I heard her before I saw her.
The faintest rustle of sheets. A sharp inhale, as if someone had just remembered how to breathe after drowning.
I turned from my desk.
Cassandra was sitting up.
Awake.
But not blinking.
Her eyes—those unnerving, mist-glass irises—glowed faintly in the moonlight streaming through the infirmary window.
I rose slowly.
"Cassandra," I said, carefully. "You're awake."
She turned her head toward me. Moved like a doll whose strings had just been pulled for the first time.
Then she spoke.
Only two words.
"It's loud."
The room chilled.
"What's loud?"
She pressed her hands against the sides of her head. Not in pain. In confusion.
"Everything."
Her voice was wrong.
Still hers, but… echoing. Like someone else was whispering beneath it.
"I can hear the stones humming," she murmured. "The wards breathing. The Grimoire. It sings."
I didn't realize I was holding my breath.
She looked at me then.
Really looked.
