I stood in front of the mirror, staring blankly ahead as I fixed my hair for the party that would be starting soon. Honestly I felt pretty drained after what I had gone through in the library. I was glad I was able to help Owen but I couldn’t shake how uneasy I felt over the fact that he had somehow found out WAY more information then he should have this early on in the novel. I sighed. I would look into it later, but not tonight. Tonight I was just going to sit back and enjoy the fact that there wasn’t going to be a hellhound attack due to my expert work at trapping Silvian in the great hall.

And speaking of the devil, Silvian popped up behind me now.

“You’ve been in front of the mirror for 30 minutes. What the hell are you doing? Getting lost in your own eyes?” He poked my hair. “Do you even style it? It just kind of looks like a mop.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well I at least don’t look like a fucking emo so I have that going for me.”

Silvian’s gaze flickered to the undone tie that still hung around my neck. “You need to speed things up Ches, we’re going to be late.”

“Okay, hold on a sec,” I mumbled, starting to fumble with my tie.

Silvian rolled his eyes. “Just let me do it, it takes you like 20 minutes.”

“Because I want it to look good!” I protested.

Silvian stepped in front of me, beginning to loop my tie around my neck. “Honestly, it continues to amaze me how shit you are at this. Here you are, a grown ass man, and you still manage to do your ties like a bloody first year.” He stepped back now, admiring his handiwork. “And done. See how quick that was. Now let’s go.” And with that he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out into the hallway.

----

The party was in full swing when we walked in. Halloween themed desserts were everywhere. Each year the students got to vote on a theme for the professors to dress up as. The previous year it had been wizard pop stars, this year it was animals. Hence each professor had a pair of animal ears on. This worked better for some professors, than others. For example Professor Tibble was currently wearing a little pair of bear ears and it actually looked pretty cute, on the other hand the glowering professor Drokav was wearing cat ears which...looked...well...the opposite.

The entire dining hall was cast in an orange glow and the tables had been moved to the side leaving room for students that wanted to dance. Smoke rolled off the surface of the pool which was currently a bright green color. Ghost like entities seemed to be emerging from it, their forms twisting up into the ceiling and through the skylight.

“Well,” Silvian said, “what do you think?”

I grinned at him. “Looks like a pretty fun shebang!”

Silvian glowered at me. “Did you just say the word...shebang...unironically?”

“Maybe.”

Silvian rolled his eyes. “Bloody lunatic,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Speaking of being a bloody lunatic, when are we planning on sneaking into the goblin market?

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Silvian hissed.“Don’t say that so loudly in the middle of a party. What is someone heard?” He lowered his voice. “I’ll need some time to get everything together so let's go two weeks from today. Sound good?” I gave him a thumbs up. “Okay good, now please don’t mention it again until we are somewhere private and not in the middle of a party, got that Ches?”

“Yeah, yeah, right, sure whatever.” I looked around now. “Do you see headmaster Banecliff, I really want to see what kind of ears he’s wearing.”

“He’ll probably be here in a minute. My money is on him wearing matching cat ears with Drokav.”

“They’ll look better on him,” I agreed. “The girls will probably have a field day if he wears them.”

“Probably.” A light scowl suddenly spread over Silvian’s features. “And speaking of girls…” Susan Nibs was currently making her way towards us. Silvian grimaced as she approached.

“Hey boys,” she said, her voice sounding WAY higher pitched than normal. She appeared more confident than usual and I had a feeling she may have drank some liquid courage before coming to the party.

“Oh God,” Silvian muttered under his breath.

Susan eyed Silvian now. “Hey, Greygate,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “How would you like to dance with me? What do you say?”

“No,” Silvian said bluntly and then straight up turned and walked away.

I was now left standing rather awkwardly in front of Susan. Her gaze moved to me now and she began to flutter her eyelashes once more. I squirmed, extremely uncomfortably.

“How about you Chester?” Susan said flirtily. “I’ll admit from the day I met you I always thought you were cute.” She giggled which sounded horribly forced. “So, why don’t you dance with me instead-”

“Nope, he’s already occupied,” Silvian said, popping back into the conversation just long enough to grab me by the arm and yank me away from her.

