Dream Records

Aerisday, Septis 18

I unpacked slowly when I arrived to our quad in the Goldspire. Not because I had much to put away—I never do—but because there was something about returning that made everything feel thinner, like the world had worn itself out over break and had not fully sewn its seams back together.

The others talked around me, voices carrying through the quad’s common room as they settled in. In the room across from mine, Ardorion flopped dramatically onto his bed like he was staging a fire-themed performance piece. Shara moved with calm purpose, always neat, always intentional. Garnexis had already tossed her boots against the wall and was digging through her bag like it had wronged her personally.

I smoothed the corner of my blanket. The threads there were frayed in the shape of a leaf I’d dreamt about two nights before. A sign, maybe. Or nothing at all.

Ardorion stood and tossed his cloak onto his bed and said, “We should check on Aster. Maybe her face will finally crack if we ask the right question.”

Shara gave him a look, one that said tone it down, but even she seemed to agree. The air around us still carried the silence of Halven’s absence. It had followed us back like fog on our boots.

Even though Halven and I dated, each of my quadmates had their own relationship with the Air Fae. He was truly remarkable, born of resilience during the Galestone Wars before he found peace here. It wasn’t fair if he’d made it all this way, just to have something terrible happen to him.

“Maybe we should go,” Shara said gently. Halven had been her best friend. She turned to me. “Rielle, would you want to? I mean, you and Halven were close once.”

More than close.

I still remembered all of his sweet kisses. So soft from a boy who’d live through a war.

I hadn’t told them the full truth yet, and I wasn’t sure I ever would. Not about how it ended, not about what I’d seen in my dreams during the weeks he’d been gone. Some things stay quieter when buried.

“I’m not sure.” My voice felt like a memory.

But I went.

Goldspire Tower holds all the second-years, and Halven’s quad was just across the hall. The same stone arches, the same high ceilings and carved door frames. Aster was already there. She stood near the window, motionless and cold, framed in pale light like a figure inside a painting. Her skin shimmered faintly in the morning air, and her pale blue hair clung to her shoulders like frost clings to glass but it moved like running water. Her eyes—those deep violet pools—watched us with something unreadable.

She didn’t stop us from entering, but she said nothing at all.

After Garnexis and Shara, Ardorion crossed the threshold like a flame looking for dry tinder. He stopped in the doorframe to lean against it, with me out in the hall still, looking at his black silk shirt. But I waited patiently for his posturing to end.

“Well, look who decided to keep the icicle throne warm while the rest of us were actually worried,” he said.

“And look who decided to speak without thinking. Again.” Aster’s voice floated to me in the hallway.

Ardorion’s back tensed. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be calm and collected, you’re awfully quick with the frostbite.”

“Forgive me if I’m not impressed by theatrics in leather and flame.” A chill hung in the air with Aster’s words.

Sighing, I pushed Ardorion from behind. Not that I really had the strength to move him—being part human and also part Moon Fae, the smallest of the fae—I’d have to use magic to actually move the Fire Fae male, but my push alerted him to the fact that I was stuck behind him, and he finally moved inside the quad’s main room.

“Oh, come on,” Ardorion said. “Just admit you missed me.”

Aster rolled her eyes. “I missed the silence more.”

“Forgive me if I thought maybe you’d stopped pretending you didn’t care.”

“I care,” she said evenly. “I just don’t shout about it like a Summer Fae with something to prove.”

Their voices rose, sarcasm layered over tension, over something even older than that. Heat and frost colliding as they always did. The words didn’t matter as much as the weight behind them.

While they argued, Shara drifted toward Halven’s room. She moved softly, reverently, like she didn’t want to wake something.

My gaze followed her while I stayed near the door. She stopped. Bent down. Picked up a scrap of water-warped paper from beneath the bed.

“Guys,” she said, holding it up. “I found something.”

Everyone gathered around, and Shara read the smeared ink aloud. The words were panicked, fragmented. Something about an Emberglyph. Something about voices. And then the line that stopped my breath: “Do not trust—” followed by a wash of water damage.

The silence that followed felt heavier than any argument.

“We should copy this,” Garnexis said. “Create one for all of us.”

Before anyone could reply, someone new entered the quad and with a booming voice, yelled, “Ardorion!”

“Elio!” Ardorion shouted.

I turned as the Stone Dragon burst through the room like a gust of summer wind, warm and confident and loud. His gray-touched hair curled wild as always, his smile blinding. He slapped Ardorion’s shoulder with the kind of affection that made the whole room shift.

