Emma snatched the book off the shelf and scurried to the front of the library. The reception desk was empty. Panic fluttered through her. Had she been searching the stacks that long? She pulled out her phone. Yep, it was well past midnight. The library was silent. She'd seen a few students earlier, but they had all probably gone now. Soon this place would be crawling with the new batch of first-years. The whole campus would be too loud and too busy to study. Annoying. They were lucky, most of them. They were strong. They didn't have to stay up studying after everyone else had gone to bed.

Sighing, she scanned the book out herself. She glanced around as she performed the familiar action and shivered. The library was so big and dark and empty at night. She wasn't being watched, she was just being paranoid.

The book scanner beeped green, making her jump. She scooped up the book, dumped it in her tote bag with her pens and highlighters and other textbooks and scuttled out of the library.

She was nearly to the front door when she realized the door to the library had never shuddered shut behind her. She glanced back.

Thud.

The glass panel did the little rattle she'd come to associate with the library door closing.

Paranoid. Just paranoid.

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She shoved the front door open and bustled out into the cool night. The campus was dark, the buildings like big tankers on the night sea. Lamps periodically illuminated the path she walked. She kept her magic engaged out of a practiced nervous habit more than anything else. Even at this hour, the campus buzzed with unseen magic. Tiny individual spells like silk whispers on her sensation and the enormous, grinding roar of the campus generators, like invisible suns beneath the ground. But nothing in her immediate surroundings.

Paranoid.

That's what Ms Sterling said in her combat review after Emma had embarrassed herself in the first-year tournament last year: Paranoid. Too worried to cast spells under pressure. But that was just A-Ok. She didn't want to be a Ranger. She had never had any delusions about her capabilities, unlike some of her classmates. Ugh, some of the boys in her class acted like they would literally explode if they weren't strong battle mages and didn't pass the Ranger Exam. She knew her strengths and knew she had to play to them. That was life. You didn't need battle magic to be a professor at Tisdale, but you did need to know everything to a T.

A scuff came from the path behind her.

Emma whirled, heart suddenly thrumming in her chest. The path behind her was dark. A big tree loomed, its branches swaying. It had just been a squirrel or something. One of the new ones they'd imported this summer, still adjusting to its new life. Maybe a nighttime bird of prey.

She turned around and hurried on. Nighttime was so creepy, even on campus.

Up ahead Schumann Hall curved into view. The side entrance glowed invitingly, golden light spilling out into the night. She-

Another noise, closer.

She started to turn.

Something came down on the back of her head.

She blacked out.