What Lies Beneath

Three days after Alessandro's death, Kieran crouched in the shadows, watching Adept Sarah Mills through her kitchen window. 'Just another target. Just another test.' His fingers traced the worn edges of Wells' grimoire, ignoring the warning tingles up his spine.

"Young mage," a soft voice pierced his thoughts. "Your heart beats so loud, even the dead could hear it."

Kieran froze. Sarah hadn't turned, hadn't even paused in brewing her tea. 'She's bluffing. No one's that good.'

"Tell me," she continued, stirring honey into her cup, "did you enjoy it? Playing with Alessandro's soul until it snapped?"

'How did she—' Kieran's thoughts scattered as invisible force yanked him through the window. He crashed onto her kitchen floor, porcelain shards from broken teacups cutting into his palms.

"Amateur." Sarah finally turned, and Kieran's blood ran cold. Her eyes blazed not with the usual mage-light, but with something ancient and terrible. "Did you think Wells' little book made you special?"

"You knew him?" Kieran scrambled backward, blood dripping from his cuts.

"Knew him?" She laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "Poor child. Who do you think drove him mad?"

'Run. Run now.' But his legs wouldn't move. The blood from his cuts began to flow upward, defying gravity, forming crimson symbols in the air.

"Your magic tastes like his," Sarah mused, stepping closer. "Raw. Untamed. Delicious." Her smile turned predatory. "He screamed so beautifully at the end."

Kieran tried to reach for her soul echo, to fight back the only way he knew how. The backlash sent him convulsing to the floor.

"Oh, little shadow," she knelt beside him, touching his forehead with one finger. "Let me show you what real soul magic feels like."

The world exploded into agony. Every soul echo within a mile slammed into Kieran's mind – every joy, every pain, every secret darkness. He felt children laughing, lovers embracing, thieves plotting, beggars dying. Too much. Too real.

"Stop," he begged, blood leaking from his nose. "Please..."

"But we're just starting," Sarah whispered. "After all, you wanted to learn." Her eyes had turned completely black. "And I've been so hungry for a new student."

Something cold and ancient brushed against Kieran's soul echo, and he realized with horror that it wasn't Sarah's power he was feeling. She was just a conduit, a vessel for something far worse.

"Now then," the thing wearing Sarah's face smiled, "shall we begin your real education?"****

The last thing Kieran saw before darkness took him was Wells' grimoire floating open, its pages filling with fresh blood – his blood – as ancient symbols crawled across Sarah's skin like living things.

'What have I awakened?'

Kieran's consciousness flickered between darkness and terror. In the brief moments of clarity, he saw things that shouldn't exist – shadows moving against shadows, ancient words burning in the air, Sarah's form shifting between human and... something else.

"Open your eyes, little shadow." The voice wasn't Sarah's anymore. 'Too deep. Too old.' "Face what you've called forth with your meddling."

His eyelids peeled open against his will. Sarah – or what was left of her – loomed over him. Black veins crawled beneath her skin, pulsing with otherworldly light.

"You wanted power?" She traced a finger down his cheek, leaving frost in its wake. "Poor Wells wanted it too. Spent years hunting secrets better left buried."

'Can't move. Can't breathe.' Kieran's blood still floated in the air, forming and reforming into impossible patterns.

"Fascinating," not-Sarah tilted her head, studying him like a curious insect. "You have his spark. His... potential for beautiful corruption."

"What..." Kieran coughed, tasting copper. "What are you?"

"Something old." She smiled, teeth too sharp to be human. "Something Wells found in places he shouldn't have gone. Something that's been waiting for a fresh vessel since he... expired."

Memory fragments hit Kieran like physical blows – Wells writing his grimoire in blood and madness, reaching into dark places for power, making deals with things that whispered from between realities.

"The book," Kieran gasped. "It was never just a spellbook, was it?"

"Finally, he begins to understand!" Not-Sarah clapped her hands in mock delight. "No, child. It's a key. A contract. A lease agreement, you might say."

'Gods, what have I done?' Kieran watched in horror as the floating blood began to spiral toward the grimoire's open pages.

"Wells lasted eight months before his mind shattered completely," the thing wearing Sarah said conversationally. "Let's see if you do better."

The blood touched the book's pages and everything went wrong. Reality seemed to fold in on itself. Kieran screamed as knowledge poured into his mind – terrible, wonderful, impossible things. Magics that should never be spoken. Truths that drove men mad.

"Please," he begged, feeling his sanity start to crack. "I don't want this."

"Of course you do," not-Sarah purred. "You wanted power without limits. Knowledge without boundaries." Her laugh echoed from too many throats. "Well, here it is. Drink deep, little shadow."

The grimoire's pages began to glow with an inner light, and Kieran felt something vast and ancient turn its attention toward him. 'No. No, no, no.'

"Don't fight it," multiple voices whispered from Sarah's mouth. "After all... you invited us in when you first opened the book."

As darkness closed in, Kieran saw his own blood writing new words in the grimoire:

"Contract of Succession: Terms and Conditions..."

'Someone,' he thought as consciousness faded, 'should have warned me about reading strange books.'

The thing wearing Sarah smiled as shadows filled the room. "Now then... let's discuss your tuition fees."