“Hey, strangers,” he said, looking around at the rest of us.

Elio was one of Halven and Aster’s quadmates.    

Ardorion and Elio caught up fast—too fast. The energy in the room crackled now, not just with tension but with life. It was overwhelming. I took a step back and let their voices wash over me.

Elio told us Lo, their last quadmate, had gone to the Spring Quadrant to speak with Halven’s adoptive parents. Still no word. Still no sign of anything.

Aster finally spoke again, low and tight. “I’ve brought this to Lady Isa. Told her it’s not natural, this disappearance. She brushed me off.”

Our eyes met for only a moment, but I saw it. The edge of something breaking. The fear she would never admit.

I watched her, and I missed him. Halven. The way he used to place his hand on my back without needing a reason. The way he used to whisper into my dreams.

I pressed my fingertips into my palm. I didn’t want to remember.

When we left the quad, I didn’t follow the others right away.

The room had felt wrong. Still. Frozen in a way that wasn’t just time. Something about it had sunk its weight behind my ribs.

Whatever had happened to Halven... it hadn’t started when he disappeared.

It had started before.

I couldn’t say how I knew. But I knew.

That night, sleep came softly, like fog curling in from the lake. I didn’t fight it. I never do. Dreams have always come to me easily—too easily, some say.

In the first, Wintermere met me.

Halven stood at the edge of the lake, barefoot on the ice. The lake was frozen in perfect stillness, reflecting stars that looked wrong—too many, too close, as if they had slipped through some crack in the sky.

He had his back to me, shoulders stiff. I called his name.

He didn’t turn.

Fog drifted in tendrils around his ankles. He was speaking but I couldn’t catch the words in the wind.

When I reached him, the air grew colder, sharp enough to sting. He finally looked over his shoulder, and his eyes were blank. Not empty, but echoing. Like something else had taken root behind them. His mouth opened, and I could barely hear him.

“You should not follow.”

His voice was soft, but the sound cracked like ice underfoot. Before I could speak, the lake around us shattered in silence.

I woke gasping, tears streaking down my face, the corner of my pillow rimmed in frost.

I wiped it away with the sleeve of my sleep shirt and curled beneath my blanket again.

Sleep found me fast. It always does, when it wants to. When it makes me Moon Walk.

The second dream felt different. Heavier.

I was back in Halven’s arms—but younger, the way it had been our first year at the academy. We were laughing, breathless, pressed together beneath my blankets in my dorm. His lips found mine like they used to—tender, then greedy. The way only someone who knows your secrets can kiss you.

But it didn’t last.

His skin paled. The rhythm of his breath changed. His hair darkened but a wash of blue shimmered along his strands. His arms grew stronger. Broader. I blinked, and he was no longer Halven.

I didn’t know who he was.

But I did.

I’d dreamed about him before.

Our limbs entwined just as they had when he was still Halven. I moved to pull away, but his large hands found my hips and drew me back down onto him. In the darkness under the blanket, I caught the barest hint of a smile, the rest of his face in shadow.

The faint scent of leather filled my senses as I collapsed onto his chest. I kissed him, pulled by a yearning I’d never known. One hand tangled in my hair, the other pressing me as close as humanly possible.

Then the scene changed.

We stood by the lake again. Wintermere.

I felt drawn to him even though I still could not clearly see his face, but I knew his voice before he spoke.

“You pulled me into your dream again,” he said, tilting his head. “You’re persistent.”

I stepped back, startled by the depth of his tone—low, smooth, with a strange warmth under the chill.

He turned away and knelt by the frozen earth, dragging a fingertip across the frost to draw a sigil. I gasped.

I recognized it.

The same one from Halven’s torn journal page.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“An Emberglyph.” He said nothing more.

Even with his face still hidden in shadows, I knew that he looked up at me, almost curious. Then he dragged his foot across the glyph, erasing it completely.

He stood slowly and stepped forward, close enough that I felt the cold leave him in waves.

“You shouldn’t be dreaming about me like this,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Not when you’re the one who started it.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but I couldn’t. His fingers brushed mine, and my whole body felt like it was melting through the snow.

He leaned forward, close enough to kiss me.

“I want to finish what you started,” he murmured.

And then I woke up.

Not in my bed.

In the kitchen.

And my mouth was full with the last bite of something sweet. I blinked at the empty teacup in my hand. The light from the wall sconce glowed a soft gold. My hand trembled slightly as I set the cup down.

Sleepwalking. Again.

The dream still clung to me like mist to skin.

