The dorm room feels too small for the Fourfold tonight. Eli sits cross-legged on his bed while Celeste paces near the window, pushing the curtains aside every few minutes to check if the shadows outside have teeth. Jace sprawls on the floor, back against Eli's closet door like a self-appointed guard dog. Liam leans against the desk, fingers drumming an anxious beat that matches Eli's pulse.
No one says the words out loud but they all feel it. The fight on the courtyard, Khyro's cold warning, Zyren's vanishing grin that still lingers in Eli's head like smoke. The mark hums beneath his shirt, raw and restless, an echo of every touch he didn't ask for.
Celeste finally stops pacing. She faces Eli, hands on her hips like she's about to scold a child for sneaking cookies past bedtime.
"We need to ward this room," she says. "Properly this time. The salt lines are a joke. They can walk right through."
Jace snorts. "Let them try. I'd love to take a swing at that demon's smug face."
Eli tries to smile but it slips too fast. He picks at the edge of his blanket, pretending he doesn't feel the burn under his skin every time he breathes.
"What if they come when you're not here?" His voice is small, softer than he wants. "What if I'm alone?"
"You won't be alone," Liam says quietly. He crosses the room in two strides and sits beside Eli, pressing his shoulder to Eli's like a promise. "Not while we're breathing."
Celeste nods and drops to her knees in front of the bed. She rummages through her canvas bag, pulling out chalk, a stub of sage, a tiny tin box rattling with iron nails.
Jace lifts an eyebrow. "When did you become a hedge witch, Santos?"
Celeste flips him off without looking up. "Since our idiot leader decided to flirt with undead royalty and demonic heirs, Navarro."
Eli wants to argue but the words tangle in his throat. Is it flirting when monsters carve their names into your bones? Is it choice when you never asked for the mark in the first place?
Outside, wind rattles the dorm windows. Somewhere in the dark, he thinks he hears laughter. Or maybe it's just the blood in his ears.
Celeste drags the chalk in a half-circle around the bed, muttering under her breath. Liam drops iron nails into the corners. Jace flicks his lighter open and closed, silver flame catching on the edge of Celeste's charm.
When they're done, the room smells of burnt sage and iron. The air hums soft and low, like a heartbeat layered over Eli's own.
Jace stands, brushing chalk dust from his jeans. "There. Now if prince icicle or your firebrand boyfriend shows up, they'll get a nasty surprise."
"He's not my boyfriend," Eli says, too quick, too sharp. Jace smirks like he knew that crack in Eli's voice was coming.
"No," Jace says. "He's worse."
Celeste sits beside Eli and wraps her arm around his shoulders, squeezing until the shaking stops. Liam watches them both, unreadable but steady.
The Fourfold. One mark. Too many teeth waiting in the dark.
Eli lies back, staring at the cracked ceiling, the circle of friends who keep stitching him back together every time the world tries to rip him open.
He closes his eyes but the mark doesn't sleep. Neither do the monsters behind it.
He wonders how long before the walls crack, the wards fail, the threads snap for good.
And outside, in the dark, frost and flame wait with open jaws.
Eli's heart pounds in the quiet that follows, a beat too loud in the thick air of the warded room. The silence presses on him, but it's not comforting. Not like it should be. It's suffocating — the kind that makes his lungs feel too tight, his skin too thin, as if the walls are inching closer with every breath.
The ward's hum feels like it's vibrating under his ribs now, making his mark throb in time with it. For a moment, he wonders if it's doing more than keeping monsters out — maybe it's holding him in. Keeping him chained to the person he's becoming. To the person he never asked to be.
Jace stands by the window now, his back to them, eyes flicking from the street below to the darkened sky. He's silent for a moment — too quiet for Jace, too still.
"I hate this," he mutters, the words slipping out without the usual smirk. "I can't fight a ghost."
Celeste looks up from where she's carefully packing away the remains of the salt circle, her brow furrowed, lips pressed into a tight line. "You don't have to fight anything yet."
"You don't know that," Jace shoots back, turning on his heel. "We're sitting here like sitting ducks, waiting for some goddamn prince and demon heir to show up with their fangs and claws. They're not just gonna go away."
"I know," Celeste says softly, not looking up. She keeps her voice steady, though. "But we're going to make them go away. We'll find a way."
