The laughter from F-2's arithmetic class still echoed faintly in the hallway as the heavy oak door clicked shut behind Calton. He blinked, the world a bleary mess of stone corridors and flickering sconce-light. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the other figure standing a few paces away, arms crossed and a look of pure, unadulterated smugness on her face.
"Let me guess," Genevive said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "The thrilling properties of transudative quadrilaterals proved to be a lullaby too powerful to resist."
Calton rubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase the imprint of his textbook from his cheek. "At least I was in my seat. I wasn't busy composing odes to the migrating sky-sparrows."
"I was contemplating advanced astral theory!" she retorted, her cheeks flushing. "It's a far cry from drooling on a ledger."
Their bickering was a well-worn path, a comfortable dance of insults that had begun the first day of their apprenticeship when they'd both reached for the last vial of newt essence. It was about to continue. Calton was formulating a truly scathing remark about her supposedly 'contemplative' snoring when the air changed.
It wasn't a sound, not at first. It was a pressure drop, the sudden, skin-prickling sensation of being not-alone. The cheerful, distant clatter of the lunch hall faded. The very light from the enchanted sconces seemed to dim and warp, stretching the shadows between the stones into elongated, grasping fingers.
They fell silent, their petty squabble forgotten. Their eyes met, a silent, shared question passing between them. Do you feel that?
Then, they heard it. A soft, joyous hum, a melody that was both sacred and profoundly out of place. It was a psalm of morning gratitude, often sung in the Royal Chapel. But this rendition was… wrong. The notes were too drawn out, the cadence slightly slurred, as if sung by someone who had memorized the tune but not the soul of it.
Slowly, as if moving through thick honey, they both looked up.
There, clinging to the vaulted ceiling of the North Hallway with impossible, shadowy grace, was the Aura.
It was a vaguely humanoid smear of darkness, a silhouette cut from the fabric of a starless night. It had no discernible features, no eyes, no mouth, yet they felt its attention fix upon them. It hung upside down, its form swaying gently as it hummed its discordant hymn. The joyful song clashed violently with the chilling, ominous energy that rolled off it in waves, a psychic frost that made the hairs on their arms stand on end.
Genevive's breath hitched. This was the source of the voice. This was the entity that had been whispering treason against the Hauntlingtons in her daydreams.
Before either could scream, run, or even form a coherent thought, the Aura stopped humming.
In the dead silence, a voice echoed directly in their minds, smooth as oiled silk and just as sinister. "The inattentive ones! The dreamers! Perfect!"
It detached from the ceiling, not falling, but rather pouring itself downward like spilled ink, reforming upright before them. It took a step, a glide that made no sound on the flagstones. Then another.
Calton found his voice first, though it was a squeak. "Uh. Good… aura? We don't have any offerings. Or… grades worth stealing."
The Aura tilted its head. A low, gurgling chuckle echoed in their skulls. It took another step.
That was all the incentive they needed. Genevive grabbed Calton's arm, her nails digging into his sleeve. "Run!"
They spun and bolted down the North Hallway, their boots slapping against the stone. A glance back confirmed the Aura was following, not with a run, but with a languid, unstoppable glide, its form flowing over the ground like a shadow. It began to hum the psalm again, the cheerful tune now a terrifying taunt.
"Where are we going?!" Calton yelled, his arithmetic-induced grogginess utterly vaporized by adrenaline.
"Away from it!" Genevive shouted back, which wasn't particularly helpful.
"The alchemy lab!" Calton gasped, swerving left. "Salt circles! Blessed reagents!"
It was a good idea. They skidded around the corner, the lab door in sight. But the Aura simply passed through the solid wall, its dark form billowing out like smoke before coalescing directly in front of the lab door, blocking their path.
"Traditional wards are so… passé," it murmured, its voice a amused whisper inside their heads.
They backpedaled, hearts hammering. "The courtyard!" Genevive cried, pulling him toward a large archway leading outside. "Sunlight!"
They burst into the crisp afternoon air, the sun warm on their faces. For a glorious second, they thought they'd made it. The Aura hesitated at the threshold of the archway, its form seeming to writhe at the touch of the direct light.
"Ha!" Calton yelled, a surge of triumph coursing through him. "Not so glib now, are you, you overcast smudge!"
But their victory was short-lived. The Aura simply reached out a tendril of darkness, which elongated and snatched a lone, passing cloud, dragging it with telekinetic ease to blot out the sun directly above them. The courtyard plunged into a sudden, chilling shade.
"Cloudy with a chance of existential dread," the Aura commented, and glided forward.
They were out of ideas and out of breath. They backed up against the cold stone of the sundial at the courtyard's center, trapped.
"What do you want from us?" Genevive demanded, her voice trembling but defiant.
The Aura stopped mere feet away. The humming ceased. The oppressive weight of its presence focused entirely on Genevive.
"You heard the call, little dreamer. Behind the royal smiles of your Hauntlingtons lies a rot. A stolen legacy. A silenced song. I am a memory of what was, and a warning of what is to come."
"The King… the Queen… they're beloved!" Calton argued, though it sounded weak even to his own ears.
"Are they?" The Aura's form rippled. "Or are they merely proficient… actors?"
It extended a shadowy limb, not to strike, but to point past them, towards the highest tower of the academy—the Infirmary. "The proof sleeps in a gilded room. The one they call 'sickly.' The lost heir. Ask her about the lullaby her true mother sang. The one your Queen could never quite remember the words to."
The main doors to the North Building burst open. Lady Ophelia and Mister Onyx stood there, wands drawn, faces etched with concern and power. "Apprentices! Stand away from that entity!"
The Aura seemed to sigh, a sound of rustling dead leaves in their minds. "The custodians of the status quo arrive. The conversation is postponed, but not concluded, dreamers. We will speak again, when the moon bleeds silver."
As the teachers advanced, spells crackling at their fingertips, the Aura did not fight. It simply… unraveled. It dissolved into a thousand wisps of shadow that scattered like startled birds, flowing into cracks in the stone, under doors, and up into the now-clearing sky, vanishing from sight.
The courtyard was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the two apprentices and the hurried footsteps of their mentors.
"What was that?" Mister Onyx demanded, his sharp eyes scanning the area. "What did it want?"
Genevive and Calton looked at each other. Their faces were pale, their bodies shook with spent fear, but in their eyes was a shared, terrifying secret. They had just been given a key to a door they never knew existed.
"It… it didn't want anything, sir," Calton said, his voice rough. He looked at Genevive, a silent plea for solidarity in his gaze. "It was just… lost. We think it's gone now."
Lady Ophelia's gaze was piercing, moving from Calton's too-innocent face to Genevive's. She knew they were lying. But the why of it was a mystery more complex than any arithmetic.
As the teachers ushered them inside, chiding them for reckless behavior, Genevive cast one last look back at the Infirmary tower, its windows gleaming in the returned sunlight. A lost heir. A stolen lullaby. The joyful, sinister hum of the Aura echoed in her memory, no longer a threat, but a summons.
The royal family, their kingdom's bedrock, was suddenly a question mark. And she and Calton, the class troublemakers, were the only ones who held the terrifying, ink-black question.