I remembered the glyph the stranger had drawn. The one he also erased.

I found a crumpled parchment and a smudged chalk pen someone had left near the spice jars. I began sketching the Emberglyph from memory, quickly before it could dissolve.

Just as I finished, my elbow knocked over a half-full mug of warmed cider.

It spilled straight across the parchment.

The ink bled instantly. The glyph blurred. A familiar theme.

Still, I had written enough to remember.

I folded the damp note and tucked it into my robe.

Something told me I was going to need it.

Terrasday, Septis 20

I was tired for our first day of classes yesterday, but I enjoyed attending the new Elemental Alchemy: The Art of Binding Nature to Magic class taught by Professor Veyn. I agreed to take the class with Shara—because I felt responsible for them breaking up two years ago right before he disappeared—but I learned a few new things.

Plus, Shara pulled out Halven’s torn journal page, and I reconfirmed the same sigil had appeared in my dreams. I told her it was an Emberglyph. She didn’t ask me how I knew, and I didn’t offer the information but I suggested asking Ardorion. Summer Fae were the only fae to use glyphs.

I was able to forget about my dreams and the sexy man whose dream kisses had been better than any real-life ones I’d experienced and concentrated on my classes. I thoroughly enjoyed my Cycles of the Moon & Dream Theory class even if we only touched on the basics. By that evening, I was ready for a deep dreamless sleep.

When I returned to our quad, the stars had started to blur behind the clouds.

The hallway lights were dimmed, enchanted to mimic moonlight. No one was in the quad yet, and I felt disappointment at not being able to share my findings, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

Moon Walking was not true sleep. It could only be done during sleep, but it was the soul leaving this realm for another. Most of my ancestors could do this easily. But the artform was being lost along with my race, and I had no idea how to control my Moon Walking.  If I didn’t get real sleep soon, everyone would be right to assume my sanity was not intact.

I tucked the crumpled parchment—the cider-stained glyph—beneath my pillow.

Just in case.

Metisday, Septis 21

Tonight, we all made into our quad around the same time. No one had suggested it. No one had knocked on doors or passed notes. We just… showed up in the common room. One by one. Like something inside us had synchronized while we weren’t watching.

The air was heavier than usual. Not bad. Just thick. Like the moments before a storm or after a secret.

We sat in a loose circle, cross-legged or leaning back, our backs on soft couches and knees pulled in tight. There were no candles lit, no spells flickering. Just breath and silence and something waiting.

Ardorion spoke first.

He told us about the lake—how he had gone there to cool off after arguing with Aster the day we went to Halven’s room, only to find something strange. A piece of parchment, or maybe metal, lying in the snow. It had a glyph on it. The same one from Halven’s page.

 “I tried to grab it, but I wasn’t alone.” His short fire hair whipped around his face, showing his agitation.

My heart tightened. Was my mystery dream man there? “What do you mean?”

He shifted, arms crossed, golden eyes darker than usual. “There were sprites. Wandering ones coming out of the Wintermere’s fog. I know they were trying to be playful, but I almost sparked a fire just to see them turn into steam.”

Shara furrowed her brow, a small vine with baby leaves caressed the side of her face. “Did they speak?”

He shook his head while pulling out a scrap piece of paper with the Emberglyph in his handwriting, the paper edges scorched. “No. They just watched. Hovered around it. Every time I reached for the glyph, they yanked it away. I backed off and drew what I remembered.”

Garnexis let out a sharp breath and pushed her curtain of ruby-colored hair behind one ear. “That’s funny because I did grab it.”

We all turned to her, while she showed us this same metallic scrap.

She explained how she had found it, how she had touched it to the lake—and how it had burned the glyph into her wrist. The mark was faint now, fading like a bruise made of light.

“It’s fading now. But it wasn’t just a sting. It felt like a promise. Or a warning. Either way, it’s the same Emberglyph.”

She also told us how Orivian had shown up and tried to take it, but she had taken it back by sheer force of will and one well-timed distraction.

Her satisfied smile combined with a wine-colored blush under her metallic-gray skin. I recognized the feeling, having just had the same experience with my mystery man.

Before I could say anything, Shara pressed hands to her cheeks. “Oh, gods and goddesses, did you kiss Orivian?”

The blush deepened before she pocketed the metallic-like parchment and crossed her arms. “I use any tools I have to get what I want.”

Nothing could stop Garnexis from getting what she wanted, but she was also a loyal friend. She collected all of us to her side, and she remained fervent in her protection of her friends. Halven had also been included in our friendship group.

