Chapter 10

I found out about Lucia Medina from her roommate.

Kezia was in my Echoes class. She looked hollowed out that morning, dark circles under her eyes, moving through the motions without being present. When Professor Aldridge asked her to demonstrate a basic reading, she just stood there, staring at the practice wall like she'd forgotten why she was in the room.

After class I caught up with her in the hallway.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

She looked at me like she was trying to remember who I was. We'd never really talked before. I was the weird transfer kid. She was just another first-year I passed in hallways.

"Lucia's gone," she said. "Sent an email last night saying there was a family emergency. She's not coming back."

"That's awful. I'm sorry."

"The thing is..." She hesitated, glancing around like she was worried about being overheard. "She didn't say goodbye. We've been roommates for two months. She didn't knock on my door, didn't leave a note. Just an email at 2am and then her stuff was gone by morning. They said her family came for her things, but I didn't hear anyone."

"Maybe you were sleeping deeply?"

"I wasn't sleeping. I was up late studying. I would have heard." Her voice cracked. "We were supposed to go to breakfast together. She always gets the good eggs before they run out and saves me one. She wouldn't just leave without telling me."

"Was anything else missing? Besides her stuff?"

Kezia's face tightened. "Everything. Even her tokens. She had this shell from her grandmother's beach in Veracruz. She carried it everywhere. Touched it before tests, before matches, before anything that mattered." She wiped at her eyes. "She never would have left that behind. Never."

I didn't know Lucia well. But I'd met her once, in the hallway near the library. Crowded between classes, bodies pressing close, the usual chaos of students rushing to be somewhere else. Her shoulder had brushed mine. Just a second of contact.

What I'd felt wasn't someone with family trouble on her mind.

It was something draining out of her. Like watching water spiral down a sink, except the water was Lucia herself. Whatever made her a Zant, whatever she'd accumulated just by being alive and feeling things, it was bleeding out of her. And she didn't understand why. Confusion. Fear. The particular terror of feeling yourself become less without knowing the cause.

But there was something else too. Something I hadn't had words for at the time. Not just the draining, but the space it was draining from. Like I could feel the shape of what should have been there, the capacity inside her that was being emptied. A container being hollowed out. She had room for so much more than what was left.

I'd pulled away before I could feel more. Kept walking. Didn't think about it again until now.

"Did she seem okay?" I asked. "Before the email, I mean. Was anything wrong?"

Kezia wiped at her eyes. "She'd been tired lately. More than usual. Said she was having trouble sleeping, trouble focusing. But that's just Mudwick, right? Everyone's exhausted."

"Yeah. Everyone's exhausted."

"It doesn't make sense. Her family lives in New Mexico. That's a two-day drive. How did they get here before sunrise?"

I didn't have an answer for her.

Kezia took a shaky breath. "Sorry. I don't even know why I'm telling you all this. You didn't even know her."

"It's okay. Sometimes it's easier to talk to someone who isn't already part of it."

She nodded slowly. "I should get to class."

She walked away, shoulders hunched, still hugging her books. I watched her go and thought about Lucia Medina saving good eggs for her roommate. About empanadas she'd never get to teach anyone to make. About a person who'd been real and present and alive, and who was now just an email sent at 2am.

The whispers started before lunch. I heard them in the hallway between classes. Two upperclassmen talking in low voices, going quiet when they noticed me passing.

"...said she's recruiting again..."

"...that's just rumors, nobody knows..."

"...third one this year if you count the summer..."

Third one. That stopped me. I'd heard about Lucia. But two others?

I didn't catch the name they mentioned. But I caught the fear.

In the dining hall, a group of students at the next table were having the same conversation. This time I heard the name clearly.

"Miriam."

One of them noticed me listening and shot me a look. I turned back to my food, but not before catching more.

A second-year with dark hair was leaning in, voice low but intense. "My brother's friend knew someone who got recruited. Before they graduated. Miriam's network found them, promised them everything. Power, connections, a place in the real hierarchy. They disappeared a month later."

"That's just stories," someone else said. "Miriam Moss hasn't been seen in years."

"She doesn't need to be seen. She has people everywhere. And she knows exactly who to target." The second-year's voice dropped even lower, but I still caught it. "Scholarship students. First-gen. People nobody will miss."

"Who's Miriam?" I asked when Dao sat down.

He went still. "Where'd you hear that name?"

