“If you handle her properly, she’ll become your guardian,” Elvira said thoughtfully. “If not… well. I assume you’ve made peace with your internal organs.”

  Finn shrugged.

  “Honestly, Mal, if you stop attending lectures one day, we’ll simply assume the cat won.”

  “Comedy genius,” I muttered. “Right. I need a plan. Do I walk her like a Labrador? Buy a litter tray? Does anyone happen to have a manual on keeping demonic cats? And she’ll probably need somewhere to run… she can’t stay locked in my room forever.”

  Moorka raised her head and produced a low, rumbling sound that felt suspiciously like commentary on my life management skills.

  “Still working on translating that,” I sighed. “But I think we’ll get along. Possibly.”

  The cat snorted, her green eyes flashed in the gloom.

  Close enough to a yes.

  “Why not house her in the abandoned wing?” Elvira suggested casually, as if proposing a weekend cottage rental. “Plenty of space. No neighbours. Minimal supervision. Though… the place doesn’t have the best reputation.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “What kind of reputation?”

  Finn and Elvira exchanged a look. And that was the exact moment I realised I was about to regret asking.

  “Well,” Finn began. “It used to be part of the academic buildings. They shut it down after a few… incidents. They say students disappeared there.”

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  “Disappeared?” I repeated.

  “Yes.” Finn went on cheerfully. “There was this brilliant student. Top of his year. Awards. Newspaper features. Terence Maslow. Then he went off the rails, started by experimenting on animals — technically legal. Reanimating, reshaping them with magic, trying to alter life structures. People turned a blind eye. Young, ambitious — who doesn’t experiment in their youth?.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “And then?”

  “He upgraded to people,” Finn said. “His classmates.”

  Lovely.

  “He was caught and executed,” Elvira said crisply. “End of story.”

  “You believe that?” Finn scoffed. “I heard he staged his own death.”

  “And I heard he became a lich and rules an underground kingdom,” Elvira shot back. “Finn, you believe everything!”

  “And you believe the Academy’s press releases.”

  They began debating: executed, escaped, lich, urban legend, serial necromancer on the loose. I stood there wondering how we’d gone from litter boxes to immortal psychopaths in under five minutes.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Elvira told me. “The wing wasn’t closed because of Maslow. It led to the old catacombs. The ruins of an ancient city beneath the Academy. That’s why they sealed it. First-years just scare themselves with gargoyle stories.”

  “Gargoyles?” I asked.

  “Stone guardians,” Finn said. “Statues along the corridors. If you stay near them long enough, they start… watching. Sometimes moving.”

  “They’re inert unless activated,” Elvira cut in. “They used to be used for training. Once I’ve been there myself. Nothing happened.”

  I raised a hand like we were in class.

  “I’ve also been there. And it was absolutely horrifying.”

  They stared at me.

  “You were in the abandoned wing?!”

  “Yes,” I muttered, remembering the grotesque sculptures that had seemed to bore into me with their eyes, and the cold corridors that smelled of endless darkness.

  “You’re lucky the gargoyles didn’t notice you,” Finn said. “They’re said to sense magic.”

  “‘Sense’ is a nice word for ‘eat,’ isn’t it?” I asked nervously.

  “They don’t eat anyone,” Elvira sighed. “Finn dramatises. The only factual part is that the wing gives access to one of the main entrances to the catacombs. And the catacombs stretch beneath the entire Academy. And the buried city.”

  I glanced at Moorka, who was calmly grooming herself, entirely unconcerned by talk of vanished students and rogue necromancers.

  Wonderful.

  I have a demonic cat.

  There’s an ancient city under the Academy.

  And somewhere in the rumours, an unfinished necromancer is wandering around.

  What a splendid first semester!