Now it was my turn to share what I could with the group. My fingers curled slightly where they rested on my knees. “I also found myself by the lake, but in my dreams. I had two of them. The first was of Halven, standing on the ice. He told me not to follow.”

They listened while heat crawled into my cheeks.

“The second dream was of someone else. A man I don’t know but I’ve dreamed of him before. This time he was writing the same sigil into the ground by the lake. When I asked him what it meant, he covered it. Then he... well you don’t have to know that part.”

Surprise lifted Shara’s eyebrows. “Did everyone except me kiss somebody in the first days of school?”

Ardorion snorted. “There’s no one I would kiss.”

Garnexis’s laughter made her arms loose. “You mean you wouldn’t survive the frosted kiss of the one woman you can’t have.”

We all joined in the laughter except for Ardorion. His short fire hair frothed into higher flames.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ardorion couldn’t hide his attraction for the Water Fae. She returned all of his heated words. She might not admit, but she was also drawn to the Fire Fae. Those two were an explosion waiting to happen.

When the laughter died away, I continued. “When I woke up from my second dream, I was in the kitchen. Sleepwalking. Again. While there, I wrote down the sigil while it was still fresh, but I spilled my drink across the paper.”

I pulled out the smudged parchment from my robe and showed them my glyph. It was almost lost in the cider stain, but we all recognized it. Same as Halven’s page. The same as Ardorion’s memory. The same as Garnexis’s wrist.

“Do you know what it means, Ardorion?” I asked.

Ardorion gave half a shrug. “The Gemina Flamma. The twin flames, but that’s just a guess. This is an older Emberglyph and not one we use today.”

“I know what it means,” Shara said. We looked at her with surprise. She smiled like she was withholding a secret. “I found it in a book. You know, in that place they call a library.”

We waited for her explanation when she paused.

Garnexis crossed her arms with a moue. “Well, keep us in suspense then.”

Shara nodded. “I mean, I have the literal translation, but I’m not sure what it actually means. The text says it means to split strength, ground your fire, and ignite the center.”

Ardorion raised a single fire-red eyebrow. His fiery hair had calmed down. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

“And why would Halven—an Air Fae—be writing a Emberglyph over and over?” Garnexis added.

No one answered right away.

“Maybe it meant something to him,” Ardorion said, quieter than usual.

Shara then reached into her journal and pulled out a spiral-shaped leaf. My breath caught, recognizing it from my dreams from nearly a week ago, but I held my words. I had no idea what any of it meant, and we already had too many mysteries.

Turning the leaf over, she revealed another glyph. We looked to Ardorion and he shook his head.

“I don’t know that one,” he said.

Shara ran a finger over the glyph. “I think this has something to do with the Gemina Flamma but I couldn’t find it in any of the texts.”

I tilted my head, trying to figure out what Shara was not telling us. “Where did you get that?”

The Wood Fae grumbled, but said nothing else.

“Does it matter if we don’t know what it means,” Ardorion asked.

I frowned at him. Of course it mattered because the source could give us a clue as to what it all means. Before I could say anything, Garnexis cut in.

“Maybe we can find out in our Runes and Sigils class. Class is on Sylsday, right?”

My gaze narrowed on Shara. She was hiding something. Even if she thought it wasn’t much, it could mean something when came to finding Halven, and I was determined to find him.

Even if it meant more dreams of a certain sexy mystery man.

Ardorion leaned an arm on the table next to him and tapped his fingers against the table. “I guess this is it then. We’re really doing this. We’re looking for Halven and not giving up like everyone else has.”

I glanced down at the edge of my sleeve. Did Ardorion not want to look for his study buddy? “Wouldn’t you want him to do the same for us?”

“Of course. I don’t want to give up,” Ardorion replied. “But we’ve got classes. Exams. According to Aster, Lady Isa is not concerned. So, if we screw this up... What if we disappear like he did?”

“We just have to be smart,” Shara said. “And careful.”

I straightened my shoulders, happy that everyone would be helping to find out what happened to Halven. “We should make a pact. No one investigates alone. No more secrets.”

That means I coming for your secrets, Shara!

“And if one of us goes missing?” Garnexis asked.

“Then the rest of us will know why,” Shara said. “And we won’t stop until we bring them back.”

“A pact,” Ardorion said, holding out his hands.

One by one, we nodded and linked our hands. Wood, Metal, Fire, and Moon Fae, bound not by magic, but by the bond between us as friends.

And it was stronger.

It was choice.