"People are talking. Something about Lucia leaving. And two others before her?"

"Three students in two months," Dao said quietly. "One in October, one early November, and now Lucia. The first two, administration said transfers. Family reasons. Same story every time." He glanced around, then leaned closer. "Miriam's... it's complicated. She was a student here, a long time ago. Now she's something else. The teachers don't like us talking about her."

"Why not?"

"Because she's dangerous. Or she was. Or she is." He shook his head. "The stories don't all agree. Some people say she went crazy and started draining practitioners. Others say she's building an army. Others say she's dead and the stories are just to scare first-years."

"But people think she took Lucia?"

"People think a lot of things. Doesn't mean any of it's true." But Dao's expression was troubled. "My grandmother used to mention her sometimes. Said Miriam was the reason things got bad for our family. Never explained how."

Sasha and Thaddeus arrived, and I told them what Kezia had told me. About the email at 2am, the stuff vanishing overnight, the shell from Veracruz that Lucia never would have left behind.

"When I touched her last week, something was wrong," I said, keeping my voice low. "She was being drained. Whatever makes us Zants, it was leaking out of her and she didn't know why."

Sasha set down her fork. Dao stopped chewing. Even Marcus, who'd arrived late and been pretending to ignore us, went still.

"Drained how?" Sasha asked carefully. "What did it feel like?"

"Like she was becoming less. Emptying out. You know how you can feel people's histories? The weight of everything they've experienced? Hers was getting lighter. Thinner. Like someone was siphoning it away." I paused, trying to find the right words. "And there was this... space. Inside her. I could feel how much room she had, how much capacity. And most of it was empty. Like a house with all the furniture taken out."

"That doesn't happen naturally," Dao said. His voice had gone flat. "People accumulate. They don't just lose what they've built up. Unless someone takes it."

The table went quiet.

"My grandmother used to warn me about this." Dao pushed his food away. "Extraction. Taking saturation from people instead of places."

"Coach Baptiste mentioned something like that," Thaddeus said slowly. "In Defensive Techniques. How to recognize when you're being drained. I thought it was theoretical."

"According to family legend, it's very real. Very forbidden." Dao's jaw was tight. "Gran said the real crime wasn't what my grandfather did. It was what he found evidence of. Something worse. People disappearing. People nobody would miss." He paused. "She called it culling."

The word hung in the air. Nobody seemed to know what to say next.

Sasha picked up her fork again. "This is one person. One disappearance with a plausible explanation. Email, family emergency, belongings shipped home."

"Three people," I corrected. "Three in two months."

"Fine. Three people, all with plausible explanations."

"You think I imagined what I felt?"

"I think you've been here less than a month. Your abilities are still developing. You felt something that worried you. That's real. But connecting it to Lucia leaving, to stories about someone named Miriam, building a theory around it... that's a leap."

She wasn't wrong. Three data points weren't much of a pattern. One strange feeling during a hallway collision wasn't proof of anything.

Marcus stood up abruptly. "I have somewhere to be."

He walked away before anyone could respond. I watched him go, feeling the tension radiating off him even from across the room. I'd caught something when Marcus heard Dao's story. A flicker of recognition. Like the words had hit a nerve he'd been trying to protect.

That afternoon, the school called an assembly.

It was unusual enough that people murmured as they filed into the old chapel. Mid-week, no warning, just an announcement during third period that all students should report to the main hall. I found my friends in the crowd and we claimed seats near the middle.

Headmaster Vane walked to the front of the room looking tired but composed. The same warmth I'd noticed at orientation was still there, but tempered now with something heavier.

"I know there have been concerns," he said, his voice carrying without effort. "Rumors. Whispers in hallways. I wanted to address them directly."

The room went quiet.

"Three students have left Mudwick this semester for family emergencies. This is unusual. I understand why it's caused worry." He scanned the crowd, and when his eyes passed over our section, I felt nothing but genuine concern. "I want you to know that we've been in contact with all three families. These departures were voluntary. No one has been taken against their will."

Someone near the back raised a hand. "What about the Miriam stories?"

Vane's expression didn't change. "Miriam Moss is a name that surfaces whenever something unexplained happens. She's become a kind of institutional ghost story. That doesn't mean she's responsible for every student who needs to leave for personal reasons."

"But is she real?" someone else called out.

