Eli doesn't remember falling asleep — only the way the sun dipped behind Saint Elda's cracked spires, shadows leaking through his blinds like oil.
Now he's here. Standing alone.
Or maybe he's not standing at all — because the ground is gone. The old chapel rises around him, half-ruined arches bleeding moonlight into broken pews. Runes crawl along the walls, shifting like veins. He knows these symbols — Zyren's mark, Khyro's sigils. Both pulsing like wounds.
He takes a step. The runes pulse back. The air tastes like ash.
"You shouldn't be here, Veilblood."
Eli spins. He knows that voice — soft as sin, dripping heat and threat. Zyren stands behind the altar, perched like a crownless king, one foot propped on splintered marble. His fanged grin catches the pale moonlight.
"You're not real," Eli whispers. His throat burns. "This is a dream."
Zyren's laughter cracks the silence. "A dream? Sure. Or a door." He drops down, boots echoing against stone. "Your mark opened it for me. You're so generous, Elior Serrano."
He steps closer, too close. Eli tries to back away, but the chapel folds in on itself — walls tightening, shadows thickening. There's nowhere to run.
Zyren lifts a hand — black claws trace the skin just below Eli's collarbone. The mark flares, searing heat through his bones. He gasps.
"Stop—" Eli's voice fractures. "Get out."
"Can't," Zyren says, fangs glinting as he leans in, breath hot against Eli's ear. "You called me here. Or maybe your blood did."
Eli's pulse hammers. The chapel hums — stone groaning like a living thing.
Then another voice cuts through the shadows — colder than moonlight slicing glass.
"Enough."
Zyren freezes. Eli's eyes snap open — and there he is: Khyro Sev Dravenhart, standing in the ruined aisle like a ghost dragged from a gothic painting. His crimson eyes burn, pinning Zyren where he stands.
"Dravenhart," Zyren purrs, not turning. "You're trespassing on my nightmare."
Khyro doesn't blink. He lifts a gloved hand — a simple flick — and the runes on the walls shiver, some fading, some splintering into sparks.
"This dream belongs to him," Khyro says, voice a blade slipping between bone. "And you will not claim him here."
Zyren's grin doesn't fade. He leans closer to Eli anyway, lips brushing his ear as he whispers, "The Veil's cracking, pretty thing. You can't hide forever."
Then he's gone — smoke twisting, runes collapsing with him. Silence floods the chapel.
Eli's knees buckle. He would've hit the stone if Khyro didn't catch him — strong arms, colder than the grave, pulling him up.
"You're meddling with things you can't contain," Eli rasps, voice trembling.
Khyro's eyes soften — barely. "So let me contain them for you."
His gloved fingers hover near the burning mark. For a heartbeat, Eli thinks he feels warmth — not ice — where Khyro's touch settles.
Then the dream cracks — darkness rushing in.
When Eli wakes, the dawn is pale and silent. The mark is still there — and the world feels thinner than before.
The next morning, Eli sits hunched over the edge of his bed, staring at the floor like it might swallow him whole. His phone vibrates against his knee — a message from Celeste, bright and clingy as always.
CEL: You alive? Or do we raid your dorm?
He doesn't answer. His fingers hover over the screen, trembling. Outside, Saint Elda hums with student chatter, clanging bells, laughter that feels miles away.
A knock rattles the door. Before Eli can stand, it swings open and Celeste tumbles in — hair a mess, sweater slipping off one shoulder. Behind her, Jace leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, sunglasses hiding his narrowed stare. Liam lingers just outside, scribbling something on his palm in a bored daze.
Celeste drops her bag with a thud. "You didn't answer."
Eli forces a smile. "Sorry."
Jace strides in, flicks the blinds open. Harsh light floods the shadows — not that it helps.
"You look like shit," Jace says. His voice is sharp, but the worry's there, tucked behind his sarcasm.
Eli flinches as Celeste reaches for his collar. Her fingers brush the edge of the mark — he jerks back. Too late. Her wide eyes sharpen.
"You're hiding something," she whispers. She glances at Jace, then at Liam — who's watching from the hall with an eyebrow raised.
Jace snorts. "No shit. He's been hiding something since the old library." He stalks closer, tipping his shades down. "Spill it, Serrano."
Eli's mouth dries. He wants to say it — the dream, Zyren's voice, Khyro's cold hands holding him upright when his own legs failed him. But the words coil behind his teeth, too heavy to spit out.
"I'm fine," he lies.
Celeste's eyes flicker — from worry to anger to something that looks like heartbreak.
"Fine doesn't flinch like that," she snaps. She grabs his wrist — warm skin against his cold pulse. "We're The Fourfold. If you burn, we burn with you."
Jace rolls his eyes. "Poetic. Very cult vibes."
Celeste shoots him a look that would kill lesser men. Jace raises his hands in surrender but doesn't back down.
"You want to keep lying?" he says to Eli, voice flat. "Fine. But you better remember who's gonna drag your corpse out when whatever's eating you comes knocking."
