They left the Headmaster's office in silence.
No one spoke as the doors shut behind them with a heavy lock-click. The weight of Renvael's words clung to them like frost. Down the long corridor, sunlight cut through narrow windows but offered no warmth. The halls had resumed their rhythm, students filing between lecture wings and training chambers, but none of the Valerius siblings felt like they belonged here anymore.
Cedric walked at the front, his strides slow, steady, but visibly restrained. Liora walked beside him, but her gaze wandered, catching every sideways glance, every half-hidden whisper. Avaia moved with smaller steps, eyes ahead but mind far elsewhere. Lucius trailed behind them all, barely lifting his eyes from the floor. No one acknowledged the students they passed. And none of the students dared speak to them.
Word was spreading.
The siblings made their way to the dormitory tower Section D, reserved for elite legacy families. The guards at the entrance stiffened when they saw them, but offered no greeting, only stepping aside.
Inside, the hallways were clean and clinical. The ceiling height. The walls are a polished blend of gray and stone white. Everything about the place screamed order and control, yet nothing felt controlled anymore.
Cedric didn't stop until they reached Cassius' room. The door was already sealed by academy order, reinforced with containment glyphs and a shimmer of translucent shielding along the frame.
"No one said that," Cedric spoke.
"They didn't need to." She crossed her arms, then turned and paced the hall. "We should have pulled him out of there. We shouldn't have let him even leave the house, but no, we're too fucking busy with school and look where that got him now."
"You know he doesn't listen to anyone," Lucius said. His voice was calm, but aggravated.
"He listens to Cedric."
Cedric's jaw tensed, but he said nothing.
The air around them buzzed faintly, like the walls themselves were reacting to the presence of so many Valerius-blooded standing in one place.
"I want to see him," Avaia said.
"There's a guard inside," Cedric said. "A resonance containment specialist. Even the medicae aren't allowed unsupervised. It's too dangerous."
"They think he's a threat now," Lucius muttered.
"No," Cedric said. "They don't think. They've already decided."
For a long moment, no one moved. Then Avaia stepped closer to the door, her fingers almost brushing the outer edge of the barrier. She didn't touch it. Just watched it. Behind the barrier, there was only stillness. Not even a shadow moved.
"Do you think he knows?" she asked.
Cedric answered after a pause. "He's not stupid. Even before… everything. He probably figured it out."
"He doesn't deserve this," Lucius said, voice low.
"Doesn't matter what anyone deserves," Cedric replied. "The system's never been fair to Hollow-bloods. We knew that."
"But it's different now," Liora said. "He has a resonance. That changes everything."
"No," Cedric said. "That's the problem. That's what changes nothing."
He turned and walked down the hall. The others followed.
They didn't go to their rooms. They didn't sit in the common hall or eat in the eastern dining sector like they usually would. They found themselves instead in an unused lecture amphitheater, cold and empty.
Cedric sat on the edge of the stone bench near the back. Liora climbed up to the center row, dropped down, and stared at the rows ahead. Lucius sat near the aisle, silent. Avaia stood.
They didn't need to say what they were thinking.
Cassius had done something that shouldn't have been possible. A Hollow-blood manifesting a resonance was rare, but not unheard of.
Manifesting one that warped reality around it broke the natural rules, shredded containment seals, and left even the medicae unable to identify its source; that was something else entirely.
And now they were learning the cost.
"He always knew," Avaia said after a while. "Didn't he?"
Cedric didn't respond right away.
"He told me once that some things were never meant to last. That power only makes sense when you don't want it." Cedric's voice was tired. "It wasn't a theory. He was preparing himself."
Lucius looked up. "For what?"
Cedric didn't answer.
Avaia turned toward the wall, voice thin. "We can't let them hide this. They'll lock him away. They'll use him for research. Try to replicate what happened to him..turn him into an experiment."
"They already are," Liora said. "The questions Renvael asked..he wasn't worried. He was documenting. I know he was."
"He'll never step outside that wing again," Avaia said. "Not unless we get him out ourselves."
Lucius shook his head. "We're still students. They'll watch everything we do. He's a containment risk now."
"He's our brother," Cedric said. "That's all that matters."
***
Cedric couldn't sleep.
He stood in the observatory tower alone, watching snowfall blur against the academy's northern wall.
The world outside looked calm, but his mind wasn't. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the way Cassius looked on the stretcher, skin too pale, veins tracing unnatural lines, something pulsing beneath his ribs that shouldn't have existed.
He remembered the way Cassius had collapsed at the waypoint exit. The moment his body touched the snow, steam had hissed up from the ground, and the energy leaking from him had warped the air.
Cassius wasn't stable.
He wasn't alive in the way others were.
He wasn't dead either.
Something had changed during that collapse. Something had nested inside him. It wasn't a resonance, at least not in the way the academies defined them. It was too fluid. Too unrooted. It didn't anchor to a domain. It didn't even seem like it wanted to remain inside him.
It had chosen him. Or maybe infected him.
Cedric didn't know which was worse.
Footsteps behind him pulled him from his thoughts. He turned.
Lucius entered, his usual cloak missing, replaced by a gray academy tunic and gloves. His expression was tight.
"They moved him again," Lucius said.
Cedric's chest tightened. "Where?"
"Underground level. Room 8C. Reinforced room. It's not a medicae cell, it's a vault."
"They're isolating him fully."
Lucius nodded. "I think they're waiting for him to wake up so they can interrogate him. Whatever his resonance is, they want it. And if he can't control it…"
Cedric stepped forward. "We're not letting them dissect him."
Lucius looked at him with steady eyes and nodded.