Octavia stared at him, her breath hitching as she realized exactly what he was doing. He was covering it up. He was hiding the impossible thing she had just witnessed.
Aleksander pulled his blood-soaked hands back, his chest heaving as the last trace of golden light faded into the dark.
But magic could not replace lost blood.
The sheer physical trauma of the attack, the massive exsanguination, and the overwhelming, unnatural shock of ancient Fey energy surging through a fragile human nervous system was simply too much for Wells' body to handle.
Wells let out one final, shuddering breath. His eyes fluttered shut, and his body went completely, terrifyingly limp in the dirt.
Aleksander immediately pressed two fingers to the side of Wells' artificially bandaged neck.
The pulse was there. It was slow, steady, and rhythmic, thumping reliably against Aleksander's fingertips. The boy was alive. But he didn't wake up. His mind, battered by the violent transition between life and death, had shut down entirely.
Wells Jaha had slipped into a deep, protective coma.
Octavia stood frozen, her mind violently struggling to process the impossible sequence of events. She had just watched Aleksander move faster than humanly possible, and she had seen literal, glowing magic knit a severed artery back together.
"Alex..." Octavia stammered, her voice shaking as she pointed at his blood-soaked hands. "What did you just do? The light... how did you—"
"Octavia, look at me," Aleksander interrupted, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register that instantly cut through her panic. He locked his dark eyes onto hers. "I will explain everything. You have my word. But I cannot do it here, and I cannot do it now. We need to get him back to safety."
Octavia stared into his intense, unblinking gaze. The shock was still paralyzing, but the undeniable reality was that Wells Jaha was alive because of whatever Aleksander had just done. She gave a slow, shaky nod, deciding to trust him.
Aleksander effortlessly scooped Wells into his arms, carrying the unconscious boy against his chest, while Octavia fell in step right beside him. Together, they hurried out of the dark tree line and through the heavy wooden gates.
The moment they stepped into the glow of the firelight, the camp froze.
The low hum of chatter, the scraping of metal, and the crackle of the fires seemed to vanish entirely. Bellamy, who had been aggressively arguing with Miller near the dropship ramp, went perfectly still. His eyes widened as they landed on the massive amount of dark, wet blood coating Aleksander's arms and chest.
"Wells!"
Clarke pushed her way violently through the crowd, her face completely draining of color as she sprinted toward them.
"Oh my god. Wells!" Clarke cried out, panic lacing her voice. "What happened? Put him down! Put him down right now!"
Aleksander knelt smoothly and gently laid Wells on a heavy canvas blanket near the central fire. Clarke immediately dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands were shaking, but her medical training kicked in as she pressed two fingers to the uninjured side of his neck, carefully examining the blood-soaked fabric Aleksander had tied tightly over the wound.
"His pulse is slow... he's completely unresponsive," Clarke assessed rapidly, looking up at Aleksander with wide, terrified eyes. "The cut is deep, but the bleeding stopped. Did a Grounder do this? Did they breach the perimeter?"
Aleksander stood up slowly. The flickering orange light of the fire danced across his face, casting long, menacing shadows. He didn't answer Clarke right away.
Instead, his dark, predatory gaze swept over the circle of delinquents enclosing them. He looked at Bellamy, who had his hand resting tensely on his blade. He looked at Murphy, who was frowning in confusion. He looked at the terrified, pale faces of the younger kids hiding behind the older teens. He was studying them. Hunting for a reaction. Hunting for a killer.
The camp held its breath, waiting for the Alpha Station prodigy to confirm their worst nightmare about the Grounders.
"It wasn't the Grounders," Aleksander finally answered, his voice ringing out cold and absolute in the dead silence of the camp. "The enemy is already inside the walls."
Aleksander could easily read there thoughts or memories to find the culprit. But now he was too emotional, so his control wasn't the best. He would probably turn everyones brain around him to mush. Also, his Empathy was picking up emotion from all over the place, it was too much information.
