“I had an idea that I’ve been working on since the summer,” Owen continued. “I want to track down the person who let that wyvern into the school.”

My eyes went wide in the most ‘I don’t already know the plot of this book’ way I could manage.  “You really think it was a person?”

Owen nodded, his face illuminated by the soft, shifting colors of the bioluminescent plants. “I did some digging and found records showing that the school’s gate was severely damaged before the wyvern even entered the premises. Someone sabotaged it. I think that if I find who did it and they’re justly punished, it could be my way of making things right for Lucian and everyone else who lost family and friends in the attack.”

His gaze returned to me, cautiously hopeful. “I don’t think I can do it alone. I heard you’re really gifted in the Mental Arts, which would be incredibly useful in an investigation. So, I was wondering if maybe you’d want to… uh… I don’t know…” He trailed off, and I could have sworn a pink flush dusted his cheeks, though it was probably just the shifting colors of the garden. “Maybe you’d like to join—”

I was already jumping up and down before he even finished the sentence. “Of course! I would love to help you!”

Owen’s face lit up like a little kid’s at Christmas.

“Ohmygosh, thank you!” Owen swept me into a bear hug, spinning me around. “Thank you so much!”

I couldn’t tell if I was dizzy from the spinning or the fact that Owen Thorn—THE Owen Thorn—was hugging me. 

At last, Owen set me down, flashing me a smile that fully showed off his dimples. My heart nearly exploded. 

At that moment, two thoughts flashed through my mind.

The first was that in every book I’d ever read about time travel and alternate realities, there usually was a rule where meddling with the timeline led to blowing up the universe or something. 

But the second thought rang even louder, drowning out anything as trivial as ‘world ending consequences.’ 

No matter what, I had to save Owen Thorn’s life.

The thought echoed in my head the rest of the night, even as I climbed the winding stairs back up the clocktower. 

It’s strange, to sense something is wrong before you actually see it. But as I stepped up to my dorm room door, I felt it, a sudden, sinking feeling of dread that sent a shiver up my spine. With a deep breath, I pushed open the door. 

All the lights were off, the room pitch-black. 

It was about twenty degrees colder than it should have been, the unexpected chill rising goosebumps along my arms. My eyes struggled to adjust, the inky blackness swallowing everything. The darkness seemed to press in from all sides. But then, at last, I made something out—a shape lurking in the corner.

Whispering filled the room, a stream of nonsensical words that didn’t stop, didn’t pause, a continuous, relentless chant. 

Then I saw him.

Lucian stood in the corner, his back to me, his head pressed against the wall. His body was unnaturally still, save for the twitching of his fingers, almost as if he was clawing at the wall. He continued to whisper to himself, the unintelligible words spilling endlessly from his lips. 

Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

The Great Darkness was trying to contact him. God, I should have known this would be coming any day now. I should have been more alert. I should have never even left him!

“Lucian,” I cried, racing toward him. “Lucian!”

Frantically, I grabbed him by the arms, spinning him around. 

My breath hitched at the sight I was met with. 

Lucian's eyes had rolled back in his head, revealing only the whites.

My roommate lunged at me. His limbs jerked, twisting at impossible angles as he slammed me to the floor. I hit the ground hard, my sleeve tearing when my elbow skidded across the wood. Pain flared through my arm. 

Panic surged, and I desperately kicked at him, landing a hit to his chest that gave me just enough space to scramble back on my hands and knees.

Lucian kept whispering to himself, the sound slithering into my ears as his limbs snapped back into place. He scuttled toward me, fast and frenzied, like a massive spider with perfect cheekbones. Needless to say, it was fucking horrifying.

I rolled to the side just as his hands slammed into the floor where I’d been lying seconds before. Heart thundering, I dove under the bed. 

Hidden away in the darkness, I slapped my hands over my mouth, trying to silence my frantic breathing as my mind whirled. Desperately, I tried to remember anything from the Owen Thorn books that could stop the Great Darkness from taking control of someone.

It possessed Ferula briefly in book three, and Owen had snapped her out of it by feeding her one of Wesley’s candies to bring back her memories. So if objects connected to memories could save her, they could probably save Lucian too. But what memory?

And then it hit me. 

The googles, I needed to find the googles. Where had he left them in the mess he’d made of our dorm?

A creek sounded on the bed directly above me. Then Lucian’s head flipped down over the edge, and I found myself face to face with his white pupiless eyes. 

With adrenaline rushing through my veins, I sprang out from under the bed just as Lucian’s hand shot down, his fingers scraping the floor. 

Pulse racing, I sprinted toward his desk, my feet barely touching the ground. Lucian came barreling after me, footsteps pounding from behind, closing in. Pushing myself to go faster, I yanked books from every shelf I passed. I issued a silent apology to Lucian, and an even more silent apology to the poor books, before hurling them over my shoulder at him.

The heavy volumes struck Lucian, one after the other, the leather bindings slamming into his body with dull thuds. But Lucian didn’t so much as flinch.

Well shit. 

Gasping for breath, I stumbled to his desk, my hands shaking as I tore open the drawers, sending papers flying in every direction.