This sensitve information has been filed away under a separate location. If you find it, you can access the records with the passcode "notadream."

Septis 31

Several days had passed since we read Professor Tilwyn’s letter, and Halven was still gone.

The first week of classes had closed with the opening sessions of Practical Duels & Spells Synthesis or PDSS. It was dazzling, as always. Fourth-years conjured storms and illusions like it was second nature. Someone twisted the battlefield into a spinning chaos maze. Another turned the air itself into a mirror, reflecting and refracting every bolt of magic.

I watched from the stands with the others, trying to be amazed. I even smiled once or twice. But it felt like watching a story I wasn’t in. All I could think was how much Halven would have loved it.

We’d shared so many firsts together. Our first year here at the academy, watching our first PDSS together, our first dance.

We’d danced at the Spiral of Seasons last year. He’d taken my hand under the twilight torches and whispered that we would remember the moment forever. I had, along with our first kiss.

He hadn’t even been missing a full month yet, but the space he left had started to reshape us. Quietly. Like frost creeping across a window.

Tonight, we gathered in our quad without ceremony. The others had scattered parchment and spellbooks across the table. I had brought nothing but myself. I didn’t need paper to feel the edges of something coming.

Shara sat closest to me, thumbing the spiral-shaped leaf again and again. Her face was calm, but her fingers betrayed the storm. Garnexis was at the window, idly toying with her bracers like she always did when she was overthinking.

Ardorion lounged with practiced drama, swirling tea in a mug he probably didn’t remember reheating.

It was quiet. Not heavy, just dense with the things we weren’t saying.

“So,” Ardorion said, breaking the stillness, “Aster says the Water Fae had glyphs.”

Shara looked up first. “Yes, that’s what you told us.”

“I never heard of anything like that,” Garnexis said.

“But what if there are other types of glyphs out there?” Ardorion asked.

“Why would that matter?” Shara asked. She stopped moving the leaf and turned it over in her palm. The glyph on the underside caught the light.

I leaned forward, drawn to it again. The curves, the shape. I wished I could read it.

On Slysday, we gathered for Runes and Sigils, the one class that threaded all four of us together. I thought about asking Professor Ilham. Truly, I did. But after Lady Isa found us in the library and gave her quiet, unmistakable warning, the words slipped away like water. None of us said a thing about the other glyph.

“That glyph doesn’t match anything we’ve studied,” I said quietly.

“Uh-huh, exactly, and—”

“The glyph could have been one of the Water Fae glyphs!” Shara interrupted.

Ardorion’s annoyance rippled through the room like heat. He didn’t say anything, but it was there, disappointed that he hadn’t been the one to say it aloud.

I touched the leaf’s edge. “We need to go back to the library.”

Shara nodded but then hesitated. “The Fall Equinox celebration is soon. Less than a week before the Spiral of Seasons Dance.”

I blinked wondering if Shara could read minds. “Already? That came fast.”

Too fast.

I remembered the way Halven’s hand fit against my lower back as we turned across the floor, how he smiled like there was no one else in the room. I remembered the scent of honeyed pine and the flickering firelight in his hair when he bent to kiss me for the first time.

A cold ache followed in his absence.

By the other’s faces, I knew they were remembering similar memories.

Shara and Halven sneaking sweets from the Fall table and dancing in every group dance until the night had deepened.

Ardorion and Halven’s laughter as Halven spun those pastries through the air, and Ardorion lighting them just enough to make them shimmer like little stars on fire. Everyone gasped. One even hit a professor’s hat.

For a moment, it felt like magic was just fun. Like it was supposed to be.

Then Halven joined Garnexis, off to the side of the dancing. She looked calmer than usual, less like she was bracing herself, more like she was just there.

Halven had that gift. He didn’t need to fill silence. He just made space for it.

That night, I think Garnexis finally let him in.

Now Garnexis groaned. “I love my season’s celebration but I could do without the dancing. Do I have to wear a dress?”

I managed a small smile.

“Who will you pair with for the open dance at the end, Ardorion?” I asked, more to distract myself than anything else.

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re assuming I’m planning to stay long enough to dance with anyone.”

Shara wagged a finger at him. “You better not leave without one of us, which means you’ll be staying a while.”

We were not to be alone for fear our investigation would lead to one of us disappearing, too.

“I’ll skip out on the end dance with you,” Garnexis added.

Ardorion thumped a hand over his chest in mock devotion. “You are my true love, Garnexis.”

Garnexis shook her head and moved toward us, sitting on the floor. She began adjusting her bracers again, tightening and loosening the straps with careful rhythm. I didn’t comment. We all had our rituals.