Susan furrowed her brow, “what the hell you two?” Her face fell. “I just don’t want to be all alone. I’m one of the only girls no one asked to dance-”

“Hey,” a fourth voice cut into the conversation. There was Morgana. She appeared to have gone full out with her eye makeup for the party tonight because it was so dark she was beginning to resemble a raccoon. She gave me a peace sign. “What’s up Price.” I guess after she and I locked Silvian in the great hall she had decided the two of us were on good terms. Her gaze fell to Silvian, only giving him a sharp glare before she turned to Susan. “You said you were one of the only girls no one asked to dance?”

Susan swallowed hard, her usual timidness creeping back. “Uh...yeah.”

Morgana smirked. “So how would you like to dance with me? I promise I’m way cuter than either of those two.” she extended a hand. Susan hesitated for a beat but then finally gave a small nod before Morgana whisked her off onto the dance floor.

I turned to Silvian, my mouth hanging open. “Wow...okay...that was not a combination I would have ever expected.”

Silvian side eyed me. “Are you and Morgana Wilds friends now?”

I shook my head. “Nah, but I think she’s at least cool with me since I took that punch for Owen.” I glanced to Silvian now. “By the way, you could have been a little nicer to Susan when you turned her down.”

Silvian shrugged, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Well she was an idiot for thinking I would say yes. I would never dance with a human, it’s beneath me.”

I glared at him. “Are you fucking serious dude?”

Silvian blinked, as if genuinely completely unaware of he had just said. “What do you mean?”

I sighed heavily. “I mean, do you realize what you just said? I’m not one of your elf lackey friends, I’m a human too Silvian.”

“Yes, but you’re different.”

“I’m not different,” I snapped. “I’m like every other human and maybe if you ever made just a single OUNCE of effort you would see that humans and elves aren’t as different as you make them out to be.”

“Listen, do you realize how much I risked just to be friends with you? The other elves in our class don’t look at me the same way, I can tell they don’t respect me anymore. Oh and God forbid if my father found out.” Something unreadable came across his gaze when his said that. As much as I would have loved to argue the issue of Silvian’s opinions on humans I figured it was best to just drop it for now.

Silvian seemed eager to change the subject as well because he continued on. “I wouldn’t have danced with Susan Nibs regardless of being a human. If I had said yes she might have developed a crush on me which would have been quite unfavorable.”

“Why, you not a ladies man.” I snickered giving him a little wink. “You saying you wouldn’t want to date Susan Nubs.”

Silvian crossed his arms. “I wouldn’t want to date anyone. Romantic love is stupid.”

“Wow, I know I joke about you being emo all the time but dude you seriously are,” I said as I poured myself a cup of orange punch.

Silvian’s eyes narrowed. “I’m being serious. Romantic feelings are nothing but a distraction. It’ll just end up hurting you, and for what? What do you even gain from that kind of relationship?”

I gave him a playful shove. “Damn Greygate, who hurt you? Haha, but seriously though you don’t need to gain something from a relationship. Didn’t I tell you when we first met, relationships and friendships aren’t like business deals.”

Silvian let out a little huff. “Whatever. Anyway, you should be thanking me for getting you out of dancing with Susan.”

“How did you know I didn’t want to dance with her?”

“Because you’re gay.”

I choked on my punch. After a few pathetic coughs I finally cleared my windpipe enough to respond. “Wha...how the hell did you know?!?”

Silvian just stared at me a beat with an expression of disbelief on his face before finally saying, completely deadpan. “Are you serious?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean did you really think I didn’t know?” He sounded almost offended.

“I don’t know! I thought you would have brought it up if you had known!”

“I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t think it was a big deal.” Silvian’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, if you fainting from seeing Owen Thorn wasn’t obvious enough, you practically have to fight yourself to not oogle at him-”

“Please never use the word oogle again.”

“Okay, fine then ‘stare’ at him through the entirety of class.”

My face immediately turned bright red. “I just admire him.”

Silvian rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say.” His mouth drew into a thin line, his gaze darting to the floor. “I just don’t understand what you see in him, especially when there are other guys who-”

That’s when the great hall’s doors suddenly swung open and ten ghostly figures entered. They were large and lumbering and looked like giant dogs. Their eyes shone a bright red and their fangs were so large they stuck out like the teeth of some creatures from the depths of the sea.

My face turned ashen and my blood went ice cold.

I knew what these were.

They were hellhounds.

This shouldn’t be possible. There was only supposed be one hellhound and Silvian was supposed to summon it during the party. That obviously wasn’t what happened however because there were currently 12 of them and I had been with Silvian all night.

That could only mean one thing.

The Dark One had found another wizard to become the blackened and this one was 12 times stronger than Silvian Greygate.