“Where is it?” I hissed. “Where the fuck is it?”

Lucian’s entire body twisted, bending unnaturally backward as he scampered across the floor toward me. His hand locked around my ankle, the sudden cold of his skin sending a shock of terror up my spine. I yelped, kicking wildly as I tried to shake him off.

But he wouldn’t let go, still whispering to himself as he dragged my leg toward him. 

Desperately, my hand closed around a glass vial containing the potion Lucian had been working on earlier that day. I yanked the cork off with my teeth, flinging its contents at him. The potion erupted in a bright flare of light, the liquid sizzling as it went flying, sending a wave of heat rippling through the room. 

Lucian flinched back as it splattered across him, his grip on my ankle loosening just enough for me to wrench myself free.

Breathing hard, I scrambled onto his desk, knocking over bottles and vials in the process. The potions went spilling across the floor, a mix of colors bubbling over, and explosions of smoke and sparks filling the air until I could barely make out my right from left. 

I didn’t wait to see the damage—I launched myself off the desk in a wild leap, barely managing to catch the edge of Lucian’s bed with my feet. My momentum sent me bouncing on the mattress, landing on my side. 

I grimaced. Being on Lucian’s bed felt weirdly intimate, like I was intruding on somewhere private. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted someone else on my bed. What if they found the Owen Thorn doujinshi I had hidden under my pillow?

A light bulb might as well have just lit up over my head. That’s right! If someone was going to keep something important close to them, then it was probably hidden under the…

Through the dissipating smoky haze, I made out Lucian’s looming form. He was on his feet again, his movements even more erratic as he surged toward me. Frantically, I scrambled across the bed, fingers sinking into the plush cotton of the pillow. 

Taking a deep breath, I yanked it up. 

And there, nestled away like some hidden treasure—were the goggles.

But when my hands closed around them, I felt the mattress dip. My heart skipped a beat as I glanced over my shoulder and saw Lucian on the bed directly behind me, lunging forward.

That's when another idea came. 

Instead of backing away, I charged at him too, the space between us closing in an instant. We collided with a crash. The impact sent us both tumbling backward, limbs tangled as I landed on the mattress on top of him. 

We were chest to chest, our faces so close that I could feel his hot, ragged breath against my skin. Something flickered in his white, vacant eyes. Something painfully close to recognition. Then, all of a sudden, actual pain exploded through my skull. 

It was as if someone had taken a hammer to the inside of my head. My vision spun. And for a split-second, I could have sworn I was looking up at myself through Lucian’s eyes. My own face stared back at me, cheeks flushed, chest heaving.

Then I blinked and the image was gone along with the pain.

Lucian remained frozen in place, eyes wide.

I seized the opportunity, shooting forward to wrestle the goggles onto him. My arms wrapped around my roommate as I struggled with the clasp, the hair at the back of his neck soft beneath my fingers. The heat of his breath mingled with my own, making my heart race, a strange warmth radiating through me. 

And at last, I snapped the clasp shut. 

Lucian stiffened, then relaxed, practically melting against my chest as his eyes fluttered shut. He took a sharp intake of air, like he hadn’t been breathing the entire time. When his eyes snapped open once more, they were back to normal.

I was so freaking relieved that a small bout of madness of my own struck and I nearly hugged him. But then two things happened in quick succession.

The first was that Luican and I both became aware that we were tangled together on his bed. Pressed together so closely, I could literally feel his heartbeat speed up against my chest, a frantic, desperate rhythm. Then his face went bright pink and he shoved me off him. 

“What the hell, Neato?!” Lucian snapped, his voice cracking at the end. “What are you…”

And then the second thing happened. Lucian saw all his potions in steaming puddles strewn across the floor. His eyes bulged. 

“Are you fucking kidding me!” Lucian shrieked, practically ripping out his hair. “Those potions took me weeks to prep!”

The look he gave me made me think maybe I actually was safer with him while he was possessed. 

“Well then maybe you shouldn’t have given me a reason to throw them,” I shot back, adjusting my glasses. 

Lucian’s mouth opened, then closed, his expression shifting as he seemed to reconsider unleashing his frustration on me. Even though he wasn’t fully aware of his actions under the Great Darkness’s influence, obviously he knew the Great Darkness had been speaking to him in his mind. 

Tonight must have been the night the Great Darkness delivered its instructions to him. The Blood Moon was coming on October 30th, Owen Thorn’s birthday—a date that would mark the beginning of the Great Darkness’s plan. Lucian would be instructed to go into the woods, where he would meet the Great Darkness face-to-face and start the process of merging with him.

Lucian coughed, scooting to the other end of the bed as far from me as possible, nearly teetering off the edge. “It seems, uh… perhaps I was not quite myself earlier.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, “weird night, huh?”

“Yes,” Lucian said, “weird night.”

We just sat there, side by side, staring out at the sizzling potions and scattered books. 

Tonight marked the beginning of the end for Lucian and Owen. And if Lucian met with the Great Darkness in two weeks, it meant their fates were both as good as sealed.

If I was going to stop their demise, I needed to stop Lucian. 

Which meant I had to form a plan—Operation Save the Roommate.