“Do you really think going back to the library will be helpful?” she asked. “Aster said only oral stories were passed down about the glyphs they used.”

Shara flipped a page and tapped it. “There has to be some record of the Water Fae using glyphs. We’ll just have to dig deep for any reference. I’ll go with you tomorrow, Rielle.”

“Hurrah!” I said, letting just a little of the delight in. A faint spark of magic arced through me but I quickly quelled it, hoping no one witnessed my lack of control. I steadied my breathing and let it pass.

“Great,” Ardorion muttered. “You two run off to the quiet corner of the stacks again. I guess someone needs to keep an eye on Garnexis before she tears the place apart.”

“I’m right here, Flameboy,” she said flatly.

“I know. That’s why I’m volunteering.”

For a second, none of us spoke. The candlelight swayed in the silence.

Then Shara’s voice picked up again. “Has anyone figured out anything else with Professor Tilwyn’s letter? Or that story? What was it?”

“‘Chaos’s Revenge for Sygilla,’” I answered.

“That’s the one.”

Garnexis looked at Shara. “Orivian believed Halven was looking into Wintermere’s history so why was he reading that story?”

Ardorion shrugged. “No idea what he was thinking. I read the story twice. It’s either a metaphor or a warning or both. And it’s old. Old like Professor Tilwyn. Which is saying something.”

Garnexis leaned forward, the metal on her bracers catching the light. “But what if Halven reading it is the reason he disappeared? Orivian thinks it’s all related because the library was the last place he was seen.”

“The library?” Shara echoed.

“I say we go back to the library,” Garnexis said. “Just to look around. See what Halven might’ve left behind or see what happened to him.”

Ardorion sighed with theatrical flair. “Fine. Shara and Rielle will search scrolls and whispers, and I’ll babysit Garnexis while she glares at shelves.”

“Try to keep up, hothead,” she said, a slight grin on her usually stoic face.

Ardorion grinned. A spark of flame danced between his fingers, there and gone again.

“Always do,” he said.

Septis 36

We had been back to the library four times in the last five days.

Each time, we found nothing. Or almost nothing. Theories stacked on theories, none of them real. Just tangled language and overly confident scholars trying to define things they’d never seen. Sometimes I wondered if the glyph on the back of Veyn’s leaf had ever really been there at all.

But then I’d found something. A name.

Ayzella dal Mirava, of the Second Crescent Moon Clan. A Moon Fae like me, though she lived nearly six centuries ago and had done something most of us never dared. She’d gone to live with a Water Clan, one that isolated itself from the rest of the Winter societies.

And then I dreamed of her.

Not metaphorically. Not vaguely.

I saw her. Standing at the edge of a tidepool, parchment soaked through in her hands, her expression still and sure. Her eyes were the exact color of frosted water in starlight. When I woke, her name was still on my tongue. Whispering. Refusing to leave.

I believe she has something to tell me.

So we came back again, myself and Shara. Because neither of us could seem to stop.

We sat side by side in the northern wing, scrolls and bound folios spread around us like the debris of forgotten minds. I sifted through old indexes, tracing references, hoping for something. Shara had picked up a thin, leather-worn volume of Ayzella’s essays.

We worked in silence, but then her mood shifted beside me.

Then Shara gasped and said in an urgent whisper, “Rielle, listen to this.”

I looked up.

She read aloud from the page, her voice just above a breath:
“Of all the things I was never meant to write, the glyphs remain the most sacred. But I could not let them be lost to breath alone. I wrote them anyway, in the smallest of hours, in secret. The record remains hidden. My mourning in ink. A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs.”

The words struck something in me. Like a note I’d never heard played aloud until now.

“That’s it,” I said, sitting up straighter.

She was already nodding. “It has to be.”

“I haven’t seen that title anywhere. Should we check the Shadow Index?”

She nodded again.

We didn’t speak after that. We didn’t need to.

We left our table and crossed to the eastern stair. The stone beneath our feet absorbed our footsteps like it had done for centuries, silent and sure.

The Shadow Index lived on the upper level of the Library of Seasons, tucked behind an archway marked with dragons carved into glass. Most students didn’t know it was there. Fewer still dared to ask what it was.

But we did.

The space beyond was limned in violet light. Soft as twilight, but heavy with something older. The air hummed like a closed mouth holding a secret.

She was already watching us when we entered.

The librarian.

