the co

set of instructions that gave us a destination w

the old r

nig

e a

oss the empty platform as we waited for midnight, and the longer we stood there, the more ridiculous our decision began to feel. We had left everything familiar

ck around the

Exactl

. A train emerged from the darkness without making a sound. It wasn't arriving so much as appearing, its windows black

conductor, no passenger, and no welcoming announcement, only

looked inside. "This f

like our

d behind us, and the train moved instantly, without acceleration or sound. One moment the station still existed

but there was nothing to see. Not darkness, which would have meant there was at least something beyon

oor open, and neither Ethan nor I had noticed anyone approaching. She simply existed ins

s Va

r, still holding E

emy has o

t she was joking or trying to frighten us, but

y into my eyes. "T

e lights flickered overhead, and for one split second, every window reflected six

men, no movement, and no sign that anyone had been standing behind us at all. When I turned back to

finally f

shirt, spreading across the fabric while something dark began to emerge against my skin. The pain sharpened with every passing second, and when I finally l