Silence blooms in the room, thick as smoke.
Eli squeezes Celeste's hand. "I know."
He does. But he also knows — in the pit of his bones — that whatever waits in the shadows doesn't care how strong his squad is.
The Veil is cracking.
And this time, it's calling his name.
The day drags Eli through motions he barely feels. Lecture halls, buzzing hallways, chalk dust on ancient blackboards — all of it blurs behind the burn of the mark under his shirt.
He feels it when he blinks too long — Zyren's fanged grin echoing behind his eyes. He feels it when the sun dips behind Saint Elda's spires — Khyro's crimson stare pressing at the edge of his mind like an unspoken promise.
By dusk, Eli finds himself back where it began — the old library's shadowed courtyard. Crumbling stone, vines climbing half-dead statues. No one else dares come here after dark. Except him.
And the monsters.
A shape moves near the broken fountain. For a second, Eli's breath catches — but it's just Liam, slouched on the marble edge, flipping through a battered notebook. He looks up, unsurprised.
"Figured you'd come," Liam says, voice low and too calm. He flicks ash from a cigarette he doesn't light. "You never really lie to me, you know."
Eli tries to laugh. It shatters in his throat. "And yet here we are."
Liam taps the marble beside him. "Sit. Or stand there and twitch. Dealer's choice."
Eli sits. The night presses in — heavy, damp, alive.
For a moment, neither of them speak. The only sound is the fountain's slow drip, the distant hum of the main campus. Safe. Untouched. Unaware.
"You ever think," Liam says softly, eyes fixed on some point beyond the stars, "that maybe you weren't supposed to survive that accident?"
Eli flinches. "What are you talking about?"
Liam doesn't look at him. "The Veil's not new, El. It's old. Hungry. It takes and takes. But you…" He finally glances sideways, one brow lifted like he's reading a secret Eli didn't know he had. "You survived. You keep surviving."
The mark flares beneath Eli's collarbone, as if agreeing.
He shivers. "What do you know, Liam?"
Liam's lips curl, faint and fox-like. "Enough to stay alive. Enough to keep you alive, too — if you'd let us."
Before Eli can answer, footsteps crunch the courtyard gravel. Celeste appears from the gloom — hoodie pulled up, eyes blazing, Jace stalking at her shoulder like a storm about to break.
"You're not doing this alone," Celeste says. No hesitation, no softness now — just steel wrapped in her tiny frame.
Jace flicks his lighter open, flame dancing between them before he snaps it shut again. "So. Who do we kill?"
The mark beneath Eli's skin throbs like a heartbeat. And for the first time, he wonders if maybe the monsters should be afraid of them.
It doesn't take long for the courtyard to feel too small for the storm brewing inside Eli's chest. Celeste paces, muttering under her breath. Jace lights and snuffs his lighter so many times the faint scent of singed fuel drifts on the night wind. Liam hums, tapping the side of his notebook with a pen like a ticking clock.
Eli hugs his knees to his chest on the edge of the fountain. The chill of the marble seeps through his jeans, but it's nothing compared to the heat that flares and flickers beneath his skin.
The mark. The runes. The two monsters who keep pulling at his ribs in opposite directions.
Finally, Celeste stops pacing. She crouches in front of Eli, eyes wide and fierce in the half-dark. "Look at me," she says.
He does. He always does.
"You're ours," she says. Her voice doesn't shake. "We're The Fourfold. If the Veil wants you, it's gonna have to tear through us first."
Eli swallows. "You don't even know what you're saying—"
Jace steps up, shadow falling across them both. "We know enough. Something out there wants to crack you open like a curse jar? Fine. But they're gonna find teeth waiting."
Liam flips his notebook closed with a soft thud. "Besides, if you think we're letting you get dragged off by some fanged prince and a fire-breathing nightmare without backup, you're dumber than you look."
Celeste smiles — not her usual clumsy grin but something bright, dangerous. "So… what's the plan, leader?"
Eli wants to protest. He wants to tell them to run — to let him break alone so the pieces don't cut them too.
But instead, something inside him loosens. Maybe it's the warmth of Celeste's hand on his knee. Maybe it's Jace's sharp glare that says lie again and I'll deck you. Maybe it's Liam, who doesn't say he cares — but never has to.
So Eli breathes in the cold night air. The mark pulses like a second heartbeat.
"The plan," he says slowly, "is that we don't wait for them to come to us."
Jace's grin is all teeth. "Now you're talking."
Celeste squeezes his knee. Liam just sighs, flipping his hood up like he's about to nap through an apocalypse.
And above them, the old gargoyles perched on the library roof watch silent and still — guardians of secrets no one's supposed to find.
For a second, Eli lets himself believe maybe — just maybe — they won't break.
But deep inside, he feels it: the Veil is thinner than ever.
And both monsters — fangs and flames — are waiting to rip it wide open.