“Go ahead. Say it.” My hands curl into fists, my nails biting into my palms.

“I’m terrified you’re not going to make it to graduation, Vi.” His shoulders slump. “You know exactly how I feel about you, whether or not I can do anything about it, and I’m terrified.”

It’s that last line that does me in. Laughter bubbles up through my throat and escapes.

His eyes widen.

“This place cuts away the bullshit and the niceties, revealing whoever you are at your core.” I repeat his words from this summer. “Isn’t that what you said to me? Is this who you really are at your core? Someone so enamored with rules that he doesn’t know when to bend or break them for someone he cares about? Someone so focused on the least I’m capable of doing, he can’t believe I can do so much more?”

The warmth drains from his brown eyes.

“Let’s get one thing straight, Dain.” I take a step closer, but the distance between us only widens. “The reason we’ll never be anything more than friends isn’t because of your rules. It’s because you have no faith in me. Even now, when I’ve survived against all odds and bonded not just one dragon but two, you still think I won’t make it. So forgive me, but you’re about to be some of the bullshit that this place cuts away from me.” I move to the side and march past him through the tunnel, forcing air through my lungs.

Other than the last year, when he entered the Riders Quadrant, I can’t remember a time without Dain in my life.

But I can’t take his constant pessimism about my future anymore.

Sunlight overpowers me for a second as I walk into the courtyard. Classes are out for the afternoon, and I see Xaden and Garrick leaned up against the wall of the academic building like gods surveying their domain.

Xaden arches a dark eyebrow as I pass by.

I flip him the middle finger.

I’m not taking his shit today, either.

“Everything all right?” Rhiannon asks as I catch up to her and the guys.

“Dain is an ass—”

“Make it stop!” someone screams, rushing down the steps of the rotunda and holding his head. It’s a first-year in Third Wing who sits two rows beneath me in Battle Brief and perpetually drops his quill. “For gods’ sake, make it stop!” he shrieks, stumbling into the courtyard.

My hands hover over my blades.

A shadow moves to my left, and a glance tells me Xaden has moved, casually putting himself just ahead of me.

The crowd hollows, forming a circle around the first-year as he screams, clutching his head.

“Jeremiah!” someone shouts, coming forward.

“You!” Jeremiah spins, pointing his finger at the third-year. “You think I’ve lost it!” His head tilts, and his eyes flare. “How does he know? He shouldn’t know!” His tone shifts, like the words aren’t his own.

Chills race down my spine, dragging my stomach to the ground.

“And you!” He spins again, pointing at a second-year in First Wing. “What the hell is wrong with him? Why is he screaming?” He turns again, focused on Dain. “Is Violet going to hate me forever? Why can’t she see that I just want to keep her alive? How is he…? He’s reading my thoughts!” The impression is uncanny, embarrassing, and terrifying.

“Oh gods,” I whisper, my heart thundering so loud, I can hear the pounding blood in my ears. Forget the embarrassment. Who cares if people know Dain is thinking about me? Jeremiah’s signet power is manifesting. He can read minds—an inntinnsic. His power is a death sentence.

Ridoc stumbles backward on my left—shoved aside—and I don’t need to look to know whose muscled arm now brushes my shoulder. The scent of mint somehow steadies my heartbeat.

Jeremiah unsheathes his shortsword. “Make it stop! Can’t any of you see? The thoughts won’t stop!” His panic is palpable, clogging my own throat.

“Do something,” I beg Xaden, glancing up at him.

His unwavering, lethal focus is on Jeremiah, but his body tenses at my plea, poised, ready to strike. “Start mentally reciting whatever bookish shit you’ve learned.”

“I’m sorry?” I hiss up at him.

“If you value your secrets, clear your thoughts. Now,” Xaden orders.

Oh. Shit.

Nothing comes to mind, and we’re clearly in imminent danger. Um… Many Navarrian defense posts exist beyond the safety of our wards. Such posts are considered to be in a zone of imminent danger and should only be staffed by military personnel and never the civilians who usually accompany them.

“And you!” Jeremiah turns, his gaze locking on Garrick. “Damn it all to hell. He’ll know about—” The shadows around Jeremiah’s feet snake up his legs in a heartbeat, winding around his chest until they cover his mouth in bands of black.

I swallow the boulder in my throat.

A professor pushes through the crowd, his shock of white hair bouncing with every step of his large frame.

“He’s an inntinnsic!” someone shouts, and that seems to be all that’s necessary.

The professor grips Jeremiah’s head with both hands, and a crack echoes off the walls of the silent courtyard. Xaden’s shadows melt away and Jeremiah falls to the ground, his head at an unnatural, macabre angle. His neck is broken.

The professor bends down and lifts Jeremiah’s body with surprising strength, carrying him into the rotunda.

Xaden inhales sharply beside me, then walks away with Garrick, headed toward the academic wing. Nice to see you, too.

“Maybe I don’t want a signet power after all,” Ridoc murmurs.

“That death is merciful compared to what will happen if you don’t manifest one,” Dain says, and I swear I start to feel my relics burn across my back even though my dragons haven’t started channeling.

“And that,” Sawyer says from Rhiannon’s side, “was Professor Carr.”

…

“You always have to check your sources,” Dad tells me, ruffling my hair as he stands beside me at the table in the Archives. “Remember that firsthand accounts are always more accurate, but you have to look deeper, Violet. You have to see who is telling the story.”

“But what if I want to be a rider?” I ask with the voice of a much-younger version of me. “Like Brennan and Mom?”

“WAKE.” A familiar, consuming voice rumbles through the Archives. A voice that doesn’t belong here.

“You’re not like them, Violet. That’s not your path.” Dad offers me an apologetic smile, the usual kind that says he sympathizes but there’s nothing he can do, the kind he gives me when Mom makes a choice he doesn’t agree with. “And it’s for the best. Your mother has never understood that while riders may be the weapons of our kingdom, it’s the scribes who have all the real power in this world.”

“Wake before you die!” The bookshelves in the Archives tremble, and my heart jolts. “Now!”

My eyes fly open, and I gasp as the dream disintegrates. I’m not in the Archives. I’m in my room in the Riders—

“Move!” Tairn bellows.