The air thinned to a razor-edge. Magic stopped being weather and became architecture — a dome of braided light and shadow, so dense that even the aurors' spells spat and died against it.
It bloomed up between the lake and the courtyard like a second moon, humming with a tone that scraped the inside of the skull.
"Delightful," the maker said, voice warmed by condescension. The figure at the center — not a man, not a thing — folded its hands as if pleased with the symmetry. "A perfect crucible."
Arthur felt it in his teeth — pressure, like a distant bell being rung under water. The dome pulsed; the symbols carved along the hybrid beasts flared madly in answer. He tried to move and found movement had become a slow negotiation. The world had thickened.
"Now. Back to you. Ever wondered what happened to the last one?" the Maker asked, spinning the sentence like a coin. "What did we call him, back then? Ah — Jonathan." The name landed in the air and everything cold tightened around Arthur like a glove.
The name struck Arthur like a thrown knife. The same name in Auren's memories — Jonathan Reeves, the first singular heir. He had been dead in every account Arthur had remembered.
"You had no right," Arthur said. The words scraped the inside of his skull. He could hear shouting in the distance. He could smell blood. He could see the statue of the founder as if through a lens.
"You misunderstand the nature of creation," the Maker replied. "It is not murder to repurpose potential. It is stewardship."
"Don't you dare—"
"Ever wondered how there came to be that person who always sees you through?" The Maker's tone shifted; amusement curdled into relish.
Arthur's throat closed. " Don't change the subject. You sent men for him," he said, voice raw. "You killed him."
The man shrugged. "I didn't kill him. He exploded. Too much power in the wrong vessel. I only borrowed the aftertaste." His grin cut the hum like a wire.
"What do you mean — 'aftertaste'?" Arthur demanded.
From the shadowed edge of the dome, a figure stepped forward — a hooded silhouette, small, deliberate. Arthur's chest tightened with an old, sudden familiarity. Silver hair flashed under the hood; the memory from the tower snapped into focus. The hair.
The hood fell back.
Leah.
Only not Leah.
"You must have met," the man purred, watching Arthur.
Arthur's muscles remembered how to hate. "I knew something was off about you." He should have kept his guard. He should have remembered the diary.
"You really never read the margins," the man said. "Her existence is owed to Johnathan's sacrifice."
Arthur's stomach dropped. "You used my cousin's blood for…for this?" His voice quavered and failed him.
"Yes." The man's tone was clinical. "His blood was perfect — compatible, resonant. He burned like a fuse. And from his ash, we made a reflection." He gestured toward Leah, who watched him like an experiment watching its creator.
The Maker bowed. "I used what was available. Jonathan's sacrifice gave us a template. With his blood — we could fold possibility into flesh. She is all of you and neither of you. A mirror held over a grave." Its voice softened with praise. "Your perfect counterpart."
Arthur felt the air pull. A coil thinned at the base of his skull, and something dangerous and wonderful unspooled inside him. The cuffs around his wrists flared, a bright and terrible blue; the scar-line of the Reeves crest burned beneath his skin like a brand.
"You used my cousin," he said again, smaller now, but every syllable hurtled like glass. "You used my family."
"Yes." Simple as breath.
Arthur's hand went to his jaw. He tasted iron. Something rose in him — not thought, not memory, but hunger. The world narrowed to one focal point: the Maker, the Leah that was not Leah, the blood on the stones.
He should have been angrier. He should have been righteous. He had rehearsed lines. He had imagined moments like this since the Codex had whispered its first lie.
Instead his voice came out like a blade that had been tempered in old lightning: "I'm going to kill you."
The Maker clapped once, slow and theatrical. "Such warmth. So human." Its tone went thin, like a knife folding. "How quaint. But why stop at one? Why not take them all?"
"You won't," Arthur said. The word was a promise and a threat folded together.
"Oh, but I will. How many times must the world learn itself anew? Your line is fertile," the Maker said. "We will harvest what is useful, devour what resists."
Arthur laughed then — a small, fractured sound — and it felt foreign in his ears. He felt something else rise, a second voice brushing his thoughts with an old, amused cadency.
"Shut up," he said. But his voice was not his own. It carried a silver edge, a tonal resonance like ice over a bell. The syllables trembled with two tones: Arthur and something older and colder.
He raised his head. Gold-white flared at the rims of his irises, bright enough that the Maker flinched. Light ran up his spine in veins, and the air around him shuddered as if someone had struck the world with a mallet.
"Forget what I said," he intoned, voice amplified into a chorus. It wasn't cruelty; it was inevitability. "You are dying now."
The dome only glowed darker in answer — a living thing that pulsed at the cadence of his heartbeat. The Maker's lips parted, not in fear but in the delighted curiosity of a scientist watching an experiment tip.
For an instant the courtyard held its breath, the moment suspended like a note plucked and not released.
The dome answered with a crack, ancient glyphs flaring. The Maker's smug smile faltered. Leah's face didn't change; she had been waiting for the moment he broke.
Then everything happened too fast to name. A flare. The dome fizzed.
The motion was not fast so much as inexorable. Heat and cold braided into a visible current around him; the cobbles steamed, then frost formed, then steam rose again. The world shivered.
The Maker's amusement turned to a smile edged in steel. "Interesting," it breathed. "Very interesting."
◇◇◇
The dome hummed — a heartbeat made of light.
Arthur's breath came in ragged sparks. His body convulsed once, then went utterly still.
And then it began.
His hair darkened like ink spilling into gold, each strand laced with molten veins that pulsed to the rhythm of his heart. His skin shimmered like stars beneath frost. His eyes — once blue— blazed open, white-gold so bright they cast shadows.
