Thornhill Academy (By Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 96

I lean back slowly, steepling my fingers, hiding my thoughts behind a calm mask. “I see.”

The air between us hums again, residual magic brushing against my wards like a heartbeat. She doesn’t even realise how much of herself she’s left open. She’s raw, untrained and entirely too powerful for her own good.

What are you, little one? And more importantly… who else knows?

She’s trembling. Not visibly, not enough for anyone else to notice, but I can feel it in the air between us. Her magic is still unsettled, vibrating just beneath her skin like a creature trying to crawl out. She’s terrified, and that fear leaves cracks… tiny ones, but enough for me to slip through. I don’t intend to invade her mind. Not at first. But when she looks at me, wide-eyed, pupils blown, pulse pounding so hard I can hear it, she forgets to raise her walls. And I’ve never been good at resisting curiosity. So I step in. Quietly. Carefully. There’s a whisper of thought pressed against the edge of her consciousness. Her mind is bright, too bright, a storm of noise and colour and raw magic. It’s nothing like a shifter’s steady rhythm or a warlock’s trained pulse. No, this is chaotic and alive, like lightning bottled in glass. She doesn’t notice me. She’s too busy panicking over what just happened, over the scorch marks on the desk, the faint shimmer still crawling across her fingertips. Her thoughts stutter in a loop of guilt and confusion.

Not supposed to happen. Not supposed to happen. No one can see. He can’t know.