Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 180: Song beneath the skin

Chapter 180: Song beneath the skin

The Academy felt wrong.

Not in the obvious way—not like shattered glass or blood on the tiles. No, it was subtle. A shade too quiet. A second too long between each bell chime. A flicker in the torchlight where none should be.

The kind of wrong that makes you glance over your shoulder for a breath that wasn’t yours.

And I knew—without question—that the Echo wasn’t sealed anymore.

It was watching.

Waiting.

And it had chosen someone.

"Professor?" Mira’s voice broke my thoughts.

I looked up from the rune sequence I’d etched across my chalkboard. She sat cross-legged on the front desk, twirling a quill between her fingers. Julien leaned against the window frame, arms crossed. Felix was dozing. Leo was scribbling half-heartedly. Garrick was balancing a textbook on his head.

But Cassandra... she wasn’t here.

Again.

That made three absences in a row.

And the last time I saw her—truly saw her—she had been humming.

That same static-laced tune from the dream.

I forced my expression neutral. "Continue."

After class, I called Julien over.

"You’re friends with Cassandra."

"She’d disagree, but sure," he shrugged. "Why?"

"Has she spoken to anyone?"

"She’s been... odd. Keeps vanishing. Stares too long. Doesn’t blink enough." He smirked, but there was a nervous twitch behind it. "Creeping everyone out, honestly."

"Has she been humming?"

Julien blinked. "Yeah. Just yesterday. Real low, like she didn’t even notice. Sounded like a lullaby from a broken music box."

I gripped the edge of my desk. "Find her. Discreetly. Bring her to my office."

"You think she’s dangerous?"

I didn’t answer. Because the truth was—

I wasn’t sure who Cassandra was anymore.

When they brought her in, she didn’t struggle.

She didn’t speak either.

Just walked calmly, hands folded, lips curled in a faint smile.

Julien hesitated in the doorway. "You want us to stay?"

"No," I said. "Close the door."

She stood there for a moment after he left, watching the flame of my wall sconce flicker. Not even blinking.

Then finally—softly—she said, "You dreamt of her, didn’t you?"

I froze.

"Who?"

"The one in the chair," Cassandra said. "She’s still dreaming."

I activated the sound wards. Every sigil I knew that could block influence. She watched me do it with quiet amusement.

"You don’t remember, do you?" she said. "Before this life. Before Lucian."

I stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"You were there," she whispered. "In the white room. Screaming in reverse."

And just like that, I couldn’t breathe.

Because no one should’ve known that dream.

No one.

Not unless they had seen it too.

I took a breath. "What did the Echo show you?"

Cassandra tilted her head. "It didn’t show me anything. It listened."

She smiled wider, and something about that smile made the back of my neck crawl.

"Listened to what?"

"To me."

The lights flickered.

The temperature dropped. My breath misted.

And from somewhere inside the walls—

I heard the faintest hum.

I stood slowly. "Whatever it told you—whatever it promised—it’s lying."

"It never lied," Cassandra said. "It just sang. And I listened. Because no one else ever did."

She stepped forward. My rune barrier shimmered between us.

"You think this Academy is safe. That Evercrest has control. But he doesn’t understand what’s coming. You do, don’t you?"

I clenched my fists. "I understand enough to stop it."

"Then you’re part of the Pattern too, Professor."

Her eyes glowed faintly cyan.

The same color as mine.

The same as—

No.

No, that was impossible.

I didn’t teach her that Pattern.

I never showed any of them the Severance threads.

"How do you know that rune?" I asked.

She simply smiled and began to hum again.

Softly.

Beautifully.

Like the start of a new lullaby.

When I dismissed her, she walked out as if nothing had happened.

But I knew.

Cassandra wasn’t alone anymore.

And I didn’t know if she ever would be again.

Later that night, I went to the sealed chamber beneath the Academy. The Grimoire of Patterns guided my hands, etching counter-runes into the obsidian floor.

A voice whispered through the arcane ink:

"Echoes cannot be killed. Only recorded."

And the last page of the Grimoire turned on its own, revealing a title that hadn’t been there before.

"Pattern 000: The Song of Returning."

The Grimoire wouldn’t close.

It trembled in my hand, pages fluttering in a wind that didn’t exist. My wards hissed, reacting to the surge of latent mana spiraling from the runes inked in the center of my chamber. The title at the top of the final page pulsed faintly—Pattern 000: The Song of Returning—as if daring me to read it aloud.

I didn’t.

Not yet.

Some instincts aren’t born from logic or training. They come from deeper places—old pain, half-memories, gut-deep fear.

And mine told me this pattern was a gate. Not metaphorically. Literally.

And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what waited on the other side.

I paced the chamber, cold sweat running down my spine.

Cassandra’s words echoed louder than any spell.

You don’t remember, do you? Before this life. Before Lucian.

No. I didn’t. And that was the terrifying part.

She spoke like someone who did remember. Not glimpses or fragments, but full recollection. She looked at me like I was someone else entirely.

And for a second—I had felt it too.

A pressure behind my eyes. Like a name waiting to be recalled. Like a scream pressed into the folds of my mind, buried under layers of someone else’s voice.

Was I still Allen Cross?

Or had the world already started to rewrite me?

I locked the chamber and climbed back into the stone halls of Noctis Ardentis.

The Academy was silent. Not peaceful—no, never that. Just quiet in a way that warned of held breath. As though the walls themselves feared being overheard.

I took the long path back to my quarters, ignoring the patrol wards that flared at my presence. Augustus Evercrest, for all his mystery and power, rarely wandered the dormitory wings himself. I had time.

Still, I slowed as I passed the northern wing.

That was where the Echo had been sealed.

That was where it had whispered to her.

I felt it now. A thread of sound. Not music, but... memory. The way a place might remember trauma if stone could scream.

I reached out with a sliver of mana.

And for a moment, I heard a voice behind the wall whisper—

"Welcome back."

I staggered back, hand sparking.

What the hell was that?

I spun and almost drew my blade, but the hallway was empty.

Except—

No. There.

A figure at the end of the corridor.

White robe. Veiled face.

A woman?

No. Not quite.

Something wrong with her shape. Her shadow didn’t match her form. It swayed when she didn’t move. Like a puppet on strings you couldn’t see.

I didn’t blink.

Neither did she.

And then—she vanished.

By the time I returned to my quarters, I was shaking. And not from fear. From certainty.

The Echo wasn’t just infecting minds.

It was rewriting the Pattern of the Academy itself.

And if it could reach me...

Then it was only a matter of time before the whole continent heard its lullaby.

That night, I didn’t sleep.

Instead, I unlocked the Grimoire again, turned to the final page, and began transcribing the Song of Returning into runes.

My hands moved on their own.

The ink shimmered.

And with every word I wrote, a voice whispered in my ear.

A woman’s voice.

"I remember you now, Allen Cross."

"We died together."

"Let’s not make the same mistake twice."