Chapter 3 NAVY

The word lands in the hall like a stone in still water.

"What? No!"

She doesn't write anything down. She just looks at me the way people look at someone they've already decided is lying — patient, almost sympathetic, like she's giving me a chance to change my story before things get worse.

“I'm not using anything.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.

"Then explain the reading."

“Say something else,” my brain screams. “Explain it. Give her something.”

I have nothing.

Because the truth is I don't know why the device screamed. I wasn't pushing my magic. I wasn't doing anything. It was just — there. Under my skin. The way it always is, quiet and waiting, and apparently impossible to hide from a piece of silver machinery.

Professor Shaw is at my side before I can spiral further. He looks at the device then at me over his glasses. Producing a second device from the podium drawer, he holds it toward my wrist himself.

It shrieks louder than the first one.

The hall does not erupt. Aurelian students are too composed for that. But I hear it moving through the rows the way heat moves — invisible, inevitable, impossible to stop once it starts.

“Booster.”

“Has to be.”

“Wolfless and that reading?”

“Her family has money. You can tell.”

“The idiot didn't even think to take a low dose. Probably downed the whole bottle.”

"Log it as an equipment anomaly pending review," Professor Shaw says to the assessor calmly, without looking at me.

He just walks back to the podium and picks up his notes like nothing happened.

I walk back to my seat, eyes glued to the floor, and breathe, counting my steps the way my mother taught me when I was nine and the magic first started coming and everything felt too big and too loud and too much.

I sit down quickly. “You're fine, Navy,” I tell myself. “You're absolutely fine.”

The pairing announcement comes at the end of orientation. I'm not listening properly — I'm still somewhere inside the device moment, replaying it, trying to figure out what I could have done differently — until I hear my name.

"Navy Hayes."

I look up.

"And Klaus Delacroix."

The pause that follows has a shape to it. A texture. I feel the room register it — the ‘booster’ girl paired with the student who shifted like he'd been doing it since birth.

I turn my head slowly. Klaus is already looking at me.

Those sapphire eyes are completely, devastatingly still. It's not anger exactly. It's the look of someone doing a very fast calculation and not liking the answer.

I give him a small, helpless shrug.

He looks away.

“Great,” I think. “Fantastic. Perfect.”

The minute we're dismissed, I make it back to my dorm room in four minutes flat.

I unlock room 6C, step inside, close the door behind me and stand in the middle of my depressing grey room in complete silence.

My phone buzzes. I look at the screen then answer immediately. "Hey—"

"You left without telling me?" Thaddeus's voice fills the room like he's already in it, which is very on-brand for him. "I'm in your bedroom. Your mother made me a sandwich. Navy, she put mayonnaise on it. I cannot be expected to—"

"Thad."

"—sit here eating mayonnaise like some kind of—"

“Thaddeus.”

Silence.

"You sound terrible," he says.

"I had a day."

"How bad?"

“I went to the academy we talked about.” I sit down on the floor, back against the bed. "A device screamed at me in front of my entire year group and now everyone thinks I'm a cheater."

A pause. "Which device?"

"Magic aptitude reader."

"Ohhh."

I sit up straighter. "Ohh? What do you mean, ‘ohh’? Thad—"

"Hold on, I'm coming through."

"You're — wait, my room isn't remodelled yet, it looks like a prison cell in here—"

"Navy."

"Fine." I stand up, press two fingers to my palm, and pull. The air in the corner of the room separates like fabric, a tear of violet light widening into a portal just tall enough for someone unreasonably large to duck through.

Thaddeus steps out of it, unfolding himself to his full height, and looks around my grey dorm room with an expression of profound personal offence.

"Absolutely not," he says. "This is not happening. We are redecorating."

"Can you focus—"

"I am focused." He drops onto my bed like he owns it — six foot five of arch demon in a cream turtleneck, black hair perfectly placed, purple eyes scanning the room with undisguised horror. "Talk. Tell me everything."

So I do.

All of it. The orientation, the wolf assessment, the device, the assessor's face, the booster accusation, the whispers spreading through the hall like wildfire. Professor Shaw pulling me out of it for the second time.

Thaddeus listens without interrupting, which is how I know he's taking it seriously. When I finish, he's quiet for a moment.

Then — "Your magic's stronger."

I stare at him. "I noticed. Why?"

"The fight."

"What fight?"

He gives me a look. I give it right back.

"Navy."

"I did ONE fight, Thaddeus. One. Because YOU said it would be character building—"

"And was it not?"

"It was a demon MMA fight in the UNDERWORLD—"

"Technically the lower third—"

"There were teeth involved that didn't belong to anyone's mouth—"

"That's just aesthetic—"

"THADDEUS!" I take a deep breath. "What does an underground demon fight have to do with my magic breaking a calibrated device at a school orientation?"

He tilts his head, purple eyes patient. "Combat accelerates dark magic development. Especially in a host with natural ability. You went three rounds in a charged environment and then went back to your regular life without a recalibration." He pauses. "You've essentially been walking around with a live wire under your skin for three months."

I open my mouth.

Close it.

"Why," I say very carefully, "did you not tell me this?"

"I thought you knew."

"How would I know?! Thad, you're the demon—"

"You're the one with the magic—"

"That I have never once been trained in because it's a FAMILY SECRET—"

"Okay." He holds up one elegant hand. "Okay. This is fixable."

I stop pacing. "How?"

"Suppressor." He says it simply, like it's obvious and he says it too quickly. With Thaddeus there's always a version of events he gives you and a version he keeps for himself until the timing is right.

I've learned to wait for the second version. 

"Temporary binding. Keeps the magic below the threshold of external detection while you figure out the wolf situation." He examines my room again and winces at the curtains. "I can source one. Give me a few days."

"A few days," I repeat. "Thad, you knew this would happen. I have assessments—"

"A few days, Navy."

"And a project partner who already hates me—"

"Mm." His eyes sharpen with sudden interest. "Tell me about the project partner."

"No."

"You went pink."

"I did not—"

"You went measurably pink just now—"

My phone rings.

We both look at it. The blood drains from wherever it went pink back to wherever blood normally lives.

I answer the call. "Hey—"

"Navy Elizabeth Hayes."

I close my eyes briefly. Behind me, Thaddeus makes a sympathetic face and reaches over to pat my head twice. I bat his hand away.

"Mom—"

"We just got off the phone with Professor Shaw."

"I was going to—"

"A booster? They're suggesting you used a booster??"

"Mom, I would never—"

"I know that." Her voice cracks on the last word. "That's not what I'm worried about."

I know exactly what she's worried about.

Thaddeus has gone very still on my bed. He's not making faces anymore. He's watching me with those purple eyes and for once he looks exactly like what he is — something ancient and careful and genuinely concerned.

My father's voice comes on the line.

"Navy. We think you should come home."