When I open my eyes, I'm not on the ridge anymore.
For a second, I think I've gone blind everything is blindingly white, humming like a thousand broken fluorescent lights. Then the light fades, and I realize I'm standing in the middle of what looks like… a campus?
Except this one is floating.
Massive towers twist into the clouds, staircases spiral in midair, and glowing runes drift lazily like dust motes. Students in long coats zip between buildings on boards of light, and in the center of it all, a symbol burns on the ground where I'm standing a spiderweb of glowing cracks.
My cracks.
"Oh, no," I whisper. "Oh, yes. I definitely broke something important."
Before I can move, a sharp wind knocks me backward as three people descend from the sky robes snapping, magic energy fizzing around them like static. Professors, apparently. And judging by their expressions, they are not here for a casual chat.
The first one lands with enough force to shake the tiles. A tall woman with silver hair and eyes like frozen lightning. Her voice cuts through the air.
"Who breached the Veil?"
I raise my hand halfway. "Uh… define 'breached'?"
The second professor, a short man with ink stains all over his sleeves, squints at me. "You're human. How did you see the rift?"
"I, uh… touched it?"
Silence. Dead, judgmental silence.
The third one a guy with messy brown hair and the general vibe of someone who hasn't slept in three days groans and rubs his temples.
"Oh great. Another anomaly. Do you kids ever read the warnings?"
"I didn't know there were warnings!" I protest. "No one exactly hands out a pamphlet that says, 'Don't poke glowing sky cracks.'"
That earns me a few confused looks. Then the silver-haired woman steps closer, studying me like a bug under a microscope.
"The boy's aura is… fractured. He's not just human."
"Excuse me?" I say. "I'm perfectly normal. Well, mostly. Okay, not really, but-"
She raises a hand, and a sigil flares under my feet. My body freezes mid-sentence.
"Bring him to the Headmaster," she orders. "If he broke the Veil, he'll answer for it."
I try to shout something witty, but all that comes out is a muffled grunt as the world folds around me again.
And just like that, I'm gone.