Zara’s POV

  The hospital room was dim, the steady rhythm of the monitors the only sound breaking the silence. Naja was asleep, her breathing even, her silver-glowing hands resting lightly on the blankets. I hated seeing her like this—so fragile, so weak. But she was alive, and for now, that had to be enough.

  Kage and I stepped inside quietly, careful not to wake her. My arms ached from the weight of the records I carried, stacks of hospital reports balanced between us as we set them down on the small table in the corner of the room.

  “Are you sure about this?” Kage asked, his voice low.

  I nodded, already pulling a chair closer. “I’m not leaving her alone. Not after everything.”

  His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. We both knew The Cleansing was still out there. Naja had been one of his targets once before—there was no reason to think he wouldn’t try again. The thought made my chest tighten, but I forced myself to focus. She was safe here. At least for now.

  I glanced at her sleeping form before turning back to the pile of records. “Let’s get started.”

  The hours passed in silence, broken only by the rustle of papers and the occasional sigh of frustration. The records were endless. Every magical-related accident, every injury, every death. We were searching for something that might explain The Cleansing’s motive—something that linked him to magic before his killing spree began.

  Kage worked methodically, skimming reports with sharp efficiency, setting aside anything that might be relevant. I, on the other hand, found myself lingering—reading each name, each incident. Too many of them were people I had tried to save.

  I traced a hand over one file, my fingers tightening around the page. “This one… I remember this one.”

  Kage looked up from across the table, setting down the report he had been scanning. “What happened?”

  I swallowed, my throat tight. “She was young. Maybe fifteen. Fire-wielder. Her powers ignited when she was scared. She… she burned herself too badly. By the time they brought her in, all the connections to her soul had been burned, there was nothing I could do.”

  Kage’s gaze lingered on me, unreadable. “Zara—”

  I shook my head, pushing the file away. “It’s not the one we’re looking for.”

  He didn’t argue, but he didn’t look away either.

  We kept searching. List after list, name after name. A few incidents stood out, but none of them felt quite right. None of them explained the level of precision The Cleansing had, his hatred, his need for control.

  I ran a hand through my hair, sighing heavily. “We’re missing something.”

  Kage exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then we keep looking. The answer is here. We just have to find it.”

  Kage’s POV

  The stack of files felt endless. My eyes burned from reading, my shoulders stiff from hours of sitting in the cramped hospital room. But we couldn’t stop. Not when we were this close.

  And then, I found it.

  I skimmed through the first few lines of the report, but I didn’t need to read further. I remembered this tragedy. Zara would too.

  “Zara.” My voice was sharper than I intended, but she immediately looked up from the file she had been reading.

  She must have seen something in my expression because she was already moving, shifting her chair closer to mine as I slid the report in front of her.

  “Three years ago, just two weeks after I arrived here” I said, pointing to the date on the page. “City park. A young earth-wielder lost control of her magic in the middle of a busy afternoon. The tremors she caused brought down several small buildings and cracked the streets wide open. Ten people were killed.”

  Zara’s breath caught. I watched as recognition dawned in her eyes.

  “I remember this.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “The emergency responders pulled out dozens of people from the wreckage. Naja and I worked for hours trying to heal the wounded and the dead.”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  I nodded grimly. “But ten still died.”

  She exhaled slowly, her fingers gripping the edge of the file as she scanned the pages. It was all there—the names of the deceased, the confirmed injuries, the chaos that had unfolded that day.

  And at the bottom of the report, under ‘Next of Kin,’ a name stood out.

  Michael Lorne.

  Zara’s POV

  I had thought about this day more times than I cared to admit.

  The way the ground had cracked apart beneath people’s feet. The way the buildings had crumbled, dust and debris choking the air. The screams.

  I could still see the boy—maybe ten years old, his body barely holding together under the weight of his injuries. His mother had been found beside him, her arms wrapped around him as if she could have shielded him from the collapse. His sister had been discovered later, trapped beneath rubble, her small frame twisted at an unnatural angle.

  Naja and I had done everything we could. We had healed everyone the responders brought to us. But not them.

  I had tried. Gods, I had tried. But their bodies were too broken, their souls too far gone. My magic had failed me.

  “Michael Lorne.” The name felt like lead on my tongue. “The father. He was at work that day. He wasn’t there when it happened. But when he got to the hospital…”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, the memory slamming into me like a wave.

