Eli never remembers walking back to his dorm — only the echo of Celeste's hand on his shoulder, Jace's muttered curses about secrets and wards, Liam's ink-smudged grin hiding an edge he won't explain yet.
The mark beneath his collarbone flares whenever he blinks. Behind his eyelids: glimpses of Khyro's eyes, Zyren's grin, runes curling like veins under skin.
Sleep doesn't come easy. Not when monsters stand on both sides of the Veil, whispering his name like a promise and a threat.
When dawn cracks, Eli finds himself outside the old library again — the one with the floorboards that creak like coffin lids. He shouldn't be here. But something drags him, pulls at the mark until his fingers hover over it through the fabric of his shirt.
Inside, the air smells of dust and old blood — or maybe that's just in his head.
He steps between the stacks, boots soft on worn wood, breath held like he's afraid the shadows might answer back. And they do.
A voice slides through the gaps in the bookshelves — silk over knives. "Mortal boy. Veilblood."
Eli spins — and Khyro is there, leaning against a cracked pillar, eyes gleaming crimson under the slant of pale light. His smile is almost gentle, but his fangs glint when he talks."You've been busy," Khyro murmurs. He steps closer, boots silent. "Fourfold pacts, rune tricks… pretending you're not marked."
Eli's mouth goes dry. He wants to move, but Khyro's presence pins him like a butterfly in a case.
Before he can speak, another laugh cuts through the hush — rougher, warm like fire licking up dry paper. Zyren slides out of the shadows, hands in his coat pockets, eyes bright with hunger that's half amusement, half promise.
"Aw, don't scare him yet, Dravenhart," Zyren drawls. He flicks a look at Eli that feels like claws down his spine. "He might actually cry."
Khyro ignores him — his eyes stay locked on Eli's.
"Do you want to live, Veilblood?" he asks softly.
Zyren's grin widens, teeth flashing sharp.
"Or do you want to burn with us instead?"
Eli's breath catches. The mark beneath his collarbone pulses like a heartbeat out of sync. His fingers curl at his sides. He feels the runes behind him, the ones the Fourfold mapped on cracked stone — fragile shields against monsters who don't care about doors.
"I don't—" Eli starts, but Khyro's hand is at his throat, cold and careful. Not choking. Just claiming.
"You're not ready to choose," Khyro murmurs. His thumb brushes Eli's pulse, a threat and a promise in one slow press.
Zyren steps closer, heat rolling off him like smoke. He leans in, lips brushing Eli's ear.
"But you will," Zyren whispers. "The Veil doesn't stay closed forever, sweetheart."
Eli's knees nearly buckle. When he blinks, the shadows behind the bookshelves twist — runes flare faintly where Liam once traced them. A ghost of safety that feels too thin now.
"See you soon, Veilblood," Khyro purrs.
And just like that — they're gone. The shadows settle. The hush returns.
Eli stands alone, pulse thrumming against the cold mark that refuses to let him forget whose monsters he's bound to.
He doesn't tell the others right away. Eli walks back to the dorm like nothing happened — like Khyro's touch isn't still cold on his throat, like Zyren's laugh isn't coiled behind his ribs.
By the time he pushes through the dorm door, Celeste is already there, half-asleep on his bed, crumbs of cheap cookies scattered on the blanket. She blinks when he drops his bag on the floor, her charm bracelets rattling when she sits up.
"You look like shit," she says. Her voice is soft but her eyes flick to his collarbone like she knows.
Eli shrugs out of his jacket, folds it over the back of his chair like the threads aren't soaked in monster scent. He doesn't answer, just sinks onto the floor by the bed, knees pulled to his chest.
Celeste reaches out, brushing cookie crumbs off his shoulder. "You want me to stay?" she asks. No push, no question he doesn't want to answer. Just that — stay or not.
He nods. That's enough.
---
Later, when the dark creeps closer, Jace shows up without knocking — drops himself on the other side of the bed, flicks his lighter open and shut like it's punctuation for all the things he won't say out loud.
"Dorm's freezing," he mutters. "Could at least pay the damn electric bill, El."
Eli huffs out a laugh. It's small, but Celeste's grin softens. Jace pretends not to see it, keeps flicking the flame.
On the floor near the window, Liam's made himself at home — marker scratching at a fresh page, runes bleeding across lined paper that's already torn at the edges. He doesn't look up when he says, "Did you see them again?"
