“Thank you,” I say, smiling as she nods and drifts to join the other healers tending to dozens of wounded students who are being carried in every few minutes as more and more return from the rifts.

Beck, Ambrose, and Mireen all sit beside the bed with me.

There's an air of tense anticipation between all of us. For now, students are still fighting to tether elementals as the window to return to campus remains open. In a few hours, the rift will close, and anyone who hasn't returned will be assumed dead.

After that, we'll all be forced to participate in a celebratory ceremony, as if our victory isn't shadowed by the ghosts of hundreds and even thousands of dead going back to that first day when we arrived in our carriages. The thought makes my stomach turn.

Mireen's hair is still soaked and she has a gash on the side of her neck that the healer bandaged when we arrived. Her braid has come loose in several places, leaving her copper hair to stand up and catch the fading evening light that streams through the windows. "So…" she says softly. "Are you going to tell us what is going on with your mark, Nessa?"

I instinctively twitch to put my hand in my pocket, but force it to still. My pulse skyrockets. The silver threads running through the blue and the patterns are different than everyone else who tethered. Even the blue is a deeper shade than their marks, as if some of that unnatural color saturation from the elemental plane is showing straight through my skin.

Typhon already told me it would draw attention. He said it was because he's an ancient, and the depth of his tether is many times more powerful than the types my classmates will have. It explains the deep, vibrant blue, but not the threads of silver. I’ve managed to work on disguising them more, but not before my friends saw.

"Um," I say, scratching the back of my neck. “It’s complicated.” Gods, how do I even begin to explain this? The most obvious answer is to admit the truth about Typhon to my friends. Admit I tethered a fucking ancient and blame him on the strangely intense water mark on my hand. “I think it has something to do with the elemental I tethered, though. At least that’s what he says.”

For now, they can’t see him. Elementals can choose to remain hidden from all but their tethered human, and I haven’t seen any other elementals showing themselves as students return from the rifts.

I can see Typhon lurking in the corner of the room like a dragon twice the size of a horse. They can't. Not unless he chooses to let them.

"Caution will prevail when tethers are fresh," Typhon notes, casually reading my thoughts and responding, as if it's the most normal thing in the world. That's going to take some adjustment.