"She was a student here, many years ago. What she's become since then, I honestly don't know. No one does." He spread his hands. "What I do know is that your safety is my priority. If anyone has concrete concerns, anything they've seen or experienced that worries them, my door is open. Always."

The sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. I watched him, reading what I could from a distance. Concern. Frustration. The particular stress of someone who wanted to help and wasn't sure he had all the answers. Nothing hidden. Nothing calculated.

Just a headmaster trying to manage a difficult situation.

"We'll be increasing staff presence in common areas," Vane continued. "Not because we believe anyone is in danger, but because I want you to feel safe. Feel watched over. That's what Mudwick is supposed to be." He paused. "If any of you are struggling, with this or with anything else, please reach out. To me, to your professors, to each other. We're a community. We take care of our own."

The assembly ended with reminders about holiday schedules. Winter break was coming in a few weeks. Most students would go home. Life would continue.

Walking out, Sasha leaned close. "He believes what he's saying."

"Yeah. He does."

"That doesn't mean it's true."

"No. It doesn't."

After the assembly, I found Cross in her office. She looked up when I knocked, and something flickered across her face. Concern, maybe. Or calculation. It was gone before I could read it.

"Eli. Come in. Is everything alright?"

"I wanted to ask about Lucia. About what might have actually happened."

Cross's expression shifted. Careful now. Attentive. "The headmaster addressed that in assembly. Family emergency."

"Her roommate was awake all night. Didn't hear anyone come for her things. And her family lives in New Mexico."

"Sometimes families make arrangements quickly when there's a crisis. Private transport, friends in the area..." She spread her hands. "It's not as unusual as it might seem."

"People are saying Miriam's name."

Cross went very still.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Around. Students talking."

She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was different. Lower. More serious.

"Miriam is... a complicated subject. She was a student here, years ago. Brilliant. Powerful. And then something went wrong." Cross folded her hands on her desk. "There are people who blame her for things that happen to students. When someone leaves unexpectedly, her name comes up. It's become almost a superstition."

"Is she real?"

"She's real. Whether she's responsible for what people say..." Cross shook her head. "I don't know. No one does, really. She disappeared a long time ago. What she's doing now, if she's doing anything at all, is speculation."

"But you think she could be involved in students disappearing?"

"I think it's one possibility among many. And I think first-year students shouldn't be investigating things that might be dangerous." Her eyes met mine. Warm but firm. "Lucia left for a family emergency. That's the official explanation, and unless you have evidence of something else, that's what I'd encourage you to believe."

I wanted to tell her about the hallway. About feeling Lucia draining away, about the empty space inside her. But something stopped me.

"If I did notice something else," I said carefully, "would you want to know?"

"Of course." She leaned forward slightly. "If you see anything that concerns you, anything at all, I want you to come to me. Not to other students, not to the rumor mill. To me. Can you do that?"

"Yeah. I can do that."

"Good." She smiled, and the warmth was back. "I know this is a lot to process. A new school, new abilities, and now students disappearing. It's natural to look for explanations. Just be careful which explanations you choose to believe."

I left her office feeling more unsettled than when I'd arrived. Cross had been reassuring. Supportive. Everything a mentor should be.

So why did it feel like she'd been fishing for something?

That evening, I called my dad.

Our weekly calls had become a ritual. Sunday nights, 7pm his time. But today was Tuesday, and I'd picked up the phone without really deciding to.

He answered on the second ring. "Eli? Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just checking in."

"It's Tuesday."

"I know."

A pause. I could hear the TV in the background, some show he was half-watching. The familiar sounds of home that felt further away every week.

"Well, I'm glad you called," he said. "How's school?"

"Good. Fine. Classes are hard but I'm keeping up."

The lie came out smooth and easy. I couldn't tell him the truth. Couldn't say that students were vanishing in the night and I was worried it wasn't really family emergencies. Couldn't explain what I'd felt when Lucia's shoulder brushed mine, the sensation of her draining away from the inside, the terrible emptiness where there should have been more.

"Making progress with that sport thing? The one you mentioned?"

"Drift. Yeah, actually. Our team won a practice match last week."

"That's great." He sounded genuinely pleased. "See, I knew you'd figure it out. Just needed time to adjust."

I stared out the window at the Mudwick grounds. Dark trees against a darkening sky. The lake glinting in the distance like a black mirror. Late November had stripped the last leaves from the branches, leaving everything bare and skeletal.

"Dad, do you ever think about Mom? About the things she used to say?"