Eli doesn't lie. He just doesn't answer. His eyes drift to the window — past the frost-bit glass, the streetlamps hum with weak gold. Somewhere beyond that, the chapel waits. The runes behind the library breathe. The Veil shifts.
Liam hums under his breath. "I'll fix it," he says. No one asks what it is.
Celeste curls closer to Eli, a warm weight by his side. Jace mutters something about bad pizza and terrible taste in blankets, but he stays where he is, lighter sparking soft sparks into the quiet.
No one says monsters. No one says mark. No one says Veilblood.
They don't need to.
Outside the window, the wind rattles the glass — faint, like claws brushing bone. Inside, four shadows stay close, half-asleep, half-ready.
And Eli breathes around the burn beneath his skin the secret no one says out loud. Not yet.
Sometime past midnight, the dorm goes quiet enough that Eli can hear his own pulse. Jace's lighter clicks open one last time before he tosses it on the bedside table, muttering a curse when it rolls off and clatters to the floor. Celeste laughs into her pillow, half-asleep, bracelets tangled in her hair.
Liam's voice drifts from the corner, soft and scratchy. "If you're not gonna sleep, at least read this," he says, flicking a folded page across the floor. It skids to a stop against Eli's knee.
Eli unfolds it — fresh runes, sketched quick and careless, but the edges hum like they know him. Protection, Liam said once. Not perfect, but better than nothing.
He doesn't say thank you. Doesn't need to. Liam already has his head leaned back against the wall, marker tapping against his knee in a slow rhythm.
Outside, a dog barks somewhere down the street — a car door slams — normal sounds that feel too thin tonight. Eli shifts, leans back against Celeste's legs. She makes a sleepy noise, drapes an arm over his shoulder like she's done since they were kids scraping knees behind the old church.
"You'll tell us, yeah?" she mumbles. Her breath smells like cheap candy, the kind she always hoards for late nights. "When it gets too heavy."
Eli's fingers brush the mark under his shirt — raw, warm, alive in a way skin shouldn't be. He watches the paper in his hand, the runes that say You're not alone in a language only monsters should know.
"Yeah," he says.
Jace lets out a soft snort, buried under the blanket now. "Liar."
Liam doesn't even look up. "Doesn't matter. He's stuck with us."
Celeste's bracelet clinks as she tightens her hold. "Exactly."
Eli lets his eyes close. The window rattles once — a hush against glass. Somewhere out there, Khyro's teeth, Zyren's claws. In here, mismatched blankets and cheap candy and four kids pretending they can outrun the dark together.
Maybe they can't.
But tonight, they pretend anyway.
Morning comes slow. A pale bruise of dawn slips through the blinds, catching on Celeste's tangled hair and Jace's half-kicked blanket. Liam's marker rolls off the low table, lands with a soft clack no one stirs to fix.
Eli drifts awake in pieces. He feels the weight of Celeste's arm draped over his shoulder, hears Jace's quiet snore — just loud enough to annoy him if he was really awake. Liam's foot nudges his side once, like a sleepy reminder: Still here.
For a second — just a second — it feels like a normal morning in a normal dorm with normal kids. No runes behind libraries. No vampire prince watching him breathe. No demon heir promising to burn him open.
He almost believes it.
Then his phone buzzes — the old cracked screen lighting up with a number that isn't saved but he knows anyway. It's like the mark on his collarbone recognizes the shape of the caller before his mind does.
He slips free from Celeste's hold, careful not to wake her. Pads barefoot to the small bathroom, door cracked so the soft snoring and Liam's restless mumbling float after him.
Eli doesn't even have to say hello. The voice on the other end is velvet dragged over something sharp. "You're awake, Veilblood."
Khyro. Calm, bored, terrifying in a way that doesn't need volume.
Eli's fingers press to the sink's cold edge. His reflection flickers — the mark beneath his shirt faintly visible when the fabric shifts. He tries to breathe steady. "What do you want?" he whispers.
A pause. He can almost hear Khyro's smile. "Nothing yet. Just a reminder."
Something else clicks in — Zyren's low laugh, like heat brushing the back of his neck through the speaker."We don't sleep, Eli," Zyren drawls. "So don't think you can, either."
A faint static hum — a sound like claws raking glass. Then the line goes dead.
Eli stands there, phone cold in his hand, the dawn bleeding pale gold against cracked tiles. Beyond the door, Celeste shifts, murmurs something soft. Liam lets out a quiet snore. Jace coughs himself awake only to grumble back to sleep.
Same old dorm. Same old Fourfold.
Same monsters waiting behind the Veil — closer every time the sun rises.