  He had been begging me to bring them back.

  I had told him I couldn’t.

  And now, he potentially was The Cleansing.

  Naja’s POV

  Voices. Familiar voices.

  I stirred, my body still weak, exhaustion weighing me down like a stone. The steady beeping of the monitor tethered me to reality, but it was Zara’s voice that pulled me further from the haze of sleep.

  “Michael Lorne,” she was saying, her voice tight, like she was barely holding herself together. “The father. He was at work that day. He wasn’t there when it happened. But when he got to the hospital…”

  I listened, unmoving. Michael Lorne. The name tugged at something buried deep in my memory. I knew that name.

  Kage’s voice followed, lower, steady. “He lost everything. His entire family—gone. If he blames magicals for what happened…”

  I swallowed, forcing myself to clear the fog in my mind. I remembered him.

  His face—his blue eyes, wild with grief, desperate, begging me to do something, to fix it.

  I had tried. Gods, I had tried. But there had been nothing I could do. No magic in the world could bring them back once the bodies were too broken, too far gone.

  “Please!” His voice echoed in my memory, raw and shattered. “You have to save them! They’re all I have left!”

  And I had failed him.

  The weight of that realization settled over me like ice. Michael Lorne. The man who killed me.

  I forced my eyes open, my voice hoarse as I interrupted the conversation. “I remember him.”

  Zara’s POV

  Kage and I turned sharply at Naja’s voice. My relief at seeing her awake warred with the fear already carved into my chest.

  “Naja…” I whispered, moving closer. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded weakly, licking her dry lips. “He was here. At the hospital. He begged me to save them. His wife. His children. I couldn’t. They were already gone and I knew they were too broken for you to bring back.”

  Silence stretched between us, heavy, suffocating.

  Kage ran a hand down his face, exhaling sharply. “Then it’s him. The Cleansing. He’s killing magicals because a magical took his family from him.”

  I clenched my fists at my sides, my jaw tightening. “Because I couldn’t bring them back.”

  Kage’s eyes darkened, his body tense with the weight of the realization. “This explains why he’s so careful, he knew that you were unable to bring back anyone who had been too badly injured. He makes sure his victims can’t be brought back. He isn’t just killing magicals—he’s making sure they stay dead.”

  Naja swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper. “He was… broken that day. I remember his face. His eyes weren’t just grieving—they were empty, like he had lost the will to exist the moment I told him there was nothing I could do.”

  I inhaled sharply, looking away. “He’s not just hunting magicals. He’s trying to erase magic itself.”

  Kage exhaled slowly, his hands curling into fists before he forced them to relax. “We have to find him before he kills again. Now that we know who he is, we have a real chance to stop this.”

  Naja hesitated, the echoes of Michael Lorne’s despair still rattling in her mind. “He’s not going to stop. Not unless we give him a reason to.”

  My gaze hardened. “Then we find him. And we end this.”

  Kage’s POV

  The moment we had his name, I contacted Hall. We needed everything we could find on Michael Lorne.

  Within minutes, Hall sent back a file with employment records, confirming what we suspected—Lorne works in administration at the university.

  “He’s been there for years,” I muttered, scanning the information. “He handles curriculum oversight, reviewing lesson plans, approving course content.”

  Zara inhaled sharply, realization dawning. “That means he’s had access to everything I’ve taught. Every lecture I’ve given on necromancy, every note I’ve submitted on magical studies—he’s seen it all.”

  A chill settled between us. He hadn’t just been hunting magicals—he had been studying them. Studying Zara.

  “That’s how he knew how to counter your magic,” I said grimly. “He’s been preparing for this for a long time.”

  Zara clenched her fists, her mind racing. “And it’s not just me. It’s how he knows how to combat magicals in general. He must have been studying the curriculum of the magical combat and defense courses too.”

  I frowned. “I took those courses when I first moved to the city to help with my work as an officer. They teach strategies for resisting magical attacks, but nothing that would give him the level of knowledge he’s using now. If he’s been tracking those courses, adapting his methods over time, he’s far more dangerous than we thought.”

  Zara let out a sharp breath. “We need to move. If he suspects we’re onto him, he won’t wait around. We have to get ahead of him before he disappears again.”