Back at the academy, Grandma Elunara's fingers tapped lightly against the table as she turned her gaze from the chaotic footage flickering on the monitor screen.
Screams, blurred movements, and flashes of light played across the holograms, but she paid them no mind. Her instincts tugged sharper than the noise inside this room. Something outside… something quieter, but heavier, was pulling her.
Every instructor had stiffened, jaws dropped as they all wondered what was happening in the city.
Without a word, she rose. The air seemed to fold around her as she slipped toward the door. None of the instructors noticed her departure, not even the headmaster, who was still locked on the images in front of him. Her absence was like a whisper lost in a storm.
The hallway greeted her with silence. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, their glow reflecting across the polished floor. Shadows stretched along the walls where the doors to empty classrooms stood shut. She paused, her golden eyes narrowing.
None of the students are back yet.
A cold prickle traveled down her spine. She scanned the still corridor as though it might answer her.
Then, abruptly, she remembered – the kettle. Her mind reached outward.
"Miko," she called through telepathy, her voice calm but firm, echoing within the mental bond. Where is the kettle?
But there was no answer from Miko. Only silence.
Her brow creased as she tried again, sharper this time.
"Hey, Miko. You better not be sleeping. Where is the kettle?"
The words pressed into the mental void, but still, nothing came back. Her footsteps slowed, the air feeling heavier, and colder.
Miko's voice broke through the silence with a startled gasp, as if he really had just been jolted awake.
"Uh... I'm not quite sure, Mistress Elunara. I… I'm in some dark place."
Grandma's steps slowed, her eyes narrowing.
"When did you get into a dark place?" she pressed, her tone sharp but even. "Didn't I leave you in the monitor room a moment ago? Do you still have it, though?"
Her dark green coat caught the faint breeze as she leapt over the roof, and glided toward the woods. The wind carried the muffled hum of the academy below her, but halfway across she paused, her gaze falling to the ground. Something felt wrong.
Meanwhile, Miko strained against the haze clouding his senses, trying to peel his eyes fully open. Darkness wavered into a blurred outline of shapes. His body soft and silken remained wound tightly around the kettle's neck. But the kettle itself… it wasn't resting where it should.
He felt movement; a steady, rhythmic sway, as though someone was carrying it. Each step echoed faintly through the metal, dull thuds in the silence.
A shiver of realization crawled through him. He was no longer in the academy.
"Yes, I still have the kettle, Mistress Elunara," Miko said quickly, his silken form tightening protectively around its neck.
"Miko," she asked gently, her lips curving in the faintest smile. "Just call me Gee, okay?"
There was a pause, a hesitant ripple in his voice.
"But the young Master's spirit already calls you Gee!"
"It's fine," she replied, her tone firm but warm. "He won't mind you two sharing it."
Her eyes, sharp as a blade's edge, caught something in the distance. A shimmer of golden light swirling in broken flickers across the air, like dying embers caught in a phantom wind. Below, the earth rumbled faintly, the ground threatening to split open with a groan that echoed up through the rooftops.
Grandma's expression hardened. In one swift motion, she slipped a hand into her coat and pulled out several slightly folded papers.
With a flick of her wrist, she scattered them into the air around her. They unfurled mid-flight, each glowing faintly as the single word "SEAL" burned bright at their centers, except for one.
Her fingers danced. Index and middle finger swept swiftly in different directions, weaving through the air like a conductor guiding unseen threads.
The seals shifted and realigned, forming a lattice of glowing wards. Each motion she made sent a faint crackle through the atmosphere, the sound of paper tearing through silence and reforming as something stronger.
The air grew heavy, pressing in, as though the world itself was holding its breath.
Mistress Elunara thinks I speak slowly, like the young Master's spirit, Miko mused to himself, his silken body tightening comfortably around the kettle's neck.
So she wants me to call her Gee instead of saying Mistress Elunara. His thoughts echoed faintly, certain only he could hear them.
But in truth, Grandma hadn't meant it the way Miko took it. She never intended to hurt his feelings or make him doubt his place beside her. The name wasn't the problem at all.
She just… liked how Van used to call her Gee. The way his voice carried it; light, and careless, almost teasing and mocking, always softened her, even when the world was hard. And in that fleeting moment, she wanted to hear Miko say it.
She was remembering, because both Miko and Van spoke slowly. Although, Van always thought it meant loser. But 'Gee' in spirit language means – someone who is always smiling.
"That is not what I meant, Miko," Grandma's voice cut through his private musing, calm but precise, as if she had plucked the words straight from his mind. A faint sigh carried behind her tone. "But fine… you can call me as you wish."
Miko froze for a moment, then released a soft, airy hum, gentle and melodic. It was the closest thing to a smile his silk form could produce, a small testament to the happiness her permission stirred in him.
But that lightness faltered the moment his senses sharpened.
The kettle jolted slightly in motion. Miko peeled his awareness outward, and his view adjusted just enough to glimpse the one holding him. His threads prickled with unease. The figure's skin was tinged a dark green, its build humanoid but unnaturally sinewed, eyes glowing faintly with a sickly hue. He recognized them. The same kind of creatures he'd once glimpsed at the black market, shadowing J.
And this one wasn't alone.
Around it moved others, six in total. Their shapes loomed in the dimness, shoulders hunched, claws flexing, their steps eerily synchronized. The kettle swayed with each of their movements, the rhythm too steady to be human.
Miko's hum vanished, replaced with a quiet, internal dread.
"Um, Mistress Elunara," Miko's voice quivered faintly through the bond, his threads curling tighter around the kettle's neck. "I think J sent his minions to come for it again."
Grandma's eyes narrowed, a cold gleam flashing across them as she drifted over the rooftops. The golden flickers in the air pulsed brighter for a heartbeat, as if echoing her resolve.
"Finish up with them," she ordered, her tone sharp, leaving no room for hesitation. "Then meet me at the Calamines barrier. You have thirty seconds."
Her words cracked like a whip across the telepathic link.
"Okay, Mistress Elunara." Miko's reply carried both nervous energy and determination. But before he could say anything else, the darkness around him thickened, swallowing his voice into silence.
The connection fuzzed with static, then snapped, leaving Grandma alone with only the whisper of the wind and the low rumble of the earth splitting beneath her.
She exhaled through her nose, steady, her gaze fixed toward the barrier in the distance. "Thirty seconds. He'd better keep up."
Grandma vaulted across the last stretch of rooftops, her movements sharp and fluid, and in no time her boots struck the earth before the Calamines barrier.
The massive wall of light loomed before her, shimmering faintly in the darkness like water rippling against invisible glass. Its glow painted the air in pale blues and silvers, the only light in a night that pressed in heavy and suffocating.