Chapter404:Chapter 404

Chapter 404 SHAWN I was halfway through copying the chemical equation Professor Morrison had written on the board when every alarm in the school went off simultaneously. Not the fire alarm. Not the lockdown alarm we'd practiced during drills. Every. Single. Alarm. The sound was deafening, disorienting, designed to signal the kind of emergency that required immediate evacuation. Professor Morrison's hand froze mid-sentence, her expression shifting from confusion to alarm in the space of a heartbeat. Then the windows exploded inward. Glass shattered in a cascade of glittering shards as dark shapes poured through the openings. I had maybe half a second to register what I was seeing—nightwalkers, their eyes reflecting red in the fluorescent lighting, moving with predatory speed that shouldn't have been possible in broad daylight. Except it wasn't broad daylight anymore. Someone had darkened the sky. Magic, probably. Thick clouds that blocked out the sun, creating artificial twilight that l