Lina Morren has mastered the art of vanishing without ever going invisible.
In the city of Thale, where magic hums in the bricks and dances in the gutters, people don't notice what they don't want to see. And no one wants to see a girl with no spell. A girl with a bare wrist. A blank future.
So she becomes small. Quiet. Drifts between shadows. Her skin carries charm-glamour, store-bought and fading. Her eyes never meet another's for too long. Her cloak is stitched from silence and survival.
It's Choosing Day.
The streets are loud with fireworks, pulsing with enchantment. Children run past her, glowing with the first sparks of magic—newly chosen, their spells shimmering in the air around them. Fire blossoms in one girl's hands. Another boy levitates a handful of stones as if they were feathers. A third hums, and vines grow from his footprints.
Lina turns away.
She knows better than to look too long.
She slips through the alley behind her old academy. The teachers don't remember her. Maybe they never wanted to. She was the only one in her year to never be called to the altar of spells. The only one to walk away empty.
The door to the old broom closet creaks when she opens it. She squeezes inside, knees to her chest, the wood damp with spells long washed away.
The noise of the celebration fades behind her. In this small space, Lina can pretend there's no magic in the world. That the air isn't buzzing. That her skin isn't aching for something she was never given.
She closes her eyes.
And hears a sound.
A slow, dragging whisper, like parchment brushing stone. Her eyes snap open. A letter slides under the door—no sender, no magic flare, no footsteps outside. It moves like it has intent.
Like it's alive.
She picks it up with shaking fingers. The parchment is soft, warm. It smells faintly of thunder.
There's no seal. Only her name, written in ink so dark it could be blood.
To Miss Lina Morren,
You are invited to Caligo Academy.
You may choose your own spell.
Do not tell anyone.
Arrive at the Last Train before Midnight.
Signed: The Headmaster Who Has No Name
Lina stares at it for a long time.
No one speaks of Caligo. Most don't believe it's real. A school for the Unchosen? A spell for the spellless?
Impossible.
But the letter feels real. And for the first time in seventeen years, something inside her stirs. Not fear. Not anger. Not shame.
Hope.
She folds the letter and tucks it beneath her shirt.
And disappears into the crowd.
The station is nearly abandoned.
Not the central one in Thale, where spells run the clocks and travelers float above silver rails. No, this is a forgotten terminal carved into the cliffside, behind a locked gate and past a trail no one walks anymore.
The only light is a flickering lantern swaying from a rusted hook. Wind howls like it's mourning something. Lina tightens her borrowed coat and clutches the broken locket in her palm. It hasn't opened in years, but it used to hold her brother's voice—before even that was taken.
She checks the letter again.
Arrive at the Last Train before Midnight.
The clock is broken, hands rusted and frozen at eleven.
Then the rails begin to hum.
She feels it first in her bones. A vibration, low and strange, like the world inhaling. And then it appears—out of the fog and the darkness, out of nowhere.
The Last Train.
It roars into view, impossibly silent for something so large. Midnight-black iron, burnished with strange, glowing symbols—none Lina recognizes. Its windows shimmer like water, reflecting things that shouldn't be there: a tower upside down, a boy running backward, her own face staring back with someone else's eyes.
The doors hiss open.
Inside: deep blue velvet seats, cracked mirrors, and lanterns that burn with blue-green flame.
She steps in.
Seven compartments. Seven passengers. One for each Unchosen.
Lina isn't alone.
The girl across from her has white hair braided with crimson thread. Her boots are stained—something dark, something dry. She watches Lina like a cat watches a mouse that might still bite.
Next to her, a boy hums softly and speaks to no one. "One door opens, one door lies. One spell whispers, one spell dies."
Twins sit side by side, sharing a coat stitched with identical sigils. One chews on a metal chain. The other stares straight ahead, eyes too wide.
A boy in the far corner hasn't blinked since Lina entered. His eyes are black, rimmed with frost. He hasn't said a word.
And across from Lina sits a girl who could be carved from shadow, her skin dark as dusk, her gaze steady. "You're late," she says. Not unkindly. Not kindly either.
"Am I?"
"No one knows when the Last Train leaves. But it always waits until the last one arrives."
Lina says nothing.
The train lurches.
There's no conductor. No engine room. Just motion. The windows blur into colorless smears. Outside, there are no cities, no stars. Just rivers that glow red, forests made of crystal, a bridge of bones that stretches into fog.
Time slips. Memory softens. One of the twins laughs in their sleep.
And then the mountain appears.
Cloaked in cloud. Veined with glowing cracks of magic. A gate carved into its side, ancient and waiting.
The train slows. Stops. The doors open without a sound.
They step out, one by one.
The ground crunches beneath their feet. Not snow. Not ash. Something in between.
Before them: towering black iron gates twisted into the shape of a keyhole.
They don't open.
Until all seven stand before them.
Then—creak—they swing wide. A wind spills out, thick with the scent of spell-ink, candle smoke, and something older. Something watching.
The gates whisper.
Not with voices. With knowledge.
You are the Unchosen. You are not welcome.
And yet… you are home.
Lina's locket pulses in her hand. The flame-lit path leads inward.
She takes the first step.
And the mountain swallows her whole.
Caligo is alive.
The mountain groans as the doors shut behind them, sealing with a sound like thunder under water. The air is thick—not heavy, but watchful. The walls of the entryway breathe, just slightly, in and out, as if the school is waiting to exhale.
Lina follows the others through a corridor lit by flickering lanterns. But these flames are not fire. They burn in soft shades of memory—dull gold, pale violet, the kind of colors you only see in dreams long forgotten.
Each lantern hums softly, a different melody. Some sound like lullabies. Some like warnings.
The hallway curves—then twists. She could swear it wasn't shaped like this when they entered.
"The school moves," says the white-haired girl, casually. "If you get lost, don't bleed. It follows scent."
Lina isn't sure if it's a joke.
No teachers greet them. No headmaster appears. Only the walls… and the whispers within them.
At the end of the corridor stands a long hallway with seven doors. Each is different—crafted of strange woods, metals that breathe light, stone that pulses.
One by one, the students are led forward. No one speaks. They simply walk until they stop in front of a door that seems to know them.
The silent boy stops before a door made of ice that never melts. The twins vanish behind a door with mirrored hands locked together. The girl with the shadow-dark skin enters a door made of volcanic stone wrapped in thorned ivy.
Lina walks last.
She feels her door before she sees it.
It radiates warmth—soft but persistent, like something ancient smoldering just beneath the surface. The wood is scorched black, smooth to the touch. And carved deep in the center, glowing faintly:
A feather suspended in mid-air, engulfed in fire.
Lina stares at it.
She's never seen it before. And yet—it was in her dreams. Always falling, always burning, never turning to ash.
Her fingers reach for the door.
Before she touches it, a voice breaks the silence.
It comes from nowhere. From everywhere.
"Welcome to Caligo Academy."
The walls vibrate with it.
"There are three rules."
A low hum echoes between the doors. The other students have paused to listen, their faces lit by the dream-lanterns.
"You may not leave once you enter."
"You must choose your spell before the first full moon."
"You may not open the Seventh Door."
A wind passes through the hallway. The lanterns flicker. For a moment, one door shudders in the shadows—a tall, sealed archway with no name, at the end of the hall. The Seventh Door.
Lina blinks. It's gone.
No one speaks.
She opens her door.
Inside: a room carved of dark stone and soft velvet, filled with books that hum, a bed that floats just slightly above the floor, and a single window that shows a sky full of stars she doesn't recognize.
A feather drifts down from the ceiling.
It lands in her palm.
The fire on it is cold.