The next morning, I woke up to find my pillow giving me a backrub.
I screamed. It screamed louder. Iria burst in with her sword drawn. The pillow exploded into feathers.
According to the magical staff that came to "contain the incident," it was a rare case of enchantment drift—where a relaxation spell accidentally fused with an animation charm and gained sentience.
I asked how often this happens.
The mage responded, "Less than twice a week. Usually."
So that's where we were starting.
After that, breakfast tried to teleport itself directly into my stomach.
"Honestly, you're lucky," Velis said dryly as she examined the scorch marks on the walls of our suite. "The last Subject we observed lost a hand."
I paused, mid-toast. "You're kidding."
She tilted her head. "He got it back. Mostly."
Velis was the kind of person who made you unsure if she was joking. She delivered every line in the same tired, vaguely mystical monotone. Her robes trailed faint sparks behind her as she walked, and her staff hummed like it was actively bored.
She'd shown up again that morning uninvited—but not unexpected. I was starting to think she had the whole room warded for proximity alerts.
"Where are we going?" I asked, already regretting the question.
"To a leyline archive below the northern wing," she replied. "They won't grant me clearance. But you have anomaly clearance. Technically."
"Technically?"
"You've been tagged as 'spiritually disruptive.' That opens doors."
"I hate this city."
Velis led the way through the twisting interior of Velvenhold Academy—halls of marble and mana, where doors whispered open at the touch of a signature rune and the chandeliers floated like sleepy stars.
The northern wing was less crowded. Older. Dustier.
More screamy.
"Did that door just—?"
"Yes," Velis said. "Ignore it."
"What does it do?"
"Screams. Nothing else. Very effective against burglars."
We stopped at a sealed archway with no lock or handle, just a glowing plaque that read:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY — LEYLINE CORE SECURITY — TRESPASSERS WILL BE DE-REALIZED
I stepped back.
Velis stepped forward.
She pressed her palm against the rune, then turned to me. "Say something chaotic."
"...What?"
"Just do it."
"Okay... uh... ducks shouldn't wear pants."
The rune buzzed, sparked, and promptly shut down.
She grinned. "You're better at this than you think."
Inside was a stairwell that led downward into something older. The walls were less polished. The glyphs carved in the stone were archaic, more angular. I felt like we were walking into a server room built by druids on a caffeine bender.
Velis lit the path with a floating orb. Iria stayed close behind, quiet for once, her eyes darting with suspicion.
We entered a chamber full of rune towers—stacked crystals that hummed with leyline data, each containing pulse records of the city's magic flow.
"Okay," I said. "What are we looking for?"
"Anything inconsistent," Velis said. "I've been tracking spell feedback across Velvenhold for weeks. What I want is confirmation: are the reactors surging randomly... or are they being influenced?"
I blinked. "Influenced by what?"
"That's what we're here to find out."
It started with a sound.
Low. Vibrating.
Like something growling through the bones of the city.
Then the floor beneath us pulsed blue—and the tower closest to me exploded in a burst of magical static.
I fell back, ears ringing, as glowing shards rained down around us. A few bounced off Iria's armor harmlessly. One hit Velis's shoulder and shattered against her robe, which hissed angrily in response.
She didn't even flinch.
Instead, she pointed upward.
"Look."
Above us, a sigil had appeared. Not projected—burned into the stone. It pulsed red once, then began flickering in a pattern.
I squinted. "That's... a summoning glyph?"
"No," Velis said. "That's a control glyph. But it's old. Wrong. It doesn't belong to the current Academy system."
I stood up. "So what does that mean?"
"It means," she said, "someone's piggybacking the leyline system for unauthorized spellcasting. At city scale."
"So like a magical parasite?"
"Or a puppeteer."
Then the lights went out.
Back in the city above, chaos was already blooming.
Street vendors screamed as floating food carts spiraled out of control. One launched a skewer into the sky like a fireworks show. Children chased animated toys that were now sprinting for freedom. A fountain began weeping blood. Someone calmly took a selfie.
I tripped over a levitating slab of pavement that was now drifting sideways. Iria grabbed my cloak mid-fall and pulled me onto solid ground.
Velis barked a spell, and a ripple of stability spread around us—a temporary bubble of calm in a storm of instability.
"Status?" I asked, looking around.
"Unclear," she said. "But this isn't just feedback. This is a deliberate overload."
I paused. "You think it's targeted?"
She looked at me. "The reactor is rejecting something. Or someone."
We both turned to stare at the central tower.
It was pulsing. Slowly, visibly. Like it was breathing. Or—worse—watching.
Back in the guest suite, the Academy had sent a polite letter warning us not to leave our rooms for "containment reasons." It came with a snack tray and an enchanted card game that tried to eat my sleeve.
We didn't listen.
Velis had set up a projected map in our room showing leyline pulses in red. They flickered across the city like veins under stress.
"It's worse than I thought," she said, brushing a lock of hair from her face. "The reactor isn't just malfunctioning. It's redirecting energy. Selectively. Someone's routing power through a secondary matrix that shouldn't exist."
"What does that mean in dumb-people terms?"
She hesitated. "Imagine the city's magic is a river. And someone built an illegal dam that's now overflowing."
I nodded. "Cool. Who built the dam?"
"That's the problem," she said. "There's no record of it. Not in the academy vaults. Not in the leyline history logs. It's like someone spliced themselves into the city's power without permission—centuries ago."
I stood. "You think it's the director?"
She didn't answer.
That evening, the city glitched.
That's the only word I can use for it.
The sun paused in the sky. Just for a moment. Then flickered. The tower above us let out a deep, bassy hum that rattled windows and bones.
And in the distance—on the highest spire—a silhouette appeared.
Just for a second.
Tall. Robed. Watching.
Then it vanished.
Later, I sat at the edge of a floating garden, feet dangling over too much air, watching storm clouds ripple unnaturally in the distance. Velis joined me.
"Hey," I said. "Thanks for not letting me die today."
She shrugged. "You're part of my thesis."
"Is that all?"
She didn't look at me. "Not yet."
Iria stood nearby, silently reciting knightly vows under her breath while cleaning Edelbrecht.
Velis scribbled one last note, then muttered under her breath:
"The Subject disrupts spell logic. The city reacts. Something ancient stirs.
Conclusion: entropy has chosen a herald."
I looked at her. "What was that?"
She tore out the page and fed it to a fire sprite.
"Nothing," she said. "Sleep well."