Silence on the other end. Long enough that I thought maybe the call had dropped.

"Sometimes," he said finally. "Why?"

"I've just been thinking about her. About how she used to ask me things. Whether I felt things I couldn't explain."

"Eli..." His voice was careful now. Worried. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

"No. Nothing happened. I'm just thinking about stuff." I pushed down the urge to tell him everything. "Being away from home makes you think about things, I guess."

"If something's wrong, you can tell me. You know that, right? Our calls, they don't have to be just checking boxes. If you need to talk about something real, I'm here."

The offer sat between us. All the things I couldn't say filling up the silence.

"I know, Dad."

"Because I know these calls have been kind of..." He trailed off, searching for the word. "Surface level. And that's my fault too. I don't always know what to ask. What you need."

"It's not your fault."

"It's not yours either." He took a breath. "I'm still figuring out how to do this. You being gone. It's quiet here. I'm not used to quiet."

Something tightened in my chest. I thought about the empty seat at the kitchen table. The room upstairs that wasn't being slept in.

"I miss you too, Dad."

"Yeah?" He sounded almost surprised. Like he hadn't been sure.

"Yeah."

"Well. Good." A pause, and I could hear him smiling a little. "Call whenever you want, okay? Doesn't have to be Sundays. Doesn't have to be scheduled. Just call."

"I will."

"And Eli? Whatever your mother used to ask you, whatever she was looking for... I don't think she ever thought there was something wrong with you. I think she was just worried. About things she couldn't protect you from."

My throat felt tight. "Yeah. I know."

"I love you, kid."

"Love you too, Dad."

I hung up and sat on my bed for a long time, phone in my hand, watching the light fade from the sky.

Mom had asked me questions. Had worried about things she couldn't protect me from. And now I was at a school where students disappeared and everyone pretended it was normal, where a name made teachers go quiet and students whisper in corners.

I wondered if this was what she'd been afraid of all along.

A week passed. The rhythms of Mudwick life ground forward. Classes. Practice. Meals with the group. Echoes remained impossible, though Professor Aldridge had started giving me separate exercises focused on reading people-traces. Drift practice went better now that I'd figured out my workaround. Marcus showed up but stayed distant.

Nobody mentioned Lucia.

That was the thing that got to me. One day a person exists, and then they don't, and the world just closes around the gap like water filling a hole. Classes continued. Meals were served. The good eggs ran out every morning whether Lucia was there to claim them or not.

I started noticing things I hadn't before. Students who looked tired. Who seemed dimmer than they had a week ago. Who moved through the hallways like they were carrying something heavy.

Was that just Mudwick? The weight of this place pressing down on everyone? Or was it something else?

My phone buzzed. Shelby.

I'd been dodging her texts for days. Short replies, emoji responses, the minimum effort required to not completely ghost her. But this time when I looked at the message, something cracked.

eli. seriously. i haven't heard your actual voice in like a month. are you okay?

I started typing the usual deflection. Then stopped. Deleted it.

I'm okay, I wrote instead. School is intense. More than I expected. I miss home sometimes.

Her reply came fast. oh thank god an actual sentence. i was starting to think you'd been replaced by a bot

not a bot. just overwhelmed

yeah i get that. ap classes are killing me too. at least you're at fancy boarding school. i'm stuck here watching brianna hollister pretend she invented the concept of christmas sweaters

I almost smiled. sounds rough

it's EXHAUSTING eli. she has OPINIONS about tinsel. nobody should have opinions about tinsel. Then, before I could respond: hey so christmas break. you're coming home right? we should actually hang out. like in person. with our faces

My stomach tightened. Christmas break. Three weeks away. Going home, seeing Shelby, pretending everything was normal when nothing was normal anymore.

yeah, I typed. i'll be there. we should definitely hang out

yay!! okay i'm holding you to that. we can go to denny's and you can tell me all about your rich people adventures

can't wait

I put the phone down. The conversation had been warmer than anything we'd exchanged in weeks. But the thought of actually seeing her, of sitting across from her and lying about everything, made me feel sick.

I found Marcus at the lake.

He was sitting on the bank, staring at the water. The arrogance that usually armored him was gone. He just looked tired. And something else I couldn't name.

"You shouldn't be out here alone," I said.

"Neither should you."

I sat down a few feet away. The lake was dark and still. Whatever warnings people whispered about this place, Marcus didn't seem to care. Maybe he had bigger things to worry about.

