Curtains of silvery light draped themselves over trees, rocks, and grass in the darkened swath of forest, as if the moon herself dwelt on the Earth, watching, bestowing her blessing upon the figures that stepped out of the trees into her light. The shadows released them, allowing three human forms to be illuminated. The features of two remained indistinguishable from the darkness, but the third was a tall boy, all lanky limbs and straight lines. His eyes were sharp behind the spectacles perched on his nose, surveying the area as if searching for unwanted company. Seeming satisfied, he turned to the others.

“It’s almost time,” one man stated gravely.

“Have you found him yet?” The second asked, and the boy shook his head.

“No. But we’re still looking,” he assured, the words treading carefully past his full lips in low, somber tones. “Jimin is trying every locator, seeker, and search spell he knows. We’ll find him.”

“We have to hurry,” the second man murmured. “If they find him first, it’ll be too late.” The boy nodded, features twisted with solemnity.

“I know. We will. I promise, Master.” The men nodded.

“We know you will, Namjoon. You haven’t let us down yet.”

“And I won’t start now. He’s close, I know it.” The two men gave Namjoon one more nod, then disappeared back into the shadows. With them gone, he released a sigh and glanced up at the moon where it shone down on him.

“So mote it be,” he murmured. Please. We don’t have much time.

If one were to ask his opinion on magick, Jeon Jungkook would tell you firmly that it was fantasy nonsense, and not something he believed in the existence of, not even a little bit. He was always someone who dealt in the realms of fact and science, even despite the whispers of more supernatural phenomena increasing over the years.

Which was about to make his life infinitely more confusing.

Jungkook was a university student, bright-eyed and filled with the drive of first years yet to realize the true stress of academia. Determined to rise to the top of his class, and be among the best of those hoping to enter his major, he had made trips to the campus library a nearly daily thing for the purposes of studying. At this point, approaching midterms for his second semester, he knew the place almost as well as his own name. Almost.

But there were still some corners he was unaware of, and the part of the library housing the school archives was one such place. He’d yet to find himself in need of the histories confined within them, and thus avoided them. It was almost always empty of anyone at all, and rather eerie with the way it was tucked into a corner that received almost no light, so most students also gave it wide berth. But tonight, he was making an exception.

His shoes made almost no noise on the carpet as he moved among the shelves, searching their labels for the year of the article he sought. He wound his way down the aisles of silent records, the lights getting dimmer the further back he went. Why did they even have any need to keep these rotting pieces of tree pulp from so long ago? Wasn’t everything in the digital archives these days?

Just as he was beginning to give up hope, both on his search and on the possibility of finding his way back to the main part of the library, lo and behold there was the section he’d been looking for. Relieved, he began to peruse the shelved documents with renewed vigor. It had to be here somewhere…

A few moments later, something did catch his eye, but it was not what he’d come in here looking for. Rather than the old, yellowing newspaper he’d been expecting, a large book in what appeared to be bound leather was nestled a ways down the shelf. At first he was determined to ignore it, but the more he did, the stronger his curiosity grew. If he didn’t know better, he might almost say it was as if the object was… pulling him closer. Before he knew it, he had moved over and was grasping the spine of the book.

The second he did, he froze, all his muscles seizing up, like he’d been electrocuted. But instead of the sharp, stinging buzz of electricity, something more like an intense burning sensation ran up his arm before spreading through his body. It was alien but not uncomfortable, something about it ringing with a note of familiarity that made a forgotten part of his heart ache.

Then all at once it was over, and the world went dark.

Across campus and a few blocks away, a boy with chestnut hair rumpled from sleep bolted upright in bed, eyes darting about and skin humming with the remains of an odd mix of energy, partly foreign and partly familiar. Whatever it was, it was powerful. There was no chance of identifying the strange energy, but he knew the other almost as well as his own. With a groan, he rolled out from under the sheets and trudged to the door across the hall. Raising a tired fist, he banged on the wood.

“Taehyung! Wake up!” He stopped knocking when the sound of sheets rustling could be heard. A few moments later, a tall blonde boy was squinting blearily at him from the doorway.

“Jiminie,” he whined in a low voice not at all in accordance with the cutesy nickname. “I’m trying to sleep.” Rolling his eyes, the shorter boy slapped his arm lightly.

“Focus, Tae. Did you leave your grimoire lying around at school?” Again, he added silently, but spared his roommate as he watched him frown.

“Maybe… Why? Jimin, what’s going on?” Jimin suppressed another groan and gave Tae a light shove back towards the room behind him.

“Get dressed, we gotta go see Namjoon.” Taehyung hardly budged at the contact from the shorter boy, and his frown deepened.

“At this hour? Why?”

“Because,” Jimin said, fixing him with a pointed stare, “someone very powerful may have just found your grimoire.” Taehyung’s eyes widened.

“Oh! You don’t think…?” Jimin shrugged and turned to go back to his own room.

“I don’t know. Namjoon will have to decide that. Now hurry up. I need to still be able to describe that weird energy when we get there.”

“Namjoon! Jimin and Taehyung are here! They say it’s urgent!” A cheerful voice called down the hall beyond the door of a tall boy with ashen hair. But with headphones stuck firmly in his ears, he remained oblivious. He hummed along to the song as he thumbed through the withering pages of an old tome, completely unaffected until --

“NAMJOON!” Someone was shouting in his ear. He jumped, successfully knocking a stack of papers off his desk as his long limbs flailed. Glaring, he met the shining ocher eyes of the guilty party, who still held the cord of Namjoon’s headphones he’d rather forcefully unplugged. Orange hair filled his vision as Hoseok leaned down to look at him.