Every motion warped the world around him. Gravity stuttered; dust hung mid-air like frozen rain. Spells from friend and foe bent toward him, drawn by the pull of imbalance.
The Maker tilted its head. "Ah. The Core."
Arthur didn't answer. His voice had gone somewhere else — deep, hollow, infinite.
He lunged.
The world followed.
Magic cracked open like thunder. Each strike tore the air, unraveling shadows faster than they could reform.
"You can't strike what isn't flesh, child —"
Arthur didn't hear. His magic surged outward, refusing containment, refusing sense. Flame became frost; frost became pressure; pressure became light — contradictions that somehow worked.
The dome began to fracture from within. A pulse. Another.
And then —
The containment collapsed in a spiral of shattered light, scattering like glass through the night. Aurors and teachers stumbled back as the courtyard erupted in brilliance, the air screaming with collapsing runes.
At the center of it — Arthur.
Hovering. Weightless. Terrifying. Beautiful.
His boots no longer touched the ground. Stones and shards of ice orbited him in slow, reverent circles. The lake reflected only light.
Cassian shouted, "Hold your fire!" Too late — a spell struck him mid-air.
Or tried to.
The blast dissolved inches from his skin, unraveling into harmless motes that drifted back toward him. Absorbed. Devoured. Owned.
Another spell. Another. Each one consumed.
Arthur's magic was alive now. It didn't obey him; it obeyed imbalance.
"Great," Auren muttered in his head, voice dripping dry sarcasm. "You're here. I never liked you. Pull back before I write you out of this body."
The thing that wasn't entirely Arthur smiled. Its voice came out layered — Arthur's tone braided with something vast and ancient.
"I'd like to see you try, Auren," it said. "Maybe a little more."
Lightning crawled along his veins. The ground cracked under the weight of his aura.
The hybrid beasts — the Maker's twisted relics — screamed as they disintegrated, fading into ash and light.
Arthur's vision widened until he saw everything: ley-lines threading beneath Ilvermorny, wards flickering overhead, the faint signatures of every heartbeat nearby. The world had turned transparent.
Cassian stepped through the haze. The Aurors held back.
He raised his wand — not to strike, but in surrender.
"Arthur."
No reply.
"Arthur!!"
Still nothing. Then —
"Damian."
Arthur's head snapped toward him. That name — his middle name — was a sound no one had used since his parents, Remus and Sirius. Warmth carved into memory.
The gold-white glow faltered.
Not-Arthur's smile twisted faintly. "Alright," he murmured, the tone sardonic but fading. "I yield. The boy should be traumatized enough by now."
"You don't say," Auren muttered darkly.
The power trembled. The light fractured.
One hand found his chest — as though remembering what a heartbeat was. "It's been long since I've lived. It's almost calming," he said softly, and the light in his eyes faded.
A single tear slid down his cheek, burning white-hot before it vanished into steam.
The brilliance dimmed. Stones fell. The world exhaled.
◇◇◇
The lake collapsed inward — a black hole of water.
Arthur fell with it.
Shouts tore through the roar — someone screamed his name — and then, out of the chaos, a massive shape burst across the lake.
A blur of silver-black fur caught him mid-fall and landed hard on solid ground.
Alpha.
Smoke. Steam. Silence.
Arthur lay motionless, skin pale, the light fading from his veins.
"Almost lost you there, twiglet," Alpha rumbled — a voice only Arthur could hear.
"Knew it," Arthur murmured faintly, a ghost of a smile on his lips. "You really do love me."
"Oh please," Alpha snorted.
The courtyard was half gone — scorched glass, frozen stone, and the air tasting of ozone and ash.
Director Margrave's voice cut through the ringing quiet.
"Containment, now!"
Aurors moved to obey.
Cassian didn't. He just knelt beside Arthur, whispering:
"You did it, you stupid, brilliant child."
Across the ruined courtyard, Wren stared toward the lake — now eerily calm, mirror-still.
Then movement.
Something shifted at the water's edge.
The Maker.
Alpha rose, fur bristling, standing guard over Arthur's limp form.
In an instant, Cassian was between them, wand drawn.
"Aw, Cassian." The Maker's smile was a crack of shadow. "Still mad about last time? Or is it that you never learn?"
"You stay away from my family…"
"…or you'll kill me?" The Maker's laugh was low. "Classic hero line. You're better than that."
Cassian didn't answer. He took one measured step forward, every nerve coiled.
The Maker sighed.
"Courtesy, then."
From the dark swirling around him, a wand formed — long, black, alive with runes.
"After you."
Light exploded.
Ten seconds of chaos — spells colliding mid-air, shockwaves cracking what was left of the courtyard.
When the glare cleared, Cassian lay on the ground, bruised and gasping.
The Maker stepped over him, voice soft as a blade's edge.
"See, Cassian? You can never be as good as me. Never."
Cassian glared up but said nothing.
The figure straightened, symbols crawling across his coat like moving scars.
"Ten years and you still chase ghosts, Cassian."
He smiled. "Vaelric. Thomas Vaelric. Remember it this time."
He turned toward the lake.
"Come along, Leah. You'll see him again."
Leah had been staring at Arthur — at the boy collapsed in Alpha's shadow — as if he were a prize.
At Vaelric's call, she blinked, expression hardening, and with a last glance back, she stepped after him.
Both of them vanished into the folds of shadow.
Then — light.
Bright, calm, deceptively gentle.
Like the calm after a storm, except the storm had never truly ended.
An Auror turned to Director Margrave.
"Did he win?"
She didn't answer.
Beneath the lake's surface, faint but deliberate, a single golden thread of light curled —beating once, like a heartbeat.