Everyone was whispering amongst themselves, Bellamy was not sure who did it. After all Wells was disliked by everyone because he was Chancellor Thelonious Jahas son.
"Secure the perimeter and keep everyone away from him," Aleksander ordered Bellamy, wiping the worst of the blood from his hands with a rag. His voice was cold, completely devoid of the panic that had gripped the rest of the camp. "I am going back to the scene to see what we missed."
Without waiting for a response, Aleksander turned and strode back toward the heavy wooden gates.
Clarke, fueled by adrenaline and a desperate need for answers, immediately grabbed a salvaged flashlight and sprinted after him. Octavia, who was still trying to process the impossible things she had witnessed just minutes prior, didn't hesitate to follow them back into the dark.
The short trek back to the clearing outside the walls was tense and silent. When they breached the brush, the faint, ethereal glow of the bioluminescent spores was still lingering in the air, casting a haunting light over the trampled grass and the massive pool of dark blood soaking into the earth.
Clarke swept her flashlight across the dirt, her eyes frantically searching for clues. A few feet from the blood pool, the beam caught the dull gleam of heavy steel.
Clarke gasped, stepping forward and shining the light directly onto the discarded weapon.
It was a heavy, custom-forged hunting knife. The blade was completely coated in crimson, but the jagged handle and the unique notches on the hilt were unmistakable.
"I know this knife," Clarke breathed, her face twisting in a mix of horror and sudden, absolute fury. She looked up at Octavia. "It's John Murphy's. He was just looking for it by the fire."
Before Aleksander or Octavia could say a word, Clarke spun on her heel. Blinded by rage and the terrifying realization that one of their own had just tried to slaughter the Chancellor's son, she sprinted back toward the camp, determined to confront Murphy before he could hurt anyone else.
Aleksander didn't stop her. He didn't even look at the knife.
"Alex?" Octavia whispered, standing near the edge of the clearing, watching him with wary, wide eyes. "What are you doing?"
"Finding the truth," Aleksander murmured.
He stepped into the center of the clearing, directly over the blood-stained earth. He closed his eyes and initiated a Psychic Vision.
He didn't need to physically touch the blood. He simply extended his senses, pushing his magic into the residual energy left behind by the sheer violence of the act.
The air in the clearing suddenly rippled, distorting like heat waves rising off hot asphalt.
To Octavia, who was watching from the edge, it looked as if Aleksander was just staying still.
But through Aleksander's eyes, the physical world completely desaturated, bleeding into dull, muted shades of gray. The ambient sounds of the forest faded into a hollow, echoing vacuum.
From the dirt and the blood, millions of tiny, glowing particles of ethereal dust began to rise. They swirled violently in the air, defying gravity, before rapidly coalescing into life-sized, translucent, three-dimensional silhouettes. They looked like shimmering holograms constructed entirely out of glowing smoke and suspended ash.
Aleksander watched the ghostly echo of the past play out in perfect, silent clarity right in front of him.
He saw the tall, broad silhouette of Wells Jaha standing watch near the tree line.
Then, the swirling particles formed a second silhouette. Aleksander's eyes narrowed. It wasn't the tall, lanky build of John Murphy.
It was small. Child-sized.
Aleksander watched the translucent, glowing figure of thirteen-year-old Charlotte step silently up up to Wells and sat next to him. He watched the ghostly echo of the knife rise in her small hand, and he watched the brutal, unflinching thrust as she drove the blade directly into the side of Wells' neck.
She was completely in state of disbelief or daze.
The glowing figures broke apart as the echo of Wells collapsed to the ground, scattering back into formless, drifting dust before fading entirely into the night.
The color and sound of the real forest violently snapped back into place.
Aleksander opened his eyes, the cold, calculating weight of the truth settling over him.
Clarke was currently sprinting back to camp to accuse the most volatile, hated delinquent in the dropship of a crime he didn't commit, while the real killer was a terrified little girl.