She stood behind a black obsidian desk with a presence that made you stand straighter without realizing it. Black braids fell over her shoulders, revealing rounded ears. With her dark skin and a sense of magic to her, she had to be a hybrid fae. Her gaze didn’t challenge, but it didn’t yield, either.

“Welcome, seeker, to the Shadow Index,” she said.

Shara hesitated. I didn’t.

I stepped forward. “We’re looking for a record. A Winter Record of Forgotten Water Glyphs.”

The librarian didn’t move for a beat. Then, she raised one hand.

A shimmer bloomed in the air, warping light. The space bent—not drastically, just enough to feel like something was waking.

The temperature ticked upward.

Magic stirred.

And then, from somewhere unseen, a scroll slipped into view, gliding along the invisible current of the room until it hovered directly in front of her.

She caught it. Effortless.

“I will need it back,” she said. “Unmarked. Unspoken of. And it doesn’t leave the library.”

We nodded. There was no other answer.

She handed it to me, and I took it with both hands.

We didn’t say anything as we stepped away. The silence felt sacred now, not empty.

I could feel it. This was the moment everything would shift.

We sat at one of the tables just beyond the alcove and unrolled the scroll. My hands tingled the moment my fingers touched the parchment. Whether from anticipation or magic, I couldn’t say.

At first, it read like a travelogue. Observations. Rituals. Quiet love.

But then came a name—glyph-keepers—and I knew.

Shara looked at me. I didn’t say a word. We both understood.

We weren’t just reading now. We were listening to something that had been hidden too long.

I wanted to read all of it. There was something in the way Ayzella wrote that wrapped around me like salt air. I wanted to know her. Know the rituals. Know the man she wasn’t allowed to love.

But I didn’t need to get far.

There it was, just before the middle of the scroll.

The glyph.

Theralen.

Exactly as it had been on the leaf Veyn gave to Shara.

To release flow.

I leaned closer. The lines of the symbol burned into my thoughts. It wasn’t random. It wasn’t aesthetic. It was a message.

“This doesn’t feel like an accident,” I whispered.

I didn’t just mean the glyph.

I meant the leaf. Veyn. The dreams. The silence. The timing.

All of it.

Shara nodded. “He must have known. But what is he trying to tell me with the Theralen?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Before I could try to find one, something shifted in the space beside us.

Movement. Soundless.

I turned.

A black cat sat at the end of the aisle. Perfect posture. Golden eyes locked on us. It blinked once. Then stood. Then walked a few steps, slow and graceful.

It paused. Looked back.

I didn’t hesitate. When something lost calls to you like that, you answer. “I think we’re supposed to follow it.”

Shara didn’t argue. She didn’t ask why. She just looked down at the leaf Veyn had given her, then to the glyph still inked onto the scroll and nodded.

After returning the scroll, we followed the cat.

It led us swiftly through the quiet halls, tail flicking behind her, ears forward. We trailed her through the narrowing corridors of the library, slipping past the doors just before they closed for the night.

Golden light outside spilled across the academy’s stone floor like it was waiting.

We followed her past the courtyard, then down along the path that hugged the western wall. A cool wind stirred the hedges.

That’s when we saw them.

Ardorion and Garnexis, standing by the greenhouses, their backs half-turned, their bodies still. They didn’t notice us at first. They were watching something ahead of them.

The cat.

It was walking again, unbothered. Unafraid. Like we were finally where it meant for us to be.

Ardorion turned toward us finally. “Queenie?”

The cat’s tail swished in response.

Shara asked, “You know this cat?”

“I thought I did but she disappeared. I named her Queenie.” Ardorion crouched in front of her. “Queenie, is that you?”

She yawned, like she had all the time in the world.

“If it is you, what are you trying to show us?”

She didn’t answer. She just turned and padded toward the greenhouses again.

We followed her.

No one ever went near that last greenhouse, the one built into the edge of the outer hall. It was overgrown, partially sunken, practically forgotten. The glass was copper-runed and choked in ivy. In all my time at the academy, no professor had ever mentioned it.

The cat led us through a gap in the hedgerow next to it, onto a winding path I never knew existed. We moved as one, the four of us ducking beneath thorns and into a world that didn’t feel like it belonged to the academy at all.

Then we were there.

A hidden conservatory rose before us, ribbed in gold, crowned in glass. Light flickered along its walls like breath. I hadn’t known it was back here.

When we stepped inside, it was like walking into a different season. The heat wrapped around me instantly, humid and suffocating for someone like me, a creature of Winter. The faint scent of scorched cedar and citrus assailed me. My skin prickled with it, not from fear, exactly. I recognized magic, but it was far from being Moon magic. This was the magic that killed my people.

