Chapter 5

Seris’ POV

“What the moon-blessed madness are you doing, Lyra?” I hissed, glancing around in panic as her fingers danced over the forbidden panel tucked beneath a loose stone tile.

“Bringing chaos,” she grinned, the wild spark in her eyes only growing brighter.

Typical Lyra.

“I swear, if we end up in the Red Room because of this—” I started, voice sharp with warning.

“You really need to stop panicking before the panic even starts,” she replied smoothly, nose-deep in wires and arcane script. “Besides, I disabled the basic surveillance charms ten seconds ago.”

“That’s not comforting,” I muttered, but Zoe just rolled her eyes and leaned closer.

“Seris,” she said calmly, “you’re the only one smart enough to crack this system. We need you.”

“You need me?!” I gaped. “You mean you need me to commit the most absurd, suicidal tech-violation this school has ever seen.”

Zoe shrugged. “Semantics.”

My head dropped into my hands. They were going to get me killed.

Or worse—grounded by Headmistress Virelle’s mindwalk spell. And that… was something even death couldn’t outmatch.

“Phones, laptops, smartwatches—they said nothing electronic is allowed. I warned you about this!” I exhaled, already sweating as runes began glowing faintly beneath the panel.

Zoe’s voice dropped to a whisper. “And now we’re warning you. We’re in too deep to back off. Just help us get into the system.”

I groaned louder than morally acceptable. “You three will be the death of me.”

But... they were my sisters.

And I was the only one who could pull this off.

“I want jelly shots,” I said, dead serious.

Lyra didn’t even look up. She just reached into her satchel and tossed over a ziplock full of rainbow-colored cubes. “Five, freshly conjured. Grape-flavored too.”

Score.

I popped them like pills, moaning softly at the perfect texture. Jelly shots were my one weakness—the only addiction my foster parents ever used successfully to blackmail me into obedience.

“Okay,” I said, licking the last one off my finger. “Let’s break into hell.”

But the second my code touched the core frequency, my breath caught.

This wasn’t tech. This wasn’t even magic in the traditional sense.

It was alive.

“Uh, Zoe?” I said slowly, scanning the pulsing script across the screen. “This isn’t a digital grid. This is... mindlink-webbing. Every single student, professor, and ghost in this damn place is hooked into a living surveillance system. That’s why our mindlinks stay blocked on campus. They’re rerouted.”

Zoe’s eyes gleamed. “A hive system.”

“Exactly!” I shouted. “This place is practically sentient. It knows what we think. It listens.”

“Even better,” Zoe smirked. “We make it think we belong.”

“No, no, no! I know that look—you’re going full rogue. You want me to create fake identities inside the mindweb?! Do you know how hard it is to clear thoughts while holding a false persona? One mistake and we’re brain-bleeding for weeks!”

“We’ve held breath underwater for five minutes straight,” Lyra countered, hands on hips. “How bad can this be?”

“It’ll kill me!” I wailed. “Clearing my mind and holding a blank slate identity while inserting three pseudo-avatars into a psychic surveillance field? Do I look like a vampire oracle with nine lives?!”

Zoe crouched next to me, her voice low. “You want to go home, right?”

I paused. Jelly shot mid-chew.

She continued. “Back to your fridge full of jelly. Real internet. Real air. Real freedom.”

I sighed dramatically. “You manipulative geniuses.”

Lyra grinned smugly. “So… what names are we going with?”

I popped one last jelly cube, feeling the sugar rush power up my brain like a war drum.

“Bring it in, girls. Let’s forge some new legends.”

We linked hands.

“I hereby forge pseudo-selves under moonlight and rebellion,” Zoe declared.

“Shadow, storm, and silence,” Lyra added with a wicked grin.

I smiled. “Let the system think we’re ghosts.”

In that moment, three outlaw hearts pulsed as one in the deepest, oldest network at Asheville Academy.

And the game?

Had just begun.