“Dude, we’ve been yelling your name for like ten minutes.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Namjoon huffed as he bent down to scoop up the mess of papers. Great, he’d have to spend at least an hour reorganizing them by philosopher and era again later.

“Maybe a little,” Hoseok quipped dismissively, unfazed by his friend’s dilemma. “But that’s not important right now! Just - come on!” The moment the stack was returned to Namjoon’s desk, Hoseok grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of the room.

On the couch in the minimalist lounge, Taehyung and Jimin (now sporting locks of a brown so dark they were almost black), sat whispering to each other. They stopped when the elder boys came into the room, watching as Namjoon sat down in the adjacent armchair and Hoseok leaned against the wall.

“This had better be good,” Namjoon griped. Jimin nodded and Taehyung grinned eagerly.

“It is!” Jimin elbowed him.

“Don’t sound so proud, this is partly because you almost revealed us to Mundanes, remember?” Taehyung shrugged at Jimin’s scolding, content to watch the other turn back to Namjoon. “I woke up earlier because I felt a huge surge of magick energy. From across campus.” Hoseok raised an eyebrow.

“Sure you weren’t just having weird dreams, Jiminie? It is just about that time of the month.” Three sets of eyes landed on him and Hoseok waved a hand, eyes rolling. “The new moon, don’t be weird.”

“This coming from you?” Namjoon wondered, the hint of a smirk pulling at his lips. Hoseok stuck his tongue out as Jimin cleared his throat.

“No Hoseok I’m not getting mixed energy from the moon or whatever you’re trying to imply.” He looked at Namjoon again. “Hyung, I’ve never felt anything like this. Whoever it was, they found Taehyung’s grimoire and it… I don’t know, but something must have happened.” Namjoon’s eyes snapped to the blonde next to Jimin.

“Someone found your grimoire? Taehyung we talked about this,” he scolded, and Taehyung withered.

“That’s not the important part,” Tae whined. “Jimin thinks it might be him.” This time, all eyes in the room locked on Jimin, who shifted uneasily, uncomfortable at the sudden intensity of focus on him.

“I-It’s just a guess but… Master did say that he might have been dormant. It would explain why I’ve never felt his energy before, and it’s possible coming into contact with Tae’s grimoire was a catalyst for his power.” The room was quiet as all parties seemed to contemplate this new possibility.

“You said it came from across campus?” Jimin nodded. “So he could be a student here…”

“That narrows the search at least,” Hoseok said with a nod, his earlier jovial attitude erased by utter seriousness.

“But not by much,” Namjoon added. “Even so, this is a good start. You were right to come tell me Jimin.” The boy sat up a little taller at this, perking up at the notion of praise.

“So… what are we going to do now?” Taehyung asked. Namjoon sighed and steepled his fingers as he surveyed his friends.

“We’ll fill Yoongi and Seokjin in tomorrow. But for now, all we can really do is wait. Until there’s a more concrete sign that he’s among the student body, we can’t make any moves. If we do, we might scare him off, or alert them that we’re onto something.” The other three nodded and Namjoon stood up. “Everyone get some sleep - Jimin, Taehyung, you guys can stay here tonight. It’s too late to go wandering back to your place. Rest well. Tomorrow, the real hunt begins.”

When the pounding behind his eyes had subsided somewhat, Jungkook was able to open his eyes enough to squint at his surroundings. What he saw had him sitting up so fast his head spun. He had expected to find himself on the floor of the archive section, where he’d fallen before. He had also expected it to be dark out, thinking perhaps he’d passed out for only a few minutes at most.

Instead, he was sprawled on the floor of his dorm room, sunlight dripping in through the blinds. His phone buzzed from its spot in his pocket, trapped between the floor and his leg, jolting him from his shocked reverie. Pulling it out, he was unsurprised to see scattered texts from his friends, but the numbers of the clock on his lock screen were something else.

“!” He screeched, stumbling as he rushed to get up from the floor. To the bathroom to attempt to fix his hair, then back to the bedroom to search for clothes – God he was so, so late, his professor was gonna kill him! It was as he was pulling on his shoes that a rather startling thought occurred to him.

How had he gotten home?

Jungkook had no history of sleepwalking or anything, but there was no other explanation for how he’d gotten from the library to his room. The only alternative was that all of last night was a dream, but given the MIA status of his class materials, that was even more unlikely. But sleepwalking across campus with absolutely no memory of it and no one noticing…?

As his thoughts continued to swirl in a chaotic mess about his mind, his eyes landed on an object sitting on the floor near where he’d awoken earlier. Cradled by the carpet, the strange book from the library sat innocuously before him. Looking at it gave him a strange, unsettled feeling, like the thing was watching him. Unnerved, he reached down and picked it up, intending to tuck it in a corner of the room and forget all about it. When he grabbed it, however, that odd warm feeling filled him again, but without the same painful intensity as before.

Startled, he let out a yelp and dropped the offending object on his bed, but the feeling lingered. It dropped to a low hum beneath his skin, in his blood, as if it were a slumbering cat trying to say Well I’ll be here if you need me.

But I don’t need you! He thought, panic rising in him. I want you to go away and leave me alone. I just want to go to class and forget about all this!

At that moment, there was a loud thud, and Jungkook whipped his head around to see his door had slammed itself shut. Bewildered, he came to the belated realization that a strong wind had picked up, throwing his room into a frenzy. But with both the door and window closed, such a thing shouldn’t have been possible. Not unless… That was impossible, though. Wasn’t it?

That wasn’t him, was it?