Eli doesn't say anything. His chest feels too tight for words. He wants to believe Celeste. Wants to believe they'll be okay. But the weight of the mark on his collarbone has only grown heavier. Like chains pulling tighter with every day. And Khyro's words echo in his head: The veil is thinning. The mark will pull you through.
He wants to scream. To shove the mark away, to make it stop, but the knot in his stomach only grows tighter.
Liam breaks the silence, his voice low and deliberate. "We need a plan."
It's so simple, but Eli feels it — the shift in the room. The tension between them, the unspoken fear that has been curling in the corners of their eyes. That this isn't just about surviving. This is about fighting for something. For someone. For him.
They all look at him then, those four faces. The friends who have become more than just his squad. His lifeline.
Jace leans against the wall, arms crossed. "We don't need a plan, Liam. We need answers."
"And we'll get them," Liam replies firmly, voice unwavering. "But first, we need to get Eli safe."
"I'm not the one who needs protection," Eli mutters, but the words feel weak. Too hollow. They all know it.
Celeste steps forward, pulling out the tattered notebook she always carries, the one with the edges curled from use. "I'll dig deeper. There's gotta be something more to this mark, something we missed. Something that'll give us a weapon."
"A weapon?" Eli laughs bitterly, but it comes out more like a sob. "A weapon against a prince and a demon?"
"Not just any prince," Celeste corrects, voice steely. "And not just any demon."
Eli's breath catches. He doesn't want to believe it, doesn't want to think about what it means that the demons and vampires in his life aren't just random creatures from nightmares. They're players in something much bigger. And he? He's the piece they're fighting over.
"The Fourfold doesn't break," Celeste continues, eyes shining with a fierce promise. "We're not losing you."
Eli closes his eyes for a moment, leaning back against his bed. He wants to believe her, wants to believe that together, they can win against the tide that's pushing them under. But the mark is heavier now, colder. And the thought of facing Khyro, of facing Zyren again, makes his stomach twist.
But then he remembers the way Celeste stood by him in the courtyard, the way Jace and Liam fought for him without hesitation. They're still here. They're still with him.
And maybe — just maybe — they can break this. The chains. The mark. The fight.
Outside, the moon is rising high, casting long shadows across the school grounds. The wards they've set will hold, for now. But Eli knows, deep down, that no wall, no charm, no rune can protect him forever.
Not from what's coming. Not from what he's becoming.
Hours pass but none of them really sleep.
Celeste ends up curled on the floor by Eli's bed, notebook open on her chest, pen still clutched in her hand as if she fell asleep mid-sentence. Jace sits cross-legged by the door, earbuds in, head bobbing slightly to music Eli can't hear. Every so often he glances at the lock, daring it to rattle. Liam's by the window, a silent shadow, watching the moon slide across the sky like it's carrying secrets only he understands.
Eli lies awake, eyes tracing the cracks in the ceiling. He tries to match the lines to the shapes of runes he's seen — on Zyren's walls, on the chapel bricks, on the soft skin above his own ribs. The mark beneath his collar throbs in rhythm with his heartbeat, a silent drum he can't quiet.
He shifts under his blanket. Part of him wants to speak, to break the hush that's settled over their fortress of ward lines and iron nails. But the words feel too small. He's tired of hearing himself say he's sorry. Tired of pretending the fear isn't coiled tight in his gut like barbed wire.
Liam moves from the window, sits at the edge of the bed. His fingers brush Eli's wrist, a simple touch that grounds him to the here and now.
"You're stronger than you think," Liam murmurs. His voice is rough with sleep but his eyes are steady. "You've held all this inside and you're still here."
Eli laughs softly, breath catching. "It doesn't feel like strength."
"It is," Liam says. He doesn't push more than that, doesn't try to untangle the thousand questions twisting in Eli's chest. He just stays, an anchor against the dark.
Jace shifts, pulling one earbud out. "If either of those royal creeps shows up tonight, they'll have to get through me first."
Celeste mumbles something half-coherent in her sleep — Eli thinks it's his name. He wants to say thank you, to all of them, but the lump in his throat won't move.
He settles for whispering it in his mind instead, letting the warmth of his found family bleed through the cold that keeps creeping in.
He closes his eyes. The ward hums against the windows. The mark hums under his skin. Outside, the shadows wait — patient, hungry, unbothered by salt and iron.
But inside, there's the Fourfold. And maybe for tonight, that's enough.