“Jealous?” Grey repeated quietly, in a tone that sent a chill straight down my spine. “I doubt you understand who you are playing with, Miss Orlova.”

  A nervous laugh tried to escape, but I strangled it before it could embarrass me further.

  “Playing?” I echoed, raising a brow. “Well, Professor, if this is a game, your rules are… rather unusual.”

  A faint, dangerous smile touched his lips.

  “You chose this path,” he said, stepping back. “We’ll see how far you go. And what is this?” His gaze dropped to the bundle of pies and sausage I was clutching. “Food is not to be taken out of the dining hall. This is not a pigsty, Miss Orlova.”

  I bit my lip, already sensing another lecture forming, and sighed.

  “It’s not for me,” I admitted, cheeks warming. “It’s… for a cat.”

  “A cat?” he repeated, disbelief in his voice, as though I had just claimed elves lived in the castle. “There are no pets here. Ordinary animals — and ordinary non-magical humans — cannot survive in this environment. The concentration of necrotic residue is too high.”

  “Really?” I blinked. “So… if I were just human… without magic…”

  “You would not survive,” he confirmed darkly, watching my shock with unsettling satisfaction. “Do you truly know nothing?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Apparently,” I muttered. “Where I come from, magic exists only in books and films.”

  “I see. Then consider yourself fortunate you possess even the minimum magical reserve. If you were fully human, you would have died within hours — either on your own or with assistance from one of our many ghosts.”

  “Oh,” was all I managed, swallowing hard as the reality settled in, slow and heavy.

  “So, Marina, think carefully before keeping ‘cats’ here. Though if it dies, you will at least have fresh material for practice,” he added with such calm cynicism I nearly choked on air.

  “Practice?!” I burst out. “My day has been eventful enough. Why would I need a fresh corpse?”

  Grey lifted a brow, faintly amused.

  “To learn, Miss Orlova,” he said dryly. “Or did you imagine necromancy was merely discussing death over tea?”

  Then he turned and walked away, leaving me with my tray, a storm of questions, and one stubborn thought:

  If that creature was alive and well in this grim castle, then it was anything but ordinary.

  Though… what made me so sure it was even a cat?

  Either way, it still needed feeding.

  But I’m not going there alone!