I gasped in the heat, trying to draw a full breath. Shara grabbed my hand and squeezed, giving me her support.

I just wanted to get out of there, so I whispered to the cat, “Queenie,” but it had already stopped.

She sat at the foot of a nest built of Ashwood.

And inside it was the creature from our story, the Firebird.

He was more than any of us had imagined. Larger, older, and very real.

His wings were tucked, but the power radiating from him made the air shimmer. His feathers shifted constantly—reds, oranges, deep golds—living flames that held no destruction.

His eyes were molten gold. And they were watching us.

We didn’t move.

Ardorion had joked once about summoning a phoenix. This was not a phoenix. This was a god born of Fire and Chaos, something made of fire-song and impossible time.

Not just a legend but something ancient.

When Garnexis whispered, “That’s him,” I barely nodded.

Ardorion stepped forward. One step. Brave, or foolish. Maybe both. But then again, he was Fire Fae. This god-like creature had the same magic.

The Firebird tilted his head.

Then he lifted one wing.

Several glowing feathers drifted down like falling stars, embers trapped in slow motion. No one moved. No one dared.

Then came the voice.

Not a sound out in the open, but in my mind. A pressure inside the skull that reverberated.

Take them. You need to keep them sleeping.

The words echoed through me. Not just in my mind, but in memory, vibrating in my bones. Something I could never forget.

The day a god spoke to me.

But what did he mean? Were the feathers living entities because he said to take them and that we needed to keep them sleeping. For some reason, the ambiguous pronouns didn’t seem to be pointing to the same noun. So, if we were to take the feathers, who were we supposed to keep sleeping?

And why did the word them touch on another memory I couldn’t quite recall?

Ardorion dropped to one knee and picked up the feathers. Hands steady, but breath held.

Then the Firebird tucked his wing and closed his eyes.

That was it, so we left.

Outside, the wind returned like a welcoming aunt. Cold froze the sweat on from my skin, and I sighed in relief.

We were halfway back to Goldspire when Shara finally asked, “What are we supposed to do with them?”

Them.

So ambiguous.

I added my own question. “What did he mean... keep them sleeping?”

Shara threw her hands up. “Just more mysteries!”

She didn’t usually raise her voice, which meant she felt it just as deeply as the rest of us.

Then her tone softened as she spoke to Ardorion and Garnexis. “We might’ve found something, though.”

I nodded. “We found the glyph from Veyn’s leaf in a hidden scroll. It’s called Theralen. It’s a Water Glyph.”

“It means ‘To release flow,’” Shara said. “But it still doesn’t clear up any of these mysteries.”

Ardorion exhaled, feathers still glowing in his grip. “I think I might know what to do. Maybe.”

He looked at Garnexis for help.

“There’s a portal,” she said. “In the library floor. And it asked for a Firebird key.”

Shara stared at them. “You think the feathers are the key?”

They exchanged a glance, and Ardorion answered.

“Halven was researching in the library and read the story ‘Chaos’s Revenge for Sygilla’ which mentions the Firebird being the key. Then Halven went missing, last seen in the library, where there happens to be a portal that needs a Firebird key, which also happens to be where Queenie found me.”

Shara’s eyes widened. “Wow, you put all that together yourself?”

Sparks danced across Ardorion’s hair, flickering like a lit fuse. “What does that mean?”

Shara touched his arm. “Not how you took it, Ardorion. What I mean is that all these little mysteries had become so convoluted, I couldn’t see where any of it connected, but you were able to. You’re amazing.”

His fire fizzled, softened into something warmer than flames.

“We should go to the library now. Try out the Firebird’s feather,” Garnexis said.

“The library’s closing,” I said softly. “We don’t have time tonight.”

Everyone turned to Ardorion.

He threw up his hands. “Hey now, I didn’t call myself the genius, so why look at me?”

“I didn’t say you were a genius, loony-bird.” Shara bumped his arm. “But I’ll give it to you.”

He smiled. Not just smugly, genuinely.

“Tomorrow then,” I said. “First light. Before the rest of the school is up.”

No one argued.

The feathers still glowed faintly in Ardorion’s hands.

They didn’t feel like keys.

They felt like a warning.

And we were about to open the door.

Due to the ceremonial nature of the Fall Equinox celebration, the following entry has been archived outside the primary log for preservation and discretion.

Relive the memory of that night by going back to the site of the dance and speak these magic words: Little Moon