The dining hall suffocated under a blanket of whispers. Usually a riot of loud freshmen, this morning offered only the dull clatter of forks against ceramic.

  ?Ethan speared a massive sausage link. He chewed like he was trying to break its neck, glaring around the room.

  ?"Who the hell are they looking for?" the large youth muttered, voice thick with grease. "I'm just eating, and these black-suit bastards look ready to throw me in the dungeon."

  ?"Shut up," Roy mumbled into his crossed arms. He hadn't touched his eggs. "Be mad quietly. Or... give me that bread."

  ?"Wake up and get your own, lazy ass." Ethan drove an elbow into Roy's ribs.

  ?Vanessa sipped her tea. She didn't track the guards, keeping her focus entirely on the amber liquid.

  ?"Central Disciplinary Enforcers," she said smoothly. "They restructured the security protocols at midnight. Triple the deployment. Every intersection is under observation."

  ?Marcus hadn't taken a single bite.

  ?He dragged his knife through his food, cutting it down to scraps. His gray eyes flicked to the oak rafters. Deep in the shadows, a fist-sized aether-crystal pulsed with a faint, crimson heartbeat.

  ?"That wasn't wired up yesterday," Marcus said. His voice was flat.

  ?Vanessa froze. Ethan stopped chewing.

  ?"The faculty is tightening the screws," Marcus said, dropping his knife. The metal clinked against his tray. "Anyone whose gears slip, anyone who panics... they'll pull them off the assembly line for an inspection."

  ?He leaned in. Met their eyes.

  ?"Eat." The command lacked heat, but carried weight. "Stop bitching. When the bell rings, walk to class. Be background noise."

  ?The brass bell shrieked.

  ?Ethan shoved the last chunk of meat into his mouth and stood, a mountain of muscle blocking the ceiling lamps. "Magic History. Bullshit. I’m gonna sleep."

  ?Roy dragged himself up, snagging the abandoned toast. "Too far. West wing's a hike."

  ?Vanessa slipped her holographic tablet into her satchel. "It's foundational. Essential for parsing ancient aether-matrices. Hurry up. We cannot afford tardiness on a high-alert day."

  ?Marcus said nothing. Hands buried in his pockets, he joined the herd.

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  ?Down the marble corridor, Marcus watched the heels of the boots in front of him. Keep the pace. Don't idle. Don't rev too high. He slipped past the black-suited enforcers anchoring every corner, just another anonymous cog in the machine.

  ?Until they reached the lecture hall.

  ?The room banked in a steep semicircle of cold oak desks. Professor Thorne stood by a massive slate chalkboard. The middle-aged woman wore a sharp gray suit and a severe expression. She cracked a metal pointer against a chalk diagram.

  ?"Scrap the romantic garbage you read in cheap novels," Thorne’s voice snapped like a whip. "Lycanthropy is not a moonlit blessing. It is a genetic mutation. A deep-rooted aether-radiation trauma."

  ?Silence choked the room. Pens hovered.

  ?"Imagine forcing all two hundred and six bones in your body to fracture, splinter, and fuse back together. In under three minutes." Thorne paced the center aisle. "That is the toll. Hyper-accelerated cellular regeneration bought with severe telomere degradation. Most of their bodies burn out. They die before forty."

  ?In the back row, Ethan rubbed his forearms. He swallowed hard.

  ?"Screw that," Ethan whispered, color draining from his face. "Bones snapping? Just stab me in the gut and get it over with."

  ?Vanessa's pen flew across her notebook. "Vampiric mutations follow a parasitic model," she whispered, eyes locked forward. "Complete failure of natural aether-synthesis. They require aether-charged blood to prevent cellular necrosis. Fascinating."

  ?"Do not mistake this for ancient history." Thorne's voice yanked the hall’s attention back. She laid the metal pointer down.

  ?"These mutated bloodlines walk among us. Lycanthropes are the most common." Thorne swept her gaze over the tiered seats. "The majority are funneled into the Central Council’s 'Aetheric Anomaly Registry.' They work. They pay taxes. In exchange, they wear trackers and endure risk-assessments every six months."

  ?Ethan scowled. "Registered? Like putting a collar on a dog? That's messed up."

  ?"It's adaptation," Vanessa countered softly. "Better than being purged by the Council."

  ?"Precisely," Thorne said, as if she had heard the whisper. "As for the parasitic strains—vampires—you will likely never see one. They are effectively extinct. Securing aether-charged blood in a society monitored inch by inch by the Council is a statistical impossibility. Species that cannot adapt to the law are discarded."

  ?She turned to the slate, chalk clicking rapidly as she listed other names.

  ?"The mutation ecology runs deeper," she projected over her shoulder. "Cursed bloodlines fester in the dark. Above the clouds, or in the crushing pressure of the oceanic trenches. Sirens, for instance. Evolved vocal cords designed to manipulate water frequencies."

  ?Thorne dropped the chalk. Dusted her hands.

  ?"But we will not rush. We will dissect their structures and their flaws, one species at a time."

  ?Marcus sat perfectly still. He stared at the list of anomalies.

  ?To him, this magical society was just a brutal sorting floor. Registered werewolves were defective parts, stamped and forced back onto the line. The stubborn ones—the deep-water sirens, the starving vampires—were just rusted scrap, waiting for the furnace. A cold, flawless filtering mechanism.

  ?Click. Click.

  ?Thorne’s heels struck the wooden steps. She descended the aisle, stopping directly beside their row.

  ?Marcus stopped breathing.

  ?"And that is why we study history," Thorne said. Her hawk-like gaze dragged across the students, before snapping down. Pinning Marcus. "Because anomalies... hidden bloodlines... always reveal their true nature when put under enough pressure."

  ?She stared into the slum kid's gray eyes.

  ?"Remember this, students," Thorne murmured, her voice dropping to a bone-chilling calm. "In this academy... no crack escapes the Council's notice."