The academy clock tower struck seven.
Eloise Sterling sat in the last row of the tiered lecture hall for Foundations of Anomalous Phenomena Analysis, her fingers tapping Morse code along the edge of her notebook:
.-.. .- -. -.-. . .-Clairvoyance.
She had remained in the apartment until three in the morning.Without suppression runes.
For the first forty-seven minutes, control was possible. Spirit-sight surged in like a tide: emotional residues of former tenants embedded in the walls, the fear-scent of rat nests beneath the floorboards, tear-stained soul-energies clinging to the windowpanes. She categorized them with an engineer's discipline—indexed, labeled, modeled for decay.
At the forty-eighth minute, Viretta's hunger emerged.
It was not an image but a gravitational well. All free soul-energy in the room streamed toward the bedroom, forming a slow, rotating vortex of silver light. Eloise's own soul-field was disturbed; a cold emptiness tugged at her stomach, as though something were siphoning her from the inside.
She reactivated the suppression rune.
But in that instant, she captured the vortex's mathematical structure:a fractal absorption matrix, unnaturally efficient—far beyond anything a natural spirit could generate.
This hunger had been designed.
"—The defining feature of Class-III etheric phenomena is observable energy loss accompanied by localized entropy reduction."
Professor Gianna Archer's voice drew Eloise back to the present.
The youngest tenured professor in the Academy, public consultant to the Industrial Thaumaturgical Guild, Archer wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit. Her dark hair was bound with mechanical precision.
"An example," Archer said, clicking a remote. A blurred thermal projection appeared. "Last month's dockside warehouse incident. Temperature dropped fifteen degrees, yet energy audits show zero external input. Meanwhile, the steel shelving exhibited accelerated oxidation—rust patterns forming a Fibonacci spiral."
She turned to the class. "Can anyone infer what occurred?"
Silence.
Eloise knew this was not undergraduate material. Her acceptance letter had included a separate note requiring her enrollment.
"Miss Sterling," Archer said precisely. "Your thoughts?"
Eloise rose, aware of every eye upon her.
"The core of a Class-III event is not energy loss, but energy conversion," she said. "Thermal energy was transformed into soul-energy and extracted. The accelerated rust resulted from soul-flow disturbing the electromagnetic field, catalyzing oxidation. The Fibonacci spiral is the topological projection of a soul vortex."
She paused, then added, "The warehouse belonged to the Holloway family in the 1880s. There may be a relic beneath its foundations acting as a conversion catalyst."
A murmur rippled through the hall. Archer's brow lifted—her first expression of the day.
"Detailed and accurate. Based on your analysis, response protocol?"
"Standard procedure is soul-channeling and medium purification. But I recommend investigating the Holloway family archives first. If the catalyst was deliberately planted, this may be cyclical. The next occurrence should be—"
Her pocket watch vibrated.
A sharp, high-frequency triple pulse—like ventricular fibrillation.
Emergency alert: High-density soul entity approaching. Within fifty meters.
Eloise pressed her fingers against the watch and glanced toward the windows.
The corridor outside was empty. Yet behind the frosted glass, a blurred shadow moved—not human, but fluid, its outline constantly reshaping. It paused at each classroom door, as if sniffing.
"Miss Sterling?" Archer prompted.
"—three months from now, at the lunar tidal peak," Eloise forced herself to finish and sat down. Cold sweat dampened her palms.
The shadow stopped before their door.
The handle turned.
Archer glanced at her wristwatch. "It is not time for teaching assistants' rounds."
The door opened.
What entered was not human.
It was a hovering mass of translucent substance, like mercury fused with smoke. Across its surface rolled vague human faces, hands, and eyes—a collage of fractured memories. It drifted down the aisle, the air warping subtly around it.
Most students did nothing—they could not see it.
But Eloise saw three bodies stiffen in the front rows:a red-haired girl gripping her pen;a boy with ear piercings whose pupils contracted;and Zoe, seated in the third row, neck hairs rising as her hand slid quietly into her backpack.
Scout spirit. Artificial construction. Soul-structure shows stitched seams.Behavior: wide-range scan, low aggression.Purpose: identification of Seers.
The fluid entity halted beside Zoe. A tendril extended, brushing the nape of her neck. Zoe shuddered but did not move.
Eloise's hand reached for the prototype soul-interference generator at her waist.Success probability: forty percent.If it failed—
The entity withdrew and continued forward. It paused briefly at the red-haired girl, glided past the pierced boy, and finally stopped before Eloise's row.
It turned toward her.
The mass contracted, reshaping itself into a vague Victorian gentleman—top hat, cane, frock coat. No face. Yet she felt its gaze upon her.
Then it bowed.
Elegantly. Obscenely so.
From its chest it produced a card—not paper, but condensed light—and placed it upon Eloise's desk. It bowed again, dissolved back into liquid form, and drifted out.
The entire event lasted less than twenty seconds. Archer never noticed; she was writing equations on the board.
Eloise stared at the luminous card.
A miniature hologram appeared: a Gothic building with spired towers. Beneath it, an address:
Old Harbor District, Blackbrick Alley No. 13.Open after midnight.
A second line, visible only to spirit-sight:
To the daughter of the Sterling line:Your invitation. Please bring a gift.— The Collector
"Eloise?"
Zoe slipped into the back row, whispering, "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Eloise swept the card into her bag. It shattered into stardust. "Low blood sugar."
"Liar." Zoe stared at her glasses. "The crack on your left lens—it's bigger. It wasn't there this morning."
Eloise touched it. The fracture had grown half a millimeter.
"What happened in the apartment last night? You didn't send the safety signal until three."
The bell rang. Archer nodded in their direction and left.
"I need the lab," Eloise said, standing. "I rewrote your Chapter Three algorithm—emailed it."
"Don't change the subject—"
"Zoe." Eloise met her eyes. "If I told you I made a deal last night with a three-hundred-year-old astral ghost imprisoned by fae runes—and that she can teach me to control a power that might explode my brain—would you believe me?"
Zoe opened her mouth. Closed it. Then smiled."Believe you? No. But I'll bring recording gear and a first-aid kit. When's class?"
"Sunset. My apartment."Eloise paused at the door. "Don't tell anyone about the card. Especially Professor Archer."
"Why?"
"Because the one who invited me—the Collector—may be connected to the woman teaching us."She adjusted her spectacles; the crack gleamed like silver lightning."In this room, at least four of us could see that scout spirit. We've all been marked."
She stepped into the corridor. Her pocket watch vibrated faster and faster.
Viretta's words echoed in her mind:
"By my reckoning, your awakening is overdue."
And perhaps—she would not awaken alone.