We sat in silence for a while. I didn't push. He'd talk or he wouldn't.

"My grandmother is dying," he said finally. "Hospice. Weeks left, maybe days."

"I'm sorry."

He picked up a stone and turned it over in his hands, not looking at me. "She raised me, mostly. My parents were always traveling, doing family business, being important. Gran was the one who was actually there."

"Sounds like she meant a lot to you."

"She's the only person in my family who ever treated me like a person instead of a legacy to maintain." He threw the stone. It skipped twice before sinking. "And now she's dying, and she keeps trying to tell me things, warn me about things. But she can't always remember what she was warning me about. It comes in pieces. Fragments that don't connect."

"What kind of things?"

"Old family stuff. History that doesn't make it into the textbooks. Our family used to be important, you know. Not Thaddeus-level old, but important. We had a seat on councils. People listened when we talked." He picked up another stone. "Then something happened. Before I was born. Gran never told me exactly what. But after that, the money started drying up, the connections started fading, and now we're just... leftovers. A name without anything behind it."

"You think what happened to your family is connected to what she's trying to warn you about?"

"I don't know. Maybe." He threw the second stone. This one didn't skip at all. "When Dao started talking about extraction. About people disappearing. She used that word once. Culling. Said it happened before, a long time ago, and it's still happening now. I didn't understand what she meant."

I thought about what Dao had said. People nobody would miss.

"She mentioned a portal," Marcus continued. "In the sublevels. Near the eastern foundations. Said it was closed for maintenance but that wasn't the real reason. Said if I ever saw anyone go through it, I should run."

"Did she say where it led?"

"No. She couldn't remember. Or couldn't say." He shook his head. "Half of what she tells me sounds like paranoid rambling. The other half sounds like the most important thing I've ever heard. And I can't tell which is which."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know. Because you were there when Dao said it. Because you felt something from that girl who left." He shook his head. "Because my grandmother is dying and the last thing she's trying to tell me is something I can't understand, and I don't know what to do with that."

It wasn't a call to action. It wasn't a plan. It was just grief, spilling out because it had to go somewhere.

"I'm sorry," I said again. It was inadequate. Everything was inadequate.

"Yeah." He didn't get up right away. We sat there together, watching the light fade across the water. "You know what's funny? I used to resent her for making me come to Mudwick. Thought she was just trying to relive her glory days through me. Make the family name mean something again."

"What do you think now?"

"Now I think maybe she was trying to protect me. Put me somewhere she could watch. Somewhere she thought would be safe." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Joke's on her, I guess."

The sun was almost down. The lake had gone from dark to darker, shadows swallowing what little light remained.

"We should head back," I said. "Before someone notices we're out here."

Marcus nodded and stood, brushing dirt from his pants. He looked smaller than he had when I first met him. Less armored. More human.

"Don't tell the others about my grandmother," he said. "About the hospice thing. I'm not ready for their pity."

"I won't."

"The stuff about the portal, though. The culling." He hesitated. "Maybe that's worth sharing. If something's really happening to students, they should know what my grandmother said. Even if it's just fragments."

"Are you sure?"

"No." He started walking back toward the buildings. "But I'm tired of carrying it alone."

I stayed by the lake a moment longer, thinking about what Shelby's life was like right now. Christmas plans and AP classes and opinions about tinsel. A world that made sense.

She'd asked me to come home for break. To hang out like nothing had changed. And I'd said yes, because what else could I say?

But the distance between us wasn't just miles anymore. It was everything I couldn't tell her. Every lie I'd have to maintain while sitting across from her at Denny's, pretending to be the person she remembered.

I wondered if she'd notice how much I'd changed. If she'd see through the act. Part of me hoped she would. Part of me was terrified of it.

That night I dreamed of drowning.

Not in water. In absence. In the feeling of everything that made me who I was slowly draining away, leaving nothing but an empty shell that looked like Eli Lawrence but wasn't anymore.

I woke up gasping, heart pounding, the traces of anxious students pressing in from the walls.

Just a dream. Just my fears taking shape while I slept.

I lay in the dark and listened to Dao breathe and told myself that Lucia Medina had left for a family emergency. That her saturation had been fine. That I'd misread everything. That the whispers about Miriam were just superstition. That Marcus's grandmother was just confused and dying and none of it meant anything.

I almost believed it.

Almost.